Letter 9/19/11 and pictures

Dear family this has been a great experience and probably the best decision I ever made.  No the best decision I have made.  I love it more and more.  When I look back to see where I started all the way back from when I was a boy when I first made that decision to go on a mission.  I'm thankful for all of you that helped me set and make goals to be able to be where I'm at today.  This week has been great.  I think there is a good chance I'm leaving but nor for sure yet so Crofts and I are enjoying the last 7 days with each other.  He is definitely my favorite companion.  We are chill.  Well he and I are off to a great start this week.  We have put quite a few hours of tracting and had great success.  We have 5 return appointments and have already taught 2 of them so it's been great.  We have also started teaching V D's brother C.  We have been making pretty good friends with him.  He is hard to teach so we are working with him slowly.  We also have been focusing on K's aunt, S W.  She was slowly falling away because we have not been able to see her as much as we would like.  Well we taught her the Plan of Salvation and her eyes lit up.  She was impressed to see that in her own Bible then to top it all off we showed her why the Book of Mormon is so important by using Alma chapter 40:11-14.  Showing her the state of rest in the spirit world.  We had a great lesson with her.  She loved it.  We are hoping to reset a date with her for September 29th.  She will be ready.  Well today is Thursday and we have weekly planning but before that we had interviews with President Irion and Sister Irion. They are great and still have that excitement.  Well 4 of us were interviewed at the church and they all went well.  While we were waiting we had the chance to visit with Sister Irion.  She is pretty chill to talk to.  We talked about her daughter in Russia.  She has been serving for 8 months.  I asked her what it is like to have an apostle for a dad.  She said it was pretty neat but you just never get to see them that often.  She told us of some stories of when he was a heart surgeon and some childhood memories.  Pretty interesting.  Well after that we went back home and weekly planned and set some goals as a companionship on top of what we already have.  We set a work out plan so we can stay in shape and lose weight because as of right now I'm 95% Idahoan and 5% Georgian.  Well sounds like potatoes are about ready to start and the grain is put in for the year.  Keep up the good work love Elder Robison

Llamas at Shinoocks

Door to our apartment

Outside our apartment

Charly

Crofts

good old Charly

Louisa and Angie

Crofts cooking

my pond

dinner appointment at DelaCruz

District and I doing reports

Sister Laulea & Sister Christiansen

Elder Sowards, me, E, Crofts & Sexton

I'm crouching because E doesn't like being short

E & me

  I found out today that he gets to stay in Dalton for another 6 weeks with Elder Crofts.  He was pretty excited.

Letter 9/15/11

Dear family well great week to start it all off we had a baptism on Sunday morning @ 8:00.  I can't remember if I told you about E..L..  He was one of our invstigators that we would teach and then let the sisters fellowship him because they live not to far from him.  It worked out great.  I had the opportunity to baptize him.  He was really excited and it meant the world to him.  I asked after how he felt and he said neuvo y limpio so that was great.  Well the reason y'all probably havent heard me talk about him is because we verily started to teach im 3 weeks ago and I did not think he would get baptized so fast.  He is leaving to Florida so that is why he wanted to be baptized so fast.  Well the next day was P-day and we had a zone activity.  We all got together and played ball.  It was good fun, Pratt and Sexton were there so we challenged them for a quick game of ball.  This week we got the car back from the other missionaries.  It was a good week to have the car because it rained for 3 days straight.  it flooded a lot of roads and some were closed down so I enjoyed the car.  Well we are commiting K.... aunt for baptism tonight so hopefully we will have another ready in 2 weeks so pray for her.  Well we commited her and she accepted but the date we gave her will not work.  She is going to tell us this Sunday when she can so I'm happy she is doing good.  Well I just got the letter of the week and it sounds like harvest is getting done.  Well Matt tell him he needs to suck it up and get back to work haha j/k.  Well you all sound great so keep it up and hope y'all are doing good so keep up the good work and be safe.  It sounds like dad is going to have to get training wheels for the 4 wheelers.  Have a good week.  Elder Robison

Letter 9/6/11

Hey family well this week has been great.  We have had many opportunities to get into peoples houses this week.  some of them we have some return appointments.  One guy who sticks out to me is this guy who we were talking to.  He told us that we had stopped by this morning.  We looked at him a little funny.  He told us that they were J Dubs (Jehovas Witness I assume)  He kind of did not care about our message until we brought up unpaid ministry.  As soon as he heard that he asked us if we wanted to come in for a soda.  From there on he was glued to our message.  We are going to teach him this next Sunday.  Hope the best for this guy.  We also talked to an old lady who listened to our message but didn't want us to come back but told us she was going to read it.  Well the reason I tell you about his is because I have a good feeling about her.  Well Keyaundra is doing great, in fact she is doing missionary work as we speak.  She has asked 3 people to take the discussions.  Her aunt Sherri Hawkins.  Her friend Sean and another friend that I have not met yet.  She has been a big part of our success.  We are grateful to have her around.  The 2 out of the 3 we taught they seem to have interest especially Sherri.  She is looking forward for church next Sunday.  She accepted a soft commitment as well.  She is doing great.  She does have word of wisdom problems so pray for her.  Well we also had a great opportunity to teach Keith Johnson.  He read the Book of Mormon so we went on ahead and taught him the Plan of Salvation.  He understood it clearly but did not believe it even when we taught straight scripture out of the Bible and Book of Mormon.  He used to be a J-Dub so it is a little more difficult but I like it because we actually get to teach so I like it.  He still has interest in us so we are just waiting for his answer in the B of M.  It's going to come sooner than later.  It always seems like I'm never satisfied for some reason.  If I feel like I need to work on Spanish then the next week I feel like I don't know my scriptures like I should so I just want to have it all well I notice things come with time I guess you could say.  Well funny story of the week, I ate it on my bike and jacked up my pants.  Well let me tell you how and why it happened.  Well we just got done eating at De La Cruz house and I ate too much as usual so we took of and I peddled up behind Crofts and grabbed his back pack and he was peddling us up the hill.  Well it came to the point we had to get off the curb and get on the street well Crofts swerved hard in front of me and my front tire hit his frame and turned my forks a 90 degree angle so I kind of went over the bars.  Well I was not on the ground for to long because the ice cream man saw the whole thing so I got back on and hurried away.  So it was pretty funny.,  Well it was a good week and thank y'all for your letter have a good week and love y'all.  Elder Robison

Letter 8/26/11

Dear family well I just received the package.  First thing I wanted to say is thank yo.  Thanks for the love and support you give.  The pictures are great and y'all look like you are having a blast up in the cabin.  It makes me realize how many blessing we have because our family is so united and so happy.  I'm so thankful to have y'all apart of my life.  Y'all don't change.  Well thank you for this wonderful package.  There was a lot of work that went into it thanks for everything.  Just a little more news the baptism is cancelled.  He told us that he feels like he is just doing it to make everyone happy.  We asked him if he wanted it and he said no so we are out to find the elect.  Well today after church the Elders Quorum was in charge of the linger longer so all the men brought soup and salad.  We served the whole ward.  Brother Lunts son is visiting from Utah.  He is pretty tight.  He reminds me of Mac back at home.  We are pretty tight.  This week is going to be great for one we have the car this week and for two we have a lesson with Keith Johnson.  I'm hoping and praying that he will understand and have the chance to feel the spirit.  It is a great opportunity for a family to have more blessings which is so great because family is key to being happy in the gospel.  Well I'll have to let y'all know how that goes.  I'm trying to start a new leaf and write more.  It has been hard because I usually write at night but since I've been district leader I'm taking reports so I don't have too much time so sorry.  I'll get better.  Well take care of my cabin that looks like a blast especially with boating and karaoking.  Keep safe remember your blessings Love Elder Robison

Letter 8/23/11

Hola familia, well this past week has been great.  it still had its ups and downs but more ups.  It always seems when we have our downs is when we learn how to get back up.  This week has been a great learning experience on learning how to get back up using the tools we have especially as Latter Day Saints.  It was a great learning experience to test out prayer and the Book of Mormon.  I am so grateful to have these tools in my life.  I am also grateful for the people who made it possible for me to have these resources.  Well one of the ways our Heavenly Father shows his love is through small and simple things to let you know you are loved so we have that motivation to keep moving.  One of the motivators was when Keyaundra came up to me after class on Wednesday and gave me this envelope.  She told me thank you.  I felt so much love not just from her but from our Heavenly Father.  In the envelope was her Patriarchal blessing.  I told her that it is really sacred and should only be shared with close friends and family.  She said exactly.  It felt good to know I have helped someone and she returns the favor.  This week has been great we have met with some new people and have a new potential investigator.  His name is Keith Johnson.  He has 5 kids and a wife.  Two of the kids are over 8 years old.  His wife will probably not be too interested.  She has had some bad religious problems in the past.  Her father was shot in the head by her brother because her father was a Baptist preacher.  We're focusing on Keith as of right now.  His step father referred him to us.  Both of his parents are converts for a year now and are really giving good news.  We also have set another date with Nick this next Thursday at 6 if you all want to come you are invited.  This week has been really successful.  We are hoping to get a couple baptisms in this next month so keep them in your prayers.  Thank you for everything I love y'all, be safe.  Bring in the harvest.

Letter 8/19/11

Querido familia, Pues esta semana fue magnifico.  Yo tengo un neuvas companero.  El se ama Elder Crofts.  El es mis amigo.  Elder Henriques se fue en ? oltra lado de Tennessee.  Est atranslado es meyor.  Por que tenemos el mismo problema con espaniol.  Entonus yo tengo mas confedencia en espanil.  Well this week was amazing.  I have a new companion.  It is Elder Crofts (This is his friend from Shelly who was in the MTC with him, they are great friends)  He is a good friend.  Elder Henriques left to another area in Tennessee.  This transfer is better because Elder Crofts and I have the same problem and that is spanish so I have more confidence in my spanish.  Well I have been so busy lately.  I wanted to write more and sooner but we have been really busy with things from appointments to preparing for District Meeting.  We had our District meeting today.  It went great.  Everyone participated.  We have 2 new Missionaries in the District, Elder Crofts and Sister Christiansen.  They are great.  We have the best district in the Knoxville Tennessee mission.  I let them know that.  For this transfer we set a goal for 5 baptisms.  I know we can get it and I promised the District that if we are 100% obedient we will hit those goals.  I'm excited for this transfer.  Elder Crofts and I are planning for 2.  We have Alfredo Hernandez and Nick Martin.  We are hoping for a bonus from tracting.  We have been tracting like crazy.  That seems to be helping our spanish.  Well for teaching we taught Nick Martin this week.  He was supposed to be baptized last Tuesday but we had problems with his birth mom even though she lives in Nebraska.  We are hoping for him in the next couple of weeks.  Today when we were over at his house I felt like we need to get to know him a little better and be more of a friend so we played chess with him and we won.  I don't know how we did.  Well I'm so excited for our District.  I think we are going to be more united.  I'm starting a prayer roll for our district so when I do nightly phone calls they are going to let me know what they need help with whether it is with an appointment or return appointment or just plain tracting.  We are going to pray as a District that way we are a lot stronger.  I'm thinking this will help but I need some help on how to get some of the missionaries more effective in their work or just use their time more wisely.  A set of missionaries do the exact same thing every day so be thinking what we can do for the District to help us with our goals.  Enough about that let me tell you a little bit about this week.  Well Richard we are doing a drop lesson with him this week.  He was not progressing at all.  We went Tracting the other day and had great success.  We had 6 return appointments.  They were all spanish too so it was great.  Well it sounds like y'all are having fun especially at the cabin so send pics of all things at the cabin and of the cabin.  But thanks for writing those big huge letters every week.  I really like that so thank you.  Sorry for not writing much so I'll get better but y'all have a good week and love y'all Elder Robison

Letter 8/8/11

Dear family, well I decided to write a little bit before we head out to Sister Burns again.  She is the lady that fed us some of the best southern food I have ever eaten so I'm excited as of right now.  This past week has been great, I can't remember if I told you but we had 18 people as a district to church.  It has been great to see them there.  Nine of those people were our investigators so we are really happy.  We have had great success with Alfredo.  We are now going to start to teach his wife.  We talked to her after church.  She said she really enjoyed it she also said her daughter is looking for a new church.  We are hoping for a chain reaction with them.  Hopefully we can get them to the font as soon as possible.  They need it.  We also have a new investigator his name is Nick.  He is 17 years old and is a nephew to sister Annette Martin.  She is taking care of him.  I want to see him baptized before I leave or at least I think I'm leaving.  I've been here 6 months so I would think I'm leaving but who knows.  I kind of want to leave to go experience the mission a little bit at the same time I want to stay because I like this area a lot.  I love the people here especially the ward members here so it will be hard to leave.  I have really gotten to know a lot of people.  Well it has been a couple days I forgot to send this letter so I have a little more information.  Lets start off with Nick Martin he is 17 years old.  His grandma is a less active member that we have not visited for awhile so we just stopped to say hi.  We started talking to Nick for a little while.  I asked him if he had ever been baptized before.  He said no so we immediately started teaching him and then this last Sunday he came to church.  We gave him a hard commitment for baptism and he accepted.  August 9th at 6:00 he will be baptized.  We are excited and thankful.  Well it has already been another great start for this week.  We have a date and it seems like everyone wants to feed us because they think one of us is leaving.  There is a good chance it is me.  We have a dinner appointment every night until we are transferred.  Last night we had the Griggs they are a great family.  They have 4 boys and the oldest is 10 years old.  For the spiritual thought we made and played jeopardy.  They liked it and wanted us to come back over this Friday but we have Sister Burns and she is the best cook in the state so we told them we probably couldn't make it.  Since everyone is feeding us I put some pounds on and so has Elder Henriquez so this isn't good but I will just have to start to skip dessert.  C-ya all later you guys have a good week.  Well it is good to hear that I am going to be an uncle (Matt and Kandice)  Congrats on that so you guys better teach it my name at least so it will kind of know me a little bit. 
Love Elder Robison