Week 21 - My Definition of Obedience

Buenos tardes!

I wanted to share something from my studies recently with y'all. So, I was studying obedience under the direction of Sister Clark from a zone conference. In "Preach My Gospel," there is a scripture study part after the section on obedience. They are 1 Nephi 2:3, Mosiah 5:8, Mosiah 15:7, D&C 82:8-10, Matthew 7:24-27, John 7:17, and John 14:15. So from these I kind of took them all and wrote my own definition of obedience and here it is. It's not revised or anything but i liked it and thought i would share it.

To be obedient is to keep all of the commandments of God given to us through his Holy prophets, past, present, and future, unto the end of our lives because of the love we have for Jesus Christ. In so doing we strive to have our will swallowed up in the will of the Lord so that we might receive the blessings that the Lord is bound by eternal laws to give us, such as knowing His doctrine more fully and having our lives and testimonies built upon a rock so that the storms of the adversary will have no power to cause us to fall.

So this week was really good. We had a whole 13 lessons this week!! Wooohoo. We now have a few more investigators which is nice! Something that is kind of cool about having only a few investigators is you focus all of your time and energy on them so they really get a lot of attention. Which I can see is helping them progress. 

Our main investigator right now is Matias. He is like 70 or something. Super nice man. Seriously one of the nicest people I have ever met. He says that he has tons of respect for God. While this is a very important thing it brings up a big challenge for him. He feels that baptism is a hard thing for him to do because he feels that he will be playing with God. He says that if he gets baptized and then makes mistakes afterwards he's going to be mocking or playing with God. This has been something we're trying to help him understand. So that's him. 

Our other investigator is named Jose Hipolito. All of his family are members and he hasn't been baptized because he says that he has a hard heart.. So that's been interesting. But, I do feel that God sent me and Elder Perez to this area so that we can just love him to death and help him soften his heart to want to be baptized. 

My other investigator who has a baptismal date we handed off to other elders. After praying about it we decided that it would be better for her to go to an English ward. It was hard to hand her off but I know that that's what the Lord knows is best for her. But that's pretty much a quick summary of what's happening with my main investigators. 

My companion is great. We are starting to get to know each other better and figure out how to best work as a team. The hardest part is feeling like we're just not doing enough work. Our numbers are super low every day. Now I know missionary work isn't all about numbers but you do feel a little discouraged when you are only teaching 2 lessons a day or so. But we're slowly improving on them! So no worries :) 

My favorite thing is that everything about the area I know. I know every single investigator/potential investigator. Because I am the one who found them. This isn't always a thing on the mission since most of the mission is actually trying to wrap up the work of other missionaries. But it's nice. I feel like I am getting to know these people on a deeper level.. even if there aren't a ton of them.  My area is in the center of my mission and covers three stakes and like 12 English areas. So that's crazy.

Other than that, the weather is has been incredible lately, so that's been!!! Good to hear about Lake Travis beating Westlake! Always good to know we kicked some Chap backside! 

Love y'all so much and am so grateful for everything that you do for me and all of the inspiration you give me. Stay strong in the faith and remember that we are all potential gods! 

Love, 

Elder Robertson

My companion, Elder Perez, and I

My shiny car

Week 20 - Finding Investigators and Getting Lost in Fresno

Sorry for the short letters. There just hasn't been a whole lot that has been happening. We have been just driving around getting lost and trying to find new people.

But I'll answer some of the questions you've been asking! :) Physically, I am doing well. Especially since I have been in a car now. I have been able to recuperate my knees and such. But my shoulder is fine. Just sore a lot. I'm probably going to have to go to physical therapy at some time. But besides that it's nothing to be worried about! So don't worry too much. :) 

My companion is named Elder Perez. He is from the Dominican Republic. He speaks Spanish and English very well. My favorite part is that he is super fun and is always laughing.  My new area is suuuuuper big. It's pretty much all of Fresno. I drive at least 50 miles every day in the car. Plus, we have no idea where anything is. So we get lost a lot. It's good. 

The new apartment is great. The only thing is that I think that somebody smoked in it at one point. So it kinda stinks a little bit. But whatever. 

Right now we have three investigators. Two of which have baptismal dates! One is named Christina and has a date for the 1 of November. She is super sweet and has a super sweet family. The other is Matias who has a date for the 22 of November. He is a single old man who is trying to just get by. He has a ton of respect for God and now we just have to try and help him have a spiritual experience. And the third is Carman. Carman is the Mom of a recent convert in the YSA. She is very nice and loooves the Bible. So we're working hard with her to have her pray about the Book of Mormon. Those are pretty much the only 3 we've got right now.

I haven't had a whole lot of discouraging times. Sometimes, I feel unworthy for this incredible work. But when I feel that way I just ask Heavenly Father to help me to be a better missionary and to help me with my shortcomings! I don't know much about my Mission President and his wife except that he's a super loving man and his wife loves obedience and being healthy! haha. They're super awesome. My ward is super big now. It's a whole ward of just spanish people which is kinda rare. More than 60% of the ward is less active though...so that's crazy! We're trying our best to just help our ward out as best we can. 

I love y'all so much.

Love,

Elder Robertson

Me and Elder Moody right before I left... tear

My best friend in the whole world. Elder Ayala from Paraguay

Elder Davis

Vanessa and Irving! They are absolutely awesome. Super strong recent converts. They were super fun

The family Contreras. Love them so much. They really need to get baptized but won't get baptized! They are awesome! Paloma is the one in the middle hiding her face cause she was mad I was leaving. She's the one who reminds me of Elise!

Maria Hurtado and her son. Super nice old lady who would always feed us sooo much!

Family Kreisel again with their daughter

La familia de Magdaleno. They're awesome! We were helping them get back to church. The little girl is their granddaughter, marley, Cutest thing ever

Briahna. She is one of the recent converts from Lindsay

My Mexican family. La familia Hurtado. Greatest family ever y'all!!

The Kreisels. Really nice family. They brought their son over to take a picture with me cause he doesn't live at home anymore and his gf

My missionary Mom! Miss her tons. Sister Avina

Week 19 - Opening a Brand New Area

So about my new area...it's pretty ridiculous. So here is the big story: So I got transfered to the area of Echo North. When I showed up to the Mission office I found out that I was actually opening up this area. It didn't exist before about 5 days ago.

I also met my new companion, Elder Perez. He is from the Dominican Republic and speaks pretty good English so that's nice. He's super funny. He's only got a little bit left on his mission. We had nothing the first day but a car and a brand new phone without any numbers in it. Oh yeah, I got a 2014 Chevy Cruz now...so that's nice. :) But, we didn't even have an apartment. We still don't so we're still working on that. 

It's been crazy because we are just starting from scratch. We don't have a single investigator or anything. So we have been doing a lot of finding. It's been intense. It's cool being here though because we get to see a lot more missionaries than when I was in Lindsay, so that's fun. 

I love being a missionary. It is so amazing. Everything about it is just so much fun. Is there anyway that I could just be on a mission forever? Naw, just kidding. I'll come home sometime and say "Hi" to y'all or something. I miss y'all a lot though. I hope even though y'all are so busy that y'all are still doing well.  Love you so much and hope that everything is going so well for all of y'all. Elder Robertson out.

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 18 - I am being transferred to the Fresno Zone

Oh, how I loved General Conference. I loved hearing about the missionary efforts during conference as well. Elder Bednar gave an amazing talk to all of those who were not of our faith. For the first time I did listen to all of them and take notes. I realized how inspired their messages are. 

The two talks on the Sacrament and also the talks on fasting and fast offerings hit me hard. They're two huge things that I need to really look more at and not take it for granted. I just loved hearing the words of the Prophets. 

I have something that I'm going to stress hard in this email. GO TO "MEET THE MORMONS!!!" Bring all of your friends. This movie can change the country and the way they see us members of the church. We, as missionaries, got to see a pre-screening of it and it was absolutely amazing. I felt the spirit through the whole thing and was almost brought to tears many times. It's incredible! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

Now that I've ranted, this week was great. We had transfer calls of Saturday, and I am leaving to Fresno Zone on Wednesday. That's about 2 hours away from me right now. I'm sad to have to leave Lindsay but excited for seeing the next place the Lord wants me to be. I've loved every part of serving in Lindsay and am so grateful for it and look forward to what the Lord has in store for me in the big city of Fresno. More on that next week after I've been there for a little bit.

I'll be right next to the Mission Office too so that's awesome! I'll get packages right when they arrive so that'll be cool if I ever have to get anything in the mail. In answer to your question, my shoulder is good. It annoys me sometimes and I might have to go to some therapy to try and get the appropriate strength back. We'll see. But I'm good health wise. 

I love y'all so much and am so grateful for your prayers and love! Thank you for all y'all do :)

 

Love,

Elder Robertson