How I love my Chet..........

     I think sometimes when you hear the Young Women talk of dating how grateful I am to be married. It hasn't always been easy, but that's how you grow. I look at this picture and I just love this Man!! He is my world!! He is my eternity!! He has given me so many things that money can't buy. They are in my heart. I am so grateful he asked me to dance all those years ago. Let's keep dancing Chet!!  <3


Dear family,

James gave a talk!!! That's great! I'm sure he did so good. Oh and i am so glad to hear Alex got a facebook finally! You'll have to tell her i love her for me. I was just thinking about her just the other day. And Sally! I'm writing her soon. I'm glad you all are staying in touch. I do have some great friends huh? :)

First, President and Sister Nilsen are coming this week!! We are stoked! I'm not sure what day they will be coming but I'm sure they'll be doing something with us one of the days they are here. They will be either speaking in sacrament or taking over the priesthood and relief society lessons for 5th Sunday. A lot of the members are talking about it too! Apparently one of their sisters lived here a long while back and so they know a lot of the members and they knew bishop back when he first joined the church. It's going to be such an awesome weekend!

Second, we are taking over Lawrenceburg! Or i guess you could really say we are talking over all of Indiana for the mission! Ha ha. At this last transfers there were 17 missionaries that went home and i think 10 that came out, so they are doubling up on a lot of areas. Elder Borgia in Lawrenceburg is going home mid-transfer though, so in 3 weeks we will be receiving his companion Elder Culler and working both areas. Whooe! 5 counties! Ha ha it's going to be a blast! 

Elder Long is a Zone Leader now! Totally called it!

About 2 weeks ago while we were in Greensburg setting up an appointment with a member, a person came up and asked if we were the elders and if there was a church nearby, and it turns out that she was a member that no one even knew about and had just moved there a few weeks before. We set up a time for last thursday to go back and visit with her and she totally wants to come back to church and would like to start meeting weekly. Her husband is also a non-member so that gives a good opportunity to teach him too! So that was pretty exciting! I love being in the right places at the right time. The lord really does guide his missionaries to where we need to be to find those that need him. It's just too cool.

These next few weeks are going to be pretty crazy here. The ward had taken some hard hits and between this and that it is just going to be crazy. It's been a great experience to be here as the Lord's representative in carrying out his work. Things are really looking up here, and i am just so grateful to be a part of it. We have so many less-active and part-member families we are going to be working closely with the ward that it just makes me happy and excited to think about all the people i can share my testimony with! I know that missionary work in not just tracting, (and boy am i grateful that it isn't) and that the work of the Lord moves so much faster when it is through the members of the church. There are so many people in need! And in our mission we have 30,000 members we can work through! I love doing member work. It's just great.

Well I know that the gospel is true, and I am so grateful for my knowledge that families are forever. I am so grateful for the Plan of Happiness. I am so grateful to have a living prophet to guide me and my family! I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. Being a missionary and doing missionary work is the greatest. I realize more and more how short the time is that I have to be a missionary and it just makes me want to work harder and harder! 2 years is not long! Sorry for the short email today but know that I love you all! Thank you so much for the love and support you give me. It means so much to me.

Have a great week! Share the gospel!

-Elder Robinson

I am once again grateful for my friends.......

     I was having a not so great night. You know, we've all had them. I decided to go to our Relief Society night and was greeted by many friends. They made me feel happy to have gone. Grateful to see each of their faces. Laugh with them. Eat with them. Share stories of our week with them. I needed their friendship and they were there. I am so grateful for my friends!!!    :]

Dear family,

26 years? man that's old. Ha ha. You know I love you two! That is awesome though congratulations!

James and his milk. What has that kid been up to lately and why hasn't he written his brother?? Goodness. I'm going to have to beat him up when i get home. Hah. I also sent Nate and Ashlee a letter and I hope to hear back from them. Just thought i'd put that out there. ;)

Transfers are this week. I'm not too worried because I've only been here for a transfer. It's crazy how fast it's gone by though!! It was definitely one of the faster transfers on the mission thus far. Elder Laird has been here for for 4 months so there is a chance he might go, but we will see. The average for one area though is about 9 months right now. Long time!

So this past week was pretty much just amazing. It had it's lowest low and i think it's highest high for me. The first of the week was pretty slow and boring, no one was answering their doors! And it had been a few weeks since we had found anyone new to teach, so our faith to find was pretty low. These past few weeks we've been meeting with the bishop almost daily to coordinate things better and find out what the best thing is to do here for the ward and on Thursday it was a big turning point. The whole week up to that point I was so frustrated because all I wanted to do was teach! I love teaching! But no one would let us in. So we went to the bishop's at the end of the night and he was feeling the same thing we were feeling and we kinda had a little pity party. Ha ha. But as we talked it over of what we could do he suggested that we should spend a little more time on our knees and right there we got down and prayed for inspiration. The spirit was so strong and we all felt so much better. After that bishop made a few calls and set up some appointments for us and then called President Nilsen for help (they knew each other very well before he was mission president) and he will be coming down at the end of the month to take over a Sunday for missionary work. How awesome!

On Friday night the bishop decided to fast on Saturday and we decided to fast with him for missionary work and to find people to teach. I don't know why, but fasting is so much harder than if you just forgot to eat. You almost starve! But anyway, that day President asked us all as a mission to exercise faith and to look through all our former investigators to find someone to bring to baptism. So all of Saturday was looking up these people. We did get a return appointment for one in Batesville but all others either didn't answer or weren't interested. After all the Batesville formers we had only 1 more to visit for the day in Greensburg. The last one we had that wasn't contacted already. We showed up and it turns out that it was at some apartments and we didn't have the apartment number so we decided to go knock them all to find her or someone else to teach! We were about done with all the doors when 3 people came out and asked if we had knocked on their door and then we talked briefly and asked if we could come in and share this message with them, and they said yes! Jesse, Jade and Tory. They are all 20 and are all awesome! We've had two lesson already and both the spirit was so strong. I have so much love for them. We are going back tomorrow and we will be teaching the Plan of Salvation, mostly for Jade. She is amazing. She has had such a hard life and I can just feel how much her Heavenly Father loves her. She expressed to us about how her father died, and how people tell her that after this life if you are bad you go straight to hell. He had a pretty rough life too and passed away due to drugs, so you can imagine her feelings. We are so excited to teach her about God's plan and eternal families! Woo! I love the gospel. Oh and afterwards we celebrated and broke our fast with McDonald's. Mmmmm. Such a good day.

Well my family, my faith has been renewed. Heavenly Father loves us all so much, and he really does answer prayers. I love being his servant and it is honestly all I want to be. I will go and do what he wants me to do and be who he wants me to be. Missionary work is the greatest, and it is for everyone. Just because you aren't a "full-time" missionary doesn't mean you can't be a missionary. You can feel what missionaries feel and see what missionaries see. I love love love it. I know I say that a lot but it is so amazing! The gospel is meant to be shared and Heavenly Father has blessings in store for those who do!

The gospel is true! Heavenly Father loves us! Jesus Christ lives! He is our Savior and Redeemer. The Book of Mormon is absolutely with out a doubt true!

I love you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Robinson

I'm late again...........

Well I am late posting this so I will let the Elder talk and in a few days I will post again. Yes I have his next letter, but I will wait and let you have this one sink in for a few days........Enjoy!!


Dear Family,

OH my GOODNESS Carolyn Landon served here?? That is so cool! And yes i know both the Rockwoods and the Longs! Well i should say i know President and Sister Rockwood. He's the stake president. The Longs are so awesome! We should be having dinner with them soon. Brother Long has cancer and he's been struggling for a long time but he still keeps a smile on his face. Ask her about everyone she remembers for me!! Man that is cool.

Ha ha you know, I may be just fine with moving with you guys to live next to Chet and Jaime! That would be so fun. Yeah i can totally see how bored my parents are when all the kids aren't around. How funny.

Indiana is so HOT. I thought Utah was hot. Well Utah is hot but this last week was killer. There wasn't a day that it wasn't in the 100's and super humid! Yesterday was the first day in a moth that is rained, which is weird for out here. Record breaking actually. Honestly it's weird for me! I'm used to the rain now! So i was kind of going crazy. All the grass and plants are dead and dried up. Something i haven't seen out here before. All the fireworks were banned this year. So the fireworks we still got to see while sitting out on our roof were illegal. Still cool though! Ha ha. A lot of the crops are not doing well, especially the corn. I think a part of me melted away last week. Luckily it's cooled down a bit and it should be in the 80's all week

The 40 day fast is moving along so well! The members here are really feeling the missionary spirit. And so are we! We're fasting about twice a week right now. We didn't find any new investigators last week but we did do a lot of member work and we have a lot of referrals that the members are working on. Yesterday was missionary Sunday! Brother Washburn asked me to speak a couple weeks ago and so I had that opportunity yesterday. It was so fun. I kind of like speaking now! After I spoke on missionary work, James Call, who is now Elder Call (it was his farewell) spoke on missionary work and how we should go to the Lord for strength to open our mouths. It was pretty awesome. Then after that for the 3rd hour, all classes had lessons on missionary work and they actually covered all that my talk was on ha ha. After that was a linger-longer and that was pretty fun. Everybody I think is pretty pumped up! I really love seeing all these people enjoying sharing the gospel. This week is going to be just so awesome. Elder Laird and I are rockin it! (mostly elder Laird though)

We've got a lot going on right now in this area. I love these people, they are all so amazing. They just get it done! I love how missionary work is full of love. It doesn't judge and it invites ALL to come unto Christ. No matter who you are. Christ loves all and we should too. I love being out here serving, it really is so incredible. I can say all the cliche things that people say about a mission being "the best 2 years" but truly it is just that and more. There's no better way to describe it! Being called to serve others and to be an instrument in God's hands is the best calling. It's too bad it's only 2 years! But I love the foundation it sets for a lifetime of sharing the gospel. Once a missionary always a missionary! (Elder Bednar, Becoming a Missionary Oct 2005)

Well I love you my family and friends! Thank you so much for the love and support you give to me! It means so much. The gospel is true! Christ lives and loves us! Have a great week! Share the gospel!

-Elder Robinson

Wishing I was somewhere else............

     So our plans didn't work out like we wanted them to. We had plans to be in New Mexico with our Kids and Grandkids. As you can tell we are still in Utah sadly. There were a lot of things that made us came to the conclusion that our trip wasn't going to happen. So Chet and I had our times of sadness alone and together. It's hard when your heart wants to be with someone and you can't get there. We so wanted to be silly with these 5 little loves!! They have been having so much fun together and that makes us happy!! But my heart still wants to be with them.............I LOVE MY GRANDKIDS!!!!!!  <3<3<3<3<3


Dear Family,

I am so happy for Sinaih!! The pictures are awesome. What a great family! Congratulations! And way to be Brother Coulter! That is so awesome! Pickerington is a great area and he will love being the Mission Leader there.

Well, not too much happened this past week. The weather has been bi-polar. Friday especially! It was 99 degrees with a 116 degree heat index. Lets just say I died a little inside. But anyway, we were in a town called Greensburg and a storm hit sending dust, garbage, trees, signs, and even a farmer's market that was going on downtown, flying everywhere. It was insane! But so fun. Ha ha. It dropped to 70 degrees literally within an hour. Then after that it was way nice and sunny. It didn't even rain through all this. In Ohio there were funnel clouds forming though. So yeah it was a pretty weird day. And it's basically been like that since then. I want to see a tornado! .....from a distance. Ha.

Our 40 day fast has started and so far it has been so great! The members here and incredible and the bishop is really making this happen! It been so cool to see the ward build up since i got here 3 weeks ago. All the people we've found these past few weeks have been through the members. Woo! Things are moving along! It's almost like some of the members were just dying to give us people to teach. One family especially. It rocks. We taught Jessica and Amberly this week. It went very well, except Jessica was there only til Friday and then had to go back to Michigan for a while. This week we're working on Bishop's niece, Lana, and her boyfriend Mitchel. Also a boyfriend of a member in the ward. We'll be going by there on Saturday. Yeah, i love this area. It is just so awesome.

We haven't been able to teach the Amish lady yet. We had dinner with the family to figure things out and there's a lot of things we have to be careful about. Mostly the husband and his involvement with the Amish community. But we should be teaching her in a few weeks hopefully. Still stoked!

I called Elder Lamm last week and apparently one of the Deer Creek apartments burned down. Yikes!

Well I've got to get going now. These past few weeks have changed my life. I have learned more here than I ever have my whole mission. I love this gospel so much. I am SO grateful I have it a part of mine and my family's life. I just wish the world could have more of it. I love Indiana. I love being a missionary. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. Without a doubt it is. And I love the power of prayer, and seeing my prayers and the prayers of others answered again and again. And that because we are children of a loving Heavenly Father.

I love you all so much! Thank you for your love and support! Have a great week! Share the Gospel!

-Elder Robinson