Finally a letter 4/6/12

Dear family, Well fam it has been along time since I've written.  I'm sorry but I'm trying to do better.  There has been a lot going on lately.  Normally I'm not this busy but the District seems to be doing great.  I've been going and giving interviews and then attending the baptisms as well.  The sisters had 2 baptisms in the last week so they are on fire.  Then this past week I went down to Oak Ridge on an exchange with our Zone Leaders.  I went with Elder Bottom.  He is a way cool kid.  We've gotten to know each other pretty well and became pretty good friends.  Well on our exchange we had a very cool spiritual experience.  It just so happens that we ran into a spanish family.  It's a little ironic because it's not a spanish area and we can't find spanish people in our area.  His name was Jose.  We got to talking and he broke into conversation about his wife.  She has had 3 strokes ad her whole right side does not work.  She is maybe about 30 to 35 years old.  Well I offered her a blessing and she wanted one.  She can not speak or do much but she can read so after I gave her a blessing I felt the urge to give her a promise about the Book of Mormon and told her if she read with real intent she would be able to speak again.  The spirit was so strong it was great.  My spanish had no flaws because the spirit was directing the whole time.  The best part about the whole thing was Elder Bottom does not speak spanish but he understood everything.  I'm grateful for the tender mercies that happen so often.  We are hoping to check on her in a couple of weeks.  Well yesterday was P-day and we had a blast.  Well we woke up at 6:00 and went and worked out over at the Zone Leaders.  Bolt and I jumped rope for 45 minutes.  It was a good workout.  Well for the rest of the day we went to the rec center and played ultimate frisby.  I threw my arm out of socket again and right now it hurts bad.  I had a hard time sleeping because I would roll on it and it would wake me up.  Well thanks for all you do.  I love y'all so much so stay safe and take care.  Love Elder Robison

Letter 3/20/12

Family, well a lot has happened since the last time I wrote.  A lot of good.  Well to explain why I have not written it is because Brother Nicho keeps grabbing the mail and forgets that he has it so I just thought y'all forgot about me.  So here we are I will try to get you caught back up.  Well to start off with our District they are still staying strong, in fact our numbers went up again as of right now we have 19 committed with a date for baptism and 13 came to church.  Those are really high numbers for the mission so we are definitely being blessed as a District.  For our whole Zone which is 3 areas in total we have 20  committed and we have 18 of them.  Life is good.  Well to catch y'all back up with our progressing investigators.  Casey and Bethany have been real busy so we have not been able to see them as often.  Well we have a new investigator named Marcos Ribas.  He is from Cuba.  We tried to commit him for baptism but he said he needs to read a little more.  I give him 1 week to have a date.  He is a very nice guy and it feels good to speak Spanish again.  We also have still been teaching Eric.  He is not progressing as fast as we would like him to but he has still got potential for a soon date.  Well we also were referred to a guy who is a very good guy.  His name is Mike.  He had 3 kids and a wife but they all died.  Not for sure how.  We have taught a lot toward family.  The next lesson will be The Plan of Salvation.  He has a great understanding of the gospel already and priesthood authority.  Gloria is still Gloria it is hard to have faith when you have been rejected so many times.  Well the other day I received a call from an old investigator who I used to teach.  Well it turns out he wants to be taught again.  So we met with him yesterday and WOW what a crazy cool story.  He told us that when he stopped meeting with us that he was just going to be done.  Well he said something kept telling him to call and call. He lost our number but found a card we had given him.  He said even when he had this card that it would always show up.  He was talking to his wife about us again.  He was asking her if he should contact us well in the middle of the conversation at Chick-Fil-A three missionaries sat right next to them.  He took it as a sign.  Well he said that night him and his wife were looking through their DVD collection and chose a movie, a movie that they did not even know they had.  The Other Side of Heaven.  He told us that they never even knew that movie even existed.  The next day he called us and 2 days later he has a date for the5th of April.  He knew it is true and so excited to be baptized.  Well we found out he does not live in our area so we gave him to the sisters but what a blessing.  Thanks you so much for the package it is great.  Well everything is going well here so take care.  Love Elder Robison

Letter 3/10/12

Dear family, Well I figure I better get an early start this week on the letter.  Well we have a lot of new news.  We have been teaching Brooklyn, one of the members girlfriend.  Well they broke up so basically that means we broke up as well.  That is a bummer because she was doing so well.  She had read 1Nephi and understood the first 3 lessons very well.  We were just waiting on her to find her answer.  I'm hoping everything works out with her.  Terry Green he is doing good.  He is reading on his own free time without us even asking.  We only come across his drinking problem.  I think it would kill him if he gave it up cold turkey so we are trying to help him wean off so maybe we can boost up his date.  We are looking for a baptism in March.  We were planning on Eric but he is very hard to keep in contact with.  We're still trying to get with him.  He is a taxi driver so his schedule is all messed up.  Two of my most favorite investigators right now are Casey & Bethany.  They have really warmed up to us.  We went over there this past week to reschedule.  They are a great family.  They are going to grow a garden so I told them I could help them with that and also one of their shed's needs rebuilt so we are going to see if we could help them with that also.  They invited us to go bowling with them the next time their friends and them go out.  I'm way stoked for that and also when they have people over for campfires.  So we are excited to see them progress.  Pray that they will find their answers in March so they will be ready for this month.  Well I received some news Thursday.  I found out I'm going to be the District Leader for our District.  Right now our District is the best in the mission.  We are doubled in our numbers and everything is going very well.  I'm excited and a little nervous but I'm hoping to help them get our numbers higher and to see even more success.  Well I'm staying with Elder Mills and I'm excited with that as well.  I love y'all and you all be safe.  Love Elder Robison
PS  Survived the tornado's, just missed us by 3 miles so everything is all good. 

Letter 3/1/12

Feb 16, Today started out great.  We studied and prepared for our investigators.  We came up with some pretty good ideas when we teach KC & Bethany.  We are going to show them some modern day revelation by teaching the Word of Wisdom and putting The Family Proclamation into it.  I've never really taught it like that before.  We'll see how it goes.  For lunch today we ate at Oasis with The Nicho's.  It was great and I ate way too much.  We visited with them for awhile about her house ideas and getting into real estate.  It really interests me.  The rest of the day went alright we had 4 other lessons and also taught Vivian.  She is doing great and we committed her to bring her son with her to church this week.  Feb 20, Well great day.  Today was P-day we actually went to the Smokey Mountains with our whole district.  The Assistants came with us and we had a lots of fun.  Our goal was to make it to the waterfalls but we read the map wrong.  We thought it said 5.2 miles round round trip but it was one way so we did not make it to the Falls due to time.  Well to finish off our day we had dinner with Bishop and his counselors.  They made 30 pounds of wings and 3 different types.  It was really fun.  There was a kid there that used to live in the ward.  His name was Derick Hinkley.  He is in a band with his brothers and they are really good.  You need to check them out.  The Hinkley Brothers.  He gave us some CD's.  Well its been a great week and y'all have a good week.  Elder Robison

Brenan and Jeff

Elder Mills, Jeff and Brenan

Brennan & Brenan they look all bad boy:)

Letter received from Brenan's compaion Elder Mills

Dear Robison family,
Thank you so much for the Valentine's day card and tie.  Elder Robison and I had color coordinated ties for church on Sunday and several of the ward members noticed and complimented us.  Serving with Elder Robison these past few weeks has been incredible.  I am learning so much from him.  Everyone loves Elder Robison out here.  In fact, we get fed my the members more than the other set of Elders in our ward because everyone wants Elder Robison in their home.  I hope all is going well in Idaho.  My mom grew up in Idaho, and my grandparents live near Twin Falls in a little town called Wendell.  I have cousins who live in Idaho Falls.  My sister and brother-in-law graduated from BYUI and are currently at the University of Idaho where he is working on his law degree.  Even though I was born and raised in California I have spent lots of time visiting family in Idaho.  It is a nice place.  Elder Robison has shown me pictures and it looks like he is blessed with a wonderful family.  Thanks again for the card and the tie.  I truly appreciate the support.  It is such a blessing to have the opportunity to serve with Elder Robison.  Thank you for helping him be the Elder that he is.  Love, Elder Mills

Letter 2/21/12

Dear family well this week has been great.  We have had so much success with some investigators especially with some new investigators we have.  Well the regular are still the regular but we were able to meet with KC & Bethany.  They have been doing their home work that is for sure.  They had some questions we could not answer right away.  In a couple of spots in Ether it talks about steal and windows.  In that time period there were not steal or windows he said.  We will figure it out for him.  They are both seeming to warm up to us.  We were talking about how we have been working out in the morning and he wants to come with us that's way cool.  Oh ya I forgot to tell you we received permission to go work out with a member every morning at a place called Crossfit.  It seems to be working I'm pretty sore as of right now.  Hopefully KC will come with us and that they find their answers in the Book of Mormon.  We have also met with a new guy named Eric Shermonker.  He is doing very well.  We have met with him twice and he seems to be solid as a rock.  He understood the vision very well and reads the Book of Mormon often so he is doing fantastic.  One of the lessons we visited and he asked us to take the envelope in the middle of the table.  It said tithing on it so he wanted us to take it.  We told him we wouldn't be able to that we don't have permission to handle money.  We gained alot of respect because of that so we are planning on setting a date with him soon hopefully for the first of next month.  The work seems to be going great the time is flying so fast I can't believe it.  I had a neat experience this week with following the spirit.  The spirit was direct with me on what I should do and who should be apart of it.  There is a sister in the ward that has a little girl of 2 or 3 years old.  Well when I saw them in Sacrament meeting I had the feeling that we need to make sure and see her after church and to get the Clarks to go visit her that night.  Well I got it all set up and it turns out she had been having a very hard time with her husband and she never gets to talk to people much.  We had a great visit and the Clarks helped her out alot.  Well great week.  Sorry this one is so late.  Love ya so much.  Love Elder Robison

Brenan........Roman soldier

Brenan sent these in his email.  Sister Irion asked him to dress up as a Roman soldier for the training she did at their zone conference.  He had to walk in as she read a scripture.  He makes a pretty cute Roman soldier

Brenan and his companion Elder Mills