WEEK 61

Hello Family!

How is everybody? I guess you all heard about the typhoon that hit down south and let me tell you it was crazy up here! It rained so hard the bottom of my pants got wet. I'm just glad I'm ok, with no umbrella I would have had a wet shirt haha. But while we were in zone conference with elder Nielson the area president, he was texting a lot. Turns out he was texting the Quorum of the Twelve preparing for the typhoon to hit. Organizing relief and talking to the mission presidents down there all while giving us a zone conference. Pretty impressive multitasking. He gave a great Zone Conference though! Sister Rahlf talked about devotion and if we are more devoted and have more desire then the work will go better for us and it will be more exciting. When devotion is first, discipline and obedience naturally follow. President Rahlf shared Luke 2: 8-14 and talked about the amazing experience that must have been to announce the birth of Christ. As missionaried we have the amazing opportunity to announce the Atonement of Christ and the opportunity to live with our families forever! He also talked about the glory of god shining round about, and that if we try to be more like Christ as missionaries then the glory of god will shine round about and affect our investigators and they will feel the truthfulness of this gospel. They didn't talk for a long time. Sister Nielson talked about companions and compared them to inlaws. She was a funny speaker and talked about her sons while they were on their missions and compared the inlaws to having their own way to do things when her family had their own way and she really had to work hard to love her sons and daughter in laws haha. She gave a few questions for us to ask ourselves: 1. Can we be someone who will not criticize our companions and 2. What is the lord trying to teach us through our companions? Sometimes the most annoying thing about our companions is the thing that the lord is trying to teach us and bless us with.

Elder Nielson talked about the process of revelation comparing it to 1 Nephi 11-14. He said that the first step to revelation is to ask a question. "what desirest thou?" Asking questions opens the heavens. Every part of the restoration happened because someone (mostly Joseph Smith) had a question to ask. He said that in meetings he has had with the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, that they spend a lot of time coming up with an Inspired Inquiry. The question they are going to ask the lord. I find it interesting that they pray to know what they are going to ask later. Second, we need to look. We need to see that we are receiving revelation. Alma 17: 2-3 is a good scripture on where to look. We need to pray, read the scriptures, fast, go to church and act on what we receive. revelation usually doesn't come until we act Christ says in John 7:17 that we won't know his doctrine until we act on it and try it. D&C 138: 1-11 is a good example of the process with Joseph Fielding Smith and asking where is his son (its not in there but Nielson gave us the background) and his acting. The third step, "what beholdest thou?" we need to write down what our revelation is what we are receiving and ask if there is anything more we can receive and ask follow up questions to the first one. God does not force revelation upon us and what we receive is up to us and if we have faith, usually god will give us more than what we ask for. Then he connected this pattern of revelation to our investigators. As missionaries, our goal is to help people open the heavens to themselves and help them receive revelation. Through the Holy Ghost, prayer, the BoM, church they can recieve revelation and PMG is the guide for us to help us know what we need to do to help investigators receive the revelation and open the heavens. Elder Nielson used the phrase "open the heavens" a lot. Then later after a lunch break he talked about the responsibility we have to establish the church. Not just baptize investigators and then get transferred. We are to work with new members and less actives. In our mission there are about thirty thousand members total and about twenty three thousand are less active. So yeah we have a lot of work to do as missionaries. The members are supposed to do home teaching but the stake president a few weeks ago told us missionaries that we need to do our home teaching. Yeah we are working with him too. It was a great Zone Conference and I really learned a lot from Elder Nielson. He hinted that next year we might get an apostle here in the Cauayan Mission. Hopefully it will be before June haha. Well that was the Zone Conference and we have interviews with President this week. Good stuff!  Hope everyone is doing great!

Mahal Ko Kayo!

Elder Robertson