Week 82 - Christmas was amazing

Christmas was amazing. It's so awesome to be able to be on a mission during the Christmas season. People are busy but way more open to listening about Christ. We even found someone on Christmas eve that told us we could come teach them on Christmas day!! It was super cool. She has an awesome family and we're excited for her.

Christmas was also incredible because of y'all. It was so fun talking to y'all and getting to just chat for a little while. It's crazy to think that this is the year that I'll be returning home. I can honestly say that it doesn't feel like that. Which I like. I hope that it will be able to stay like that. I feel like I'm just finally figuring out all of this stuff and so I'm excited to see what more the Lord has in store for me.

Other than that there isn't a whole lot to report. As far as the website goes... It's going well.  It's hard because I'm rusty and there's a lot I have to learn and it's like a side project. It's not my main focus by far. But it's been cool seeing the way the Lord is blessing me to learn faster than normal because ultimately the website is for him.

I do appreciate the place for the administrative side of things. I've seen how much it can help.. But it is something that doesn't even compare to ministering. My call really is to minister as well. The only reason I administer, I feel, is to make the ministering more effective. It's been hard to balance it. Not with time necessarily but with thoughts. It is something that I think about a lot and I'm trying really hard not to think about it a lot. I'm getting better at being able to stay focused when I'm away from the computer. The Lord really is helping me a ton! It's amazing how much the Lord compensates when we are doing his work in all aspects.

I love my mission and my Savior. I love how this gospel blesses families. I believe so very strongly in the common phrase "I have left my family for 2 years so that yours can be together forever." I know that that is why I'm here. I am here to help people come unto Christ and receive salvation and exaltation. I love y'all so much and hope that y'all have an amazing New Years!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Christmas!

Our christmas tree and gifts

My new tie for Christmas. Thank you!

My new shoes for Christmas. Thank you!

Week 81 - Merry Christmas!

Hello family! Good to hear from y'all. Love y'all so much. First off just the responses:
-I did get one of the packages and will get the other one on Wednesday at Zone Conference.
-THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE!! It really does make me feel like I'm somewhat home for Christmas when I get a big package full of goodies. It will make Christmas morning amazing with all of my presents. :)

This week was super busy for us... we had an exchange with the Assistants up in Fresno which was cool. Their area is oober rich.. It's ridiculous! I got to go into the nicest houses that I've been into on my mission during that exchange. It was cool to be with the Assistants. They're really awesome and great friends of mine! One of them is actually from Texas as well! He's from Plano East..... or west.. Whichever one was really big and good at football. So it was cool cause we had heard of each others' high schools and got to talk about that a little bit. It was fun! Bummer to hear that LT didn't pull out the win though. As well for BYU.... Come on that's just embarrassing. We can't let Utah show us up like that!!

We got to go to a few baptisms in the zone this week which was cool. It's amazing the caliber of missionary that is being sent out right now. Every new missionary that comes in I'm just blown away with. Even if they're not the most personable person in the world it's amazing how they can still articulate the points of the gospel so well. It truly is amazing how the Lord is able to work through all of us no matter what our current skill set is. We had to be out of our area this week a lot which was super frustrating!!! But we hopefully will have a lot of time this week to make it up.

This website is suuuuper weird. We have pretty much free roam of the internet for putting it together. Never thought that would be a thing on my mission haha. But my companion and I are definitely excited for the learning opportunity and ultimately the blessing that it is going to be for the mission! I've enjoyed serving with Elder Speer a ton. He is very intelligent and we are able to just talk about anything. It's super cool. He's the first companion that I think I jive with on pretty much all cylinders. It makes the work much easier. It's just all about getting work done and helping people access salvation. What could be better than that!?

I am so grateful for my Savior. Especially at this time of the year. I love teaching about him and being able to really teach in His place. That is what my call is to do and I try to take it more and more seriously every day as I come to understand it more and more. I am so grateful for His Atonement and the implications of what that means. He loves us more than we can comprehend and can help us love more than we know. I love the spirit that comes with Christmas as most people try and come closer to Christ!! It gives us a little bit of a glimpse of what the millennium will be like when everyone has come unto Christ! It'll be like Christmas time for a 1000 years! Oh the joy :D. I love y'all so much and hope that y'all have a great Christmas! I will talk to y'all in 4 days!!!! yeeee.

Love,

Elder Robertson

[We got to Skype with Elder Robertson on Christmas morning. It's the highlight of our Christmas Day for sure!]

Week 80 - It's an amazing time to be a missionary

This past week was awesome!!! WE BAPTIZED!! Three more kids!!! That's like 6 baptisms in one month!! haha. It was super awesome and the service was absolutely beautiful. The parents of the kids (recent converts) sang at the baptism and did an amazing job. It was just a beautiful service and the ward helped out so much by showing their support.

We also found 6 new investigators this week!!!! ALL of them accepted to be baptized. Elder Speer and I are working super hard and are being as obedient as we can and we are seeing so many miracles. It's amazing how many people's hearts are being softened because of this time of the year. It's an amazing time to be a missionary and a very special time to go teach of Christ! I love it!!! I love being a missionary!

President Clark has assigned my companion and I to pretty much build an entire website that is going to run the mission. So woohoo for that. Who knew that I'd ever be using the stuff I learned from computers like that on my mission. More on that later though because we still don't know a whole lot of details for that right now.

Thanks for all your letters and pictures! I love seeing y'all. It's good to know that the family traditions are still alive. As well, it's good to hear that LT is taking care of business!! Football is something that people bring up a lot more here than anywhere else on my mission because everyone is white here! haha. Before it was all about soccer. I'm super excited for Christmas as well.

Other than that. Everything is going well. I'm excited for Christmas and wish I could get all y'all gifts... but if I did it would be with y'all's money which is kind of pointless haha. I love y'all so much and wish that I could come up with a new way to say that so it didn't sound like I was just repeating myself every week!! Les amo mucho! Ay familia oigan!! Tienen que aprender español! Cuando regrese yo.. no voy a poder hablar en ingles siempre y quiero que plactiquemos juntos!! Les agradezco por todo que hacen. Les amo y quiero y extraño mucho!!!!

Con amor,

Elder Robertson

BAPTISM!! Of the Baker kids!!

What we made in our apartment!! haha boss status. the steaks were puny though... but hey it was steak

The scissors catching on fire when we were cooking... we're still learning

a little kid joining us for our closing prayer on his own!! haha

Our Zone!

my suit pants got a huge hole in the crotch.. haha  so I had to take them to get patched up and everything and dry cleaned and all that good stuff.

Week 79 - It's a good exhaustion

So I'm super crammed for time because I have to stinking gut the apartment I'm in because it's a travesty and one it's nasty to live in and two it's a horrible example of a zone leader's apartment. So I am now in the Hanford 1st ward which is an ENGLISH WARD!!! It's so weird.... I don't serve Spanish anymore haha. I am with Elder Speer. He is from South Carolina. He's legit. He's one of the smartest people I've met on my mission. It's super fun because our conversations are always super awesome. We're able to really talk about some really cool things. He also created websites before his mission and likes computers so we mesh well. We are working crazy hard though. My body is exhausted!!! It's a good exhaustion though. I love it. I feel for really the first time that I'm giving the Lord everything. I know that that should of happened sooner but literally we are so busy and going 10000 mph that there's no room for anything but missionary work. We eat dinners in the car a lot because we're having to run all over the place! It's crazy but crazy good!

This past week was insane because we had a lot of meetings and had to help with all of the new missionaries. But we were still able to have an effective week and find 5 new people to teach! Which last month this area found only 1..... IN A WHOLE MONTH. So that was good to start getting more people into the teaching pool. It was awesome to be able to meet so many new people. It is super weird to be in an english ward... first of all because it is actually organized and well run. That's new for me haha. As well as the fact that english people are way different than spanish people. They are super busy and always have a million things to do and don't just chat with you. It's crazy how much of a culture shock it is for me serving in this ward. And I know that's backwards because I grew up in an english ward and it is my first language. It's just been the first ward that I've served in as a missionary.

Sorry this letter isn't super long. it will be longer next week I promise. I just want to end with my testimony. I know that my Savior lives. I know that he suffered for me and for everyone so that we can go back and live with our Father in heaven. I know without a shadow of a doubt that that is the sole purpose that I was sent on a mission. I am here to be able to understand better and to experiences the incredible blessings of the Atonement so that I can learn to use it for the rest of my life. More importantly, I was sent here to help others be able to access it. There is no other way right now that anyone in my ward boundaries can fully access the Atonement except through Elder Speer and I.. That's a huge statement but it's true. The only way one can fully access the Atonement of Jesus Christ is through baptism for the remission of sins by somebody who holds the proper authority from God. The only way that someone can enter into the waters of baptism (besides 8 yr olds of members) is through the missionaries. It's why what we do is so important. It's why I am so humbled and inadequate for this calling. It's why I am so grateful that the Savior did what he did so that He can help me be able to help everyone around me. I love being a missionary and I love the opportunity I have to help these people. Thank y'all for everything that you have done and do that helps me be who I am and has helped me come on a mission. It really is the greatest thing ever. I love y'all so much and hope that y'all have an amazing week!!

Love,

Elder Robertson