Monday, November 28, 2011

I Love To See The Temple........

This week we had the great opportunity to go to Chet's youngest sisters wedding in California. At the same time Chet and his brother were being sealed to his Dad and step Mom the night before. What a great feeling it is to sit in the Temple with your family and think of all your children and grand children and how much they mean to you. I watched my husband with his family and thought of my kids and the tears of love just flowed. I couldn't stop them. But that's ok, who wants to in precious times likes these. Then the next day we sat in another Temple to see his Sister get married. When she walked into the room and saw her family sitting together she started to cry. It was so sweet. To also have our sweet Grandpa do all the sealings for us made it extra special. There's knowing your loved and feeling your loved. We had both this past weekend. Then to get on and hear that through your prayers of hoping your kids can feel your love on these special days, one is singing "I Love to see the Temple..." is priceless. I do love when family time turns awesome and you don't want it to end.....




Dear Family,


Sound like an absolutely perfect week! Oh man that seriously makes me so happy. We're all stuck together!! Woo! Let's have a big party. When i get back. Ha ha. Wanna hear something funny? I woke up on friday singing, "I love to see the temple" ha ha. I just made the connection of why i was. I seriously could not get it out! I even sang it as i raked leaves at a member's house that night! Oh man. That's cool. Yay temples!!!


Alright so i don't have too much time this week so i gotta be fast.

We are having a baptism this week!!!!!!!!!! Wooooo! Linda Bell is being baptized on Saturday. We are all so excited!! We even cleaned the baptismal font for her ha ha. It is going to be a great day! And the people that referred her to us are coming up from Kentucky to see :) She is excited. The ward is excited. It's just an exciting time!!!

Thanksgiving ROCKED! SOOOOOO much foooooooooood! We had 2 dinners and 3 deserts. But that is just on that day. We had in total 4 thanksgiving dinners. We have a bunch of pie and turkey in our fridge right now ha ha. Oh man. I'm still full from all of it. We had one on wednesday with like 50 non-members at a member's house. Actually the house that Alexis is living in. That was craaaazy. Ha ha. And not necessarily in a very good way. We had to stay upstairs for most of it ha ha. Which turned out to be good! We taught Alexis' mom and now she's going to come to church! Woo! We had thanksgiving with our bishop mainly. It was awesome. Then on this last Sunday he and our ward mission leader invited us to the ward correlation meeting (which i've attended maybe 3 times my whole mission) and it was awesome! One thing that i love doing is building up a ward. We've really been trying to do that. We proposed a bunch of ideas to get the ward more missionary minded and to get them more motivated to reach out to others. The bishop accepted all of them! Ha ha. We're really changing things here in Xenia. The past 2 years they have had 3 baptisms, and now in this next month we are matching that! Ha ha! And we have another 3 potentials to be baptized. We are SO excited. I love this ward.

Met a guy outside of the library that went to jail for scalping someone....and talked to the missionaries while he was in jail. Ha ha. Wow that was fun. Really though it was ha ha. I love silly people.

Had no car for most of the week. Holy moly that was rough!! We did a ton of walking and still got a lot done! Went out knockin on doors for most of it. Conrad let us borrow his Ukulele and we took it everywhere. I'm getting a lot better! Ha ha. Good enough to tract with it! Woo! I'm also teaching Elder Riggs how to play it ha ha. It's so fun!

Found out that i'm not so good at Foosball.....thanks to the bishop....

I'm pretty good at throwing knives...found that out by....throwing knives. Ha ha. Took a cool video for that one

Well.......i think that is about it. I love you all! Thank you for the package!! It's all up on the walls and everything! And the candy is slowly making it's way into my belly! The church is true and the book is blue! Ha ha. Missionary work is the GREATEST thing ever!!!! I looooove it. Seeing this gospel change lives is such an incredible blessing. Have a great week! I love you!

-Elder Robinson

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Beware of the Spray.........

So Chrys' letter this week made me laugh. When our kids were growing up they would not wake up so what did we do? We would get the spray bottle and spray them with water! It worked every time! So to read that Chrys did this to some less active members to get them going was great!! But this morning James was in a mood! He ran into my bathroom and ran out with the spray bottle. He turned it on stream and got me right in the face. All I can say is......James beware of the Spray........ :]


Dear family,



Oh my poor old lucky. Ha ha she makes me laugh.

That is way cool about Brittany though! How exciting for the family! It sounds like it was a pretty eventful week for everyone. Especially at church ha ha ;) the accident story made me laugh. I can't believe Stephen Thomas is leaving already. It doesn't at all seem like he is that old ha ha that went by so fast. AND Zack Morris home already? Dang. I think i forget how long I've been out and how different the world is now ha ha.


This past week was pretty awesome. We have a lot of great things happening. Our 40 day fast is moving a long so well! The members are so supportive. The greatest thing about it though is seeing the miracles that are coming out of this. The biggest one is Alex. He is doing SO much better. I don't remember if i told you guys about his whole situation with his sickness but he had to get a foot of intestines taken out and after got a huge infection. That's really the only thing stopping him from getting baptized. That and a new whole just opened up in his stomach. Which is not a good thing but is most definitely not the worst. His infection is gone! He is healing. Which is a first since the surgery. He says his mood is even changing day by day. He said it was because he knew and could feel ours and the member's prayers and fasts for him. We had a chapel tour yesterday with him (which is a big step considering his condition) and as we were sitting talking in the actual chapel he said he didn't know what it was but he just felt at home in there. The spirit was so strong. I am so thankful for the spirit. What a major role it has in our conversion.. I count it as a special blessing to see it work in his life.

Then there's Aaron and Jennifer. They are so awesome. Elder Riggs and i were able to spend this last weekend helping them re-do their roof. Holy cow that was rough! Ha ha but SO fun! I am still pretty beat up from it ha ha. I got a nail in my butt. Yep. It hurt. Glad it wasn't rusty. Ha ha. Anywaaaayyy their situation is hard. Aaron is a member. Jennifer and her kids are not. Aaron and Jennifer are not married and are now living together and all but one child wants to be baptized. The children can. But Jennifer can't until she either moves out or marries Aaron. Aaron from what he told us doesn't want to marry her. Ha ha. Jennifer on the other hand has dreams about Aaron proposing to her ha ha. She really wants it. So in this 40 day fast we have been asking the members to fast for them to get married. And this whole weekend Aaron kept saying how much he loves her and how he's probably just going to have to marry her. Ha ha how awesome is that?! Yeah. There is power in fasting. We're going by tonight to talk to them about it more.

On Sunday morning we went over to the Weavers before church....want to know why?? To spray them till they get up and ready for church! Ha ha. It worked. They're a less active family that we meet with often. They are the coolest! Alexis Driscoll lives with them. She should be on the list of people who has added me on facebook.... Anyway next week we are going over and cooking breakfast to get them up ha ha.

We went out to Jamestown on i think....friday? I don't remember ha ha but anyway it's a part of our area that is really far away and eats up our miles like crazy so we don't go there often. But as we were out there we were knockin on doors in the SNOW! What?! Ha ha i mean normally this would be late for me being from Utah but it's still a shock ha ha. It's finally starting to feel like winter. And it sucks. Ha ha! We didn't know where to go so when we parked the car we decided to tract by flipping a coin to go right or left ha ha. We prayed that we would be guided to someone and through the spirit through that penny we were! We came in contact with a former investigator named Mike that wants to meet with us again and we are going back this week. Oh man. The mission is so funny ha ha.

Anyway i best be off. So looking forward to this next week. Oh man. I just have to much fun being a missionary ha ha. I LOVE IT! I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ! It's seriously the greatest thing in the world to help others see that. Full-time missionary or not. I love my Savior. I love the Book of Mormon. It is AMAZING! Annnddd...... I love you all so much!!! Have a great week! Be safe! I'm praying for you!

-Elder Robinson


P.S. I did get Chelsie's Package! Yum Snickers!!!! I am in the process of writing them back.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Mama misses her Cubs..........

So this week I am just going to say it........my kids and grandkids live too far away!!!! I am throwing a fit!!!!! I need to get it out of my system!!! Maybe I won't have so many teary moments when I see the sappy commercials about all the holiday family cheer haha. Well that helped a little, but not enough. New Mexico, Arkansas and Ohio are just to far away!!! But I do know one thing, they are all happy. They are all loved. That makes the Mama happy!! But I still want my Cubs!!! :]


Dear family!



I am glad to hear you all made it through the week! Ha ha. Indeed i am. Mom and dad, you guys are so weird ha ha. And i thought you couldn't get any weirder....ha ha. I love it. That music festival sounds awesome! Way to go Zack!! That is so cool! I wish i could have seen it! I really love hearing about all the church experiences you guys have. Church is awesome right?! YA! Yes yes i did get my package!! Thank you!!! Very surprised! Ha ha i was was like yay a boxx then i was like YAY MY BOX! Ha ha. I opened it and i smelled salsa...i was like no way. Ha ha. Thank you!!! Oh and funny thing, whenever i run out of Nutella you guys send me some like the next week ha ha it's so funny. I was like sweet! Elder Riggs was pretty happy about that too ha ha. Thank you for the pens too! They are really nice! Oh man. What a happy day that was.


This past week has been an awesome one. We had interviews with President Nilsen and the first thing he told me was, "you know, you have a sleight resemblance to...."and then just started laughing because i already knew what he was going to say. Ha ha. And then i laughed. And then he laughed even more. Ok, so i think for some reason i look even more like Jim Carrey as a missionary than at home because i get it at least 5 times a day ha ha. Including from the stake president here. Goodness. He thought that was pretty funny ha ha. I also got these past few weeks that i look like the Ken doll, you know, Ken and Barbie? Ya. And that i look like a model. Ha ha. I don't mind those so much. And then apparently i look like some weather man on the channel 7 news here in Ohio. Rich. But then again i've also heard i'm a better looking version of him. Ha ha why can't i just look like Elder Robinson!?!

The 40 day fast is doing so well! We have a family fasting for us every day! We're already seeing miracles. It's just too cool. And fast sunday was all directed towards missionary work. Wowww it was so cool. I am LOVING this!

Speaking of sunday.....it was daylight savings! And guess what we did? Or should i say didn't do?? We failed to change the time in our car. So when it said it was time to go to dinner at the Stake President's house, we showed up an hour early! Ha ha how great it that? It all worked out though. We all had a good laugh.

We were able to go see one of the many MANY Indian Mounds in Ohio over in Enon. Wow. For a big grassy hill, it was really cool. It was the one that Joseph Smith and Zion's Camp stayed by. Joseph talked about it and said that it was from a major battle and a lot of bloodshed happened there. There was definitely a different feeling there i will tell you that. It was pretty cool though, the little cabin that Joseph most likely stayed in was still there. Oh man, i love Ohio.

Linda, one of our investigators that found us actually is on date for baptism! We're so excited for her. She is SO solid and loves the gospel. We have a goal for Dec. 3rd. We think it might happen earlier but we'll see.

I have experienced some cool things with the Priesthood lately. We've been giving a lot of blessings to others and it has been so great to see the power of the priesthood work. First was Alex, who is on date for baptism for the 31st of Dec. He is an awesome guy! He's the one with that cool story of meeting that ghost messenger guy on the plane. He has been super sick the past few years and nothing has gone right with his surgery. He had a really bad infection in his stomach that made it so he couldn't really do anything, so we offered him a blessing and he accepted. So this last saturday i was able to speak with his wife over the phone to see how he is doing and she said he is back to normal now. He is healing up fast and the infection is gone. WOW! Cool!! Then on monday night we went over to a less actives house because she and her daughter had asked for a blessing. Her daughter, Sam, was getting pretty sick and she couldn't breathe very well. Sam requested that i would give the blessing, she said that before the blessing was even over she felt better! She said she could feel her breathing improving which was way cool. Then Elder Riggs gave the mom a blessing and there was such a difference in her by the end of that one too! She was bawling through the whole blessing. The spirit was so strong. Gosh. I love being on a mission and doing the Lord's work.

I have really pondered this past week on Christ and what he means to me. I've been really focusing my studies on him and the atonement. I highly recommend it!! I really feel Him so much more throughout the day. I am trying to focus on Him and what He would have me do. I feel the Holy Ghost so much more. I feel strengthened and enlightened! I'm just....SO HAPPY! Ha ha. I love my Savior. I really really do. I love this work. I love this gospel. What peace and happiness it brings! Thank you for everything you do for me my wonderful family! I love you all so much!! MISSIONARY WORK ROCKS!!!!!


-Elder Robinson

Friday, November 4, 2011

Letting Chrys do the talking this week............ :]

I really couldn't decide what I wanted to blog about so that is why I haven't. So this week I am going to let Chrys do the talking........ :]



Deeeeeaaar FAMILY,




I don't why i typed that in caps.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!


Ok first......James.....you are a girl. Ha ha ha i love that kid. He's growing up! That's funny he's trying on all my jackets and what not. He makes me laugh. Oh how i miss my disco jacket. I am so wearing that when i get back. Ha ha. What video is he in? YM/YW video? Is it like that one i was in? Only better? Ha ha. Except for of course the batman rap thing ha ha where i was on drums for the whole thing. Boo yah! I love hearing how the ward is doing. That is so awesome. I am glad everyone is well! Sis. Dougherty.....is...awesome! Thank her for me. Her and her husband are the best. Love the prayer list idea.


Alrighty welllll. This week was indeed an awesome one! First off. I was able to call Elder Pierce in Pickerington and talk with him for a little while earlier this week. I asked him how he was and he said "sore." I was like "from the car hitting you?" and he said "how did you know?" .......yeah i was just making a joke and it turns out he was actually hit by a car. Ha ha. I laughed pretty hard. A truck stopped for his companion and not for him ha ha hit him pretty hard and completely messed up his bike and he has some cuts and scrapes but is mostly just bruised all over. Crazy huh! I also was able to call Brother Sharples over there, my old ward mission leader. Gosh i love that man! Ha ha it's amazing the friendships you make out here. He's one that i am definitely coming back to visit.


We had the opportunity to attend an AWESOME fireside this last Saturday. Oh my gosh. It was a family that was in the Joplin, Missouri tornado. The one that had over 300 mph winds and went across 22 miles. The tornado went directly over their house while it was at it's strongest point. They had an incredible story though. The husband, Brother Wright had been having dreams about tornadoes and how he had to protect his wife and kids from it. Every 3 weeks he was having these for months up until the tornado hit. While the tornado was on top of them and they being in their parent's basement, he said he remembered the dreams and how he had to protect and stand over his family. So he had them all sit in the corner and he stood over them while knives and such were flying all around. He looked around in about the middle point and he saw his little daughter sleeping in his wife's arms. He said he felt calm and knew Heavenly Father had sent angels to watch over them. The whole fireside was so amazing. There wasn't a dry eye in the audience! Yes, including mine. The whole thing was centered around families and how much our Father loves us. It really brought out the love in me :) i was sitting there and was like, man, i will do anything for my family. I love you all so much. If there is one thing i have taken from my mission, it is my love and appreciation for my parents and my family. Amazing.


Yesterday was a pretty cool day! We had a very full schedule at church. That's how it always is though and i LOVE it! I love running around meeting and working with all these wonderful people. We were asked to do sharing time in primary for the senior and junior kids and boy that was fun! Participating in primary is probably one of my most favorite things to do in the whole world. Kids are too fun. Plus they baked a ton of goodies for us ha ha it was awesome. We were able to teach them more about prayer. Then right after that we were asked to talk in the 5th sunday lesson and present the ward this new thing we will be doing. We are starting a 40 day fast for missionary work in the ward. It's pretty simple but amazing. We eat with the members and give a lesson on fasting and missionary work and then the next day the family fasts for missionary work. Some of the other wards are doing it as well and they have at least 4 people on date for baptism in each area. Right now we have 1 on date with 5 we're putting on date within this week. And we haven't even started the fast yet! Ha ha. It was so cool though. We didn't really know what we were going to say and we had about 20 minutes to fill. Right before we went up I received the prompting to read a part of a talk from given by Pres. Hinckley and read from D&C 4 and expound on them and bare testimony. So i did. I felt like i did well. I don't remember too much of what i said. Ha ha. But hey, i still did what was asked. There was about 100 people there and after the Stake President got up on the pulpit and said we have his full support and later came up and said it was very inspiring and that it pumped the members up. Ha ha. Our meal coordinator had families running up to her asking to have the missionaries as soon as possible to be a part of all this. It was such a testimony builder. I loved it!


The ward is is so amazing. I have never seen so many people give so much support to the missionaries. It is so amazing. The work is exploding more and more each week! I am doing my best to be obedient and i am trying to stay in tune to listen for the Holy Ghost. I have some really cool stories about that but i'll have to write a letter or something because i'm out of time :(

I LOOOOOOVE being a missionary. LOOOOOVE LOOOOVE LOVE it! I love this gospel. I know it's true. Everything about it is true. I love you all so much. Thank you for being so wonderful to me. :)


Until next week!! Be safe!

-Elder Robinson