November 27, 2013 "Thanksgiving and a Baptism"

November 27, 2013

Dear Family,

This last week has been spent preparing our investigator as much as possible for his baptism. He will be baptized this Saturday and we are so stoked for him!!!! It´ll be my first baptism in nearly a year!

We are also planning a delicious thanksgiving feast for tomorrow. We´ll see how that goes. I´m confident everything will come out great except for the Chicken. Chicken is cheaper and easier to come by than turkey and we are poor missionaries so we are having Chicken for Turkey day. I´ve never cooked an entire Chicken before and I´m not really sure how it´ll come out. I feel kind of confident with the recipes that I have looked up and it doesn´t seem too difficult. I´ll let you know how it goes. We´ll have the chicken, gravy, mashed potatos, stuffing, crescent rolls, and a pudding pie. It should be great!

I think we have met our goal to go see a baseball game. We´ve had nearly all our lessons with our investigator with a member present and it has definitely shown in his progress and his preparation for baptism. I hope we get to go to a ball game.

I can´t believe that another transfer has gone by. Last week was transfers but we didn´t get changed because I´m training Elder Anderton and Trainers always spend 2 transfers with their ¨kids.¨ And from what Pres. Douglas has told me I´ll finish my mission with Elder Anderton seeing as how there are jsut 2 transfers left (this one and one more).

holidays are hard on missionaries but I want to work hard and endure to the end and not burn out. We´ll get to talk on Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Friday we put on and activity for the ward and it came out perfectly we started a little late but we had several games and I´m pretty sure everyone had a great time. activities are super important to help a ward let off some stress and have some wholesome family fun.

Happy Thanksgiving

Merry Christmas

Elder Robinson

p.s. everyone make a list of at least 100 things that you´re thankful for and then tell your Heavenly Father each thing you are thankful for.

November 20, 2013 "A successful week teaching"

November 20, 2013

Dear Family,

We had all three lessons with our investigator with members present this week and we have taught him all he needs to know for baptism. All we are doing now is reviewing and answering questions until his baptism on the 30. The progress of investigators that have a member present in each lesson is significantly enhanced when compared to those without members present. Just to have a friend in the church, someone that lives close by and can answer questions and help in anything and everything.

We had a somber lesson with a less active couple we have been working with last night. they have not progressed despite our greatest efforts to help. We fasted on saturday and sunday to help know what to do and the impression that we felt was that we needed to cut them loose just like we would with an investigator that does not progress. I am always hesitant to  cut someone loose but especially less actives. I feel a larger obligation to help them remember what they once knew and help them feel what they once felt. but when they show zero progress and very little desire and you come to a point where your time would be better spent elsewhere then its time to cut them loose. We have done everying possible to help but they just don´t seem to want to help themselves.....it was humbling and somber and they felt bad. We expressed our love for them and told them that when they decide that they are ready we will be waiting to help them come back.

Elder Anderton gave his first blessing in spanish and it was okay. he was super nervous and didn´t know what to say. As he placed his hands on the little girl's head he mumbled out a blessing that I could not hear nor understand because he talked so softly. As he finished we saw the girl's father, crying. I know that we all felt the spirit and that God heard his prayer and that he will bless that little girl.

Miracles are real and we are doing a great work.

Elder Hunter Allen Robinson

November 13, 2013, "A Good Week"

Dear Family,

 

Elder Anderton led the area yesterday as we had a companionship exchange and I left to go to the other area and he stayed and dominated teaching and contacting and speaking spanish.

Our investigator is doing really well. He is right on track for baptism.

Baseball is the national sport here int he D.R. and everyone is crazy about baseball and I told President Douglas that I thought it would be strange to live here for 2 years and never get to see a ball game. He told me that if we put a short term goal and if we meet it he would take us to a baseball game! the goal we came up with is to have at least 2 of the 3 lessons we teach to our investigator each week with a member present until he gets baptized on November 30. We have taught him once this week and we had a member with us and we have a member willing to go teach with us tomorrow and we hope to have our lesson on Saturday with a member as well. We feel like it is a good reasonable goal that will help our investigator immenslely and also help the members get involved and get us to a ball game. I really hope we can meet this goal. because it means a lot more than just a ball game for us. it means our investigator will be ready for baptism and he will have friends in church and the members will get to know him and We will be able to teach and do missionary work how we are supposed to. and hopefully it will get some members animated about missionary work.

Our young investigator is still on standby. I´m not sure he can be baptized now seeing as he is only 13 and probably needs to be more mature before he can get baptized especially since he´ll get baptized alone without any other family member with him which makes things very difficult for him so he may need some time.

I asked President Douglas if he will leave me in Licey to finish my mission and if he´ll leave me with Elder Anderton to finish and he said yes which is what I want. I have just 2 transfers (3 months) left and I´m gonna make the best of them.

I suppose everything is subject to change if President douglas receives some kind of revelation but I hope i stay right here.

It´s been a hard week in the Santiago, Dominican Republic mission. 2 missionaries were sent home early for making very regrettable mistakes and I think another was sent home today for similar reasons. You can tell that sending missionaries home takes a big toll on mission presidents. President Douglas has kinda been out of sorts lately...I can´t imagine what he must feel for those missionaries and how they themselves along with their families must feel....

Stay Strong. Be Righteous

Elder Robinson

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

October 16, 2013 "BYU!!"

October 16, 2013

Dear Family,

I GOT INTO BYU PROVO!!!

One stoked Elder

October 9, 2013 "My Kid"

October 9, 2013

Dear Family,

Today my son was born. His name is Elder Anderton and he is a giant. He is 6 foot 5 inches tall, played football, ran track, threw javelin and shot put and is a really nice humble guy. He´s from kamas utah. It´s the first time I´ve needed to look up at my comp to talk to him in a long time because all my comps for a long time have been shorter than me. He knows very little spanish which has taken me way back to when I first started the mission. I am trying to adjust to speaking english more, I´ve serisously forgotten how to say a lot of things

This last week was spent in the hospital trying to figure out what Elder Garcia has. We still don´t know what he has and he´s now in San Francisco de Macoris so it´ll be a little harder for him to get to the doctor´s office. He´s still peeing blood and they don´t know why...and now he´s not with me so I guess I´ll never know.

It was a tough transfer and I don´t know that I can say that I learned patience and tolerance but I know that it has prepared me for what I will face now with my kid and in the rest of my mission and the rest of my life.

General Conference was great! I was able to watch all of it in English and can´t wait for the Liahona to read over the talks again. It was my last conference in the mission so that´s kinda sad because I feel I learn so much more from it being a missionary. 

Many good friends are going home this transfer. It will never cease to amaze me how quickly one makes friends in such a short amount of time! 

It´s so cool that you were able to meet thomas vaga and his family. I do know him. I have talked to him several times. So cool that you met him and were able to talk.

Well life is crazy. The admissions counselor I emailed from BYU told me to go in and change my application on the 15 to apply for the summer semester so we´ll see how that goes. I got into byui but am not sure if I want to go there....we´ll see how it all pans out. I may or may not need to start a whole new application...

Life is crazy crazy crazy and the time is going to fly faster than ever now.

Elder Hunter Allen Robinson

October 2, 2013 "Called to Train"

October 2, 2013

Dear Family,

Well folks everyone´s been saying it for a long time now and I´ve been denying it until about 15 minutes ago. I´m gonna train this next transfer. President Douglas called me to tell me. It´s a little bit of a shock. I´ve known for a long time that I would train and President has always kinda teased me with it by calling me out in meetings about a year ago when he was talking about the huge flux of missionaries that is happening. so here we are. In a week I´ll have yet another companion and he´ll be a greenie hungry and thirsty to bring souls unto Christ. It´s gonna be a cool experience.

Let me tell you about one of the few progressing investigators we have here in Licey. His Ex Wife is a recent convert and is what got him coming to church. My first impression of him was not good seeing as how about a month ago he showed up drunk to lecture his ex wife for leaving him. So it was a big surprise to see him show up at church a couple weeks later and he hasn´t missed church since. He has some obvious issues with the word of wisdom but he is very sincere and has since asked ex-wife and his daughter to forgive him. In the past he has spoken out against the church on radio and t.v. so we are being really careful about everything but it seems like he is truly changing. He has a baptismal date for the 30 of November and it looks like I´ll be here seeing as how I´ll probably stay here to train and generally you spend two transfers (3 months) training. It´s been interesting to see nearly all doubts about this investigator disappear as we have been guided by the spirit and have taught him. He has changed and if he´s willing to make a drastic change in his life he will be baptized on november 30.

it´s raining a lot here and my comp is sick. We still don´t know what he has. he´s at the hospital with Elder Urbina who has kidney stones doing a few more tests to figure out what´s up. I really hope he´s okay and that he´s not too sick.

Elder Robinson

September 18, 2013 "Sorry It's Short"

September 18, 2013

Dear Family,

life is good. I´m alive. i spent my time trying to get my byu application ready so I don´t have more time to talk bye.

love Hunter Allen Robinson

Note: You'd think he's in the last 6 months of his mission....the letters are getting shorter as we go, but we still love every word....