Email letter dated Dec 5, 2012 "It's the Most Wonderful time of the Year!"

 December 5, 2012

Dear Family,

ho ho ho

It´s officially December and we´ve been graced with a lot of rain here in Cotui but we´ve yet to be graced by the sound of the Cotui birds. I actually saw one this week but I think he was scared because he didn´t say anything....

The ¨patronales¨ are in town. it´s a big carnival with a ferris wheel and lots of other little rides including the swings. We are not allowed to participate in such rides but there are tons of vendors selling super cool stuff that are here and they are from all over latin america. On saturday we walked through to buy a few things on the way home and the party was in full swing with everyone drinking and dancing to the music that the whole world can hear because it´s so loud and as we were taking the most out of the way route to get out of the crowd an go home this random woman leaned out and tried to kiss me. I was walking fast and by the time I realized what happened i had already passed her. But Elder Chalas was walking behind me and from what he said she was very close to kissing me that if I had turned my head she would have kissed my cheek.....So we have visited and bought a few cool things which you will be able to see in the package that I sent home. It has not left the D.R. yet but will be sent on Friday I think. I really doubt it´ll be in time for Christmas but you know how it is. 

So Dominican culture for men and women alike is to shave nearly all body hair: legs, armpits, chest... so I decided ¨when in the D.R., do as the Dominicans. I went ahead and shaved my legs up to mid thigh, my chest and my armpits. Hey, don´t judge me. I had to at least see what it´s all about okay. shaved legs is actually kinda nice. I don´t have the time or patience to maintain it though. I respect women who do maintain silky smooth legs, it takes time and work! I won´t continue to do it but I certainly appreciate that you will.

We have contacted a few of our references and they have definitely given fruit. we contacted Eliosel yesterday and he is 19 and talked about serving a mission! I have really high hopes for him. Also Samuel and Magalis and their kids (2 boys) show a lot of potential, they have always read and always have really good questions. Rafi and Rocío also show a lot of promise. Rocío is the heavy hitter. She is very faithful and believes in the Bible and that she needs to receive her confirmation of the truth directly from heavenly Father. She has questions but works for social security in the U.S. so she travels a lot. It makes me crazy when really good investigators can´t progress because of their job...we will see what happens.

I received Nikelle´s Christmas package on Monday and I have not opened it yet because it´s not Christmas yet.

We ran to the local dam this morning and it took a little longer than I thought it would. I quickly found my pace and ran strong. Unfortunately Elder Chalas and the member we were with didn´t want to run more....We walked a lot of the way. It reminded me of when I first started caught the bug to run when I was in Arizona, it felt good to run and to feel my muscles work and my lungs burn. I love to Run. I´ve decided that I want to run a marathon before my 22 birthday. which gives me 4 months to train after I get home. We took pictures and seeing all the water made me want to jump in or go wakeboarding.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!!!!!!! i love you!

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated Nov 28, 2012 "First week in Cotui"

Dear Family,

I´ve not yet heard the Cotui birds and honestly may never get the chance because they are so rare nowadays.....I still have hope that I will have the chance to hear them but it looks like I´ll need to go out more into the country to find me one.

The work is a little slower here in this little branch that we have. It really has potential to become a ward but there aren´t sufficient priesthood holders that pay a full tithe. There are sufficeint men that hold the Priesthood but not enough that pay tithing...

Elder Chalas and I get along great! perhaps better than the rest of my companions thus far. We have tons of fun while we work hard. He knows a lot of English and just needs to practice speaking it to really be an English wizard. We have a lot in common and we talk a lot and joke around and teach well together. He is definitely a blessing in my life. A good friend.

We had an open house in the chapel on Saturday and it went well. We received nearly 30 references from all the people that came and the members. At the beginning there weren´t that many people there so Elder Chalas hit the street talking and inviting everyone we saw to the activity and our efforts bore fruit. there were several people that we talked to that came! The purpose of the activity was for members to invite their neighbors and friends to the open house so that they could learn, feel the spirit, and we could obtain that reference but we kinda undermined the activity with all the people we invited because a lot of the references say that they are references from the missionaries.....the important things is that the people came, learned, and hopefully felt the spirit. We have a lot of work contacting all these references in the weeks to come and we are excited.

On sunday we had the opportunity to participate in the sacrament. It was the first tme in nearly 9 months that I´ve been able to pass the sacrament and it was such a good experience. I definitely took such a special opportunity for granted before. It is the most important thing we do during the week!

Unfortunately there isn´t anyone that plays the piano in the branch but if I can get my hands on a piano to practice a little I think I could change that. It won´t be great and it´ll probably be just the top hand but it would be music nonetheless.

Life is good here in Cotui and Christmas is coming fast. I love Christmas. They have a tradition here they call king´s day. which is the 6 of January and on this day everyone gives toys to the little kids as a similitude of the 3 kings that gave presents to baby Jesus. A fun tradition. I´m still a little kid at heart but I don´t think I´ll be receiving any toys. But I´ll be giving many to the little kids with all my ducks and the little toys Nikelle sent me to give to the kids. It´s more fun to give than receive. I love to their little eyes brighten as they see their little prize.

Go serve someone

Elder Robinson

P.S, I´m going to try and send a package for Christmas, unfortunately it will probably be late.....

Email dated Nov 21, 2012 "Thanksgiving"

November 21, 2012

Dear Family,

Well it is Thanksgiving tomorrow and as I recall last year we I wasn´t ¨home¨ for Thanksgiving that year either. We were in California on our trip to Disneyland and we had sub-par pizza for Thanksgiving. I love our family trips and that is the second thanksgiving we have done in California with pumpkin pie and pizza. Although pizza is very common here I would pay just about anyone 100 dollars to find me a pumpkin pie. haha.

I am now in a city called Cotui. Yes I was transfered today. Elder Escobar received a call from President Douglas on Friday and he asked him to be a trainer for a new missionary. I´ll be honest and say when I saw that it was President Douglas calling and I answered I was a little scared he was going to ask me to train but the first words he said were ¨buenas noches, Elder Escobar?¨ I said nope, give me a second and handed the phone to my comp. We both new why President was calling and Elder Escobar was very surprised. he did not expect or really even want to train 9 months into the mission but he accepted the calling with courage and confidence. But the sad part is that his companion didn´t even come today because there were problems with his visa. He is from Peru. apparently he is going to come next week but until he comes Elder Escobar is in a trio with the zone leaders...sad...So I am now in Cotui which is really far away from the city and is out in the country to the south east of Santiago. I like the city but I feel good to be out here in the country with a smaller area, less noise, less people, and it just smells like the country. I khave a great companion. His name is Elder Chalas, he is Dominican and he has about 9 months left in the mission. He is super friendly, likes to laugh and joke around and from what I can tell a good missionary. he even knows some english.

But back in Las Antillas one of everyone´s worst nightmares came true: on the same street where the missionaries live there are a lot of houses right on the bank of a really nasty river that runs close by. Well early yesterday morning 6 or 7 houses fell a good 6 feet toward the river. The pvc pipes that are supposed to carry the water from the houses to the river that are under the houses broke and the water from the pipes was filtering throught the earth underneath the houses and it got so bad that a bunch of the earth sluffed of the hill and the houses are part of the road dropped several feet. All the roofs or the affected houses fell off and many houses are now uninhabitable. Everyone was hurriedly grabbing all their stuff and putting it in the street. We went by to see if there was anything we could do to help and they told us that they were going to sleep right there in the street and that they need blankets and pillows and other essential things. I started making phone calls trying to see if the ward could do anything because it started to rain and all of thier stuff was getting soaked. Not having anything else to do Elder Escobar and I went home and gathered what things we had to spare to give to these distressed families. I was able to give 3 blankets, a pillow, 2 pillowcases, a couple shirts, 2 towels and Elder Escobar donated a few shirts, a blanket, a pillowcase, and several other clothing items to the cause.

As you can see from the pictures it is pretty bad. I´m not sure what the people who lost their homes are gonna do...

On Tuesday I found myself a few coconuts and decided I wanted to cut them open and drink the coconut milk and eat fresh off the tree coconut. TO get the coconuts I had to climba  wall and stand on top of it that was close to the tree and use a rake to knock the cocnuts from the tree. Coconuts are really hard to knock out of the tree with a rake.....Afterward we took them to a members house and I borrowed a machete and told him I didn´t want him to show me how to do it but that i wanted to learn to do it by myself. I figured i watched 3 or 4 seasons of ¨survivor¨ and had seen many contestants on that show go to town on cocunuts with a machete so I thought ¨heck, how hard can it be?¨ well I eventually did get one cut open and was able to drink the milk and it tasted pretty good. It was a lot of fun. As you can see from the pictures.

Well I hope you all have a happy thanksgiving and as you are all together eating turkey and pie. Eat a piece of pie for me and think of the little gringo on an island in the sea.

Elder Robinson

Email Letter dated Nov 14, 2012 "BBQ"

 
November 14, 2012

Dear Family,
While you´re getting dumped on by snow we had a BBQ as a zone activity today. hahaha. It was a little crazy because the zone leaders designated our chapel to be the place to do it and asked us to basically coordinate everything: the grill, volleyball net, gas, basketball...... Fortunately the members in our word are very nice and helped us. We found a grill and another guy from the ward helped us bring it to the chapel in his truck. It was a good activity. Afterwards we had to clean up and deliver the grill. The grill was still dirty because we didn´t have anything to clean it at the chapel. So we told the member we would come back in about an hour after cleaning up at the chapel to clean it for her. In traditional Dominican style she said ¨no don´t worry about it I´ll clean it¨ I told her no ad that we would come clean it at her house. It may be dominican culture to clean the dirtied grill borrowed by the missionaries but that is not how I was raised and that is not my culture. If you are nice enough to let me borrow something I will return it in the same condition in which it was originally borrowed, if not, in better condition. Walking back from her house it rained a ton and we got wet. I was wearing my new red alaska shirt (thanks mom). and because it got so wet and I have yet to wash the shirt it turned my garment pink.....

We´ve been working more with members. President Hinckley once said that missionary work to most people means tratcting and handing out pamphlets but those who are familiar with the work know there is a better way: work with the members. For the last little while I´ve felt that we have just been tracting and handing out pamphlets and Pres. Hinckley is right it is not a very effective way to work or at least not nearly as effective as working with the members. So we are trying to be better at that and are visiting members and looking for opportunities to serve. AS we contact we say: we´re missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints and we are passing by this area looking for opportunities to serve. Do you have anyway we can serve you? sweep? wash dishes? clean the car? mop?.......very few actually take us up on the offer but we are trying new methods of doing everything.

Chana and the rest of the young men and young women from the ward went to the temple last weekend and it was an amazing experience on all accounts. What a special experience so soon after being baptized. Dionis also went for the first time and he is blessing the sacrament on Sundays.

We honestly don´t have many investigators and we have even fewer progressing i.e. 0. and for that reason we are trying to change the way we do things.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated November 7, 2012 "A package and an election"

 November 7, 2012

Dear Family,

I got a package on monday!!!!!!!! and what a silly package it was. As you can see from the pictures elder escobar and I had a good time with the clown costumes. 

So obama won huh? that is unfortunate. I didn´t really follow politics before the mission and certainly haven´t followed them since but from what I have heard people say he has not done a lot of good while he´s been in office. And from Mom´s email it sounds like what I´ve heard is right. It´s unfortunate. I really had high hopes for our friend Mit. I learned that Obama won from a Ruta driver this morning on the way to the grocery store....

On the up side things are going well here. We are contacting more than I have ever contacted in my life. And we have found some people that give us high hopes. We had a baptism as you can see from the pics. A priest from the ward, Esaul, baptized Chana (her real name is rosangela). He had to dunk her like 5 times because she would try to dunk herself before he was ready to dunk her soshe would kinda flop like a fish. haha. But all in alll it went well and all is well. She is going to the temple this Friday with all the young men and young women from the ward. 

thanks for all the candy and for the shirt I love it. In fact I wore it for a little while today. It sounds like the cruise was amazing! I want to go on a cruise and ride a zipline and eat lots of food and see live music and whales and museums....someday I think I´ll go on a cruise.

for Christmas I want a yo-yo. A nice one with a brain that will sleep for a long time. A couple extra yo-yo strings would be nice too. 

Did we draw names for Christmas? who did I get?

well I´ve run out of things to say.....

Elder Robinson

P.S. 3 new star wars movies????!!!!! caution is correct. they could potentially ruin a good thing.

Email letter dated October 31, 2012 "Working Hard"

 October 31, 2012

Dear Family,

This week we have contacted more and have had several good productive and successful lessons. As a mission we are working harder to have all of the lessons that we teach be productive and focusing less on the number of lessons and more on the efficiency of those lessons. So we are working to have ´appropriate members´ in every lesson we teach which means if we teach a family we take a memeber that is married and has a family and not one of the young men because they can´t relate as well and are only there because the missionaries brought them but with an appropriate member they will become friends and help them and continue to help and be friends and visit them after baptism. So that´s where we are. 

Elder Escobar is a good companion and a good missionary. We get along better than elder Yépez and I did which is good becuase that was a tense transfer....He is fromthe capital of Honduras. He is 19. He has the same amount of time as I do in the mission in fact we´ll be leaving the mission together in 2014. He helps me with my spanish and I am helping him to learn English which is proving to be difficult because he doesn´t know any English. But with a little patience and a lot of repetition and practice he is gonna learn some English!

I don´t think they really celebrate Halloween here.....there doen´t appear to be much halloween stuff in stores, mostly just Christmas stuff. We shall see as the day progresses and hallows eve falls to see if anything happens.

I got a hair cut today. It needed to happen, it was too long. I´m back to military style at least until it grows out a little more....

I need to work on budgeting a little better. I´ve been basically living off of crackers and oatmeal for the past little while because I spent too much money when we went to the city for P-day Santiago.....I budgteted so well the last money period and followed it up by not budgeting at all......gotta work on that. I know I have my personal account if I need it but I also know that that account is not bottomless and represents a lot of hard work and saving I did before the mission and besides budgeting is a skill that I need to learn now not just to live comfortably in the mission but to manage my money in my life afterwards as well. 

I saw the pictures of the Robinson Halloween gang and you all look great! Taft just can´t seem to let that pumpkin grow. He cried as a baby when mom put it on him and now he wears it proudly. Noah is a classic ninja. That was a good year when Taft and I were ninjas. And Claire wins the costume contest with what´s-her-bucket from snow white! how did you do the thing on your forehead? is that marker or that cool indian temporary tattoo henna stuff?

We are teaching this woman named Dolores who is really good friends with one of the members here and the day we contacted her was kinda cool: all our appointments failed so we were walking around scouting out a house or two we hadn´t contacted yet and Elder Escobar asked me ¨have you ever contacted those apartments?¨ I told him know so we went. We contacted one of the apartments and had a brief lesson and as we were leaving out walked this member from one of the other apartments and upon seeing us motioned for us to come. So we went and she introduced us to her friend Dolores who apparently just before we showed up was telling Ramona (the member) how much she needed to find a church where she felt comfortable and felt it was right. And there we were right on time. On the Lord´s time. We talked to her a little and have had several lessons since and she is progressing. She came to church on Sunday and the lesson was on the Word of Wisdom which can be a touchy subject for brand new investigators but it went really well and she loved it! In the lesson we had yesterday with her she was telling how much she loves the Word of Wisdom and Doctrine and Covenants and that she hadn´t drank her coffee for 2 days. I think Dolores has been prepared over a period of time for the Gospel and I´m excited to see her progress and possibly see her accept it fully and be baptized.

The hurricane had no real affect on us, at least where I am. We got a break from the heat and the sun and hada lot of rain and wind but that´s all. Nikelle´s roommate´s missionary is serving in New Jersey and they are worried for him.... I heard all subway lines are shut down because of the floods and a crane in the docking yards in New York was blown over by the wind. Craziness.

Beef jerky, chocolate orange, flavored and chocolate tootsie rolls, lots and lots and lots of pretzel m and m´s. those are the things I want for Christmas. Also maybe a couple memory cards for my camera.....If I think of anything other than snacks and junk that I want or need I will let you know.

Workin hard and Havin fun

Elder Robinson

Email Letter dated October 24, 2012 "Halloween"

October 24, 2012

Dear Family,
I know it is after 6 but we were assigned to do this survey online and Elder Escobar is still doing it so I have a couple more minutes. This has been a good week with a lot of walking and knocking doors. We have found a lot of catholics and evengelicals and a few jehovahs witnesses and a seventh day adventist that really wanted to teach us a thing or two about the gospel and few people that want to listen to us.....

We have very few investigators right now and even fewer progressing. really just one- Chana and she is a shining star that is definitely getting baptized next month.

It seems that it is a world wide standard that Christmas stuff hits the shelves in stores at the beginning of October and the Christmas lights go up before halloween. I´m not complaining because I love it and hope that every house in the DR has Christmas lights and a Christmas tree. I haven´t heard any Christmas songs yet but I´m sure they are on their way. you are probably saying ´well missionaries don´t listen to the radio so of course he hasn´t heard Christmas music.´ But the people here find it necessary to listen to their music and the radio loud enough for the whole city to hear so we hear a lot of music all the time. 

They do appear to celebrate halloween here in what way I don´t know but they recognize the holiday and the day. I highly doubt little kiddies dress up and go house to house asking for candy seeing as how there are constantly people telling us how dangerous it is in the street, especially at night. don´t worry at no point in my mission have I felt in danger and the Dominicans are a generally paranoid and superstitious people. I assume they use Halloween as an excuse not to go to work and throw parties and like every where else in the world drink.....We shall see what halloween looks like in the DR in a week.

I hope everyone is okay and staying afloat with work and school. It sounds like everyone is extremely busy and working hard. hey Dad it´s exciting that you´ll be in Florida soon. you´ll be a lot closer to me! :)     hopefully the trade show goes well and you are still enjoying your new job and you are settling in. 

Taft, I´m super excited for you and all the things you are doing and will be doing in your life in the coming months. The mission is a big deal and i don´t think anyone is really truly ready but you can do a lot to prepare. Like you said, read the scriptures and study them with the mission in mind. you have a great advantage having grown up with the church as a integral part of your life and i am thankful for that every day as I teach and testify. Preach my gospel is the manual of the missionaries and being familiar with it will benefit you greatly. Keep up the hard work and know that I am praying for you and the rest of the family.

I´m still waiting for an explanation of what exactly dad´s new job is and what he is doing in the water park company....

Life is good and spanish is coming everyday.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated October 17, 2012 "Contacting"

 October 17, 2012

Dear Family,

This last week has been full of contacting. We´ve had a couple days when all we´ve done is contact and it´s been good. We have met several people we are really hoping will read, pray and progress. I feel I have become more confident in contacting and in speaking the language. as far as the language is concerned, it really helps to look back to where I´ve been and see how much progress I have made in just 8 months. I still don´t understand a lot but I feel I can basically say what I need to say and understand nearly everything with a little help. 

I´ve done so well budgetting lately that I treated myself to chinese food today at lunch. kinda expensive but it was sooooo good. sesame chicken yum.

hey is the blog still going? I know everyone is crazy busy and there may or may not be time to keep it updated.....

so exciting about Devin and Andrew! can´t wait to see pictures.

We have one progressing investigator right now and she is 12. her sister is a recent convert of about 5 months. She always reads always prays nearly always comes to church, and has a testimony that is slowly growing. She has a baptismal date for the 10 of november! Her name is Chana, well I think that is a nickname, I´m not sure what her real name is......I think I´ve only heard it once....

I am happy although the work is slow gonig right now due to the fact that we have a lot of new people we just contacted and several people who have stopped progressing for various reasons....trying to figure out the best way to get people animated about coming to church and acting in general. 

I think this Christmas is going to be difficult, I have felt a little homesick as I´ve seen decorations and christmas stuff appearing in stores. This is my first one away from home, away from family, and away from snow......The best remedy for homesickness is work so I´m gong to work hard.

I read the miracle of forgiveness a little while ago and everyone in the world needs to read that book! I want to read Jesus the Christ too the only trouble is finding the time to squeeze that in with everything else I´m doing and studying.

My old companion Elder Jensen did indeed finish the mission and he lives in Rexburg and I gave him a package to deliver to Nikelle which has a memory card with nearly all the pictures from my mission on it so she will be making a trip to Utah to deliver that soon after the package is delivered by jeremy (elder Jensen it´s weird to refer to him by his first name).

The work goes forth like a stone cut out of a hill and will continue to do so until the coming of Christ.

Elder Robinson

cool stats- there are approximately 7,000,000,000 people in the world 55,000 of which are missionaries. thats 0.0000079% of the worlds population. we are very few in number and the opportunity to be a missionary is incredible and something that many people do not have the opportunity to do. Also in the history of the world there have been 1,400,000 missionaries in the history of the world. Cool stats.

Email letter dated October 10, 2012 "New Transfer"

October 10, 2012

Dear Family,

sorry I didnt write last week I really did try. the churches email site crashed and I tried for 45 minutes trying to make it work changing computers, using every web browser known to man, and ultimately waiting watching the spinning ball of death that bore no fruit....

But I am still alive and am doing well. The transfer has ended and tomorrow Elder Yepez, Jensen, Sweeney, kimball, Burr, and a hand full of others are going home as they have finished the work the Lord called them to do. My new companion is Elder Escobar, he is from Honduras and is actually Elder Yepez's kid (elder Yepez trained him). Im not sure what the deal is with these father son combos Im getting as companions- I had elder Ferreras then his dad Elder Jensen, I had Elder Yepez and now I have his kid as my comp Elder Escobar. Elder Escobar has the exact same amount of time in the mission as I do. he has one more transfer in the field because he was only in the mtc for 3 weeks and I was in the mtc for 9.

Conference was good. We had the opportunity to watch it all in english which I was very thankful for. I think I would have been able to understand it in spanish but its just not as easy to concentrate and definitely not as easy to take notes. So many good things this conference! Elder Holland was so powerful. I also loved the Elder from the 70 that talked about the plan of salvation and related his feelings about his little son who passed away due to an accident with a piece of chalk becoming lodged in his throat. He was very passionate and it was a very strong talk. We are so blessed to see and here the messages of the prophets of God.

the picture is of Me Elder Yepez and Dionis whom Elder Yepez baptized on September 29.

I have learned a lot from this last transfer and I hope I am able to improve everything I do as a missionary. I have learned the importance of winning the confidence and trust of investigators and members and it is something that I really need to work on. I dont think I am really a people person......

Its exciting to hear about all the good things you are all doing. So glad Nikelle could be there for conference. I figure if I cant be with  her the next best thing is her hanging out with my family.

Noah keep it up bud. So glad you found something you love.

Dad I am glad your trip went well and that you are having success at your new job.

Love to hear about the garden.

Claire and taft great job at Shakespeare! 

Mom thank you for everything.

We are going to continue working her in Las Antillas and build the kingdom of God on earth.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated September 28, 2012 "Rody"

 September 26, 2012

Dear Family,

On Thursday i fasted to know if we should baptize Rody. i was very specific: I want to baptize him and he has the desire to be baptized but i will accept thy will for Him and for Me. These are our desires, please help me to know if they are correct.

After prayer and fasting I feel that it is not Rody´s time to be baptized as everything currently stands. President Douglas is really stressing Building the kingdom in the mission and I don´t feel that baptizing him at this time would be contributing to that cause. There are too many factors and too high a risk that he´ll just be another inactive member of the church. He has the great desire to be baptized and he can technically pass the baptismal interview but I cannot deny what I feel and it is that this is not the right thing to do right now. So for now he will not be baptized. i think we will try talking to his mom and see if we can´t help bring the spirit to soften her heart, if she were to be baptized with him and show real conviction and strength then I would feel a lot better. But as it stands now, it is not happening.

This morning for a zone activity we played baseball. Alright it was softball but still. And I gotta admit. I was so dang proud of myself! I didn´t strike out, not even once, I got on base almost every time I was up to bat, I played second base and didn´t totally womp! I haven´t played baseball since I was like 10 and turns out its kinda like riding a bike. you don´t forget. Man I was so stoked. I also got very sunburned. I thought about putting on sunscreen before leaving the house but decided not to. A decision i regret.....I wore my tilley hat but we played early in the morning so the sun was level with my face and my arms, calves, face and neck are very red....It was tons of fun but wearing tall socks and black slacks is just not quite as much fun when your calves are burned......

Conference is coming!!!!!!!

We are really trying hard to find new people to teach because a lot of the people we´ve been teaching are just not progressing, lost interest or have straight up told us not to come back....I have been praying and studying how to motivate these people and to reawaken them to the spirit they had when they first started sharing with the missionaries and started gaining testimonies.

i´m so glad everyone is getting my letters! i love mail it is so fun to receive mail. 

Brigham City temple done! How many temples is that in utah now? 12? 13? I kinda feel like a jerk when I say I´m from Utah and that the temple is within walking distance and that there are tons of temples there and I´ve visited like 6 of them....I am so blessed to come from such a place as that. i miss the temple. I went twice a week after I was endowed until I left for the mission. It´s been about 5 months since I´ve been to the temple and it´s likely I won´t see the Santo Domingo temple again until the return trips I make later in life....

Well we have an activity with Elder Cornish here in a little while and we gotta go do some other things. I love you all and am excited every Wednesday to hear from you. God is good and will provide for our needs. he does work miracles in our lives. He inspires us to know what to do and what to say. All we need to do is ask.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated September 19, 2012 "Another Week"

September 19, 2012
 

Dear Family,

Elder Yépez and I are working hard. We have 2 baptisms scheduled for the 29 so that is really good. We have several investigators that are falling a little bit: not coming to church, not reading......It´s difficult to see this happen. It´s also hard to have investigators that all they need to do is get married and then they can get baptized. It´s quite frustrating.

I read the miracle of forgiveness. It truly is a miracle.

We had stake conference on Saturday and Sunday and it was good. I didn´t understand much of what was said but I feel it was good. The days go by quickly when you teach a lot. 

Recently it has been unbearably hot in the mornings and then has dumped rain in the afternoons. I am so thankful for the rain.

I don´t have a lot to say today..........

I would send a picture but for whatever reason this computer doesn´t like me.

I´m glad to hear everyone is doing well and that little savanna is healthy happy and growing. I´m so stinking happy Dad´s job is something he enjoys. FINALLY! 

Noah way to go on the bike ride and the lacrosse game. Have your lacrosse skills improved? are you practicing? how´s junior high?

On Monday I got a letter from Claire, Katie, Bishop Berry, and 2 from Nikelle. I feel so loved and cared for by my family.

One of the baptisms we have scheduled is Rody, he is 12 and can´t really read and kinda thinks and acts like he´s 8. I feel unsure if we should baptize him mostly because he has very little support on the homefront. His mom hasn´t shown much interest in the church at all and the guy that lives in his house (I don´t think it´s his dad or step dad) is some leader of a church I´ve never even heard of. He has a testimony and he has the desire to be baptized but if we baptize him are we setting him up to fail and sentencing ourselves and him to condemnation? I found myself asking the question Do I see him on a mission in 7 years? and I honestly don´t know how to answer the question....I have prayed and I need to pray a lot more to know what to do. I will probably fast as well. I need help on this one.

The work goes on and so does the heat.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated Sept. 12, 2012 "Sorry it's a short one"

  Dear Family,

This week has been good. Today is P-day santiago so time is even shorter than usual p-days. So much to do! We went to the monument in Santiago and to Price Smart (the mecca of all missionaries when they get the chance to go to Santiago, I think it is owned by wal mart and it{s basically a costco). We went to the new mission office which is awesome we hung around the office for a little while because they have air conditioning and the office elders are cool.

We have a lot of investigators that have investigated the church for a long time and it is coming to the point where they either need to act and do all that is necessary to join with Gods church or we will have to stop going by to teach them. Leaving investigators is always a painful process because I want them to accept the gospel so bad and not jsut be hearers of the word but doers. There are way too many people in the world that like to just sit and listen to the word of God but when it comes to acting it seems impossible for them. Praying hard to know what to do.

Everyone needs to read the miracle of forgiveness. I am reading it right now and it is an amazing book that helps one self analyze and see the areas they need to change in a very loving comprehensive way. 

Spanish is still hard but I am working on it every day (not like i have much of a choice)

Is everything crazy back home? shool, work, new baby, just back from the cruise......craziness.

Well like i said its a short one and for that i am sorry. I am sending letters I promise!

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated September 5, 2012 "Baby!"

September 5, 2012

holy smokes I´m an uncle. and Katies a mom and Gabes a dad and Mom you and dad Are grandparents!!!!!!!!! holy smokes!!!!!!!!

man do I feel silly now for the letter I sat down and wrote today to Katie. haha I´ll send it anyways. you can read it to savanna. What a great name by the way. Good choice! Wow katie you did it! you now have an angel sent straight from the presence of God the Father in your arms and in your home. how cool is that?! 4 and a half weeks early though. she was ready to get out of there huh? haha. i can´t tell you how happy I am. I look forward to meeting this little person in about a year and a half. Our family is growing. Thanks for the pictures mom Katie and Gabe, you done good. She is beautiful! I love new born babies, so small and cute and gentle. 

here things are rainy. i was unaware a hurricane passed through here. I knew that it is hurricane season right now and that it rained a bunch when it supposedly came through but where i am nothing really happened. 

These last couple months have been nuts: school started, alaskan cruise, new baby, new job! All amazing miracles from our dear Heavenly Father. 

It´s raining pretty hard right now, I have a feeling we´re going to get wet.......

Some things about Las Antillas that I´ve not yet told you: The house we have is really nice and is on the second floor which helps for air circulation and it´s not quite as hot, the house has a more open kitchen than the house in San Francisco which is nice and you sweat quite as much, it has 2 bathrooms which is nice because we each have our own space. The only real problem is that the water pressure stinks so showering out of a bucket has become a daily practice but you have to be sure to fill your bucket up every morning after you shower because if you forget you won´t have any water to shower that night if you want to because we usually don´t have water at night. We almost always have power, occasionally, like today, the power will go out for maybe an hour and then will come back. There have been some real power outages that we´ve needed to have the local power jimmy rigger hook us up with some power for the night because it´s almost impossible to sleep in this country without a fan because it is so dang hot!

Spanish is hard, life is good, the Gospel is true.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated August 29, 2012 "Transfer 4"

August 29, 2012

Dear Family,

This is my fourth transfer in the mission field and i feel great! Today was transfers and Elder Jensen has returned to puerto plata to finish his mission and my new companion is Elder Yepez who is also finishing his mission this transfer which is crazy to think about that I know people that are finishing the mission and going home. Elder Yepez is Dominican and doesn´t know english. He knows a few words to help me out when I´m really lost but not a lot. So I am counting on learning a lot of spanish this transfer. We´ve only been together for about 7 hours and I think I´ve said the word ¨what¨ about a thousand times. I´m so slow at understanding I almost need everything to be said twice......

Last Saturday Franklin was Baptized in San Francisco, Elder Johnson Baptized him. I´m so happy to hear about all the progress that is continuing to happen there and the people that I taught are getting baptized!!!!! They are having another baptism there this Saturday that is a girl that I started teaching with Elder Johnson. She is the cousin or neice of Sis. Luna (the mom of enmanuel Luna, my first baptism). 

Things are good. 

Because Elder Yepez is finishing here in Las Antillas I will be here for this transfer and at least one more in this area. I am scared of the idea that I might train a new missionary here in about 3 months.......It´s totally possible. Elder Relf, my companion in the mtc here in the D.R. is training right now and we just barely completed 6 months in the mission. I don´t feel like I´m ready to train a new missionary because I still don´t know spanish very well at all and I need to have more experience and knowldege. 

Mom thank you for Justice´s email address I really hope that he emails me back. 

We have several investigators that are progressing and doing well. I feel like this is the area of couples that need to get married civily to get baptized. We have 3 couples that are working on getting married so they can be baptized. We already had one success with Rosa and her husband and now we´re hoping for Cristino and his wife, Jonathan and Yanelkis, and Alexandra and Papito.

That´s the latest update.....I can´t really think of anything else to say......

So I´ll end it like this

I Love You

Elder Robinson

email letter dated August 22, 2012

August 22, 2012

Dear Family,

Thanks for the update.

We had the baptism of Carolina and Rosa on Saturday. it was really good there were a ton of people there. Elder Jensen performed the baptisms. I gave a short talk on the holy ghost.  

Today I have 6 months in the mission. It´s really crazy to think that it´s already a fourth of the way over. Time really does go quickly....Also in San Francisco Oscar was Baptized on Saturday! I was so freaking stoked to hear he was baptized!!!!! And Franklin will be baptized this saturday if all goes according to plan. I´m so happy for them. 

I hope the cruise goes well and everyone has fun. 

We had multi zone conference with President and Sis Douglas and Sis douglas talked about gratitude and all the benefits there are for just being grateful. She told us a statistic that said that if you don´t smoke you will add approximately 6 years to your life span and if you are happy as a result of being grateful you add approximately 9 years to your life span so that is interesting. She also shared a study about a group of people that wrote in a gratitude journal everyday: 

1. write 5 things everyday that you are thankful for. Be specific

2. write why you are thankful for each thing. Be specific.

3. do it for 30 days

And the results from the study were this: All the people experienced more happiness in life, their relationships improved with their family and all around them, depression in all it´s forms was nowhere to be found, and even for 6 months after the study and after stopping doing the gratitude journal these people continued to see these results in their lives. Pretty interesting. I started my gratitude journal and it is good to be grateful for things. 

Pres Douglas shared this crazy story from his mission: as a farely new missionary he got a call from the mission president and he told Pres Douglas that he wanted him to go to an area of the mission where the 4 missionaries there were being very disobedient: going to the movies, not wearing missionary attire, playing basketball all day, and really never going out to preach. So Pres Douglas went to go straighten things out. When he got to the area they were playing basketball but it was okay because it was p day so he played with them and when it was 5 he told his companion that they were leaving to go to work. But his comp told him that it was monday night and no one is ever home on monday nights so they should just stay and play basketball. But pres douglas said. I came here to be a missionary not play basketball, I am going to work. So they left and ended up visiting several of the members in the branch and he was able to meet the branch president. Later in the week his companion told him they needed to practice basketball because they would be playing in a tournament on Friday. Pres Douglas called the mission Pres. to see if they could practice and participate in the tournament. The pres. told them they could participate in the tournament but could not practice during the week. Friday rolled around and they went to go to the tournament but when they got there nobody was there. They waited for a while to see if anyone would show up but no one came. So Pres. Douglas said let´s go to work. They left and got into a taxi and as they were driving a military vehicle ploughed into the taxi ejecting two of the missionaries from the car one other flew to the front of the vehicle smashing his head into the windshield and Pres Douglas came out of the crash without a scratch. The taxi driver seeing what appeared to be 2 dead americans ran away knowing that he would probably get blamed since the other vehicle involved was a military vehicle. Pres Douglas administered blessings to the injured missionaries and a bus and a car drove up and the missionaries were taken to a clinic where they were given nothing more than morphine for the pain. Pres douglas left the clinic and went to get the branch president he had met just 4 days earlier. He came and they both administered more blessings and then the branch president walked the 100 kilometers to the mission home to get the president because all the phones shut off after 10. he got there at about 5:30 but no one was awake so he waited until they woke up and he got back to the clinic with the mission president 2 ambulances and 4 doctors at around 10 a.m. all the missionaries lived and one or two returned to the mission to finish honorably and the rest did not. A very powerful story about obedience. Pres Douglas is called of God and is a good man.

We are working hard and having fun to. We made peanut butter bars yesterday and they turned out pretty good.

It´s been another good week

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated August 15, 2012 "A Baptism and a Long Day"

 August 15, 2012

Dear Family,

First off a mini missionary is a young man here in the D.R. Preparing to serve a mission and occasionaly there are times when the full time missionaries don´t get their visas in time, a missionary goes home unexpectedly or early, or for whatever reason the mission does not have enough missionaries to fill all the companionships. In these times they call mini missionaries that come to the mission field, live with the full time missionary, eat, cook, clean, study and teach with the full time missionary as his companion and under special circumstances when they are out for a long time (sometimes a whole transfer) they have the oportunity to baptise. I am not sure if they are set apart I would assume that they are. It´s a pretty cool thing.

Secondly, yes I know it is 9:15 and P day ends at 6. But this is what happened today: it all begins back on monday in district meeting when we decided as a district to hike one of the mountains in our district leaders area for a district activity the next P day (today) so we all showed up in thier area this morning and headed for the hills. We had 2 or 3 young men who volunteered to be our guides up the mountain which was nice of them. Well We technically hiked 2 mountains today and we did not reach the top of the final mountain until 3 in the afternoon. So then we had to get down which we thought couldn´t be too hard because going down always is faster than going up. Well we really had no idea how far we had come.....We hiked forever!!!! We were so tired. We hiked for like 10 hours today. We had food and water thank goodness but it was a rough hike. We had been told previously that it would take 2 hours......We were lied to.......After we got down off the initial mountain we were still a very far way away from home and we actually asked a guy if we could pay him to give us a ride down the rest of the way but that was a no go. We decided to pray which we should have done a long time before......A little while later a car came by and had enough room for the 2 sister missionaries and they said the ride was free. And right after that a truck came buy and we got a free ride down as well. There were 6 of us total. We got down and found a bus to take us where we needed to go to get home. We probably got ripped off on the price but we didn´t care we were so tired and felt bad we were so late.....We got back to the house at about 8 or so and now i am here recounting this story to you. Fun huh? It actually was fun but just wish it hadn´t taken so long, we had some pretty important appointments that we are going to have to squeeze in tomorrow.

The baptism on Saturday went well. One thing about Eufemia that I didn´t mention is that she is totally blind and has been for 10 years. So baptising her was kinda tricky. We enlisted the help of the bishop because he is a strong guy and were sure he could do it no problem. But we were still unsure how this old, frail, blind lady would react to being shoved under water. Well the bishop tried twice but her feet kept coming up like a mermaid. So Elder Jensen volunteered to get in the water to help. Well he got in the water with the cell phone, his camera, and his sim card and sim card reader in his pockets......She was baptised with his help but all of the things in his pockets got wet. The camera is pretty much dead, but he only has one transfer left and then he goes home so that is better than starting the mission with a dead camera. The phone came out okay, and the card and card reader work. When we got home we immediately put them in rice to try and save them but the camera died.....Eufemia is now a member of the church and is very happy.

This week we have 2 baptisms: Rosa and Carolina, we are still not sure if Carolina´s parents are going to approve of her being baptised so we are praying for that. Also in San Francisco Oscar is getting baptized this saturday and I think Franklin might be getting baptized as well but Oscar for Sure! I´m so excited for him!

It appears that summer has been fun and hard work. Dad you look great in the pictures!!!!!!! Thinner all the time. Everyone looks great. So happy you are all safe and happy and that mom and dad the huntington´s will be able to enjoy some time on the water together.

The people here taht are getting baptized is really no thanks to me at all because they were being taught and prepared by Elder Ferreras and many of them have received all the lessons and are just completing the requirements for baptism. We need to contact more so that after we help these people who have been prepared get baptize we can have new people getting ready.

One thing that i do not need you to send me in the package is my camel back backpack.....i know that was the motivation for the package and may not make it worth sending the package anymore but I have made other arrangements. the guy that made my scripture covers also makes like scripture bags that are really cool and popular and convenient in the mission so I bought one. you may or may not have noticed that i have taken a bunch of money out of my personal account and that is because somehow i ended up with zero money.......I am pretty sure it was my fault because i wasn´t doing a sufficient job keeping track of expenses so I will be better at that.......

i got a letter from Nikelle and from Katie on Saturday Thank you!!!

This has been pretty scatter brained but I am tired and sweaty and just want to finish this up and go home and take a shower and go to bed.......

Something interesting about Elder Jensen is that his middle name is Hunter! cool huh?

Alright until next time

Elder Robinson

Email dated August 8, 2012, "Hello"

August 8, 2012

Dear Family,

Some good things have happened since friday. We have put several baptismal dates within the next couple weeks: Eufemia (the 81 year old lady) is being baptised this saturday. Rody, Rosa and Carolina are being baptised on the 18, and we have madelin and cristino with the goal of September first for baptism. Rosa is being married this weekend so she can be married next weekend, she has been waiting to be married for a really long time. She is basically a member without being baptised. She was working on getting married in order to be baptized when Elder Jensen was here the first time. i don´t know if I mentioned is last week but when Elder Jensen was here the first time she had a dream that she was looking for someone to baptize her and there was no one there and then Elder Jensen showed up and baptized her. But this dream happened just before Elder Jensen left the area but now the dream is going to come true. Kinda cool.

We talked with Elder Ferreras a few days ago and he seems to be doing well. As he was talking on the phone he was on the way to the beach with his girlfriend lucky....It´s good to hear that he is okay. he has plans to come up for the baptism on the 18 seeing as he is only 2 or 3 hours away (he lives in the capital) so it will be cool to see him and special for him to see those baptisms.

Elder Jensen and I are getting along great. We have used the huntington cook book to make sweet and sour chicken, snickerdoodles (which didn´t turn out quite right.....but still good), simply great chicken, and lime slush. I plan on using it for many other recipes as well. Elder Johnson and Elder Jensen can both agree that the sweet and sour chicken is delicious. We´ve had it twice this transfer because Elder Jensen loves it so much. And will probably make it again. Making the sweet and sour chicken makes me realize how much work it is. And helps me realize how much my Mom loves me to make that upon request for my birthday every year. And I only made one small part of the feast she usually prepares. She usually does rice, orange chicken, pot stickers, egg rolls, and sweet and sour chicken. She is amazing. Thank you Mom, for delicious food and for teaching me to cook.

So in 12 days Elder Jensen will go back to Puerto Plata to learn the new investigators his companion has found and I will receive a mini missionary as a companion for about a week and then transfers come and then I will get another companion that is a full time missionary so that will be 4 different comps in just 2 months.....crazy. This has been kinda a crazy transfer and we´re jsut getting warmed up!

It has rained quite a bit lately. The rain comes and goes and luckily for us we have been inside teaching lessons during the down pours. The heavens will open and flood the streets for 20 minutes and then the sun will come out, it´s kinda strange. It´s always hotter and more humid when the sun comes out after the down pour.

The wind was so bad today we saw a power line snap and fall onto the street and sparks went flying everywhere! Kinda cool, mostly scary. The power was out for a good 2 or 3 hours.

I received a package and 2 letters from Nikelle this week and a letter from her mom too! So many people love me! I really do love mail. I promise I will be more diligent in sending physical letters home to all of you. P days just go so fast and it takes a little time to write the letters and I know I will email but that´s a lame excuse. Receiving mail is fun and I know all of you would love to receive a letter.

I´m doing well and trying to be more obedient in regards to getting up on time which has always been hard for me.......I´m trying to be the missionary that you think and hope I am and more importantly the missionary that Heavenly Father REQUIRES me to be.

Elder Robinson

Email dated August 3, 2012 'Comp Change'

 August 3, 2012

Dear Family,

Do not be alarmed we got permission from Pres. Douglas to use internet today because we did not get the chance on wednesday. I will talk about that a little later. 

On Friday Elder Ferreras went home and Elder Jensen (Elder Ferreras dad in the mission) came back to this area to help me learn the area and the members. He was in Puerto Plata and will be returning there after this transfer to finish his mission! He only has this and one more transfer and he is done! crazy to think about. From what we have heard of Elder Ferreras he is doing well.

I have been learning the area and trying to remember how to get to different peoples houses. I am afraid many of the people that Elder Ferreras was teaching are gonig to fall through the cracks and get lost because I do not know who they are.......

Elder Jensen is cool, he is american and from Rexburg, Idaho. 

We have several people preparing for baptism: one of them is actually one of the investigators Elder Jensen was teaching when he was hear with Elder Ferreras 5 months ago. She is getting married soon so she can be baptised. But the crazy part is that when Elder Jensen was here the first time she had a dream that Elder Jensen baptized her but then he left the area......but now he is here and will baptize her! Crazy....... We also have another woman that is like 85 that has been exposed to the church a long time and has come to church for a long time. And she wants to be baptized. Her daughter is a member and asked us if we could do it and we were unsure because she is so old and not all there if you know what I mean so we called Pres. Douglas to ask him about it and he said if she has a testimony of joseph Smith, revelation and that the church is true and if we feel good about it we can baptize her..... So we talked to her hoping she could answer our questions appropriately. And she did! she talked a lot more than we both expected and it was cool to see. When we told her that we could like to put a baptismal date for august 11 she was so happy and so was her daughter. And it just so happens to be her daughters birthday.

Now on wednesday. WE had p day santiago and we had a long list of things we wanted to do and not nearly enough of them were accomplished..... one of which was emailing home and I love to write home but this is what happend: we went to the mission home because Elder Jensen wanted to look for a box that one of his previous companions had stored at the mission home so he could send it to him. Well we got there and looked but didnt find it. But we did see tons of boxes scattered around the house and it was because the boat that the pres. and sis. douglas had shipped all their stuff from the states here had arrived that day. We could see she was a little overwhelmed so we offered to help her unpack all the boxes and put a few things in their respective places. So we helped for like an hour and a half and it was good. We learned a lot of cool things about Sis. Douglas: she is the president , founder, and creator of the Rising star charity foundation which is now a multi million dollar organization. She has had 2 documentaries made on her life one is called breaking the curse. GO WATCH IT!!!!! and there may be a major motion picture made about her. she has won an emmy award and a gracie award. and was named one of the 5 most influential women in the world in 2008. Here name is Becky Douglas, google her and find out about her amazing life and the amazing woman she is. The rising star foundation is based in India I think, if not I know that she worked a ton in india with leprosy patients. I dont have time to explain all the cool things. just look her up.

Anyway. I am doing alright. just trying to learn spanish and the area and how to teach and bring others and myself unto Christ.

Kinda a scattered brained one but I guess that is just me

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated july 25, 2012 "Las Antillas"

July 25, 2012

Dear Family,

No mom the address for letters and packages does not change. The mail goes to the mission office and they send it to us from there.

This week has been interesting: Here in the Dominican Republic it is common and customary to kiss each other on the cheek in greeting (men don´t usually do it to other men) Well we taught this 15 year old girl on like thursday last week and the lesson strange, she told us that she hated her family and just wanted a baby and a baby is the only thing that will make her happy, but she doesn´t want a husband, Just a baby. So the red flags were flying everywhere......Well the lesson wasn´t very productive but I think the spirit may have been there towards the end. Well a couple days later we were walking down the street at night in the dark on our way to another appointment. Well she was walking toward us and I didn´t recognize it was her until she had grabbed my arms and went in for a kiss. i jumped back very quickly and was very shocked. It was a close call, she was a little confused because it´s normal here but Elder Ferreras explained and we hurried on our way. And mom my Companion´s name is Ferreras and the area I´m in is Las Antillas. 

Another new experience was on sunday Elder Ferreras passed me his agenda with a note from some girl in the ward and it said,  ¨Your new companion is whiter than a samandra (i think it´s a fish), he´s kinda cute but so white!¨ So I have had some good frightening experiences here with women and I´ve been here for one week and 6 hours.......

I am really hoping that Elder Ferreras doesn´t leave or at least he is here for a little longer because I am freaking out about not knowing the area and not knowing the members or the investigators and not knowing spanish........Very stressful. 

The members here seem very supportive. they have a teacher for the gospel principles class that is catered to investigators so the missionaries don´t have to teach it. They have a pretty big church ball tournament going on right now and I think the relief society is trying to put together an activity about the talk by Pres. Benson about filling the earth with the book of mormon. Apparently it´ll be a big activity. They are planning on inviting President and Sister Douglas. They are also having what they are calling ¨mormon idol¨ which will essentially be american idol within the ward. Auditions are Friday. I don´t think we can or should participate but maybe we can watch. i think it´s going to be a little scary though.......Most Dominicans don´t have a talent for singing.........

We went tot the mission home today so the mission doctor could look at Elder Ferreras´ knee. I don´t think he could descern anything. We are going to a different doctor on Monday to probably get some x rays done. He doesn´t limp as badly and claims that it doesn´t hurt as badly either so that is good.

I am doing well, I have started using the missionary work out program book that Nikelle gave me and there are some pretty good work outs. It has a work out for every day of my mission. I´m 5 months behind.......but I´m starting now! 

The language barrier thing isn´t a lot of fun right now. Before with Elder Johnson I could ask what happened during a lesson after ward and he could tell me so I´d be able to understand. Well now I can´t really do that. I could and sometimes do but I spend 15 minutes with Elder Ferreras trying to describe it to me so that I can understand and I eventually give up because I stop caring and get frustrated. My spanish womps!

I love you all and am glad you are all well. The eagle project sounds good and so does the trek and family reunion. Thank you Dad, Mom, Nikelle and all others that have emailed me or written to me.

A slightly frustrated and scared green elder..........

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated July 18, 2012 "New Area"

July 18, 2012

Dear Family,

I recorded this song the other night. I´m pretty sure I sing way out of tune. hope you enjoy it. I also just figured out the words to the song my listening to it and they don´t sing some of the words very clearly so I just made up or said words that sounded similar. haha

To is transfer day and now I am in North Santiago in the area las antillas with my new comp Elder Ferreras. he is Dominican and has a torn miniscus  and our area is pretty big so we shall see how this transfer goes I think he said (still not sure my spanish is still shaky) that if he is not all recuperated and better in 2-3 weeks he will be sent home so I hope I can help him not push it too hard. he is hard working and wants to work but I don´t want him to get sent home.

Yesterday was a sad day as we went and said good bye to all the people I have met and worked with. I cried as we prayed with and said goodbye to Miguel, Clara, and Isaac I will miss them a lot and the luna family. And I was so stoked to stay and baptize oscar. I just hope he stays trong and attends church on sunday and is ready for his baptism next saturday. I think Elder Ferreras said we (mostly him) will be having 5 baptisms on that day as well so that is exciting. I was so sure that I was staying and Elder Johnson was leaving because usually thats how it works: after you get trained your dad leaves and you stay but last night elder Johnson got a call to be district leader in San Francisco and that I would be leaving. I was comfrotably writing in my journal sure that I had no reason to worry about leaving when he told me and I jumped into action and started packing. Elder Johnson was already halfway packed in anticipation of leaving. hahahahaha. There were many somber moments as I packed my things and I said goodbye to Elder Johnson, my daddy in the mission and now one of my best friends. I will truly miss the people of San Francisco and I will definitely be visiting them when I come back here, whenever that may be.

I am here in Santiago and happy and ready to work! this is the first time I´ve left an area and my first comp that doesn´t speak english (he actually knows a lot). The  mission is great I am happy and ready to meet some new people and bring them to our Savior Jesus Christ.

I sent Nikelle´s package today FINALLY! but also learned in an email 10 minutes ago she is leaving rexburg to work in southern utah for the 7 week break and I sent it to her rexburg address so hopefully she gets it someday...........

I love you all and am excited for everyone in all they are doing. The kid camp sounds fun and I´m so happy to hear that Nathan is coming down and the family will be getting together. We need to interact with them more. Ant katie coming WOW!!! this next month before school starts again is going to be crazy!!!!!

Dad did you and parker already go to the casting call for biggest loser? when is it? have faith and hope that you´ll make it! you need to show them that you really want this change in your life and not just for yourself but for everyone in your life. I love you dad I know your job isn´t the funnest but I heard some great advice from one of my friends in San Francisco it is more poetic in spanish:

Robinson la vida no depende de lo que el hombre posea sino un corazón dispuesto en Jesús. Los problemas van a llegar pero recuerda que la noche is más oscura cuando amanacer recuerda esta familia quien te admira y te amo mi esperanza era sola una palabra, una canción, hasta que llega Jesús.

I will now attempt to translate it for you:

Robinson the life does not depend on what a man possesses rather a willing heart in Christ. problems will come but remember that the night is darkest just before the dawn. remember this family who admires you and loves you. my hope es only one word, one song, until Jesus comes. 

This he wrote in my agenda. this comes from a man who can barely afford to feed his family and his work is so crappy and pays so little that he started selling fruit in the street which turned out to be great because he was making more than he was at his other job until he was in a bicycle accident which resulted in him going to the emergency room and getting stitches. And he heard yesterday that he will probably lose his other job soon. Every time we ask him if there is something we can do for him he always says a prayer. His faith is so strong and real. His name is Miguel and I admire him as a friend a father a man and a saint.

I am learning so much from the people here and I know I will learn much more. 

Love

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated July 11, 2012 "A Baptism and a Birthday"

July 11, 2012

Dear Family,

This week has been good the most notable events were mine and Nikelles birthdays, meeting President and sis Douglas on Saturday and the baptism of Enmanuel.

We also had an exchange on friday so that Elder Barton, our district leader could interview Enmanuel for his baptism and he passed the interview with flying colors of course. It was an interesting transfer with Elder Escobar from Honduras. We doesnt know english so it was a day of nothing but spanish which was good but difficult at times when i didnt understand what was going on.

We met President and Sis Douglas on Saturday and they are awesome. we had interviews with each of them and it was amazing to get to know them. He served a mission in Ecuador and she served a mission in virginia i think. they were married sixteen days after he got back. fast! they have 10 kids 3 of which they adopted and 8 of them have served missions. they are from new york and are so happy animated and excited to be here. Pres. Douglas is a convert and was baptized when he was 20 or 21 and went on his mission to Ecuador one year later. they are very strong and im excited to get to know them better.

We had Enmanuels baptism on saturday (my birthday) and before the baptism we went to visit Oscar and we told him about the baptism and he asked us if he could be baptized too! we had to tell him know because he hasnt come to church and we havent taught him enough but he has a baptismal date for the 28 and he came to church on sunday. so hes right on track. during the baptismal interview the person usually chooses who will baptize them but Enmanuel just said ¨whoever wants to do it¨ so I got to baptize him! My first baptism that I performed on my first birthday in the mission!!!!!!! man the way you feel when you bring someone to the waters of baptism is incredible and its even more incredible to be the one that performs the ordinance. It was so cool! that is what the mission is all about!

On saturday morning for my birthday Elder Johnson and Elder Barton made me a cake! it is delicious (i am still eating it......) and all the missionaries in the zone sang to me when we got to the chapel for interviews with Pres. Douglas. And that night Sis Douglas called me and wished me a happy birthday. it was a great birthday.

 

Love, 

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated July 4, 2012 "Letters, a package and a Baptism"

July 4, 2012

Dear Family,

As you can see by the pictures I did receive your package and I did open it early, sorry......I wanted to take pictures and be able to write about it today. I have not yet eaten any of the treats, I will save them for the big day. I got the package along with 2 letters from Nikelle on Saturday and another 2 letters on monday: one from mom and one from katie and there was another one from mom in the package so I have been very spoiled with mail this week and Im pretty sure everyone in my zone hates my guts......
Thank you for all the treats in the package and the shirt, Im acquiring quite the collection of super hero type shirts in the mission. Elder Johnson likes his Jolley Ranchers and we will enjoy all the good treats. Thanks for the funny photo booth pictures, I love playing with that thing!
We have a baptism this saturday, my birthday! and it is Enmanuel Luna (we found out on Monday that his name is actually Enmanuel not Manuel) I am so excited. There is no better present than that. We also get to meet President Douglas on Saturday and have interviews with him. So that will be interesting and cool, from what we hear from other missionaries that hav already met him he is a really good cool guy.
The other people we had with baptismal dates for this saturday failed to meet that goal: they didnt come to church or we were undable to teach them sufficiently to prepare them because they werent home and we had failed citas or they dont read and do their part to prepare. Kinda frustrating but we are not giving up on them.
Last night we were teaching Franklin (I dont know if I have ever written home about him), he has problems with alcohol and chewing tobacco and he has goals to be married and to buy a house before he gets baptised and these goals although good should not prevent him from being baptized. We have talked to him a lot about this and it is difficult for us to understand and we have challenged him to pray to see if he should wait to be baptized or not. He still has his goals and is sticking to them. Last week we put a goal with him to be alcohol and tobacco free for 2 full days and as we set the goal I asked him if he had any tobacco with him (he has bigger troubles with tobacco than alcohol right now) and if he would give it to me. And he said yes he had some but he wasnt going to give it to me because he was going to chew some tonight and then start his 2 days the next day. Well we taught him last night and we just talked about where he was reading in the book of mormon and about how we can help him. I asked him again if he had tobacco and if he would give it to me and he did! He gave it to me and said he wants to stop 100%. I talked for a minute about how the act of him giving me the tobacco is in similitude of him giving his will to god. I felt really good about it. I also gave him a letter that I spent some time writing for him with scriptures and my thoughts about where he is right now. I hope it helps him. I felt like I should write it and I felt good about giving it to him.

You may or may not remember Oscar, I think I wrote about him before, He has had it rough the last month or so: About a month ago his uncle passed away and we have continued to teach and help him any way we can and this last week we were talking with him and we shared mosiah 18:7-10 which talks about having all these desires involved in the baptismal convenant and in verse ten is says something like if you have these desires what is stopping you from being baptized. We asked him this same question and he said nothing, when can I get baptized. He had previously told us that he thought it would be too hard to study medicine and then be a doctor and a member of the church because he was unsure that he would be able to keep his baptismal covenant. But now his view changed! I was sooooooo Stoked! It was a big win for me! We set a baptismal date for july 21 and on Saturday I called him to make sure that he was coming to church and he told me that his Dad just passed away and he was on his way to Santiago........I cant even imagine that happening, now we are not really sure how to help him. Ive never been in that situation and hope not to be for a very long time. I have been praying a lot for him and to know how to help him and what he needs and what to do.
We talked with Elsa last week and we asked her to tell us the way he and gabriel met and how it all began and it was great to hear their story, the key for them I think is helping them remember and realize what they have together. It was great.
On Sunday Elder Johnson helped bless the sacrament and I directed the music in sacrament meeting. The first hymn was high on the mountain top and I was feeling so confident about my knowledge of the hymns that I stood up and started singing loudly and confidently the words of high on the mountain top to the tune of the spirit of god..........

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I think I did it at the beginning of all three verses too. haha. live and learn.
Nikelles birhtday is in 2 days and I feel bad that I have not sent anything to her. I am putting a small package together for her right now, nothing really special, just a few silly things. I will hopefully send it next week so she will probably get it a month or so after her birthday........
It sounds crazy there with all the fires and camping and fun going on. I loved Bishop Andersons thing about the sun rise, so true. Bummer about the fireworks I hope this email can be a little pick me up for you all.
We bible bashed with a Jehovahs witness last week. I wouldnt recommend it. he was a priest in the church and knew his bible which isnt a bible at all. Its been changed so much and is so wrong its unbelievable. the only thing more unbelievable than their bible is thier interpretation of the scriptures therein.
Alright so there is something packed away in one of my boxes that I wonder if you could send it to me.....I know you have already unpacked and packed and sealed and unsealed my boxes many times and I cant promise this will be the last time but I figure I can ask and if you dont want to you dont have to. but I have my little backpack for my camelpack in one of those boxes. Its just a little backpack that I would love to have because its smaller than the one I have now. I like the one i have now but its just so dang hot and i dont need a backpack that big most of the time. If you dont want to thats fine I can find something cheap here but if its not too much trouble that would be really nice.

Ice age 4?! wow cool I dont think i saw the third one.....there is cereal here advertising the movie and they all have little double sided jigsaw puzzles (rompecabeza in spanish) in them and I feel like a little kid again ripping open the box to find the prize inside. What can I say Im still a little kid on the inside okay.

Thank you for all the letters and love this birthday is going to be great!

Elder Robinson