Letter 9/22/12

Dear family well I have a lot to write about so I hope to not bore y'all with this one.  I figured I'd better start off with Elder Foster.  He did an amazing job.  Our whole zone was really inspired and felt confident when they left.  It was by far the best conference yet.  Everyone thinks that Elder Foster and I are pretty tight or something.  Elder Foster made it sound like we were good friends.  He talked about the farm and told everyone if they have ever eaten an Idaho potato that it probably came from our farm.  He let everyone know that I have the nicest sister and she cleans his teeth so everyone got the vibe that we were family friends.  With his training he did a wonderful job.  Our investigators in our area the Delgado family a hispanic family of 6 they are struggling with money right now they are scraping all they can to make the light bill so our bishop came with us and helped us out.  He gave them some money out of his own pocket so hopefully we can get them rolling.  We are also teaching Shelly & Dusty.  Shelly is getting close to baptism.  She is a nice lady.  She was referred to us by Gloria one of my old converts so that is way cool.  Well a little bit about our area during football season.  Well with the Vols they had a game against the Florida Gators last Saturday.  At 5:30 in the morning the streets were full with people in orange.  It was nuts.  The YSA had a tailgate party at the institute.  it was pretty fun.  I think next week we might see if we can get permission to go to the game but I doubt it.  Well not much more to say but I love y'all and have a good week.  Elder Robison

Letter 9/10/12

Dear family, sorry I've not been able to write too much these past couple of weeks.  Well to catch you all up where I'm at as of right now with our investigators we have seen some serious miracles.  Our ward is doing a 40 day fast!! Elder Shoemaker and I have taken advantage of it and have found some really awesome people.  We found the Delgado family.  They are hispanic but don't speak spanish.  They are in true need of help.  They don't have money and have to take care of 4 kids.  The oldest being 11 and the youngest being 3.  Three of the kids will be able to be baptized as soon as we prepare them.  We also were referred to a lady named Shelly.  She has a date for the 21st  so we need to get her ready.  I think her son will be baptized with her as well!  We went to a return appointment yesterday.  It is an old couples house.  Their names are Tom & Ella.  They are a good family.  When we set this return appointment we thought they didn't have much interest but they let us in to share a message.  She read a little bit in the Book of Mormon!!  They are super good people and I'm excited to see where they head to.  Last Tuesday we had our Council with the Zone Leaders.  4 1/2 months ago I was the youngest one in the council but now I'm the oldest.  Just in that short time a lot of things have changed.  For the 12th of this month Elder Foster(Brad Foster) is coming from the 70 to the mission.    We were asked to give a 15 minute training on Gospel blessing families so it will be a couple of sentences to expound upon.  Well I heard the bad news about Keely.  It is still hard to take in.  It's kind of hard to believe.  I hope the family will be able to endure it well because I know how much Kristy loved Keely so it will be hard.  I hope the other girls are OK.  Well that is just a little bit of where I'm at so y'all have a good week and be safe.  Elder Robison

Letter 9/2/12

Dear family well a lot has changed since last time I wrote.  I will try to start where I left off.  Well Elder Craw went to West Hills all last week to go get trained to be an assistant so I have been with the Farragut Elders off and on.  It's been fun they have an awesome ward mission leader Brother Ray.  He is a ears, nose and throat specialist so he took us out for dinner at some nice restaurant.  Farragut is a very wealthy area so all doctors, lawyers and business men live there.  We knocked on the VP of Mastercraft.  His home was huge.  Well I have my new comp now.  His name is Elder Doug Shoemaker from Mesa Arizona.  He is a cool kid.  So far this week we have had so much success.  The most success since I have been in Pleasant Ridge.  Last week we found 11 new solid investigators!!  and we committed 3 investigators for baptism.  The first one is Nate Thompson.  He is a members friend and is a black guy.  His date is for the 28 of September.  Next we set a date for Eryn.  January 20th.  I think they want me to come back out for their wedding and baptism!  We finally set a date with Lauren for September 15.  We are going to keep them in our prayers and we should have 2 more this week:).  I'm enjoying the work everything is going really well for P-day I might go play some ball so y'all have a good week.  Love Elder Robison

Letter 8/17/12

Well to start off by giving y'all some info on this past week.  It has been busy with all the meeting stuff.  We had zone council which was Tuesday all day.  Friday we had our zone conference which went super good the spirit was strong and the reason being is it was on a very good subject The Book of Mormon so everyone had another spiritual witness that it is true so it was pretty cool.  Sister Irion's daughter just got back from her mission and she gave a training at the conference as well.  She had some cool experiences on her mission.  My training was on gaining confidence in the Book of Mormon.  It seems we offer it to so many people and it is the number 1 turned down message.  I gave advice on how to gain peace, confidence and strength.  It went well.  Well for some teaching experiences this week we went to this guy's house named Chris.  He is Pentecostal so he gets excited when he feels the spirit so he kind of scared the crap out of us.  We taught him with boldness and just laid the law.  We also had a good Sunday this week.  We had a member from the YSA bring 2 of his friends and we taught them after church.  One of them was really smart and had some deep questions.  We answered them well and confounded all doctrine to his needs.  We left him with a Book of Mormon promise.  Another Chinese guy is now coming to church.  There are now 2 Chinese investigators and they don't even know each other both are in the sisters area so bummed about that.  But to make up for it a couple of different members referred their friends to us and 1 might be promising.  She has 3 kids but all are under the age of accountability.  The Rivera's a spanish family invited us over for dinner tonight and to talk to their neighbors.  Well the neighbors did not show but hopefully we'll get a hold of them.  It has been forever since I spoke in spanish so I'm pretty rusty I imagine.  Well this is my life at the moment.  I might be out of here in 10 day's but who knows so here is the short weekly letter.  Have a great week.  Love Elder Robison

Letter 8/10/12

Dear family, well I received your package.  It was great.  It made my day.  The pictures are great now I can see so much change back at home.  Renlee can stand.  I think her chubbiness holds her up.  It looks like y'all are having a blast.  Don't tell Byron Wood but he is completely gray.  The Bishopric is starting to look like the first Presidency haha j/k.  The picture of all the younger cousins.  They have all changed as well so they are growing fast.  Don't let me forget to compliment on the tanning mom keep it up give those legs some sun. haha j/k  Well it seems y'all are doing great so keep it up!! Well grain Harvest is about to start so my question is are the John Deere deal on the combines too?  Well the work is starting to pick up our teaching pool is different people but I believe they are chosen to be ready at this time .  cool experience happened this week.  Well we will start with Chris #1 we taught him about 3 months ago but just one visit.  Well we were helping down at the food pantry and Chris came up to us and told us that he needs help spiritually so we set up an appointment with him.  I know he will be open and accept it.  Chris #2 well we had another referral from the pantry.  We were on our way to go see him and we passed Sims road and in my mind I remembered a date back at the apartment that had an address with Sims Road so I turned around to go get it.  We couldn't find it so we went back to the referral and he was not there but his neighbor was outside.  We started talking to him and he wants us to come back well it was perfect timing because he just walked out as soon as we pulled in so that was cool!  Also today I had a thought go through my head that was one of our old investigators.  The thought was just to stop by.  It was a strong thought because she lives 7 miles out of town so we stopped by and she was home.  She was excited to see us because she felt hopeless.  She had just been laid off from her job.  She had had her job for 11 years so she was upset.  She said something cool!  She told us we always come at the right time.  It made me feel great.  Last district meeting we went out to eat with the Marysville district.  We went to Hot Red which is a burger joint.  Well they are famous for the 30 oz burger and a pound of fry's and you have to eat it in 30 minutes.  The district challenged me to do it.  I finished in 29 minutes 46 seconds so verily.  I won a t shirt and a picture on the wall.  I was sick for most of the day but it was worth it.  We have zone conference in a couple of day's so I am speaking on what to prepare and how to present it.  Elder Brad Foster will be our visitor in September so that will be neat.  he will probably come for our zone council as well.  That's all the exciting news thanks so much for the package it means everything!  Love Elder Robison
Sunday
Well I figured I would write a little more before I put it all in an envelope well this was a great day at church for the Knoxville mission.  We had a normal sacrament in Knox 1st and for the YSA we had Elder Himas from the 70 come and speak.  It was great.  I was able to talk to him for quite awhile before the meeting started.  I forgot to tell you that before YSA a chinese guy came in and asked how he could be part of the church.  When I heard this I was overcome by the spirit of gratitude and thanks.  My prayers have been answered!  Well we teach him and he does not know much about religion or much so we taught very simply and basic.  We set a date of baptism for him this month.  After the lesson we take him out to the foyer to go visit with the members.  Well they were asking where he lives and it turns out he is in the sisters area so I was taken back a little but the sisters are good teachers.  It will be good.  Well in the YSA a member brought 2 friends with her so we went and introduced ourselves and after we talked to the member and she wants us to teach her.  Well there again we found out she lives in the sisters area so hopefully we will get a break around here.  It's all good.  Erym came to church she is doing great:)  but still has to wait for January so we'll wait.  Just thought I would give you the update for Sunday.  Elder Robison

Brenan's email

Well just a second ago Sister Irion came in with her daughter that has been in Russia on her mission. She has been home for about 2 weeks so she is touring the Knoxville mission with pres and sister Irion so that is pretty cool to finally see president get to relax and just take it easy with his daughter. He seems to be really happy so that is cool.
Presidents letter
Well this week was great we have been able to visit a couple of our districts meetings and they seem to be doing great! Marysville had a great meeting and I think the companionship's there are working very well together. They seem to be having some success. For Farrguts district they are also doing well! This week was a very good week for the zone we had a lot of new commitments for baptism and everyone seems to be excited.  I think this is a great opportunity to keep them moving and motivated with zone conference.
              Well with our area everything seems to be going well. We had some cool experiences with following the spirit and seeing people put into our path. We went to the food pantry and we were helping pass out food and one of our old investigators came up and said hi. He asked us to come over he needs spiritual help he says so we were excited to see him come up and ask us to come over.  I have a feeling that he can be ready for this month. He wants to learn and will listen to what we have to say. His name is Chris so we are in hopes to get him to church this week with a date. At church this week we found a new guy who wants to join his name is Jarad.  He is from China. he has not much knowledge of the basics of Jesus Christ but he wants to learn and loves what our doctrine is. We set a date for him to be ready by the 18th of this month. We are going to let the sisters teach him and have some members in the Westhills ward help him and fellowship him. We are excited to see the work press forward so we are excited to see yall at zone councel. So have a good week
Elder Robison

Email 7/31/12

Wow that is so cool about Abby, that will be an awesome mission I know a couple of people who have served there and they loved it. Well with the insanity we got permission with President and all he said is that he wants to see our result pictures haha so we work out when we can some times it is not possible to do so when we have appointments in the morning or meetings but usually we hit at least about 4 days out of the 6 per week! I am not losing weight but I'm tightning up and losing fat so that is all I want. Everything has been going well with our little program we made. It has been helping some of the missionaries that take it serious so that it is pretty cool. I'm trying to figure out what I said in my last letter that I sent . I will send you Presidents report so you can get an idea were all of our investigators are at. Well I will tell you what we did for Pday yesterday it was pretty fun. Our district went to some caves and we got so dirty we were covered in mud and hopefully i will get you out some pics it was pretty cool it was nice to go do something that I would do back at home. Well these caves are right next to this golf course and why were sitting out side of the caves I went and in just in 5 min I found 50 new golf balls so I think next week we might go back and go gather all the balls and send them home or just sell them out here to the golf courses. It was pretty fun. For  the work in this area we need to do something different we have  been trying to work with the members and we are not doing so good with baptisms. It is hard to get people baptized in this area it has been over a year since there last baptism so we're in hopes we can change that. I think the hold up to this area is that the church is 30 min away and it is hard to do church tours and stuff like that but we are going to bite down and get it done.
Presidents letter
Well we have seen a lot of cool progress this week with our zone and with our area! We were able to present the program to Pigeon Forge district and as well as the Marysville district. It went really good with both it took a little while for them to grasp it so we need to make steps on the side so they know exactly what the purpose is of this paper.  We might even need to add a little more to it but overall when they figured it out some of the areas were really excited to know that they are part of a pilot program. The ones who have taken it serious have already seen results. In Bays Mountain they were able to go in with their commitments in mind and to invite her to do more. Well she accepted and they set a date with her. It was cool to hear! I think this paper has all to do with if the set of missionariess take it seriously so we might need to stress the importance of it and the success of it to some areas. SO FAR SO GOOD

With our area we are going to apply the teach in faith as soon as possible we tried to do so but our appointment canceled. we will report on the success in the next letter. Well we had some cool experiences with doing a service project this week. There is a food pantry that we go help pass out food well some of the people can not carry the food all at once so we help carry it out for them and on our way to the car we are able to share a message with them and they are more receptive to our message because we are serving them at the moment so they give full attention to us and we are able to set a return appointment with them.  We were able to get 6 new investigators for it so now our next step is to follow up with them.  Its a great finding tool that needs to be used every where if possible.

Eryn Sanders is doing great spiritually she has such a great testimony with whatever we teach. Whatever we say she listens and believes so we love to teach her.  Our next lesson with her is to teach her the word of wisdom and get her to live it and then talk about obeying the commandment and to do whatever it takes to do.  We are hoping that she will make her date. It is going to take a big act of faith on hers and our part so we are excited to do so. Well im excited for zone councel to hear and present our training so we will see you this week Love Elder Robison