WEEK 8

There is no such thing as halloween here, they are just counting down until christmas..84 days is posted all over the place haha they even play christmas music all over the place! So is everyone ready for conference? this weekend you have the opportunity to listen to prophets and apostles like moses, peter, james, and john and joseph smith. We are so priveleged to live in a time where their teachings are so readily accessible. we should all take the opportunity to listen to their talks and not next month when the ensign comes out be shocked that we missed all the great things that they said. I have to wait a week and will watch it on the 13 and 14 of this month. I cant believe that september is over! that month was one of the fastest ever! if every month is like that then this mission may go by really fast. And I've been told that once you get the language down time goes even faster. so only 4 months before i actually start understanding stuff. But still people keep wanting to listen to us, either it's because I am an american or the spirit....we had four new kids listen to us this week and I can't tell if they are genuinely excited or just curious about the paleface in their country. I've spoken with a few other americans i see in mcdonalds (surprise thats where the americans go haha) and they are a little loopy and wanting to run away from their problems. So we have to separate the investigators that are genuinely interested and those who just want to see an american. so if people don't keep commitments we drop them sadly. Anyways we are still having good success and planning on a baptism almost every weekend this month. Well the work is going good. We have a meeting down in Cauayan this week so it will be another six hours of traveling on thursday and prolly another bad movie, so exciting. On saturday we had a stake activity of family day and our ward played a basketball game so I decided to join in, I was serge ibaka down low. 10 swats in ten minutes haha. the crowd went crazier than ever before my bishop said because of me cause I have been the only elder to ever play basketball with them haha. I was totally gross afterwards and soaked with sweat but it was worth it. it is fun being on a mission and even better knowing that i'll come home in two years knowing that i worked my hardest the whole time with no hot showers haha.

Elder Robertson

 

                  excerpt from the conversation we had with elder Robertson

 

Dad: Just waiting, how is it going

Elder R:  good, only had 18 lessons this week but we had a typhoon on wednesday. but nothing really bad happened and a funeral we had to go to yesterday.

Mom:  How does a typhoon look? How is a Filipino funeral? How was church today? Investigators?

 

Elder R:  dark, rainy and windy. like a feast and gambling and party. but the members are a lot more normal than I thought they would be, a lot of plan of salvation talk. 5 at church so pretty good.

Mom:  Do you have to stay inside during a typhoon? Did you get any mail!

 

Elder R:  Yeah or you get soaked in like ten seconds. no but we get mail again tomorrow so hopefully tomorrow haha

Mom:  Did you eat at the funeral? Are they big gamblers? Do you ever teach or anything at church?

 

Elder R:  Yeah just rice and noodles. They love to gamble here its nuts with a lot of money for poor people. Yeah we teach a couple kids who live a long ways away but are still in our area.

Mom:  How is your recent baptized kid doing? Whose your next baptism? 

 

Elder R:  good, he wants to go on a mission next year! next is tonton he is 15.

Mom:  So what do you do for general conference?

 

Elder R:   we go to the stake center next week to watch it so we have to wait a week.