November 7, 2013 "Elder Anderton speaks Spanish"

November 7, 2013

Dear Family,

Elder Anderton is beginning to see that God keeps his promises and that his mouth is filled with the words he should say when he opens his mouth.

Our investigator is progressing but was unable to come to church because he didn't have any clean clothes...it's a lame excuse I know and we are going to talk to him this week about keeping the sabbath day holy so that he understands a little better. It's the first time he has missed church in over 2 months so he's doing really well. He still has his baptismal date for November 30 and I truly believe that he will make it!

Other than him we really don't have any other investigators. We've started working with Ismael again after he's been sick for the last 2-3 weeks. We were able to talk to him and his mom on Monday and put a baptismal date for the 21 of december. his mom is the big IF because she claims he needs to change and be better or essentially perfect to be baptized. we were able to talk things out and she agreed that if she has seen real growth and change between now and December 21 then she will let him be baptized so we'll see how that goes.

We went and played paintball this morning with a part of the zone and it was a lot of fun. it was the first time I've ever paintballed and I really thought it would hurt a lot more than it does. it's an intense game that gets the blood pumping and the adrenaline rushing. it was a good time and great to do something different and fun on P day.

workin hard and havin fun- john miller's famous quote

so cool that you were able to go to the marching band competition. AF does it again!!!!! I'm proud to be a caveman! It's also pretty cool that you were able to see Nikelle a little in her new life in southern utah. She's pretty awesome and may be too cool for me with all the cool stuff she does.

Well gotta go get sardined into a bus and go back to licey to try to get home and take a shower and then back to harvesting souls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Robinson

October 30, 2013 "Spanish"

October 30, 2013

Dear Family,

Elder Anderton and I are trying to practice spanish and learn more spanish to help him gain some confidence and so that he can actually speak. Everyone asks him to talk just because they probably are uncomfortable that he new guy never says anything...he gets frustrated when they tell him to talk and he is generally frustrated with spanish. He beats himself up way too much. I know I did a fair share of beating myself up when I was first learning spanish but not nearly as much as he does. The great danger of never saying anything is that your mind wanders and you think of a lot of different things which can make you home sick and can also make it very difficult to focus on the work. I feel like he just spaces out most of the time and day dreams about football and home. It´s a challenge but nothing we can´t overcome. I essentially make him pay attention and almost force him to teach so that he gets out of his shell and opens his mouth.

Our investigator is progressing but still has issues with his ex-wife which is bad and in my opinion is preventing him from progressing. He still holds onto old hurt feelings and he needs to let go and move on if he´s really going to do this all for the right reasons. He quit smoking and drinking coffee in just a week and he hasn´t failed to come to church in over 2 months. He´s doing well but if we don´t figure out a couple little issues then it´s gonna be tricky...

other than him we don´t really have other progressing investigators which has resulted in Elder Anderton learning the joys of tracting and knocking doors. We´ve met many catholics and I feel we´ve had to talk about Mary and why we don´t worship her everyday this week.

Now that I´ve been accepted to byu I´ve been thinking about what I´d like to study and the major that has been on my mind lately has been physical therapy. it just seems right to me. only time will tell...

google may say that the temp is going down here in the D.R. but I would tell you that google lies.

We had an awesome meeting with all the bishops, mission leader, missionaries, and the stake presidency along with Pres. Douglas on saturday where we talked about goals we want to meet befoe the end of the year in the stake and in the stake the leaders put a goal to baptize 50 people and rescue 47 inactive families. needless to say there is a lot of work to be done and it there is no way we will be able to meet these goals if we don´t have member support and if we don´t work with them on a daily basis. the inactive families that we are working with are not progressing with just visits from the missionaries. they need the members. We gotta work!

Elder Hunter Allen Robinson

p.s. sorry this was so long Taft, I know you used a lot of time to read it; if you read it. haha

October 25, 2013 "Another Busy Week"

Dear Family,

 

In my interview with President Douglas he said something that I liked: if you have faith it means you gotta work like hell.¨

it´s true and it´s direct.

We´ve had some good experiences teaching and finding new people but for the most part the work is really slow.....member support is waning and we have very few people that we are teaching.

Mom thank you for always being so loving and patient having to clean up after us all our lives and pleading and begging us to do a few little chores and then doing them anyway when you disobedient children don´t do them. I think I may know a little of what that feels like now and I am sorry. I don´t like playing ¨mom¨ in our house but unfortunately I have to. I have to be constantly hounding the others (mostly the 2 latins, my comp is great) to help and pull their weight. Now I can´t even imagine what it must be like to do that for 7 people. You´re Wonder Woman!

working with less actives doesn´t seem to be rendering results...it´s a long and difficult way back to activity and sometimes it´s hard to know what these people need to progress and come back. Most of the time they just put on a show to try and convince us that everything is okay and that they are fine but we know they aren´t and it´s hard to know how to learn their problems. It´s obvious that we need the spirit and the gift of descernment because they dont seem all that excited or willing to tell us what´s going on. the key is patience and love. which isn´t always easy....

In a meeting we had with Pres. Douglas yesterday we were talking about the gift of tongues and it´s a commonly misunderstood gift of the spirit. The gift of tongues obviously refers to those missionaries that go to foreign lands and speak foreign languages but it also refers to every missionary and member and person that speaks their native language. The gift of tongues refers more to the ability to speak by the spirit and communicate what God wants communicated whether it be in a foreign language or not. So Taft, you have the gift of tongues and I know that you had your heart set on going out of the country on your mission to speak another language and thought it had been confirmed through your patriarchal blessing but know that you do have the gift of tongues and you are teaching the word of God in his language; the language of the spirit.

I am feeling the spirit in ways that I haven´t felt before. And I attribute it to my amazing companion that has such great desires to serve and be obedient and be a great missionary.

and we are not being disobedient by emailing on friday (not p day). the internet center was closed on wednesday and we were busy yesterday.

my deferment to the summer semester at BYU was granted so I´m all set to go!!!!!!! man that was a stressful and long process...so happy it´s over.

Life is good and it´s almost Halloween!!!

happy birthday Noah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

does he have a personal email address now that he´s 14?

love ·Elder hunter allen robinson