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