Week 69 - I love being a missionary here in Reedley

So this week was one full of meetings.. I had a total of 2.. but that's still a lot in one week So these are what they were:

Elder Arnold Zone Conference: We were able to be blessed with the opportunity to have a member of the 70 come and train us at our Zone Conference. He is such a spiritual giant and it amazes me how much he has the spirit with him. He taught us a ton but the thing that he taught us the most was about how much we really just need to love. We need to love our leaders (edify them) we need to love the people we teach (work as hard as we can) love the members (serve them and never talk badly about them) love the lord (fully consecrate ourselves). It was really cool and really inspiring. I loved hearing from him. I definitely have a whole plethora of things that I am dedicated to working on so that I can be better and truly show my love for everyone here but especially for the Lord.

District Leader Training: So first of all the coolest part about this one is that my trainee was there with me!! Elder Collins is a district leader. It was so cool to have him there and hear his input. He really is such a good missionary and I'm so proud of how hard he's working! Our president pretty much just trained us a TON on how we need to be the examples to this mission. It is our job to set the example and to live it. He also talked a lot about how we need to work hard at keeping everyone accountable and work hard at helping them do it.

Besides that it was a great week. I love being a missionary here in Reedley. It really has shown me what it means to find prepared people! There are so many here. It's amazing to me how much love you start to have for these people that you really don't know very well. I truly do love them and want the best for them. I love y'all so much and hope that you have an amazing week!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Service Project #1

Service Project #2

A couple of the Elders from my district crashing out after lunch hahah

HAWAIIAN HAYSTACKS!!! (Matt's favorite)

Week 68 - Going to a party

This week was really great. We found a new investigator named Jason and he is sooo prepared! When we taught him the Restoration he responded with, "Y'all probably aren't going to believe be but when we've been talking and especially when we talked about Joseph Smith and circle of relaxation came over me." We taught him how that was the spirit and he committed to be baptized on October 3rd! He even came to church on Sunday!! It was so awesome. He participated like crazy in the classes and really enjoyed church. We also are teaching his siblings and his mom. He's the one who seems the most interested right now though.

My district is on fire as well! This past week was super good. Everyone is seeing a ton of success. I love it. It's so amazing how true of a statement it was that Alma said that he rejoiced more in the fact that his brethren had seen success. When I see these missionaries having success it just makes me super happy!!

We got to go to this party for one of the members in the ward. It was her birthday! It was the most effective party in the world. We found like 15 potential investigators. Everyone was willing to talk to us and they all gave us their address. There was some Latina music playing though which as a little distracting because I can understand it now haha. Plus... I'm definitely learning how to dance that when I get home! It looks sooo stinking fun!!

I love y'all! Have an amaing week!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Us at the party

our mini weight collection.

maybe I can finally lose some of this grasa que tengo! Quien sabe!

Week 67 - Got a mini-missionary

So my new companion is awesome! He's from Argentina, his name is Elder Rearte, and practically my best friend. He's super cool. We're a ton alike and get along great. It's going to be an awesome transfer coming up! It's been a crazy past week though... here's kind of the highlights.

New companion and Open your mouth:

When the new missionaries come in their first day some missionaries take them on something called open your mouth. It's basically just taking them out for two hours and contacting people in a random area. Well we went and did that up in fresno for the first part of being companions. So that was cool. We got to have some fun with that. But we didn't get back to our area until 8 that night... so that day was pretty shot.

Opening the new area:

Thursday.. the next day after open your mouth. I had to prepare EVERYTHING for the new missionaries that were coming in to split up my area. I had to set up their apartment. I had to set up all their documents. So we were doing that all day. When they finally came I had to show them around and then we headed to MCM. The meeting took FOREVER!!! Literally.. it was like an hour and 20 minutes. it's supposed to be like 15 minutes. So that day was pretty much destroyed after that as well.

Leadership Meeting and special ops:

The next day we had a meeting in Hanford, weekly planning and then a mini mission thing for the stake so we weren't in our area all day until 9. Literally the 3rd day in a row that we hadn't been in our area working. But we got a mini missionary and that was fun! His name was alex

Two missionaries left this weekend so we had to do a bunch of splits this past weekend. Pretty much all in all... it was a crazy intense week with sadly, little missionary work! But it was good! Love y'all tons and hope y'all have a good week :)

Love,

Elder Robertson

Elder Rearte and I

Me studying on the floor cause our mini-missionary was using my chair

Elder Rearte and I and our Mini-missionary

Our mini missionary. Let's just say missionary work was a little more demanding than I think he expected.

the missionary I took on "open your mouth"

Week 66 - A new companion from Argentina

I just want to share my testimony of this amazing gospel. It really is amazing how people have given their lives for this faith. And the wonderful joy that it brings to each of us every day. I don't know how to better say it than that I love my Savior and thank him every day for the opportunity he has given me to grow up in this, his true gospel!

So this past week was great. We had a lot happen. So first off transfers happened. Dun dun dunnnn. Elder Bean is getting transferred :(. We only got one transfer together! It totally stinks. He is an awesome missionary and a great companion but I know that he has other places to be. He has been in this area for ages so it was time for him to move on. My new companion is from Argentina!!! say whaaaat! I love argentines! I'm stoked. My spanish is going to improve so much. We also got our area split in half. We were covering two huge cities and now we only have to cover one of them. President put more missionaries into the other city. However... there are a lot of people I love in that city (Dinuba) So it's gonna be hard not seeing them as often anymore. But it's all good!

Jesus, one of our investigators, came to church this past Sunday! He is the brother of a less active member. It was so awesome that they came. They have a giant family so it made Sacrament meeting look like we had a ton of people there. They are super awesome and like straight from Mexico so they're super fun. We had a lesson with them in which out of no where I felt prompted to teach them about eternal families and the temple. It was a super powerful lesson and at the end my companion testified to them that it was true and that he had never even told me about their plan that they had been making to try and get to the temple as a family. I had no idea about that! It was just a really cool way to see the spirit working through us :) But yeah, they came to church and it was super awesome!!

We played Volleyball last monday and Elder Bean is stinking good. I didn't realize how much I really love that sport when you're playing with a lot of people who know what they're doing. Sorry that was random but it was something cool that kind of happened this week.

We had a lesson with Margarita. A suuuper short awesome mexican older lady who is like our mom. Literally she calls all of us "mijo". She was baptized in January. She's really struggling and it was super hard to hear what she is going through. It's amazing how much empathy you really develop for these people. But the coolest part is that she came to church even though it's really hard for her because of her situation at her house. And you could just see how happy she was and how much it lifted her spirits to be at church! Her smile just filled the whole chapel it was amazing!

It's been an amazing time with Elder Bean and I'm sad to watch him go. But I'm excited for what's in store with Elder Rearte (my new companion). Missionary work is the greatest and I absolutely love it more than anything. Thanks for being so awesome and being the best examples in the whole world. I love y'all so much and hope that y'all have an amazing week!!

Love,

Elder Robertson

Sushi!! - one of the last meals with Elder Bean as companions. We had to.

Margarita - This is Margarita and her grand daughters with Elder Bean!!

Alma - One of the recent converts in the area. She's awesome!