Week 27

Stake Conference, extraordinary efforts

Sorry for the lack of pictures! I need to be better about taking pictures haha. 

Another crazy week! 

We had another great lesson with Jessica! She's been remembering a lot more about what we are teaching her and she's really progressing! Her mom was crazy busy with some family problems sadly, so we delyed the baptism by a month. But she will be ready by then!

We've been working really hard working with the members and it's been going really well! We've had lots of trust gained from working with the ward and asking who we should stop by and then actually stopping by! So we've been working really closely with everyone and we've seen lots of success! For example we stopped by the Pierre family and the Relief Society and Primary Presidencies have been loving working with them to help them out! Well we stopped by and talked for a while and found out that she only works twice a week now (she had a contract as a nurse with a previous hospital), now she wants to come back to church! She also said to come back for a message/dinner. We talked to the Primary president and Relief Society president and told them about what happened! The key is to communicate right away and let the presidencies know whats happening!

Miracle! So we've been trying to get into contact with is one particular guy named Bro Sharp. He's a detective and super busy. So we keep trying to say hi and get to know them and see how we can help them, but nothing, no answer. This past week though, we were heading to language study at 8 and the word Sharp just appeared in my head. It's already late, so it was an interesting thought, and Elder Merrell and I talked about it and prayed about it and we went to the Sharps! He opened his door! We had a good conversation and gave him cookies! So that was a cool miracle, Elder Merrell has been trying to get into contact with them for about 3 months! Pretty crazy! 

Spiritual thought:

Focus

Outwards

Rather

Than

Inwards

For

Yourself

in Christ! 

Whenever you focus on yourself or beat yourself up because you messed up, that only makes things worse. The scriptures constantly use language that implies that Christ is right there guiding us along. I really love 2 Nephi 1:23, 

"Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust."

Wow! What a great message and reminder that we need to simply shake off our "chains", our sins, and follow Christ! Following Christ is still hard, it requires sacrifice, it requires trust and humility to let Christ lead your life. We need to humble ourselves and recongize that Christ knows best. He knows us perfectly! So when Christ is asking us to shake off our chains, realize that we can then be yoked to Christ. Yes there is still weight on our backs, trials in our life, but instead of chains dragging us, it's a yoke, yoked with the only begotten son, Jesus Christ! We need to trust that being yoked to Christ is better than chains. So shake those chains off! Whatever they may be! 

I love you all very much and the experiences and adventures I've experienced with you all! Keep growing and serving and be safe!

Love you all!

PS-My dad was able to drive my car around the block back in Virginia!  He still has work to do on it, but it's actually running!

Week 26

More Miracles! The Lord loves effort!

みなさんこんにちは！せんしゅはたくさんたんごを学びましたよ！べんでとたのしいとかなしいと学校！

I've been learning a lot of Japanese this past week! It's been hard these past weeks staying excited but my companion has revitalized my joy of learning Japanese. How did I do it?

Before I say what helped me, shout out to Elder Hiltscher :). He drove through Queen Creek (where I'm living now) and was outside his mission for a bit because his district leader is an ASL missionary which is cool and they had to visit someone. But he gave me a shoutout in his email, so here's one back to my MTC comp! (And Elder Rahm, whats up dude!)

But back to the Japanese. I was struggling to be excited to learn and it's hard to apply it. Mainly because you're not immersed. But I've started to really read the Book of Mormon in Japanese and studying a book that the MTC gave me. It's a book on how to read the Book of Mormon in Japanese. It's almost as long as it too, which got me to laugh :). But you learn kanji that's super prevalant in the Book of Mormon (モルモン書) and then you can apply it! So it's been super encouraging to learn kanji and to then almost instantly apply it. I'm starting to recongize a lot more characters and what their meanings are. So that's been a cool breakthrough. Another cool thing is that an apostle or a past prophet has promised that if you read the Book of Mormon in your mission language completely through, that by the time you're at the end, you will understand that language. I'm taking that very seriously. It's still going to require lots of learning new kanji, but I have faith in that promise. I'm still in the introduction pages, but I'm almost to 1st Nephi :).

Spiritual thought, take counsel from the Lord! I was reading in Jacob 4 and DC 84 and lots of cool things came together in that as missionaries we need to trust the Lord. In many ways that feels vulnerable or scary for us mortals. But when we do put that faith in Christ, He can make us powerful instruments in His hands. Elder Merrell and I have been really focusing on prayer and expectting miracles and we are recieving promptings left and right and up and down. Its crazy! But amazing! So I recieved a prompting this last Saturday, but I wanted to do language study, but the Spirit firmly was saying to visit this particular family. I hesitantly did and they still didn't knock :). But as I experienced that, the Lord clearly taught me to ALWAYS following those promptings. I don't know why we had to visit that less-active family and not get an answer. But the next day at church they came! We had a great conversation and scheluded a visit! The Lord works in higher ways. Love you guys! Gotta run!

ロバートソン長老

Week 25

Miracles, Faith, and Hard work

This week has been nuts. You know those fancy nuts that you can get at the stands at carnivals and such? Add 2 more sticks of butter and sugar and you get this past week...

Haha, but seriously, this week was awesome! It was crazy in the sense that everything that we had planned didn't happen. Everything was scrambled. The beauitful thing though, was that to us, with a more limited perspective, it was scrambled and confused, but to the Lord, we did want we needed to do. We were where we needed to be (is this sentence even grammatically correct?). 

We have this family in our area that only the mom is a member and the husband has been through the discussions about 2-3 times and has had at least one baptismal date. For whatever reason, it fell through. So he's a little closed off with missionaries, but right now, we're just loving him. We're stopping by here and there to try to catch him and to simply talk. Not about baptism, not about anything specifc, just trying to get to know him and love him. We knock on their house and we felt we needed to be there, no answer. We go to their cousins house 4 houses down, and their cousins come out and invite us in for lunch! At first we were hesitant, but we felt we needed to just do it. So we did and their mom was in the hospital because of kidney stones, so their grandpa was there, helping out. We're eating lunch and some of their cousins (from the part-member family) come over! They were at the house we tried to knock! We get talking and it was one of his kids! What's cool is that even though the dad isn't a member and none of their kids are members either, their oldest son wants to go on a mission. Dang! He's not even a member, but he wants to go! It was a miracle. We learned that his dad talked to another family and said that his son wanted to go on a mission, so we asked him right as we were leaving lunch and he said that it was part of his plan! We need to be straight up with him, once we have a good relationship, and say, "Hey we heard you want to go on a mission, but we need to do some things to get you ready". Haha, like being baptized. If his son got baptized to go on a mission, that would definitely soften his dad's heart. He's a freshman, so he's still got a little bit, but we're building foundation. 

A lot of other experiences like that happened this past week and it was amazing! Tiring, but a very productive week. Before my mission, I wasn't the most faith fulled person. I knew miracles could "probably" happen and that they "might" happen for other people, but not me. And it was funny because the Apostles and Prophets say this all the time, "Don't look to the side and say that miracles and blessings happen to other people, but not you". Even with that in my head, I still didn't have that real and trusting faith that I could be a part of and see miracles! So I've been growing my faith and trusting in the Lord that miracles will happen. Another part or half to that is following promptings. If you don't follow a prompting, how can the Lord work with you and be where the Lord needs you at that moment? You can't! So I've been working on following the first prompting. To the natural man, the first prompting is so easily dismissed. I've done this so many times before and thought, "I just thought that, this isn't from the Lord, this is my thought" and then you rationalize and then the prompting passes, you missed the oppotunity! What brings me a lot of comfort is that if you try to always follow the first prompting/thought, the Lord will trust you and He will give more of those promptings to you. When the Lord knows you are trying to follow the first prompting, He will make the first thought a prompting, He will use how YOUR mind works and how YOUR mind processes. He works through each of us differently. That's why we recieve different promptings at different times. This happens a lo in a companionship. A prompting that Elder Merrell recieves, I might've never even considered that. Heavenly Father made us, the Spirit speaks to each of us differently. If He knows us perfectly, wouldn't He know howour brain processes information? Wouldn't He know the perfect person and way to prompt you? He does! So pray and build your trust in the Lord that miracles and promptings are real! Seek with real intent and you will find!

Another amazing thing I learned this week: Christ is the perfect example. Period! The covenant path is the perfect path, because Christ walked it! The iron rod is the path that Christ took through His mortal life. That's why it's straight, that's why we're commanded to walk it. What happend when you walk a perfect path? You fail! We are imperfect! But through baptism and the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can repent and change! So that's how we stay ON the path, through the cycle of repentance, the sacrament, and a change of heart. As we stay on a perfect path, we as imperfect people, CHANGE! When we walk that path, the iron rod, the covenant path, whatever you call it, it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we follow Christ's example because of out love towards Him and our Father in Heaven, we change! Of course just going through the motions won't produce a change, because we're doing it with the wrong intent! When we do it with love and devotion for Christ and Heavenly Father and the work, we will change. God commanded us to be perfected in Christ. 

Moroni 10:32, "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

That's how we are perfected in Christ, because when we follow that path, when we follow His example, when we repent with a broken hear and contrite spirit and truly change, we are slowly being perfected. Through and in Christ! Hopefully that makes sense. I know the command to be perfect like Christ and the Father can be daunting, but it makes so much sense to me now. 

I love you all! If you want to email me back, you are welcome to at any time of the week! I'll just respond on Mondays :).

イエス～キリストは私たちをあいしていますよ！ 末日聖徒イエス～キリスト教会はイエス～キリストの教会だとしっています。みなさんまてね！

ロバートソン長老

Week 24

More Miracles and progress in the area

Ahhhhh. Another super quick email. We have a lesson at 5 with a guy named Eddie, so I'm super excited! But it rushes Pday a bit, but no worries!

We've been doing lots of more inactive work. We taught the Spencers, a family that's been inactive for 15 years or somethings like that. But she's decided to come back and her kids need teaching! Her daughter is on date, but she has foster kids over 9 that can be taught. Sadly though they're through the reservation and the tribe doesn't want the foster kids "indoctrinated". Even though it's still the kids choice... But it is what it is. Thankfully though Sister Spencer can get permission from the Grandmother, so we're praying that happens. 

We've been using my and my companions love of cars to get in with people and that's created a lot of cool sitatuions and converstaions. We also both love music and we've connected with a lot of people with that also.

But yeah, lots of great things happening. I can't believe 2 weeks have almost already past in this transfer... WHAT! But yeah, super crazy stuff. 

Spiritual thought for today. Trust in Christ! Gain a testimony for yourself that President Nelson speaks God's will. Once you have a testimony of that and know for a fact he is a prophet, you will have a solid foundation for these crazy times! Not that these times will be easy or nice, but you will have a solid foundation.

Love you guys! Wish I could send a longer one!

ロバートソン長老