The highlight of my week

Hello my favorite people!

This week was pretty good! It felt weird kind of because usually the first week of the transfer is kind of crazy but since nothing changed for us it just feels like a continuation of the past two. It surprises me that it's only been a week of the transfer but at the same time I'm shocked there's only five weeks left! It's going to be a busy one, we have interviews and a mission tour where Elder Hamula is coming to our
Zone Conferences. It's going to be great! Plus Halloween and Thanksgiving. So this transfer will fly by. For some reason I just wanted to give details on how I feel like I'm in a time warp. haha anyway...

Lately I have just had this really strong desire to help specifically two families, and I just don't know what to do for them. They just need to live the gospel! But they won't. They're just not ready yet but I want to help them so badly. One of them I mentioned from my first week here. The mom and dad are foster parents to 3 (now 4) boys. The mom and dad got baptized several years ago and now the dad
is completely inactive. Talking to him you can tell he didn't really get it to begin with. He just doesn't understand what the gospel is all about or how it applies to him. The mom is active and the two older sons were baptized when they were kids because their grandparents are members (though completely inactive also). They don't even have the slightest clue what it means that they've been baptized. The 3rd son is a recent convert and he is 12. We've been teaching him the new member lessons. He's a good kid, but he's been struggling lately because his abusive mom is trying to get her act together so she's been seeing him a lot, but she's still abusive it seems like. They recently took in a little eight year old. He's cute, we're hoping to teach him. He came to church on Sunday with the mom. Anyway, they're really cool people. I just love them and I know their home would be so much better if they  truly understood and lived the gospel. I just don't know how to help them understand! But I have absolutely no power to convert anyway, Heavenly Father leads them along and when they're ready the spirit helps them understand. I just have to be in tune to know my part. I just know how much more joyful their lives would be! According to the mom though, our visits make a difference.  Apparently the dad goes and brushes his teeth when we come over so we can't smell the smoke haha. He doesn't try to hide the fact he's smoking, but he does try to clean up I guess. Cracks me up. So I guess if nothing else we make him think a little about what he does.

The other family it's really mainly the dad. Russell Trau is his name, pray for him. He is not a member but he has a lot of faith and really relies on Heavenly Father. He is such an awesome person, and he and his member wife divorced about 2 years ago. He is clearly still in a lot of pain from it. It's been really hard for him, and he felt like all his member friends turned on him through the divorce. He's going to need a lot of outreach from the ward to feel comfortable regularly attending church. Again I just want so badly for him to have the fulness of the gospel! I hope I can be inspired to know  how to help him along. We talked to him this week and committed him to watch a mormon message. He isn't interested in meeting with us, he says he's not ready. But he'll talk whenever we go over and he doesn't mind talking spiritual, so baby steps for him.

Dominik was at church yesterday. He came a little late so there was no way for us to sit by him. He sat in the row right ahead of us though. No one came to sit by him. It made me sad. People were pretty preoccupied though, we got a new bishopric yesterday. Anyway he looked exhausted. He had bags under his eyes. I asked if he was tired and he said, "Oh, I didn't sleep very much last night.  Church is the highlight of my week. I was so excited I couldn't sleep!" My goodness. He is just so cute, I love teaching him! I need to love church that much.

In ward council yesterday the young women's president shared something her 19 year old daughter said, "Families are eternal. They aren't designed to be apart. For our growth, we have to be apart for a time. Then we come back together and we share what we've learned and how we've grown, and we are together in our eternal family." That's actually not an exact quote, but that was the idea. Anyway I just loved it. That's why I miss you all so much! We aren't made to be away from each other. Families are eternal and separation feels wrong! But for a mission it's worth it, because the rest of our eternal family is out here. We are all separated from Heavenly Father for a time so that we can grow, but we grow a lot more when we learn from Him. I'm grateful to help people make that connection to their Father. Love you all so much!

Sister Robinson