Email letter dated June 12, 2013 'Elder De La Cruz'

June 12, 2013

Dear Family,

Wow this week has been amazing. Ever since the day I received my new comp Elder De La Cruz one week ago things have been great. There´s always a little fear when you receive a new comp that you won´t get along or he´ll be disobedient but I´m pleased to say that Elder De La Cruz and Í couldn´t get along any better. We are great friends and we only have a week together. The best part is that he and I both have the same expectations for ourselves and for one another. We work well together and teach well together. I´m technically Senior Comp but I am learning a ton from my comp who has a little over 7 months in the mission. He is Dominican so he is familiar with the problems that are here in the D.R. as far as the church is concerned and he has had callings and experience in fixing the problems and it appears to be his attention to detail that makes all the difference. We are working hard and are feeling the spirit strongly everyday.

I am the most obedient and the most happy that I've ever been in my mission. 

On Sunday President and Sister Douglas came and attended church here in Conani which I´m pretty sure was a big surprise for everyone because I think they came unannounced. Sister Douglas plays the violin and she always brings it to play the hymns wherever she goes. It was fun to see everyone in the congregation mesmerized and in some kind of trance as they watched her movements as she played her violin. There were 75 people in church which is the highest number of people that I´ve seen attend church here in Conani. Ramon and Rosi and Gabriel came and it was awesome. Elder De La Cruz gave an awesome gospel principles class for the investigators and the spirit was very strong. 

I was so happy that day I couldn't help but smile really really big. It was the strongest I've been able to feel the spirit in this branch.

The work is going forward and we are working really hard to find new people to teach. Elder De La Cruz is 25 and he definitely came prepared to the mission. He is strong and is super knowledgeable. 

keep on keepin on and smile every day because I know I am.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated June 5, 2013 'A New Transfer'

June 5, 2013

Hey all,

It is yet another transfer and I have yet another new comp. His name is Elder De la Cruz. He's Dominican and has about 7 months in the mission. Here you have a few pictures. One is a baptism that we had a few weeks ago. one is of my district  one of of me posing as Malfoy because I'm wearing my Slytherin tie. and the other is of me and Elder De la Cruz

Email letter dated June 5, 2013 'The Spirit'

June 5, 2013

Dear Family,

We had a very interesting experience this week: As you all know we are teaching Ramonand his "wife" Rosi. They have progressed a lot and always read and have received confirmation from the spirit of the Almighty God that what we are teaching is true. Due to work and other things that have come up they have not been able to come to church. Ramon did come once but has had to work on sunday recently.

This transfer is coming to an end in just a week and things are constantly changing. It's really weird as each transfer ends and people I know go home. Elder Johnson has just one more transfer before he goes home and I feel really weird and old knowing that my first comp in the mission field is going home. such is life in the mission...

It's raining a ton lately and we enjoyed an awesome lightning and thunder storm the other night. Life is good.

In other news I'M DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

I WANNA DO THE DAVE RAMSAY DEBT FREE SCREAM!

I am finally finished paying my debt for all the loving and thoughtful packages that hav been sent to me. I love packages and wouldn't mind receiving more as long as they are sent to the proper address:
Dominican Republic Santiago Mission

Ave. Estrella Sadhalá #10, 2ndo piso

Frente a UTESA

Santiago, Rep. Dom. 51000

Email letter dated May 22, 2013 'The Cell Phone'

May 22, 2013

 

Dear Family,

 

On Saturday we helped a member in the zone leader's area move to a new house. We got her and her kids all situated and helped clean up the little patch of land in front of the house with machetes and a shovel. It was a good opportunity to serve. We did it in record time.

There was a baptism here in the branch scheduled for later that night so we went from the move to fill the baptismal font. We cleaned it up a little and turned on the water and left the water running while we went home to make pizza. it turned out great by the way. after lunch we went back to the chapel to check on the water. it was really low still so once again we left the water running and went home to shower and get ready to go out and teach. As we got home I threw my jeans into the washer that already had some of my other clothes and I turned it on. I took a shower and got ready to go and was sitting at the table studying when I heard thudding sounds coming from the washer. I thought to myself "it always makes that sound when I put my jeans in there because it has a metal button that hits and scrapes the washer as it moves around. As I got ready to leave I realized I didn't have my lucky rock in my pocket and thought "oh it's in the washer making all that noise" and sure enough when I reached my arm into the washer I pulled out my lucky rock. we were ready to go and we knelt at the front door and prayed and as we stood my comp asked me if I had the cell phone. I said no and we went in search of the cell phone. after about five minutes I said out loud "I cant' be dumb enough to have thrown it in the washer." As I plunged my hand into the water I screamed "NOOOOOOOO!!!" as my hand touched the cell phone.

yes, I sent our cell phone scuba diving......

I've always prided myself for never having dropped my cellphone in the toilet or drowning until today....

so we were without a cell phone for 2 days but in the end it was good because the phone I drowned was super old and a piece of junk and hardly worked and we had previously asked for a new one.

That same day we had a meeting with area seventy Elder Dominguez (his wife was sis hamilton's companion and the one that received the necklace I brought) It was an amazing meeting.
Pres. Douglas talked about tithing and it's amazing how you can gain a strong testimony of tithing when as missionaries we generally don't pay tithing. but some of the things he said were very powerful: "if I earn 1000 pesos and pay 100 pesos in tithing I will only have 900 pesos. but it's 900 pesos with the window of heaven open. to have 1000 pesos is good but to have 900 pesos with the windows of heaven open is better." So awesome!

Everyone can and should pay tithing. it is a matter of faith and can be a great trial of faith but we receive our testimony of all gospel doctrine and principles after the trial of our faith. Ether 12:6

Hey taft, just so you know, when you accepted your call to serve a mission you also accepted the call to be a marriage counselor. Buckel up little buddy. haha.

things are good and really rainy. we are getting wet just about daily.

Elder Robinson

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

Email letter dated May 8, 2013, 'I'm Back!'

May 8, 2013

 

Dear Family,

 

So.......it´s been a little while since I´ve legitimately written...hope to be better.

We are making progress here in Conani: we have been blessed with 2 new investigators which are awesome:

Ramon

He was a reference from the zone leaders. they taught him about the restoration and about the book of mormon and then realized that he actually lives in our area. the way they found him is super cool: the zone leaders were teaching one of their investigators and one of the investigator´s friends, Marcos, was there. they talked a little with Marcos and gave him a pamphlet about the restoration and Joseph Smith and put an appointment to visit him at his house. Sometime in between the time they met him and went to visit him at his house, Marcos went to visit his neighbor Ramon who lives right in front of his house. Marcos left the pamphlet in Ramon´s house and when Ramon got home from work he saw it and asked his wife about it and she said it was Marcos´ he sat down and started reading and he really liked what he read. THe time came when the zone leaders went to go find Marcos. The addresses in this country are so messed up that the only hope of finding anyone is asking the neighbors. So the zone leaders knew they were close to Marcos´ house but weren´t sure so they decided to ask the neighbors and walked to Ramon´s house. They asked for Marcos and where he lived and Ramon told them that he lives in front of the house but that he´s not home. He then invited them to talk with him and were surprised to find that he had read the pamphlet and was interested and had questions. When they introduced us to ramon he had read 2 Nephi 31 and understood it perfectly and that´s how the lessons have continued: he reads, understands and accepts the truth. It´s awesome!

the only problem that we have with Ramon is that just like the majority of people in this country he is not married. He lives with his ¨wife¨ and daughter but they are not married. It´s a very common problem.

Gabriel

we were talking with an old contact and trying to help him find a verse in the bible. He is a contact that straight up told us that he´s catholic and that he will never change religion. He read about the restoration and ¨can´t believe that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and the Son.¨ but we still talk to him and we are kinda friends. anyways, we were talking with him a little bit and as we were talking this young guy came out of nowhere and was kinda looking at me funny and he finally asked me who we are and what the book of mormon is amoung other things. He is 17 or 18 and he is interested in the church and the gospel. We gave him a book of mormon and invited him to church the next day and he came! He brought his younger brother and they were there at the church before everyone else waiting for someone to show up and open the gate. Pretty cool. At the end of church they asked what they need to do to be baptized! we are gonna keep teaching them and hope they see the waters of baptism.

Immorality is a big problem in the world but it is problem number one here in the D.R.. It is a serious problem. Fornication is rampant and Adultery seems to be child´s play. Many families are destroyed by this plague and the members of the church are not safe. We have to protect ourselves just the same if not more because I am seeing many good wholesome, strong, loving, families be destroyed by this. It´s very sad and very frustrating to watch and I can´t imagine what it would be like to live it....

less actives are harder to teach and help than investigators. All have excuses and all of them womp. I´ve found myself lost as to how to help these people come back to the fold. They just need to feel the spirit like they did before. It bites.

Feeling Good

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated April 24, 2013 'The Gang's all Back Together'

April 24, 2013

Dear Family,

Transfers are here again and Elder Castro and i are still together here in La Vega. We are both pleased that we stayed and are ready to put our shoulder to the wheel and get to work. Although neither of us left the area we both had to pack up everything and move because they divided and created a new area near ours and have put sister missionaries there and now the sister missionaries are living in the apartment where we were living and we are living in a bigger apartment with two other missionaries that share our branch if that makes sense...there are four of us working here in the same branch but the area of the branch is divided in 2 and we have to live out of our area now and have to walk about 10 minutes to get to our area....but that´s okay. more walking means less weight. speaking of weight I weighed myself last week and according to the scale in the mission home i weigh 160!!!!! wa-hoooo!

The sister missionaries also have to live outside of their area but they live way outside of their area....

Living in a house of four missionaries should be interesting...I hope i can be a good example.

It´s really rough to hear that your converts are inactive....Elder VillaNueva seems to be following from zone to zone because he is now here in La Vega and I got to talk to him for a minute and he said that ronald and wanirsy are less active.... that bites.

We are trying to rescue those that have been lost here in Conani. There are surprisingly a lot of people that got baptized to please their mom or dad or family or grandma or boyfriend or they just see their baptism as a little fling and taht it was a good ride full of good experiences but the fling and the ride are over. They don´t realize that once you´re a member of the church you´re a member for life and you have obligations with God because you´ve made covenants. So we are trying to help these people gain a real testimony. it´s a little hard but it can and will be done.

I pray for you all so much and hope you are all well and see that Lord´s hand working in your life.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated April 17, 2013 'Pet Store'

April 17, 2013

Dear Family,

Today we visited a pet store here in Santiago and I´ve always been kinda sad to see all the cute little animals in boxes and cages, but this pet store was different: they let some of the animals out of their enclosures and let them hang around the store. As you can see from the pictures we made friends with Emilio the parrot. He´s a very curious bird and likes to eat neck ties as you can see from the picture with my comp. it also looks like Emilio is trying to hang him with his own tie. haha. when emilio was perched on my shoulder he tried to eat my tie as well. Apparently he also likes to pop the buttons of of peoples shirts. haha

We also saw a little black, super fuzzy dog that was loose and playing with one of the workers. so fun! there were fish and turtles and hedgehogs and sugar gliders and mice and hamsters and puppies and bunnies and a shark and tons of different kinds of birds and monkeys. It was super fun to tour all the animals.

Notice: If you are going to send me a package send it directly to the mission office and not the miami florida address. I am almost done paying off my debt to the mission for the packages and it can´t be soon enough.

Mom please tell Kim Hamilton to email about the scripture cases even if it´s just to say yes or no. if she wants to do it it definitely be best to deposit the money to my debit account to pay for them.

We are finding more and more inactive members in La Vega everyday. Some just need a little push to get them to come back, others need to be comforted and animated to come back and others are unable to come back fully due to financial situations and for their work situation...

working hard and having fun and healing from a sunburn...

I went and saw the mission doctor today about engrown toenails and it turns out that I have nasty foot fungus....to cure the fungus is a long expensive process involving taking a certain drug for 3-6 months minimum and getting liver tests every month to make sure the drugs aren´t killing the liver. It´s not feasible to do in the mission so It will have to wait. I just need to keep it clean and try to help it not be engrown. And even after the mission I´m not sure I´ll go through this long procedure, it´s not life threatening and my toenails don´t usually hurt me so it´s not big deal.

Keep the Faith. Trust in God.

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated April 10, 2013 'Conference'

April 10, 2013

Dear Family,

It was a good but stressful conference this past weekend. We tried everything in the book so that Elder Munoz and I could watch it in English but we had to give up and watch it in Spanish....we saw the last hour and a half of the priesthood session in English but the rest was in Spanish. Which isn't so bad because i understood just about everything; the thing that I have noticed about myself is that if I don't focus and concentrate on what's being said i may understand but I easily forget. So I didn't get very much out of this conference due to being a little tired, language barrier and technical difficulties.

Technical difficulties should be expected in a third world country I suppose, but I was very frustrated... I love conference and i take it very seriously and it hurts my heart when conference starts and the only people there are the missionaries and the guy that brought the laptop...that's how it was on Saturday. in true dominican style there were some people that came late so better late than never I guess. All in all I am really looking forward to receiving my Liahona (international version of the Ensign) so I can read the conference.

The one investigator we had that was progressing really well toward baptism and that had a baptismal date for this Saturday dropped off the face of the earth...We haven't seen or talked to him since the Sunday before conference. His son was going to come and visit from Spain and he was gong to be out of town for a couple days but we have passed by his house almost daily to try and find him and have had zero luck...We don't know what happened. We are going to try and find him today here in a little while so we'll see what happens.

This area has a lot of potential and I want to see it come to fruition.

Today my comp decided he would give himself a haircut. haha. After about two hours he came out and I thought it didn't look too bad and i thought it actually looked pretty good. we later went to a haircut place so i could get my haircut and it was super fast and short. the barber looked at my comp and asked him if he wanted him to help him fix his hair. haha. It looked good before but looks better now.

Today i got creative and taped together who knows how many pieces of paper to make a big square with which i made a giant origami inflatable box. you gotta find fun ways to make p days interesting. haha It actually didn't come out as big as i thought and hoped it would but it was fun.

We are seeing some difficulty due to inactive members taht are inactive due to something that some other member did to them or they were offended by one of the leaders or they were released from their calling as branch President and just left because they were offended that they were released. We are just seeing a lot of people that don't know the purpose of the church and why they joined the church and how it functions.

We gotta keep on keepin on and helping these people come unto Christ

Elder Robinson

Email letter dated March 27, 2013 ' Little Conani'

March 27, 2013

Greetings!

Our area according to the mission is called Conani B but I found out this week that Conani is just the name of the branch here and it gets it´s name from a school named Conani that is close by. Kinda confusing, at least it was for me, then again I´m a little slow...
Things are a little slow going here because we don´t have a lot of people that we are teaching. We are currently trying to find new people to teach and contacting is always a little rough. My comp has 4 months here and from what he´s told me and what I can tell he has contacted a lot here and doesn't really have tons of desire to contact the same houses and people he contacting a month or two ago. I totally understand that feeling because I've been there too. But we´re missionaries and we gotta go find the diamond in the rough. We do have a few investigators that are progressing and a few that aren't...

Victor is a very intelligent and curious man. He constantly has weird off the wall questions that have nothing to do with his salvation or really anything to do with what we are teaching and he insists on answers. for example: Why are there black people and white people. now that one is not too off the wall and is a logical question and can even be explained and analyzed in the Book of Mormon by looking at the Lamanites but this question brought another question: where do the Chinese come from? if we all came from Adam and eve where do the Chinese come from? I actually studied this one a little bit and I´m not saying that the answer isn't there but from what I could see there is nothing doctrinal that states where they came from and why they have maintained their race so pure. We do learn that the Egyptians came from Noah but I couldn´t find anything on the Chinese. I´m just gonna tell him to look it up on google because as far as i know there isn´t anything doctrinal as far as that goes. He´s a very interesting character that has been told his whole life that God the Father is Jehovah so we had to help him with that. The difference between him and so many others i have talked with on this subject is that he is open to truth. There are so many people that will fight you to the death to prove their point but Victor sees and understands truth when it is presented. He has a baptismal date for the 13 of April so we will see what happens, I have high hopes for him.

We are also teaching the Lopez family. They are a great family that really reminds me of mine because they are loud and silly and happy and goofy and totally not normal. haha. It´s Katy and her 4 kids: 1 son-Ambiorix, and 3 daughters-Karen, Vanelly, and Valery. ranging in ages 11-22. Katy was in an accident on Sunday: she was on a motor scooter and a car hit her. She´s pretty banged up and hit her head pretty hard but she is getting better. They called us yesterday and we were able to give her a blessing and every day she is getting better. The struggle that we are having with them is that Ambiorix doesn´t participate very much and isn´t progressing because he doesn´t read and has not yet come to church. He needs some encouragement so we´re going to see what we can do.

Life is good in La Vega. It´s really hot and it´s only gonna get hotter....I just have to survive one more dominican summer...

Elder Robinson