First of all, boy does the Lord provide for his children! I have seen so many small miracles so far on my mission that are so humbling. I'm in a small town called Lindsay. It is 90% hispanic. There is tons of agriculture and fruit orchards everywhere. It's flat and kind of ugly though. Oh and super hot. But I absolutely love it. It's exactly where God wants me to be.
My companions name is Elder Moody. He's from Utah. And man is he amazing. He has such an amazing testimony. He has a really fun personality too when it's appropriate so we get along great. It's been super fun. He speaks really good spanish too so that makes up for my...not so good Spanish. That is definitely the thing that I am having the hardest time with right now. It's just hard to learn another language. I know that I just gotta keep studying and asking the Lord for help and it will come. It'll be amazing.
Our apartment is pretty much empty. We have a dresser, two closets, two beds, two desks, two chairs, and a kitchen. That's it. We don't spend a whole lot of time there though. Just for studies and such. So every spanish area in my mission gets a car since the areas are big. Every single one...but mine, haha. So, I get to ride my bike every day and I get to have member transportation. That's fun. So I'll get some good quad strength!
We have some interesting mission rules! I have to part my hair every day. We can't use the words "guys," "dudes," or anything. We have to say, How are you Elders doing? Oh, and "P-day" is strictly forbidden. It is "Preparation Day!" I have to get corrected sometimes on those cause I'm not used to them. But I'm catching on quickly.
The first week I was here I've already been to a wedding. We had a wedding for two of our investigators so that they would be able to get baptized. It was amazing! Their baptism is tomorrow. Everyone says "In the Fresno, California Mission we BAPTIZE!!" And oh boy is that true!! We have so many investigators and contacts to talk to that we never go contacting besides street contacting of people we see. The members help a ton and really give us some amazing referrals! So make sure to help y'all's ward missionaries out to return the favor. :)
One of my favorite families that we teach is the Contreras family. They have 3 daughters but aren't married. Their oldest daughter Perla (Pearl in spanish), she's nine, was baptized recently and drives the family in the gospel. It is truly incredible the understanding and testimonies of children! We're working on getting her parents married. We are currently waiting for paperwork from Mexico right now. But one of their daughters, Paloma (Dove in spanish), is literally a mexican Elise! They look the same and act the exact same. It makes me miss her a lot and y'all! But it's fun getting to be around Paloma and be reminded of Elise. Their youngest daughter Priscilla is just the cutest thing every and is hilarious. She only speaks Spanish so it's cute hearing her talk. It's so amazing watching their lives change by receiving the gospel.
I have so many stories but I'll just share this one. On Sunday morning we were doing visits and didn't know who to go see. So we stopped the car (a member was driving us around) and decided to have God direct us to where he wants us to go. We asked him to lead us to the person who we were supposed to visit. We then followed the Spirit on where to turn. The member assigned me to pick and just to listen to the Spirit. It was amazing. We drove down a street and all had the feeling that we had gone too far and needed to turn back and that we had passed who we needed to talk to. We turned around and saw a man outside and knew that's who we needed to talk to. We went up to him sat down with him and taught him a short lesson. We have a follow up lesson with him on Wednesday and he wants to hear more about the Gospel! It's amazing how these people have been prepared and how much the Lord's hand is in what we do.
I love the Gospel and love this work. I am amazed at the strength I have been given by Heavenly Father to keep working even when I'm tired and exhausted and to keep being led by the spirit. I absolutely love it. It's going to be so hard to go back to not doing this after the mission. But luckily I have two more years of this! I love y'all and am so grateful for the role all of you had in preparing me for this great work!!!!!
Love,
Elder Robertson
No comments:
Post a Comment