Homecoming info

P.S. For those interested in attending, I will be speaking in church
on May 22nd at 9:00 am. The address is:
1320 East 1975 South
BOUNTIFUL, UTAH 84010-2200
Just thinking about the fact I will be reporting on my mission that
soon gives me a tiny heart attack. Why can't it last forever?

Sister Robinson

#soblessed

We had dinner with a family that keeps bees, so he let us hold this part of the "hive." I have having a tiny panic attack on the inside, but it was cool.

He also let both of us gather an egg from his chickens.

Trinity is baptized! Sister Erickson came back for it, but I don't look good in any of the pictures with her so I'm not sending those haha.

Just because

Sunday we were invited to a missionary homecoming luncheon. The family is Polynesian, so of course they had a whole pig. And we were dorks and asked to take pictures with it, because when else can we do that?

We went in to do laundry this morning and this is what we found. Brother Martin is hilarious. We will miss them after we move tomorrow! Going to an apartment.

Apparently every week is a whirlwind. I suddenly feel like my brain has reached maximum capacity and cannot remember all the things. It's been an amazing week though! FULL of miracles. We're so blessed.

Miracle one: we saw Heather and set up an appointment with her. Unfortunately it is not until May 12 or something because she will be out of town until then but we have an appointment set! Woot!

Miracle two: We had an appointment with Gina Anderson on Monday. It went really well, she has a great religious background and knows the history of how most Christian religions came to be so the Restoration should fit right in with what she knows. She is SO excited to read the Book of Mormon. We are excited to hear about her progress.

Miracle three: Trinity got baptized and confirmed! Lots of things went wrong. The key the elders gave us didn't work and we had to get the font filling so our ward mission leader crawled under the curtain that covers the font (the heavy accordion curtains) and lowered a child into the font so she could get around and open the door from the inside. It was a circus. Our part of talking didn't go as we planned, and the program was in the wrong order so it was a little awkward. We were shaking our heads almost the whole time haha. BUT! Overall it was really good, and everyone felt the spirit and a saving ordinance was performed. It was also the first convert baptism that has taken place in the Folsom stake in 2016. Miracle! Folsom is being blessed.

About 30 minutes after our baptism there was another one for a woman named Lidyanne that the YSA elders have been teaching. We invited Madi to that at the last minute, and her member friends brought her! She had a great experience and really felt the spirit. After that we took her walking around the temple and answered some of her question in the car on the way home. Sunday at church we sat with her and asked her if she wanted to meet with us and start taking the lessons this week. She said, "Sure!" So we have an appointment with her for this Friday. Double Miracle-she came to the baptism and is now officially an investigator. The final Miracle is there was another baptism in Folsom on Sunday, so three in one weekend.

The work is finally progressing here, and it is so clear that Heavenly Father is blessing us. These miracles are not because of us or anything we have done. They are just blessings we are being given.
He is the one that does the work, we are just instruments in His hands. I feel very grateful this week  and I am hoping and praying for Madi and her family.

I am thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the opportunity it gives us to become something. Specifically to become what sons and daughters of God are meant to become. I am thankful for what  I have become so far through obedience and diligence in serving the Lord, and I am thankful for the opportunity I have to continue growing and becoming what Heavenly Father would have me be. Love you all! Have a blessed week.

Sister Robinson

Pics

Here are some pics from this last week! As you can see the chapel is about 20 yards from the beach. :)

I'm killing again.

Hey guys! :)

So just so you know... my new companion, Elder Smoot, dies at the end of this transfer, so I'm "killing" again. haha. He's a great missionary, though, so he probably won't finish trunky. But this week he'll have a special training with all the missionaries that are finishing that's called "finish strong" so that will probably help. :)

This week went really well, though, I was able to meet a lot of the members, and I already am in love with this ward. It has a lot of nice, wonderful families and I honestly feel right at home. Or I would... if it weren't for all of the hills. It has like 6 huge hills, and then "centro" and "California" are the only two neighborhoods that are flat, and there's also two neighborhoods that are like 20 minutes away on bus that are flat and pretty areas too. And I'm also right next to... THE OCEAN! It's so awesome! Beautiful views from the top of the hills, and the smell of the ocean breeze is heaven for me. It did rain really hard a couple days ago, and all the dirt and garbage from the hills were rushing past our house in the river that was running down the street. haha. It was awesome. It's a really tranquil place, secluded, but it's big enough that it's not filled with hillbillies either. So that's kind of nice. :)

We had 3 people committed to go to church this week and none of them showed up! So that was really sad. But we were able to visit one yesterday afternoon, and he struggles with depression, but he committed to go to church next week, so we're working really closely with him.

The week went by way fast and it felt kind of like a blur, but it was fun. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I sure do love you lots! 

Que Dios les acompañe,

Elder Robinson

Fastest week ever

Wow, this week has just been a whirlwind! Things get crazy when you have a new companion!  Tuesday was a pretty nice p-day, and that night there was a Relief Society activity about organization. I learned some nifty tricks, and I was finally motivated to throw away some junk I've been toting haha. The speaker pointed out that it is more of a burden to carry around stuff you don't use than to just get a new one if you really need it (which you usually don't). I tossed a Pez dispenser...for some reason I thought I needed to keep that because it was cute even though I don't even like Pez. Clearly that lesson was for me haha.

Wednesday was the craziest day. Our plans changed about 17 times and we had way too much we had to do for one day. We ended up going to Fair Oaks because they needed me to play piano for the new
missionaries coming in. I haven't been to that meeting since it was my meeting...it made me tear up a little bit. So I played called to serve while the new missionaries came in and then watched them  receive their area assignment and trainer. That pushed our whole day back so we were late to everything all day. We almost weren't going to get lunch until 3 but then the service we went to was canceled so we ate at 2. It was great though, before the service we met a less active member that moved in fairly recently and had a good lesson with her. We are trying to get them involved in scouts so they will make some friends in the Ward. We're just really happy she is open to meeting with us! She just needs her testimony strengthened.

Thursday was meeting day. We had district meeting, Trinity's baptismal interview (she passed!), and correlation with the Silva Valley Ward.

Friday we helped a sister in the Ward make a ton of color powder, like they use for color runs and stuff. She's making a bunch for an activity so we helped break it up and blend it and bake the  moisture out. That was pretty fun!

Saturday was AWESOME. We finally got to just proselyte all day and we talked to tons of people. None of them were too interested but we did really well with accomplishing all the goals we set for the transfer (pulled over to car contact, spent some drive time in the car talking about hard questions people could ask us and how we would respond with scripture, counteracting every negative thing we say with a positive). It's going to be a good transfer! We also dropped by a members house at exactly the right time-they had a friend over that has been coming to church for a while and really loves the church and wants to learn more. We talked about baptism and gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and our phone number. We really think she is going to contact us and we will keep  following up through those members. She's a sweet girl and we really hope we will get to teach her  more! I had the opportunity to testify of the Book of Mormon and the impact it has had in my life. That book is true; it is a record that is inspired of God and translated by His prophet. It has been  instrumental in my personal testimony of Christ as my Savior. I am amazed daily at what the spirit teaches me as I study it. It is so relevant to every day life, and it brings peace to me in a very tangible way. Christ lived, He paid the price for our sins, and He made it possible for us to become clean and whole. He continues to reach out to each of us, to gather us. He loves us. All of that I know from reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. It does draw us nearer to God than any other book.

Sunday Rex came to church, and so did Maddie (the friend of members we gave the Book of  Mormon to). Janelle was going to come and bring Kaleilah but Kaleilah was sick this morning. We're really happy she was going to though!

It's been a good, crazy busy week! We also discovered something really cool. There is a new thing on lds.org that is a portion of the website dedicated to sabbath day observance. There is a video and the
hashtag for social media is #HisDay. It is complete with lists of good sabbath "do's" for all age categories. I love that they made this to help support and encourage the members in following this prophetic priority of keeping the sabbath holy. I love you all so much! Life is good.

Sister Robinson

Me Voy a Tomé!

Well... I got the transfer call last night and I'm leaving... I'm honestly so sad. But I'm excited for my new sector as well. Tomé is on the opposite side of Chile, the coastal side. So I won't be very far from the beach! Hurray! And my companion is way cool and fun, his name is Elder Smoot. So I am really excited about that. I'm gonna miss Chillan and Los Volcanes a lot, though.

There was a really cool miracle this week, though. One investigator, Maurice, went to church this alst weekend. He's atheist, but we've been helping them out with some projects at their house, and we've gotten pretty close, so he accepted the invitation to go to church with us! Oh ya! It was truly a tender mercy from the Lord to see him in church before I left. 

Also, I'm finally gonna send some pictures today! For real! :) haha. My memory card had some little viruses on it so that's why it hasn't been working for a while, but now it's all better, so be ready for pictures galore. 

I invite you all to read 2 scriptures and ponder on why Jesus Christ, our Savior, was the only one that could bring to pass the atonement. 3 Nephi 11:11 and Moses 4:2

They teach us here in the mission and before as well, that obedience to the commandments allows the Spirit to work more in our lives, therefore recieving more guidance and benefiting by more spiritual power. So the more obedient we are, or the more time we have being obedient, or trying to do so, the greater influence the Spirit can have on our lives, and in the longer run, the more we will become like Jesus Christ. I have definitely witnessed that in my life, even though I wouldn't have put it in those terms, and I have been able to see it a LOT during my mission and in my own life. They say that the more obedient (or the more clean) we are the thinner the veil gets between us and the Lord, I believe that it's true.

I love you all and I hope you have a fabulous week! I'll get to tell you all about my new area next week, so be ready for story time! :) Please pray for me and the people in my new area, so we can find each other and be edified and grow together, and that Elder Smoot and I wil be able to find the people that God has prepared to recieve our message.

Elder Robinson

P.S. here's a picture of collected salt on a tock in Cobquecura

and a rainy sunny day we had last week!

 

 

No Time to Write!

Ack! Sister Kirby and I talk a thousand miles a minute so we ran out of time today to write. Oh ya, she is my new companion. I stayed in the area and sister Erickson went to East Sacramento. She has just been a gem and I will miss her. I love Sister Kirby so far though! We're getting along really nicely. She is going to help me be healthy this last transfer of mine! She's gorgeous and tiny, so  hopefully that will rub off haha. She is from Las Vegas and has been out 10 months and she was trained by my friend from earlier in the mission, Sister Darling! This is going to be a good transfer.

Quick stories from this week
Wednesday: we did the service where we help old people with technology again and this guy told me he wanted to learn as much as he could about Isis. So I showed him how to google search on his  phone and he was using the microphone feature to speak the words. He was saying, "Isis, please. Wait, I mean Siri not Isis! Oh no, the government will be here in minutes!" Hahaha and all of it typed out in the Google search bar as he said it. Oh it was so funny I was dying.

I was trying to help someone else later and I leaned over to show them somethings and fell off my  chair. Chair tipped over completely and I was on the ground. It was so embarrassing!

Thursday: we gave out silly awards to everyone in the zone. In return we got the, "you care more about the zone than the zone leaders" award.

Awesome miracle with a potential named Heather and who was really interested and gave us her number and told us to set an appointment in the coming week! It was so exciting. I also had a crazy eye burning emergency during a lesson after dinner that caused me to awkwardly leave in the middle of it to flush out my eye. It was burning and watering and I just had to interrupt right in the middle of the conversation to walk out and wash it out. I think maybe I touched an onion during dinner or something and that was it. Anyway, here are some pictures! Love you all!

Sister Robinson