Week 17 - I'm really starting to love Spanish!

This week has been great! But, for a different reason than most. We have had 11 new investigators. Elder Moody and I have been praying to see what this area needs. We decided that it was a clean slate. We realized none of our old investigators were progressing and decided to drop them. A bit of a rash decision kind of but it's what the Lord wanted. 

We then set out to see who the Lord would lead us to. We found a great family of a woman named Desiree. She has two little 8 year old twins who say they want to be "bapatized". She accepted a baptismal invitation after the first lesson. I've never felt the spirit so strongly then in that lesson. My body was literally on fire. It was super cool. We had our ward mission leader there. His name is Rey. He is Mexican and doesn't speak English. He's been working on learning English over the past little while. Desiree doesn't speak any spanish. So in the lesson Rey bore his testimony in English.. While it was somewhat broken and a little hard to understand with his thick accent, the spirit was tan tan tan fuerte. It was increible a ver este. 

I'm really starting to love Spanish! It's starting to make more sense than English sometimes actually. Elder Moody actually told me that the other night I was talking in my sleep and it was all in spanish. Kinda weird haha. But something that happened that was kind of sad is that one of our new investigators got anti-ed a little bit. She went on the internet and read some weird things about the church. It was kind of sad because you could tell that satan had kinda gotten to her. But we just encouraged her to read and pray for herself and all the answers would come like that. 

I miss y'all tons!

Love,

Elder Robertson

The railroad we walked on for about a mile to try and take a "short cut."

Us Burning all the papers at the Lord's vineyard.

Me busting a move to try and get to the other side of the bins while the tractor was driving... No worries I made it across safely.

Us after the Uva with two of our recent converts, Vanessa and Irving as well as some of the Watson family

Us after the Uva with two of our recent converts, Vanessa and Irving as well as some of the Watson family

Me and all our recycling from the past year that we went and recycled and made a whole $15 on! Wooo

Me taking a quick nap after lunch and a little sign to let Elder Moody know not to wake me up.

Week 16 - Two small miracles

This week was pretty good. It was kind of slow which was a bummer. We've been finding a lot of new families to teach. One family is the family of Eduardo (Lalo) And Lizeth. They are super awesome and we feel the spirit so strongly when we teach them. They are prepared for baptism.. they just need some help knowing that they're prepared haha. But they're awesome and we're excited to start working with them.

So I saw two pretty cool miracles this past week. One of them was kind of small and a kind of missionary sounding miracle but it was still sooo cool to experience. So on Wednesday we had dinner with a less active member named Lupe Biez. She works a ton. So not really to our surprise she had to cancel dinner because she'd be working. We were just kind of like, "Well..looks like we'll be hungry tonight," but not really giving it anymore thought than that. We walk down the street and a less active super nice lady Sister Sol pulled up and said "Hi." We said, "Hi" and asked her how she was doing. She said good and then asked us the most random question: "Hermanos, ?Quien tienen para cena hoy?" Or Brothers, who do you have dinner with tonight? We, being shocked answered, "actually nobody." She then invited us to eat with her with a big smile on her face. It's small but it was really incredible to realize how much God is looking out for us as missionaries!

The second is crazy. A man called us out of the blue on Saturday named Jessi. He told us that he was going to be trying to come join the church and would be at church on Sunday. His mom is a member and he felt that he was ready to join. He is about 30 or so and he came to church on Sunday. He has schizophrenia and said that we made him feel comfortable and he was willing to come back and he was ready to be baptized. Wow. The Lord just sends willing people who are ready. It's insane. 

I have been able to gain such a testimony of eternal families as in a different way. I have seen the opposite side of the spectrum. I see almost every day families that don't have the gospel in their lives at all. It is probably one of the saddest thing I've seen is just the way so many people live in this world. I seriously don't have any Idea how they do it at all. It seems impossible to go through this life without it. That's why I thank Heavenly Father for giving it to me. I seriously can't quite express in words how much I have come to love this gospel. It truly is the only important thing in this world. I know you tried so hard to tell me that all my life Mom and Dad. Boy, do I wish that I would have listened a little more intently. It truly is all that matters. Once you realize that you realize how amazing and happy life can be once you put the gospel and Heavenly Father first. 

I love this gospel and I love y'all. Miss y'all and hope that everything is going great! 

Love,

Elder Robertson

A cake we made for our "Madre." She is awesome and helps us out so much. She's like our mom here in Lindsay. She takes care of all of our dinners and everything. Her name is Sister Avina. She's a 56 or so year old little mexican lady. She's the best. It was her birthday so we made her a cake.

Week 15 - A testimony of Ward Mission Leaders

I love the Ward Mission Leader. I know they have stewardship to run the work in our ward boundaries. That is something I have gained such a testimony of. I know that it can unlock the windows to heaven when used. I have seen miracles because of our ward mission leaders that we've had. One quick story is about Juan Salas (the 12 year old we recently baptized). We were out with Beto, our ward mission leader, eating dinner. We asked him who he thought, out of the investigators we currently had, was the most prepared for baptism. He thought for a moment and then said in his deep Mexican voice, "Misioneros, Juan Salas. Juan esta preparando para bautismo". Elder Moody and I looked at each other with a little confusion. We hadn't even had Juan on our minds. We'd never really talked to him or taught him at all. He was just the younger brother of a recent convert who had just moved in. We were expecting him to name someone who we had given all the lessons to or someone of that sort. He explained to us a little more of his thoughts and we decided that following Monday we would contact Juan and see what we could do. He was baptized the following Saturday. An unheard of short length between the first contact and baptism! It was amazing. Just one of the many miracles I've seen :)

As far as our other investigators, Hunter is doing well. He needs to be taught more. He is in the middle of football season right now so it's hard to find good times to teach him. But we'll keep trying. We have a lesson with him tonight. So hopefully that will go well! We also got to reactivate a member who was baptized in December and stopped going to church because of a few reasons. We got to see the Lord working with her and putting certain people in her path to help her get back to church. She's gonna be an awesome and strong member of the ward. 

Right now we're teaching a lot of new families. Lizeth and Eduardo are two awesome people with two daughters we had an amazing lesson with them. Jaime is our main focus right now. He is 21 and from Mexico. He is visiting his Aunt and is here working till January. He reads the Book of Mormon every day and realizes that he feels the spirit when he does. He's very awesome. We hope to set a baptismal date with him soon. 

In answer to your questions, my health is great. I mean I'm more tired than I have ever been in my life, that's for sure. But I have never felt better. The Lord gives me a lot of strength.  Also, I miss BBQ. I miss it so much it's not even funny. Mexican food is amazing but BBQ sounds sooo good haha. 

So the mission has been amazing. We're about half way through the transfer and it's kinda freaky to think I could be leaving the area I'm in. I love this place and the people here. But if that's what the Lord needs I'll do it. 

I started something really cool that was a challenge I'd heard from a talk from Elder Bednar in the MTC and then again from my mission president so I decided to try it out. You take a copy of the Book of Mormon, just one of the blue ones. You read it cover to cover marking it up on one topic and then when you're done you get a new one and do the same thing but with a different topic. I'm started two days ago and am doing the topic of the priesthood. It us such a cool expierence to read the book of mormon this way. I have learned so much already. 

I love this gospel and love being a missionary! Gracias por todo me hacen. Por favor saban que les amo mucho. Tengo muchisimo gracias por mi familia y por este evangelio! I love y'all and hope everything is well! Hurrah For Israel!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

We got to work in the Lord's Vinyard a few weeks ago and here is a picture of some of the work our ward did.. A little ominous haha.

This was just one of the sunsets that happens a lot. Their really cool here in Lindsay.

Week 14 - Baptisms and BYU Football

Oh the great joy it brings me to hear about BYU :) It's hard to be missing the season but I think I'll make it! But that's so amazing that we whooooped em!!!! Take that Texas! I'm glad the tailgate was such a success. It's cool that you got to be in charge of that Dad! Maybe take your mind off of all the other stuff in life and just get to enjoy a little bit of good ole fashion BYU awesomeness. 

I'm glad y'all got to meet Jay. He's super nice! [Elder Drennan is serving in our Ward in Austin. He lived on the same floor as Matt at BYU and was in the Mexico MTC at the same time.]  I'm glad that the Elders there are good. Dad, I have grown to just love my Ward Mission Leader and have gotten such a testimony that the work of missionary work relies on him. He and the bishop hold the keys to our missionary work and our relationship with them can change everything. So it's so cool for me to think about you being the Ward Mission Leader for our ward and doing some of the same stuff that I'm doing. I know you're probably just blowing it away. Man I just love this work

It's awesome to hear that the [BYU vs. Texas] tailgate went so well. I'm a little sad not to have been able to be there and take part in such a fun time but I'm super glad that y'all got to do that :) As for the meals I get. I get a little bit of everything. A lot of rice and beans and mexican food. They feed us a ton. I get some just normal american food from the english members. I also get taken out to restaurants every once in a while for dinner and such so I get a  bit of everything. Mi espanol? My spanish is getting better and better. I just gotta keep practicing. I'm definitely feeling more and more comfortable with it. 

The most valuable things that I've learned from Elder Moody is the necessity of concecrating yourself. We work a lot on that. He truly sees life as just the mission and nothing else. It's very inspiring and helps me a lot. It helps me get a good vision for my mission. The most valuable from my mission is a tough one. One of the biggest is kind of a feeling of regret. I realize now that I could have had this kind of a feeling my entire life and I didn't. I was prideful and decided to do things differently than God would want me to. So I've realized that I could have done so much more with what I have been given. But I don't use this to wollow in self pity. It actually motivates me to keep improving and never let another moment go by where I'm not letting my testimony fill as many ears as will hear! I just love hearing about things from home and things that y'all are doing. :) 

Something that's been cool is that we started teaching Tony's son, Hunter. He is 15 and never really been into religion. But he is willing to listen. We had an awesome lesson with him this past week and talked about progressing to baptism. So that's been really neat. We are hoping that Tony will be able to baptize him! It would be an incredible experience to watch that. I love y'all and hope everything is going awesome. I miss y'all! 

Love,

Elder Robertson

The chapel that we have...super small.

Picture of my trip to the mountains to visit a referral from a member.

Picture of my trip to the mountains to visit a referral from a member.

Picture of my trip to the mountains to visit a referral from a member.  Unfortunately, he wasn't home. :-(

Picture of my trip to the mountains to visit a referral from a member.

Picture of my trip to the mountains to visit a referral from a member.

Picture of my trip to the mountains to visit a referral from a member.

Juan, who got baptized on Saturday. He's awesome. He's 12.  He should get the priesthood this next week!

Juan and his sister (who he lives with). She was baptized about 3 months ago in Oregon and moved here with Juan about a month ago. It was an amazing service.

Week 13 - Living as a missionary is more expensive than I expected

Hello all!

That sounds like a wonderful and beautiful service for grandpa. It was truly hard not to be able to be there. I definitely wish I could have! But it's good to know that it went so well. Dad I want to add my testimony to yours about grandpa. I did some specific studying when I found out the news because I truly didn't know and I wanted to know. I got the same answer that you just said. We'll get to see him one day and give him a great big hug and who knows, maybe we'll all get to go fishing again someday. That would be pretty neat :) 

A funny story. Elder Moody and I had absolutely no food in our apartment and our dinner fell through. All I had was a box of macaroni but no milk to make it. So I just melted some shredded cheese that I had on top of it to make it somewhat of mac and cheese. It was interesting to say the least. Living off this money for food gets a little tight towards the end of the month. There are a lot more expenses than I thought being a missionary! Laundry, Toiletries, hair cuts, and some others. haha. 

We got to baptize Tony on Saturday and it was amazing. He's one of the coolest guys I've ever met. Watching him progress over the last transfer was amazing and getting to watch the Spirit work through me and touch the hearts of others. 

Top story of the week regarding an investigator. We have an investigator who is the father of a part member family. His name is Reynaldo Hurtado (or papa Rey). He has been an investigator for about 5 years. He's gone through sooo many missionaries. The reason that he hasn't been baptized thus far is because he can't give up smoking and doesn't really see the importance of being baptized. He is about 60 and has been smoking since he was 12. So it's a pretty intense habit. He doesn't have any self confidence that he can give it up. We have been praying so hard for him and talking to him to try and get this resolved. As of now, he has a baptismal date for the 20th of September and is going to try and stop smoking! It's gonna be rough because of his lack of confidence but we're going to keep trying our best to help him. It's been really cool to watch the hope go into his family that their dad and grandfather might finally come to church and be baptized! I'm excited to see where it goes. It's in the Lord's hands now :)

So I've been trimming down quite a bit because of one of the mission rules. We have to, no questions asked, run 3 miles every morning (besides Sunday of course). So I've been getting into pretty good shape! We don't run super fast but we still run every morning. I've also been doing some push ups and sit ups which has been nice to feel healthy. But the funniest part is that I haven't lost any weight at all even though I'm trimming down quite a bit. This is because we bike sooo stinkin' much. haha. My legs have gotten quite big... some of my pants are legitimately tighter than they were a few weeks ago! So that's an interesting tid bit. But other than that the mission is amazing! It's my second transfer and we've got some high hopes on how to improve and really let the Lord guide us and help these people. My Spanish is coming along surely but slowly. I've just gotta keep working at it! Thanks for the pictures mom :) it's nice to see all y'all and the family! 

Let me know if there's anything I can do for y'all! I will try and take more pictures and such! I know that this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I know that Christ suffered and died for every one of us. He did this not only so that we could return to our Heavenly Father but also so that we would be able to have help in this life. This life is one of trials and hardships. But when we are able to see that there is someone just waiting to help us it becomes a lot easier. That doesn't mean that our trials will go away by any stretch of the imagination though! But just like the Ammonites, our trials will be made light on our backs because we will have someone there helping us with them! I love y'all and miss y'all! :) hope everything is going great. It's good to hear that BYU won! That's sad that I won't be there for the big Texas game though. Y'all will have to cheer extra loud for me!

Love,

Elder Robertson

The picture is right in front of our apartment, it's pretty much how the beginning of every day looks for me haha. (our apartment is the one up the stairs so we have to carry our bikes up and down them every day... so fun!