Well folks another week has come and gone and the work of the Lord is progressing. We have been working hard and we've some of the fruits of our labors. We helped this random family move and we went back to teach them and they let us in and we had a super good lesson with them. It's been fun seeing Elder Bruggeman improve his teaching skills and get better at listening to people's needs. I'm a proud dad haha
Well we did some service this week for a bunch of people and we were able to get in with them after that and share a message. So service is awesome. The neighbor of one of our Investigators had a pretty crazy thing happen the other day. His grandson is kind of nuts and locked all of the doors in the house and then in the middle of the night burned the house to the ground 😈🔥 so it's just a charred mess right now and we went over to help the grandparents (who somehow escaped unscathed) clean up the place. They are die hard Baptist but they were appreciative of our help and let us share a scripture with them from the Book of Mormon. It was cool OH this Sunday one of the coolest members of our ward spoke and it was really powerful. He's now the stake patriarch and he spoke about revelation and told us his conversion story. He remembers the missionaries that got him interested and one of them told him this. "Your first job as the father of the house is to save yourself. Then you can save your family." and now he's the patriarch... Pretty cool eh? Well love you all, hope you have a great week. I'll see you later! Elder Robison
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Just so you know I'm not being apostate by emailing on a Tuesday at 8 pm, our P-day was today because of transfers and we did service all day for some Less actives. So we didn't get to have a P-day this week. 😧 We just finished showering and eating our first meal of the day so now I get to email for a little bit
Here are some highlights from the past week: 1) We had another baptism this week! It was Eddy's grandpa David. He had taken the missionary lessons from my past comp Elder Toledo when he was here in Silsbee about a year ago. He hadn't been baptized because of some word of wisdom problems but the Lord helped him overcome it and he was finally baptized this last week. So Elder Toledo and his trainer (who drove from Maryland) got to come and see the Baptism. It was really good, the spirit is so strong while performing ordinances of the gospel. Their family is going to be so blessed because of their introduction to the gospel. I'm so grateful I was able to be a part of their eternal progression. 2) We moved two less active families this week and I have decided if I haven't used something in over a year to give it away. Hoarding is a real problem people. But no it was good to help people, performing service brightens your day, and the day of who is being served. It's really a win win. Plus your blessed for it, so it's a win win win. 3) My poor son was pretty sick this last week which made it hard for us to get out there and sweat for Jesus, but it's not to hard to do that when your in south east Texas. Its crazy that I've put on so much weight when I sweat so much. But then you look at what I eat over the course of a single day and it makes more sense. Eat to live, don't live to eat. 🍗🥓🍔🍟🍕🌭🌮🌯🥙🍪🍩🎂🍫🍬🍭🍌 4) We did some exploring yesterday and found this abandoned hospital! It looks like it's been out of commission for at least 20 years because there were old radios and 8 track players and stuff I didn't even know what they did. But man, in the movies when they picture abandoned post-apocalyptic environments, it's pretty accurate. The place was wrecked, there were plants all overgrown and crawling up in there and there were just vurnies and wheelchairs and old hospital beds all over the place. The pharmacy part still had old pill bottles and sample vials and stuff like that. The children's wing had a bunch of nasty stuffed animals and dolls all over the place and water was dripping from the ceiling. The place smelt like black mold and moss. All in all it was pretty cool to see 5) OH my email title. Eddie and his sister call John the Baptist, John the Baptism. It's pretty funny. We asked them where the Jordan River was and they said North Carolina. So apparently Jesus was baptized by John the Baptism in North Carolina 😆 cute kids 6) Oh our AC went out again. So that was the worst haha. Apparently if you don't have an air filter then your air conditioner radiator thingy will freeze into a solid block of ice ❄... Which makes it not work. Who knew? So needless to say we got hot and melted it and cleaned it off so it mostly works now. 7) transfers happened today and me and Elder Bruggeman are staying in Silsbee so I get to finish training him so that's awesome. My super good buddy Elder Bott who I have served around for 6 months got transfered and he goes him in 6 weeks so I'm not going to see him for another year or so. 😢 So that was sad but it's part of life. I've made such good friends with some of the guys out here and they all go home next transfer its going to be boring without them. But that's okay because then I'll become that cool 😎 guy whose been out over a year and knows all of these dead ☠️missionaries. Plus having fun isn't really the point of it all anyway its just an added perk. Well folks that's about all, oh I would suggest checking out the gospel study topics in the gospel library under topics. They have been super cool to learn from and I've found that studying the Scriptures to answer a question or learn more about a topic has been most effective for me. I love you all, I love missionary work, I love Texas, I love the gospel, I love good BBQ, I love the Lord, I love delicious snacks, and I love packages and emails. 🤗 There is a new address for mail 2815 West Lake Houston Parkway #109 Kingwood, Texas 77339 Thanks for everything you all do, have a great week! Elder Robison Well folks this was a pretty good week we were frantically teaching this awesome little 8 yr old kid to get him baptized this week. He made it! Eddie's a super good kid, his parents were very abusive and neglected him and his 3 sisters. so they live with their grandparents now. Grandma is a recent convert that my old companion Elder Toledo baptized and she is really cool. The grandpa is quitting smoking and he's getting baptized this Saturday so that's going to be awesome! Good things are happening in Silsbee. That's really about it this week. The mission is doing this point challenge between the zones and our zone was in last. So we have been really hitting the grind and we have seen the fruits of it. We blitzed the sisters area (which means we basically just worked in their area) yesterday trying to put someone on D8 but we couldn't find anyone so that was sad. But we have been working hard. Having fun. And taking lots of pictures, your welcome. Love you all! Have a good week Elder Robison This was a pretty good week! We had new missionary training on Tuesday so that was fun! My son is doing well he's a good missionary, he wants to work hard and be obedient so that's really good. We are working on learning the doctrines in the lessons because sometimes the doctrine he teaches is a little off haha. Oh and they are doing this new thing called missionary certification where all missionaries that came out since Christmas have to pass this test where they have to be able to teach all the lessons very simply and also have 40 bible verses on controversial topics like:
1) Nature of God 2) One God – Trinity 3) Deification (to become like God) 4) Book of Mormon (showing there is more scripture than the Bible) 5) Faith vs. Works 6) Plan of Salvation 7) Apostasy/Restoration 8) Plural Marriage So we have been studying the bible and man do I love the New Testament! It's so good it's all about Jesus and it's really confusing but once you figure out what they are saying it's the coolest thing ever. So we are loading up our bible scriptures to help us teach people better with the bible. Oh another thing that was fun was i asked the sisters to do a segment this district meeting about reacting positively to sad situations and they went all out. There was this timed course were you drew a scenario and if you drew a negative reaction then you had to complete a task like: eat a bag of cheese it'z by throwing them in the air and catching them your mouth, or ride my bike around the gym three times, or build a temple with Jenga blocks. Needless to say it was super good and we learned a lot and sisters are just the best. Miracle happened this week, we finished teaching this 8 yr old kid who was in date for the 4th of July but when we finished the dad asked if we could do it this Saturday and if he could be baptised as well! So that's awesome we are going over every night to make sure they are ready but, if the Lord is willing, we will have two baptisms this Saturday! Woohoo That's about all folks. Love you all, happy fathers day to all you fathers out there. Maybe Max will be one soon as well so that would be cool 😊 Hagw Elder Robison Man do I like being out here in Silsbee Texas. It's a wonderful place, everyone here is so Christian and redneck it's amazing.
We had a good week we put two of our Investigators on date this week and they came to church! So that's really good news. Me and my son are riding our bikes a lot in the heat so we can talk to more people and it's been really good. We get to lose weight, sweat A LOT, and talk to way more people. It's been good. We had our zone conference this week and it was short and sweet, we learned about how to properly use our smartphones that we have. We don't use any paper anymore, no planners no area books no nothing. So it's kind of aids to put everything in the phones but it's alright. We also had a pretty decent district meeting this week, we got these cool new pass along cards and so we talked about how to use them effectively. And my son made hot wings for everyone and they were delicious but they made us all sick haha 😂 We started teaching these two kids who came from a really bad place and were ery mistreated, so we are teaching them about the gospel. I love teaching kids it's my favorite thing ever, they are so sweet. OH for Pday today we went fishing and I CAUGHT a fish! It was a little guy but I held it closer to the camera so it looks bigger haha 🤣 Well I love you all and I'm having a good time here in Texas Have a good week! Elder Robison Alright so here's the deal, I totally sent my email last week; however, my tablet didn't actually send it. So I apologize to my mother, because she was probably pretty worried/angry with me. But lucky for you guys, now you get two weekly emails for the price of one!
So here's last week's: Hello family and friends, hope everyone's doing well. Hope Max and McKay don't get hit by the hurricane, I hope it comes over here haha I want to be in a hurricane. This week we saw a turtle get runnover, we got the rav 4 all muddy, one of our investigators accepted the invitation to be baptized, my son is learning a lot. My companion is Elder Bruggeman, he is from Montana. He was a missionary in Ghana Africa for 5 months but came home for medical reasons and then he wanted to go back out so here he is now. He likes to talk about africa A LOT, like a LOT. I'm learning how to be more patient haha but all is well I'm having a good time and absolutely LOVE Silsbee. All the members here are just the kindest most genuine people ever and I'm hoping I'll be here forever. It's a wonderful place. My favorite part about the mission so far is seeing people change for the better through the gospel. It's so cool to see the light and the hope that the gospel brings into people's lives. Our district meeting this week was about sharing the good news of the gospel to people. I think it went really well and we all learned a lot and the spirit was super strong. I love this gospel, I love this church, and I love Jesus Christ. I'm so happy I'm out here on a mission Love you all! Elder Robison And now this week's email: Well this week flew by 🛩️💨 I got to go to MLT with the some of my favorite humans on Tuesday. We slept over at my old zone leaders apartment where my old comp Elder Toledo and my good buddy Elder Larson (🗣️shout out) live. While we were at MLT President Hewlett received some really clutch revelation and told us some things that I think we all needed to hear, at least I needed to hear it. I also learned more about accountability, which is usually a really boring thing to talk about. The APes said that T.H.E.M. is a skyscraper, and the foundation of the skyscraper is accountability. I think I understand why now as well, because we have to be held responsible for our areas and President Hewlett is held accountable for T.H.E.M. and we are all accountable to the Lord for what we are doing with the talents (like the parable) that he has given us. Kinda scary but cool. Training is fun and hard, Elder Bruggeman is my adopted son because he already served for a few months in Ghana, but he wasn't really a missionary there. He was born into apostasy and his trainer just made them watch movies all day and sleep in and stuff so he didn't really know how to be an actual obedient missionary when he got here. He knows how to now though 😁. The work is still slow, the few people we have are not keeping their commitments anymore so that's frustrating. There is this little 10 yr old boy who comes to church with his grandma every week but his parents are kind of against the church so it's making it hard to teach him. But this week the little homie said that he wants to get baptised and that he would ask his parents about it so we have been praying that it will work out. Man last night there was the craziest lightning storm ever. We almost got struck walking into the church, the hair on my arms was standing up, and I felt like I had a ton of static on me, twas crazy. ⛈ but we survived and got to watch the youth devotional thing which was really good! I love President Nelson, he's such a nice grandpa. Well folks, that's a wrap... Or is it a rap? 🤔 🤔 🤔 Love you all 🤘 Elder Robison Pics Well everyone the transfer doctrine is in and I'm having a child. It's a boy, he weighs in at about 205 and is about 5' 10" tall.
So instead of giving me less responsibility this transfer (like I was hoping) President decided to go ahead and leave me as the DL and give me a son😧. So my good buddy Elder Kennach is out of Silsbee. Im gonna miss the kid but it's probably for the best because we definitely were not as obedient as we should have been 🙈. So this next transfer will be good, me and Elder Bruggeman will be hitting the grind. Honestly I am actually kind of excited to be training I've always thought it would be fun. And I know that with a heavier load it gives me more spiritual traction so I can learn more, but learning more requires change and that's the hard part 😔. But I'm learning to love it I guess But let's talk about this week a little. This week was a blur but some good stuff happened. The last week of the transfer always goes by super fast and this was no exception. We had exchanges this week with the zone leaders. Elder Harmon came with me in Silsbee while my companion went and partied it up in the YSA ward for the day. Something he taught me how to do was we are going completely paperless now. No missionary daily planner, no writing lesson plans on sticky notes, nothing. We are starting to plan every thing on the Area Book Planner App and it takes like 3 times longer to do but it's going to be good for lots of reasons. Anyway, we set up like 3 dinner appointments with Less Actives for this week so hopefully they all work out! That's going to be the focus this next transfer for us, finding through less actives. Everyone here is a part member family so we've just gotta get in there and help them feel the spirit then we will be dunking people left and right. And then Saturday we had a cool miracle happen, and it came about because I go to the bathroom like 7 times a day lol 🤗. Haha but we were on our way to our ministering meal (we call them that now, not dinner) and I had to use the restroom but I didn't feel like using the members bathroom. So we drove to the church real quick and as soon as we pulled into the parking lot a F-150 rolls up that we didn't recognise. Me and Elder Kennach jokingly said, "it's our new investigator who wants to get baptised!" And we stepped out to go into the church and the guy gets out of the Fiso (F-150) and comes up to us and asks if we are the missionaries. He says that he has been going through a really hard time and he was led back to this church and he wants to be baptised and rededicate his life to God. So we brought him inside taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ and How to be cleansed from sin, and invited him to church. Turns out the guy is a member just really less active so no baptism but reactivation is basically like being baptised again. So yeah that's pretty cool. God's good at what he does. Then another cool thing happened this Monday morning. Since transfers are on Tuesday (due to new missionary flight schedules) this Monday morning us and a bunch of other missionaries got invited to sing at a Catholic funeral for this members father who just passed. So we got to see the whole Catholic funeral production thang which was pretty cool. And then we sang God be with you till we meet again as they escorted the casket out. And man someone must have turned the water pipes on because everyone started leaking out of their eyes when they heard my wonderful singing voice. Hopefully they were crying because the spirit touched them and not because my vocal performance burst their ear drums. But yeah that was really cool, the pastor guy was pretty cool. He looked like Santa clause 🎅 But yeah this was a pretty decent week. We had the grandparents of this young women we are teaching come to church this Sunday and that was really cool to see them take the sacrament again for the first time in like 15 years. So that was a highlight for sure. My district is changing a bunch to. One person from each companionship got transferred so it's going to be a whole new group to get to know and work with. I'm excited. Well sorry it was long, and for those of you who don't read my emails and just look at the pictures (basically everyone but my mom, and probably Robby) Here are some pics for you! Elder Robison Another week come and gone here in Silsbee Texas, every week has its ups and downs for sure so I'll share with you some of the ups for this week.
We were visiting Less Active members and felt impressed to go to this one house. When we got there they let us in and told us they have been feeling bad recently for not coming to church and their granddaughter told us she wants to start going to church too and wants to take the missionary lessons! Plus, her best friend was there and said she likes the way we teach and wants to be there for all of the lessons so that's a bonus! We sadly were not able to go to the temple this last week because we couldn't find a ride with a member. So they are giving us another chance to find a ride and go this Wednesday so hopefully we will be able to go this week. We did some off road exploring this week and visited some of the people that live way out in the boonies. We got to really put our rav 4 to the test, and I've decided that I will not be buying a rav 4 in the future. They get stuck in the mud too easily haha 🤠 There was a Silsbee Spring Festival this Saturday which was basically like a really lame onion days haha. But we went and ate some boudin (don't know if that's how you spell that) and I got to hold some snakes. He (or she 🤔) kissed me on the cheek ❤🐍 Oh there's this good BBQ place we have gone to 3 times this week and got some redneck nachos. Basically it's these deep fried spiral cut potatoes for chips, and then half a pound of chopped beef and BBQ sauce and this special ranch sauce stuff, with jalapenos. Yummmm, and I wonder why I'm getting fat 🙈 Well that's about all folks. Things with my comp are going better. It's still hard because we definitely aren't equally yoked in this relationship. It's like being married to a dude. 😡 but that's okay. I'm learning a lot, and still having a good time so I'm happy. Love you all! Have a great week! Elder Robison Hello everyone! I hope your weeks have been full of blessings and goodness, and if not, cowboy up, life is not supposed to be easy haha.
This last week was a turning point for me in my mission, well another turning point, ive had a few so far but this week was another one. We had kind of fallen in a rut of just filling our time and staying busy without accomplishing anything until this Saturday. We were blessed to have Elder Kevin Pearson and his wife come and visit us and just completely roast us all🔥. It was very much needed and very much appreciated by me. They talked about how our mission is experiencing post flood syndrome, and said that we could and should be baptizing 3 times as many people as we have been. They said a lot of really good things and I'm ridiculously motivated to be a SUPER motivated and obedient missionary. They said the difference between ordinary, and extraordinary is the little extras. And they asked us all if we DESERVE what we DESIRE. And boy do I like that haha. So expect to hear some good things coming our way because we are going to have a good week this week. we get to go to the temple (which was just rededicated this last week) this Wednesday so P-Day ends at 2 today :( but yeah! I love you all and pray for you every night, have a good week! Love Elder Robison Well time does fly by I've been out for 8 months now! So that's crazy.
This week has been pretty average. Our days are super long, we just walk down these long country roads and knock on all the doors and occasionally find someone willing to give us the time of day. But it's fun I like just being really bold with people. My companion is really quite, I don't think he likes me that much be cause he wants to be disobedient and I don't let him so he doesn't really talk to me anymore. So that's been kinda hard but it's okay we are still hitting the grind so it's fine. The ward here in Silsbee is pretty cool everyone is pretty nice and old and they like the Missionaries so we are getting well fed. Really not much happened this week that's noteworthy. Oh are mission killed Facebook for the next 65 days to purify us haha, missionaries are dumb. Love you all sorry this is a lame one but I wanna go play basketball haha 😉 Love Elder Robison |
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June 2019
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