Email letter dated December 27, 2012 'Christmas in the D.R'

 December 27, 2012

Dear Family,

With all of it´s differences and the slight lack of Christmas decorations and carols this Christmas has been truly remarkable. On Christmas Eve I carried a small red stocking filled with rubber ducks and other little toys and homemade caramel popcorn balls over my shoulder as if I were Santa Clause. As we walked the streets looking for inactive members I gave ducks and popcorn to little kids and some adults. Something that I find weird here is that they don´t say merry Christmas...but as I handed out my goodies I always was sure to say ¨Feliz Navidad.¨ There was one experience that happened that I will likely never forget: We went to go give Christmas Presents to and investigator family and as we handed out little rubber ducks to each child and their mom there were two little black kids, a little boy and his older sister, standing outside the outer gate of the house peering into the house seeing the smiles and the joy of the other kids with their new toys. As I saw them I instantly sttod up, walked the gate and handed them each a duck and said ¨Feliz Navidad.¨ As I entered into the very small house again to sit back down I looked back to see a very big smile on the face of the little girl. She was so cute and so very pleased with her new little duck, that smile was a manifestation of what I like to call true happiness. The happiness that really matters and that fills your whole heart and your whole soul and radiates from your body filling each person that is near you. There were many other sweet moments as we gave popcorn balls to a homeless woman and her daughter who were begging for money, some little kids in the street, and many members. 

Here in the D.R. the really big party is Christmas eve or ¨Noche Buena¨ as they call it. They cook enough food for an army and go to town. We went and ate lots and lots of food: rice, beans, chicken, pork, bread, potato salad, vegetables, yuca, platano, cookies, sparkling cider........the list goes on and on. Needless to stay we were stuffed and about ready to burst which was a bad idea because we had committed to go eat at another members house as well...we went and could only drink juice and even that was a stretch. All in all it was a great night.

Christmas day we got up and I opened Nikelle´s Christmas package that she sent to me that I´ve been saving to open for 3 weeks (now that´s what I call self control or as Elder Chalas likes to call it- ¨la paz interior¨) in it I found 2 bags of pretzel m and m´s, a ton of tootsie rolls, a homemade stocking that looks like a shirt and slacks with a clip on tie, and the cd for the forgotten carols. I also had saved the gift that was the book ¨the forgotten carols because I wanted to have at least one present to open on Christmas day. I started to read ¨the forgotten Carols¨ to Elder Chalas using the cd in the appropriate places to hear the music. He can understand nearly everything he hears in english so he can understand the story with a little bit of clarification in a few spots. Later after talking with the family on skype I learned that the sd card they sent me had the forgotten carols music on it along with my mom and dad reading the book trading off reading chapters as if it were an audio book. I also discovered the other Christmas music on the card which I am very grateful for, really wish I would have thought to check that before...

Later that night we took the gingerbread house kit that the family sent me to Rosi´s house (she´s the same one we visited the day before to give them ducks and it was at her house I gave the 2 ducks to the little black kids) We built the house with them and had a pretty good time. Those little kids did a pretty good job! We took lots of pictures and had a lot of fun. When we got home I wanted to finish reading the forgotten carols but Elder Chalas was really tired, I read to him until he fell asleep and then I finish the story reading it to myself. I´ll finish reading it to him today.

Today was p day santiago and it really wasn´t worth it for me....I´m really sweaty and tired because we had to travel so far to get there and we didn´t really do anything other than print pictures and I didn´t print very many. In my opinion, p day santiago isn´t worth the time or the money if you live as far away as we do...But life is good and I am happy. 

It´s been a different Christmas but it has opened my eyes to my purpose as a missionary: The focus on Christ is not nearly as prominent here as it is back home, most people just seem to be happy that they aren´t working for a few days which makes it even more important for me as a representative of Christ to do all I can to bring HIS spirit into their lives so that they can feel his love and know he lives. This is what I have always tried to do but I realize it´s importance even more now that so many people have not acknowledged or remembered the savior at this time of year. Through serving and carrying that spirit of love, hope and happiness to the people here I have felt it so much more in my life and I know that MY Redeemer lives.

Elder Robinson

December 19, 2012 'Christmas Testimony'

 
December 19, 2012            Christmas Testimony

This testimony is to be printed and read on Christmas eve when the family is gathered and we are reading the account of Christ´s birth from the Bible as is customary and traditional for our family on Christmas eve.

Being a missionary is a great privilege. I have seen many incredible things happen in my life and the lives of others here. I´ve been blessed in ways that would be impossible outside of the mission. One great blessing that I have received is that of being able to catch a glimpse of God´s children through His eyes; He has blessed me to see the love that he has for each individual I see and teach and talk to and also to see the potential that each of us have as HIS children. I´ve been comforted by HIM as I have been told that certain investigators no longer want us to go by and teach them and I´ve been able to tell them that I love them and their Father in Heaven loves them. It is hard to see investigators fall away or stop progressing but I know it isn´t the end for them. Just because I was not the missionary to see them enter the waters of baptism doesn´t mean that it won´t ever happen. I have not and will never ´shake the dust of my feet¨ because I have a firm hope and faith that one day they will fully accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives and join us in the kingdoms of our Father.

Christ lives and I know that more now than at any other time in my life. He is mindful of me and is my strength and my rock. He has overcome death and I know that each of us will overcome the physical gift and that salvation is the sublime gift of God. I also know that our Heavenly Father does not only want to save us, rather he wants to exalt us on high. He has provided the way and all we need to do is get on it and stay on it. The world will not make it easy but as Elder Holland and Pres. Packer have so passionately stated, ¨It was never meant to be easy, we are working for Eternal Life!¨ It may be difficult at times but it is never impossible. Jesus Christ some 2012 years ago was born in a stable surrounded by animals. He was born in the most humble of circumstances that could exist for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to be born. He grew to accomplish His Father´s will and complete His mission perfectly and thanks be to our Heavenly Father that we are not under that same mandate but it is our mission and our quest to accomplish the Lord´s will and prepare this world and ourselves and our neighbors and our families and our friends when Christ will come again with power and glory to rein as the Son of God on earth. I love my Savior Jesus Christ and am striving to be like Him everyday and there is no better time of year to become more like him than this season. Amongst all the parties and games and gifts and everything associated with Santa Clause there are Always ways to see the influence of God in our lives and to see the True meaning of Christmas all around us. This year I am in a very different place than I am used to at this time of year and I am finding it a welcomed challenge to spread the true meaning of Christmas. This world is not too far gone that we cannot make it better by being better. 

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Email letter dated December 19, 2012 'It's Christmas Time in the City'

  December 19, 2012

Dear Family,

Christmas is coming in a hurry and I´m trying to do things to make it a good one. I´ve made sticky popcorn balls and have given them away to people, I hung up some Christmas lights and hung up the stockings that we have. We are having a branch Christmas party on Saturday and we are having a gift exchange. I pulled Leidy´s name out of the bag, she´s a 14 year old dominican girl and I really don´t know what I´m going to give her.....What do 14 year old girls like?

Samuel and Magalis (our golden family) are slipping a little. We haven´t taught them for a little while because they haven´t been home and have been busy.... They didn´t come to church on sunday....I have such high hopes for them, I just hope we haven´t lost them...

Elder Chalas and I are feeling like we are going to stay here in Cotui together for another transfer but no one really knows. Trainer calls are today and with a bazillion of new missionaries coming every transfer it is very likely that everyone could be called to train. We see what happens. Personally I hope we stay together because we get along really well and we work well together. 

Christmas without snow is different, everyone go jump in a big pile of it for me. Then take a hot shower. Both snow and hot showers don´t exist here. Which makes showering in the morning slightly painful: although there is no snow it is slightly cooler at night and in the mornings here, by no means is it cold even though every dominican will tell you that it is. But these slightly chilly mornings make freezing showers uncomfortable and a big shock to the system. Which is good for waking you up but man it´s cold...

Go serve someone and spread the true meaning of Christmas. Also say Merry Christmas to everyone you see today. 

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated Dec 12, 2012 "Packages, letters and Christmas Party"

 
December 12, 2012

On Monday I got 2 packages from home and 3 letters from Nikelle! Jackpot!!!!! I opened the packages from home and saw all the goodies that you sent me. Thank you!!!! Elder Chalas says thanks too. He really likes the yo-yo and all the other things you sent him. We will definitely build that gingerbread house.

So yesterday we had multiple zone conference with 2 other zones and Sister Douglas went nuts making tons of food. It was basically a thanksgiving dinner with turkey and pork and stuffing and fruit and of course rice. You wouldn´t think rice would appear at thanksgiving but we are in the D.R. where there are some people that if they don´t eat any rice during the day for whatever reason have to cook and eat rice before they go to sleep. It´s a weird mental Dominican thing that makes me laugh but it is true of some people. Needless to say it was an amazing meal. After which we had an amazing meeting with a short talk by President Douglas about Testimonies and then we had an incredible testimony meeting where nearly everyone, including me and my comp, bore their testimonies. It was awesome. After the meeting we watch Ben-Hur. I´ve never seen the whole movie and it looks like I may never see it all the way through because we had to stop and prepare for the Christmas Program that we had that some members attended. One elder gave the narration of the Christmas story from the scriptures and we sang teh Christmas hymns as the program progressed. I wish I had had my voice recorder to record it because it was so good! The conference was in La Vega which is quite the drive from Cotui so we stayed the night with some of the Elders in La Vega. It was a fun night with lots of talking, laughing, and making banana shakes. yumm......

As we left to make the long car ride back to good ol Cotui we accidentally left our house keys in the other elder´s house.....so we got home a few hours ago and didn´t have the keys to get in the house.....I got pretty car sick on the ride back and was not super thrilled at the thought of making that trip again. Fortunately we worked out a plan for the Elders in La Vega to send the keys in a small package with a taxi driver that was coming to Cotui anyway. So we are currently waiting for the taxi to arrive so we can get in the house, I can shower because I am really sweaty and stink and finally have a chance to relax for a minute or two.

Unfortunately we´ve not been back to teach Rafi and Rocío because she is in the U.S. and he has a tricky schedule.....same story with Eliosel, we´ve tried a couple times to get in contact with him this week but have come out empty handed.He lives far away and we have to take a car to get to his house so if he´s not there or we aren´t sure that he´s there then we don´t go because we can´t waste tons of time traveling. We´ll see what happens. Samuel and Magalis and thier two little boys: samuel and Isaac came to church on Sunday and the cool thing about smaller towns out in the country is that nearly everyone knows each other and as they were there everyone was saying hi and making them feel welcome.

It´s really hard when members go inactive due to a local leader in the church. It is really dificult for me to understand and even more difficult for me to understand how to help them overcome the stumbling block and come unto christ again.....

Life is good and Christmas is on the way. I plan to run out of ducks before the year runs out and in doing so put some smiles on some little domnincan faces.

Feliz Navidad

Elder Robinson

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