Letter 1/20/12

Dear family, well this week has definitely had it's ups and downs.  Lets start off with the bad then get to the good.  Well Jeff was planned for the 15th, well the night before he calls and cancels because he started to smoke again.  Well we had already had the whole program ready and everyone was ready to come so we were calling everyone to let them know it was cancelled.  That was really frustrating.  I guess his grandpa died though so he was way stressed and he was pretty down the next day.  We will get him ready.  Well now lets get to the good news for this week.  Well we have been teaching a lady named Angela.  She is 55 and has a good understanding of the gospel.  We committed her for the 28th of this month.  She has a couple concerns such as smoking, cocaine and lives with her boyfriend. She can do it though.  She came to church today and really enjoyed it.  She is a sweetheart.  We also taught Gloria this week.  She has been kind of slowing down.  She has not been keeping commitments.  We keep trying to get her to church but she keeps saying she will try.  She also is having a hard time praying before we leave.  She always says next time so I asked her what she wants us to say in the prayer and if she needs help with anything.  She told us she would like us to pray for a whole bunch of things.  I then asked her what she is thankful for.  She said a list of things then I asked her why she has these things and she said because in the name of Jesus then when she said that I said amen.  I told her she needs to close her eyes next time she prays.  She just laughed and said I tricked her into that one.  She is a great lady who just needs a little push to get on the straight and narrow path, which she is soon to enter through that gate.  Well this was a great week. so y'all take it easy and have a safe week.  Love Elder Robison


Alli's letter
Well it snowed just a skiff here the other day.  It is cold though the humidity goes right through your coat.  My companion is from Arizona.  He is not used to being cold but he doesn't complain too bad. haha  Well actually last Wednesday we went out on our bikes because we are in a car share now so we have to bike 3 to 4 miles just to get to our area.  Well we were coming down Broadway which is the busiest street around.  It just had rained very hard so the ground was a little wet.  Well my comp has not rode a bike much on his mission so while we were going down Broadway his front tire catches an edge and he goes over his handle bars right in front of everyone.  I was laughing so hard.  That was probably the best thing this week.  haha j/k  Well we had more success with the work down here but it seems like everytime we get closer to a baptism something always happens.  The positive side of this week is we have had some great success with knocking doors.  We were clear out in the middle of nowhere and knocking doors and this huge thunder storm hits.  When it hit us we were under this lady's porch and she told us we could wait it out so we sat and talked to her for a half an hour.  We managed to slip in the first vision.  She was nice but not too interested.  Well we had an appointment at 3 so we had to head off in the rain.  We got soaked.  It kind of felt good after awhile so it was a little bit fun.  Well I'm hoping this letter is better then the ones in the past but I found a solution to my short letters.  You just need to read them slower. haha j/k

Email from Brenan this week----I told him to tell me something funny and spiritual from his week

well something funny is we had to ride bikes this week and Elder Harwood
has not rode much and he wrecked his bike in front of everyone at an
intersection in town it was great.  The spiritual side of this week is
this guy called and left us a message on our phone and said this is life
or death. Well we go over to his house and he said that the Book of
Mormon answered his question. He told us his life sucks and he feels so
bad for all the bad things he has done. he said one night he just
opened the book and just started to read well it turns out he read
Alma 36 and when he read it to us he started to cry and it really
meant a lot to him  the spirit was really strong.