Email letter dated May 23, 2012 (parts 1 &2)

May 23, 2012

Dear Family,

Oh man I am so sorry I didn´t tell you about our Baptism.....Our Baptism on Saturday is Ani-Leidi she is 15 (i think...) and she is a great investigator and a great person. Her parents have received nearly all the lessons with the missionaries before I got here but are having trouble with their marriage right now. We are hoping that Ani-Leidi´s baptism will help with some things in that area.

 

It sounds like it´s been a busy busy week. Sorry to hear about the Lacrosse tournament little dude....I know you played your hardest and in the fall you´ll be even better. Keep practicing you should have 2 sticks now right? get taft to practice with you.

Claire and Taft, it sounds like things are winding down for the both of you. Congratulations you´ve made it through another year of school and you´re still alive and I´m sure your grades are still off the charts.

 

I´m Glad Parker and Alaura found a new place, that´s exciting. Tell that big baldy to email me sometime, or better yet try to send me a letter. do you know their new address?

Katie is having a GIRL! how exciting is that?! She sent me pictures from their cruise and it looks like it was tons of fun.

Grandma´s surgery sounds scary.....I hope she and Grandpa will be alright.

Thank you for sending me the ducks and my recipe book. I wonder if you could send me my little red journal, it says ¨journal¨ on the cover. I got it the day of my baptism and want to use it to take notes. Sorry, you are probably tired of digging through all of my stuff to try and find my things I want......If you don´t want to worry about it that´s fine, I can get a journal here for like 3 bucks if I need to.

 

I testify that what you learned and heard about the daily scripture study is so true. I look forward to studying every morning. Not only because I need to for my lessons but because I need to for ME. I sent a letter today as well so hopefully it makes it home....i figure every letter I or you recieve will be like taking a time machine back a couple of weeks. kinda fun.

Work Hard. Play Hard. SUMMER IS HERE!!!!!!!

 

(part 2)

okay so Elder Johnson heard that if you interlaced your fingers together and put an egg in your palms no matter how hard you squeeze it won´t break. well........the egg breaks. hahahahaha I laughed so hard when he splattered himself and the kitchen with egg. haha. so funny.

I am trying to remember this quote that talks about the world taking the people out of the slums but Christ takes the slums out of the people and then they take themselves out of the slums. Can you help me remember it exactly?

I want to tell you about Miguel: he is a husband and a father and a less active member of the church. We were teaching his wife Clara yesterday about the doctrine of Christ. She hasn´t been very good at keeping commitments to read so we helped keep their son Isaac (who is our favorite little Dominican in the world!) so she could read and ask us questions. It worked perfectly! we were so happy to play with Isaac and help her understand at the same time. As we were saying the closing prayer thier table broke because she was leaning on it. Seeing an opportunity to serve we jumped into action. We deduced we needed nails and a hammer so we literally ran to a hardware store to buy nails and borrow a hammer. We were able to fix the table and get a little exercise at the same time. Que Suerte! After we fixed the table we were talking to Miguel and he told us how appreciative he is that we are his friends. He also said that he feels inadequate as a father because sometimes there´s not enough money to buy food for his wife and son......He wasn´t treated very well by his father and is trying to make a good life for Isaac and we explained to him that the most important thing is his relationship with his son and with Heavenly Father. The people are hurting here. There´s a lot of food on this island but there isn´t a lot of money to be had. He asked us for some money so he could buy some food for his family that night and he would pay us back on saturday. Elder Johnson gave him 200 pesos which is technically against mission rules but people are more important than rules sometimes and Miguel is an exception. Elder Johnson loaned him a little money before and he speedily paid it back. This rule will be difficult for me to keep all the time because I have money, in fact it´s more than I need. I´m not saying I´m going to go all robin hood on this place and give everyone all my money. But I feel there are exceptions. Faithful saints trying to make it in this country and it´s hard and if I can help a little and I know their intentions are good I will help them.

your missionary,

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated 5/16/2012 - "it's HOT"

May 16, 2012

Dear Family,

Well I think I´ve told you all everything when I saw you on Sunday. But I can elaborate and tell you about some more things.
On Monday we went to La Casa de Queso to see if we could get some real milk from a real live cow and they had some! we bought a gallon for 90 pesos (2 dollars). We are very happy to have oreos and milk and to just have good ol from the cow milk.
Also on Monday we had a district meeting and the zone leaders had a big box for us which had many copies of the bible and book of mormon because we have had many people here ask us to get them things. Also in the box were my scripture cases!!!!!! They are sooooo cool.
We are teaching the Luna family and brother Luna was excommunicated some time ago and is working his way back to the church and we are teaching him and his family, especially their son Manuel who will be turning 8 soon so we´ll be preparing him for baptism. We went by their house to deliver the books and things they wanted: 2 book of mormon, 2 bible, and 2 movies (testaments and together forever). we felt like santa clause with all these gifts and things that we know they will use.
We had a combined zone conference with 2 other zones (Bonao and La Vega) yesterday and we talked a lot about the book of mormon and the talk ´filling the world with the book of mormon´ (that may or may not be the right title, I don´t know it in english so I´m trying to translate it...) by Pres. Benson. It is an incredible talk. LOOK IT UP EVERYONE. One point I´d like to emphasize is in the talk he tells us we need to read and study the book of mormon EVERYDAY. Joseph Smith testified that it is the most true book in the world and that we can become closer to God by reading and living it´s precepts than by any other book. And I add my testimony to this Prophet of the Lord that the Book of Mormon is true and that it testifies of Christ and the very purpose of the book is to convince all that Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer.
One thing that I´d wished I´d done prior to the mission is research the catholic church and just learn a little of what they believe. I find it very interesting when the people here talk about saints and different things and I wish I knew a little more. I know it´s not a necessity and I don´t need to know about the other churches of the world to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true Church of God. There is great power in telling the people "I don´t know a lot about other churches but i can tell you what I do know, I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that My redeemer Jesus Christ lives. I´m so grateful for the knowledge that has been granted to me by my Heavenly Father through the Spirit. These are not things you can gain a knowledge of by talking to men, you need to ask God because these are things from and about God and there is no one better to ask than the source-Heavenly Father.
I am happy and grateful for everything that I´ve been given and I hope that the letters I have sent make it home and to their respective places.

Love

Elder Hunter Allen Robinson

Email letter dated May 9, 2012 - 'package and sore throat'

May 9, 2012

Dear Family,

This week has been great. we have taught a lot and had a lot of fun. I received the package that you sent to me way back when. Thank you so much, I loved the card and all the goodies. Elder Johnson also got a package so that´s fun. His family always includes something for his companion in their packages which is fun (hint hint). One thing I wish I had is my recipe book. Could you send it to me? Also something fun I thought of, could you send me my ducks, it would be fun to give them to the little kids here.
A little about Elder Johnson-he is adopted, he has one sister who is also adopted. He is from Sandy and he loves basketball. He loves coke, mountain dew, and toast. He loves toast so much he bought a toaster to make toast, to be honest I would have done the same thing. I love toast and am very thankful for that little chunk of metal. We eat pretty good and have a good time making food. He has many great ties and receives packages like crazy. He is a great missionary and a good man.
On Friday night I started to feel sick- sore throat and a headache. It progressed to a cough and my throat got worse and I lost my voice for a day. But now I am much better, we had a new missionaries meeting in Santiago on Monday and Sister Lee gave me a bunch of drugs to help-throat spray, cough drops, vitamin C tablets, pain killers and mucinex. She is Very versed in the ways of taking care of sick missionaries. I am feeling much better now, still have the cough and the throat is still a little sore and I´m coughing up shrek colored mucus all the time. My voice is really low so that is kinda fun. Im sure by the time I see you on sunday I will be back to normal. I´m trying to remember my username for skype.....maybe you could help me out?
on Sunday we had the opportunity to give a young man in our ward a blessing, I anointed in spanish and Elder Johnson gave the blessing. It was my first time in spanish, I was pretty nervous...It went well.
one cool thing that they have here are Rutas they are a bunch of cars that drive specific routes around the city and you can pay 20 pesos per person to ride the whole route, so it´s like a taxi but way cheaper and it´s really convenient. The thing is that they jam 7 people in a little 5 person car. But it´s cheap and convenient.
One thing that is really sad here is that just about every dog or cat you see is a stray and they look like they´ve had the crap kicked out of them. They are all skinny and ragged. The dogs that are pets are always chained up because no one has yards here. It´s very sad for me. I like dogs and cats but all the ones here are scared and hurt.
This is kinda short and scatter brained but I´m writing a letter that I´ll send soon so that will be good.
Look up the ¨mysteries of mormonism¨ by Bruce R. McKonkie it´s really good.

I´ll see you on Sunday!

Elder Robinson