Week 65 - I love it I love it I love it!

I've really come to see something that I wish I would have realized about ya know 10 years ago. I realized that living below your potential is lame. I'm learning for the first time in my life how to push myself. How to not be afraid of failure and not be afraid of being called a "try hard" or being afraid of anything except for what God thinks. I wish I could explain this in words because I'm not gonna do a very good job putting it into text so I'm sorry for that. I just realized that the Lord wants my best. MY best. Not just the best compared to others. Not just really good.. but the best! It's changing my whole mission and my life. I'm ridding myself of all things that have to do with the word complacency. It's humbling.. oh super humbling because I realize how much I fall short. But then so empowering because for the first time I have to rely on the Saviors atonement. I'm trying to go places I've never been before. Trying to do things I've never done before. But he has. So he's the one who can help me get there! I love it I love it I love it! The mission really is the best two years. :)

This past week was a wonderful one. We set two baptismal dates! Woooo! One with a woman named Maria. She's very old and super sick but wants to get baptized. It will be an uphill battle but one that's worth it :) She's shooting for the 27th of September. The other is Bartola who is the most awesome lady ever. She wants to be baptized to follow Jesus Christ and will prepare for September 20th. After my companion finished saying a prayer asking God to help her prepare for that date she clapped her hands and jumped up and down all giddy like saying how excited she was! It was the cutest thing ever! She's like 70. Oh the joy of this area.

Christian, a 16 year old boy that we baptized 3 weeks ago or so has been having a really hard time getting to church and hadn't received the Holy Ghost for a while. Yesterday though he finally came to church and received the Holy Ghost!! It was so awesome to stand in that circle and feel God's love for that young man. He's going to have a bit of a battle since none of his family are members and he can't drive yet. We're working closely with the young men's presidency though to set up good fellowship and rides for him to church!

As well... I like jumped up and down like a fool yesterday at church. We are teaching a woman named Sara. She is super nice and super humble. We have taught her 3 or so times and she's super prepared. She has a few doubts but is earnestly seeking. Her sister is a member but goes to the Spanish ward in Fresno. They've been saying that some time they might come to church in our ward but that they didn't know. Well, yesterday they showed up all in dresses and everything!! I was soo happy to see them. They seemed like they had a really good time and Sara seemed very happy. She even stayed after church for a baptism of the other elders.

Salina's wet wedding was amazing! That is when they are married and then baptized right after kind of in the same service. The ward up there did such a good job organizing it and it was such a wonderful baptism! Everything went smoothly and I loved seeing them and seeing their joy! It was good to see everyone from Chowchilla that was there as well. I sure do miss a lot of those people. One awesome thing. Salina bore her testimony at the end and read Moroni 10:4. She read it then bore an incredibly powerful testimony that she had done that and knows that this is true. She brought the spirit so strongly and then told everyone they can find a "dude with a name tag" and that we'll give them a Book of Mormon. I seriously love her! She's the bomb.

There is nothing like what I am doing. I wish I could express the joy that I get to feel as I see these people coming closer to Christ. I love y'all so much and will send you pictures of Salina's baptism next week.... I kinda forgot my camera so I have to wait for Elder Lybbert to send me the pictures and I'll forward them to y'all :) Sorry!! I hope y'all have an amazing week.

Love,

Elder Robertson

SALINNNAA!!! This was her wedding.

SALINNNAA PT 2!! Her and her fiance's baptism right before the wedding.

The awesome pens you sent!!!

A view of my daily planner -- using the new pens.

We hit 20000 miles in our car and I thought it was cool haha

Week 64 - Oh how sacred and special the temple really is

So I don't have a ton of time today but it's because of some really amazing news! So the first part is that I have preparation day today due to going to the temple today. (Sorry I forgot to tell you, it just totally slipped my mind.) It was an amazing session and I really felt the spirit of revelation so strongly it was awesome. I had some really cool experiences in the celestial room with Heavenly Father answering some of my prayers about things that I've been trying to figure out while here in Reedley. Oh how sacred and special the temple really is. I'm so grateful for the amazing blessing to go every 3 months. What an amazing blessing I have in this mission! 

Alright... the second part is the really exciting part.... SALINA'S GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!! Oh my goodness. The glory of this day is very very high. I get to go back to Merced today and get to go baptize Bo (her fiance, soon to be husband today). I can't tell you how much joy I have since I found out that it's happening and especially today as the hour gets closer. I can't believe how far she has come. She is perfect evidence of the power of the Atonement and how it can change someone. Oh I love her and her family so much! This is seriously one of the best days of my whole entire life. I wish that I was better at writing and expressing myself through this so I could just say how happy I was!!!!!! fadhhewaojfaowf WOOOOO!!! YESSSS!!! haha. 

This past week was awesome as well. I was able to go on exchanges for like half the time. Which is fun... but kind of hard since it takes me out of my area for the whole day. We found 16 new investigators this last week!! Say whaaaat!? People are super open down here. They are pretty humble and enjoy what we have to bring. We're working really hard on helping people progress. That's kind of the harder part haha. People love us coming over but driving to another city to go to church.... they're just not that dedicated yet. But we're helping them the best we can. 

I love this gospel y'all and am so privileged to be serving my Savior even though I'm so unqualified to represent him. I've definitely realized that over the past little while. Just how inadequate I am. It's definitely helped me lean on the Savior more so I'm very grateful for it. 

To answer your questions about always having the spirit to be with you. I only have one thing that I've seen kind of help recently. I realized how much I was thinking about myself. Not in a bad way. i was constantly thinking about how I could improve, how I could find more people and how I could help them get closer to Christ. It was a very righteous desire I was having. I wanted to help people. But I wasn't 100% focused on them. I started praying for love and charity. I have had some of the most tender and wonderful lessons the past couple of weeks because I've been overwhelmed with love for these people. As I've done so I've become a little more unselfish and been able to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost more because of it. I don't know if that helps at all. But I guess in short just seeking to love everyone and help people has helped me feel the spirit a ton. 

I love y'all so much!! Hope you have a wonderful week :)

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 63 - This past week was kind of a bummer

This past week was kind of a bummer. We had a good week and were able to get some good lessons in. But none of them really went anywhere. We're really having a hard time getting people to church and having them keep commitments. A normal struggle for missionaries for sure but still something I really want to get a hold on so that I can help these people come unto Christ. 

Right now we have a ton of new investigators. They're all just starting to learn about the church so we're at square one with all of them. One that isn't is named Jen. She's super cool and someone I'm teaching in English. She's had a "rough life" to say the least. She's been through pretty much everything. But she is on the upswing of it so that's good! She has decided to quit smoking and is doing awesome at it. It's amazing to me what will power can really do for people. When they finally put their mind to it and of course when they have the Lord's help. Miracles happen! 

So I've been trying really hard to push myself this last week to be the best I can be. Not just a good quota missionary. But truly the best Elder Robertson that I can be. Which hey.. might just be a good quota missionary but I'll feel better cause I'll know I'm doing my best. It went pretty well. But there's still something missing. So I decided to do something called the Purification Challenge which is where I make a list of 10 things that are "distractions" from the work and I fast from them for 40 days. I'm excited to see where they go and how they help me. Two of them are no sarcasm and no arguing... so we'll see how it goes :) haha

I love that you're going to read the book of mormon before December!!! It's the best book in the world. I'll try and do the same. I'm on page 150 right now in one of my studies and I'll commit to finish it by Christmas! Woo here it goes! I love y'all so much and hope that y'all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Week 62 - I'm going to go work my backside off

I just want to write today and say, "I'm going to go work my backside off and exceed all expectations this week and it's gonna be wonderful!"

But I'll say more :) Your letters this week truly inspired me. I know that I have been catching a little bit of what y'all were saying the past few days as I have been striving to just make this area my own and do the best possible work I can here. I know that I need to do better. That I really need to give it my all and do it because I love the Lord not because of any other reason!

This last week was a good one. We were able to really go to work. We found 12 new people to teach and were able to teach a lot of the investigators that we have right now. They are so awesome! So many of them are getting closer and closer to baptism! It's so amazing to watch somebody truly change and exercise that Atonement in their life. It's unlike anything I have ever seen before! I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

I really do love the Hispanic culture so much now. So much so... it's kind of weird to me when I do totally normal white person things.. like eat breakfast for dinner. Did that last night. Yeah it threw me off. I was like.. where my beans and rice at?! No not really but it was kind of weird. My mind is all confused what race I am now. I'm just gonna tell everyone that I'm a chicano (mexican who was born and raised in the US) from Jalisco (a place in Mexico where there are a lot of white people with colored eyes). So it's all good.

Elder Bean is awesome. I love how he wants to work hard. We are able to get so much work done because we can just focus on how to get better instead of having to worry about getting along or whatever the case may be. He's the best though!

I read a scripture the other day and it really hit me. I know it's kind of silly and not that crazy cool and super short but I love it. It really is just super simple and you can't really argue it. It's in Jacob 6:12. It reads "Oh be wise; what can I say more?" BOOOOOM. I don't know if it's just me but I love that. We know what's right and wrong. We know when we are doing our best. For goodness sake, God has even given us the Holy Ghost to MAKE SURE that we know the difference between right and wrong. We just have to be wise. Make the right choices. Do the right things. Be the right people. I don't know. I really liked the scripture :) I love all of y'all so much and thank you for all of your support and prayers!

Love,

Elder Robertson

GIANT PEACHES!! haha

Elder Bean and I

two of the elders in my district came to our apartment for dinner from a member. Carne asada. Yummm

We had dinner all together last night and they brought out a ton of crazyyy hats!! hahah

Nasty black widow that was just chillin outside of the house of one of our investigators

Week 61 - The Raisin Capital of the World

[Elder Robertson is now in the Selma/Reedley/Dinuba area of central California. Selma is the self-proclaimed "Raisin Capital of the World" so maybe he will get some good fruits & veggies.]

Leaving Chowchilla was weird and a little difficult and I miss Elder Collins a ton! But I know that God needs me here! My new companion is Elder Bean. He is from Colorado. He is super awesome and a guapetona. He is super tall and played volleyball and basketball through high school so we get along well. He speaks way good Spanish so that's nice to have! It's fun not having to worry about the language anymore while we're teaching. We're gonna have a lot of fun together and should get a TON of work done.

So it's pretty chaotic since I serve actually in Reedley and Dinuba. I serve both the Selma Spanish Branch and the Selma English Ward. So I still have a little bit of English work but it's pretty much all Spanish. The branch is pretty disorganized but that's normally how they are. We have some awesome members! They really want to do missionary work and are pretty good at it. Everything's kind of changing right now because there was just recently (like a week ago) a new branch president called. So I'm still just trying to learn names and get things figured out. One of the other missionaries in our branch (he covers Selma for the branch) is Elder Agazzani from Argentina! He's suuuper cool. It's fun serving with him. Definitely one of my favorite Elders. He's super funny. This branch is awesome though and I'm excited to serve the members here. This is definitely a super fertile field!

I'm stoked to be a district leader. Responsibility wise it's not a ton more. I just have to be a good example of a hard worker and get stuff done. I'm suuuper stoked for being able to train and teach. I love doing it because of how much I learn in the process. It will definitely be a humbling process as I have more people keeping me accountable. I have enjoyed it so far and like the love that I am learning through it. The two things, spiritually, that I think it will help me with is humility and charity. Humility because I will be needing to just serve and realize that I am just here to help God help these missionaries as their leader. Charity because everyone knows the best way to lead is by love. Especially in regards to anything spiritual. I got to learn a lot of that from Elder Collins. He was a very loving person and taught me a lot in that aspect. I am eternally grateful for that. I am able to be a better person and hopefully a better leader because of it.

Our mission as a whole is doing pretty good. I don't see a whole lot outside of my companionship and my stewardship. But I only have two other companionships in my district and one of which is the zone leaders. But they're all obedient to what I can tell. President is REALLY pushing obedience so that we can see the miracles God has in store for us. For the most part we are an extremely obedient mission. As for me, I'm doing well. I'm really striving to be exactly obedient and make it a life style. It's pretty nice. I can already see he peace as well as the power that God is giving me through it. It's a pretty good principle!

I just love being a missionary. As I have really lost myself the past few days in learning the new area, learning my new responsibilities as a district leader, and trying to live in a consecrated manner I have felt such an immense and overwhelming feeling of the spirit. I understand now why this mission has to go through you and there can be nothing in the way to stop it. I know that if I can keep that focus up for the next months ahead that I am going to see miracles that I can't even imagine for my areas and for myself. I truly am learning step by step what it means to be a disciple of Christ. And I'll be honest. It's hard.. haha But I absolutely and undoubtedly love it! I have never had something better in my life than this mission experience.

Y'all are the best family ever and I love y'all so much. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Elder Bean and I (Mexico!!!!)

Our baptism of Christian! He's awesome! 

Book of Mormon from 1842 or so.... whaaaat?!?! Isn't that sooo cool?!

Book of Mormon from 1842 or so.... whaaaat?!?! Isn't that sooo cool?!

Book of Mormon from 1842 or so.... whaaaat?!?! Isn't that sooo cool?!