Email letter dated May 15, 2013, 'Moving'

May 15, 2013

 

Dear Family,

 

Well we are no longer living in a house of 4 missionaries. We moved yesterday to our old house again. I´ll be honest and say that I´m tired of packing and unpacking my suitcases and moving houses. We have moved twice in just 3 weeks and as a missionary you usually don´t have to pack up and move unless you get transferred to another area but we have packed up and moved twice without even leaving the area! I`m just tired of lugging my heavy suitcases up and down stairs...

Life is good and a little bit better now that we are in our own house again. it was interesting and fun to be in a house of 4 but it was a little inconvenient: sharing the house, the washer, plates, stove, oven, fridge......and there are more potential distractions. It was good because we could hang out with the other elders and that was fun and we were able to coordinate our efforts in the work a little better since we were living together. we are mostly happy because the old house is close to the church, a super nice colmado, a butcher shop, internet center, barbershop, and it´s actually in our area. so ultimately, better in just about every way.

Our lessons with Ramon just get better and better. We talked about the 10 commandments yesterday with him and his wife Rosi (she is progressing too and is just as awesome as Ramon). As we talked about the commandment to not have any more gods before God he immediately stood up and took a big framed painting of Michael the archangel off the wall. He explained that he had prayed to the painting before and needs to obey the commandments. He and his wife are so open to truth they seem to be willing to keep every commandment once they understand it. He is so passionate about keeping the sabbath day holy and is worried about his unemployment and a security job that might make it difficult to come to church. the only hang up that we see is that he and his wife are not married.......We are going to talk to them about chastity tomorrow so we shall see how it goes. They get me so stoked and excited to teach!

Sis Douglas is super famous and knows the sculptor that made all the amazing statues of the life of Christ and she asked her (I think it´s a woman) to make a special statue for the mission. It is a statue of Christ cleaning Peter´s feet. this has a lot of special significance for Sis. Douglas because one of the things they do in here charity in India is clean the wounds on the feet of the people in the leper colonies and it is apparently an amazing experience. She showed us a couple videos and it looks like an amazing thing that she has going on in India. It´s a one of a kind statue that was made especially for the Santiago, Dominican Republic mission. Oh the things you can do when you are famous and have connections. haha.

We are seeing progress and are still working with many people to help them come unto Christ. It´s unfortunate when someone decides that they don´t want to. Such seems to be the case with the Lopez family. they were doing so well and  progressing and a couple of them were coming to church but now all progress has stopped and now we feel that we are essentially fighting against their free will to get them to progress. So we feel that it isn´t their time right now and that in some future day they may make the necessary sacrifices to gain a real testimony.

for that reason the mission is difficult; you meet so many good people and you do everything you can to help them come unto Christ and when it comes to a point that they just don´t want to anymore it´s hard...

Such is life-there must be opposition in all things. keep on keeping on.

Elder Robinson