WEEK 53

Hello Family!

How is everyone?  It is still hot here, surprise surprise. So I got a new companion this week. His name is Elder Sogari and he is from Fiji! He is totally black too haha but he is way chill and way fun, he has been out for 8 months and is a hardworker so it should be a fun cycle with some good hard work. They split our area so it is way smaller and we have only a few members in our area so it will be a lot of tracting. The other area is sisters and the members are so excited to have them here so we may be on our own for a while cause the relief society justs wants to work with them so whatevs. One sister is a filipina and the other is a tongan. the filipina is training the tongan. The ward calls us the United Nations of Tuguegarao. I am the oldest missionary in my district! Almost everyone else is under a year or just hit their year mark. Thats a weird feeling since like 6 months ago I wasn't close to that. Thats about it for this week other than that just teaching and finding and walking. I started Jesus the Christ again this week and this time I am gonna read it a long with the New Testament so I can read the account of Christs life a long with the description and explanation by James E. Talmage. It should be a good experience for personal study. And of course I read a chapter of the book of mormon every morning too. Well thats about it! Have a good week everybody!

Mahal Ko Kayo!

Elder Robertson

Week 52

Hello Family!

Its been hot hot hot here in Tuguegarao. The storm systems of the last few weeks have been moving away so the clouds are leaving and so it is just the sun at its brightest. If the Celestial Kingdom is like the sun then really it is just a bizillion times better than the terrestial haha. So I will be here in Ward 2 for another 6 weeks which I am really excited for. I enjoy this area and enjoy the work and the members and the dinners every night. My area is splitting though and they are going to add two sister missionaries I think. So it should be interesting. There are so many missionaries coming in to our mission that areas just keep getting smaller and smaller. My goal is to talk to every house in my area in the next six weeks. It will be hard cause each house can take up to 5 minutes cause people won't say no but I can do it and am excited to try. We have a few progressing investigators right now. One is the house helper of the stake president, she is very quiet and am not quite sure why she wants to be baptized either to please the stake president or what be she comes to church every week and says she knows it is true so who knows? The other two are cousins of the bishop here. They are a bit more talkative and one has a lot of potential cause he seems to really want to know the truth and everything. So it should be interesting to see how it turns out. Hopefully they all will get baptized.

So this week dad had me read in judges chapter six and chapter seven and study about leadership. So here are a few things that I learned and studied. Gideon who is the leader in judges was a leader by example, he said to do the things that I do. So of course a leader is a good example. It says in the missionary handbook that a leader is the example of obedience and that his area reflects what an area should be. Every leader in the scriptures was obedient to the commandments and led by their example. A good follower tries to align their lives to the leader and thus will become a leader in turn. Then I read in Ezekiel 34:2-6. A leader is a shepherd and should care for his sheep. Then in Matthew 20:25-28 A leader is a servant. A leader has power so that he can serve. The best leaders spent their lives in the service of others (King Benjamin says it in mosiah chapter 2.) Then in D&C 121:34-45 that leaders lead with love and that the rights of the priesthood (or leadership) are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven and can only be handled upon the principles of righteousness. Sometimes leaders have to correct behavior or chastise but they should in a loving manner and out of concern for the persons well being. There are so many examples of great leaders in the Scriptures but I love the description of Captain Moroni in Alma 48:11-13, 17-18 He was a righteous leader in a hard time. Of course Christ is the perfect leader so the christlike attributes in PMG are a great thing to study cause a good leader tries to be like christ. Then I read a quote "A man who can master his time can master nearly anything" -Bernard M. Baruch and so a leader uses his time wisely and works on becoming a master of himself while helping others do the same thing. It was a great study and I learned alot. Well thats about it for this week. Hope everyone has a good week at school!

Mahal Ko Kayo!

Elder Robertson

Pday cake fight with the zone

 

Dinner (pizza!) with the Stake President and his family

The woman on the left is investigating the church.

 

The Mallari family feeds the missionaries every Tuesday!

 

 

WEEK 51

So this week Sister Baccay was baptized. Her husband baptized her and now we are trying to get the ward to give them callings and getting things going so they remain active and so they can start preparing to go to the temple in a year. We also baptized a kid of a less active to. It was a good baptism. We had a recent convert speak and she was pretty much in the same situation as sister baccay was with a less active husband and what not, she gave a great talk and now she is her visiting teacher. Hope she visits her. Other than that we have been busy looking for new investigators. A lot of the families here in the philippines are part members with only one or two active members. We have been trying to get to teaching families like that. We have had some success. We are teaching a couple members of the bishops family and a member of the stake presidents family. We are going to contact some more referrals this week so hopefully we will have some more investigators this week. But everything is going good in mission life right now. Working hard and will keep working hard. I am working on better self discipline right now. Just being more disciplined all the way around. Obedience wise, attitude wise, spending wise, eating wise. I figured I can be better disciplined in my life so I have been really working on that. Well that's about it for this week. I'll talk to you guys next week.

Elder Robertson

the people being baptized and companion

WEEK 50

We had to stay the night on saturday night at the hospital because there were two elders who had dengue. We had to stay the night because the philippines has a rule that if someone is in the hospital then there has to be someone with them at all times. So me and my comp spent the night with them in the hospital. It was terrible. There were no beds in the room so I sat on a little plastic stool all night watching tagalog tv. It was bad. Basically work wise we have been searching for new investigators. We have been going around to members and sharing the plan of salvation with them and then asking them if they know anybody who would benefit from the plan of salvation. A different approach to ask a referral and a much better way in my opinion. Not much success but we are following up this week with everyone. Hopefully they will have some names for us. Other than that sister Bacay is getting baptized this weekend and we are pushing the ward to take a bigger role in their fellowshipping. I feel like if the ward helps with them then they have the chance to retain them just fine. But who knows what will happen.

 Thats about it for this week! Hopefully more exciting things happen this week!

Mahal Ko Kayo!
Elder Robertson

WEEK 49

This week was good, we went to cauayan to departure fireside. My zone leader from my first area went home. He was quite the missionary. He said in his testimony that the thing he learned on his mission was that he is "nothing." He is just a speck in a giant universe but that he means everything to god. That reminds me of a quote by president uchtdorf "To god, man is nothing. But yet, we are everything to god." Quite the lesson. He was a good missionary. There were a whole bunch of new missionaries that came in and like 19 sisters. They didn't split our area because one sister didn't end up coming. So they will in September instead. I like this area. The stake has been chosen to represent the philippines on how missionary work is supposed to be done and Ward 2 is like the best ward in the stake haha. The members have been a big help. I read a quote this week by President Harold B. Lee "Missionary work is home teaching to non members and home teaching is missionary work to members." But they are miles ahead of my last two areas haha. Dinner appointments help a lot because I feel like they trust us more when they just talk to us. We have set a date with sister Bacay. August 24. Brother blessed the sacrament yesterday and said an awesome prayer in the lesson. He is really wanting to change and is really trying. We got him a home teaching companion and they are going to go friday night. Working hard.
So I read in my personal study this week I read in D&C 101:2-5. It talked about how the lord will try us even as Abraham was tried and if we don't endure and remain strong then we cannot be sanctified. Then I read from Joseph Smith that there will be a trial that will tear at our very heartstrings and almost rip us apart because it will be so hard to bear. All trials are hard but I think that this one will come to us at a time where we are completely converted and this one will make sure of our undying devotion here in mortatlity. Example: I cannot imagine the pain of abraham as he climbed the mountain to sacrifice his one and only son. Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail while the saints are suffering and being driven about. Mormon watching his entire civilization get destroyed. There are examples of those who failed the test. King David, Judas Iscariot, Sidney Rigdon a few examples. Though if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing then we can just put our head down and push through it. Missions are hard but it is just preparation for what is to come...........so excited for that haha. Well that's about it for this week. We'll chat next week. Haven't gotten any packages yet but we have interviews tomorrow with President Rahlf so hopefully they bring a few haha.
My clothes are holding up fine. I have enough shirts that I only wear one each day so they don't get to bad. Certainly aren't the cleanest things though haha. Well talk to yall next week!
Mahal Ko Kayo!
Elder Robertson

WEEK 48

I have now been in the Philippines for a year. Crazy how fast time goes. It seems just like yesterday that I was just getting here and being trained. Now i can speak tagalog almost no problem and am used to this country. This upcoming week will be an interesting one. Our area is splitting and we are going to have a pair of sisters in the ward now. It will be interesting to see how well the ward can work with a set of elders and a set of sisters. Hopefully good so I can stay here for a while. We have 28 new missionaries and 19 of those will be sisters and President Rahlf said 8 new areas. Crazy. Hopefully the lord is preparing a lot more people to hear the message.

This week was good. We had a great lesson yesterday with sister bacay. We had a couple who was basically in this same situation last year. The wife was investigating the gospel and the husband was having problems following the commandments and a hard time changing. They both have a kid so they connected no problem. The couple we brought along shared their story and what helped them change and become closer to each other and what has helped them until now as they prepare to go to the temple. It was great because brother and sister bacay finally have someone to connect to. We also found out that sister bacay has been paying tithing even though she is not yet baptized and brother bacay was fasting yesterday to change even though we have not yet taught them tithing. I cannot wait to see brother bacay be worthy to baptize his wife. It should hopefully be soon! It will be for sure my favorite baptism to date.

Read a great talk this week by president monson, It was his october 2008 sunday morning session http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/finding-joy-in-the-journey?lang=eng It is a great talk all about finding joy in the journey! Live day to day and like grandpa said before I left. Stop and smell the roses. Life is better that way haha. well that's about it for this week.

Love,

Elder Robertson

WEEK 47

Well we had a good week this week. We had a baptism. His name is Roberto and he is 18. We are now working with his semi less active cousin and his non member cousin. We also have one investigator comitted to baptism but have no idea when. Her name is Gina Bacay and she is really enthusiastic about the gospel. She has a testimony and even pays tithing! The problem is she won't get baptized until her less active husband comes back and can baptize her. We are working with them and she is a great example for him but he seems to have some bad habits that need to be broken before she will get baptized. We have a couple people in the ward who have had the same problem. One family just turned around their lives last year and now they are getting ready to go to the temple so we will take them over and have them tell their story and see if that helps. We have had a bunch of referrals and just started teaching them and we will have to see who turns out to be legit or not. The work has been good and continues to go well. We have the help from the members a lot. They seem to trust us pretty well, which is good. Dinner appointments really help a lot. I really enjoy this area and hope to stay here a while. Transfers are next week and no one knows what will happen because this is President Rahlf's first transfer meeting. So it should be interesting.

Interesting that a member of the temple presidency would say that a lot of people when meeting missionaries are meeting the most christlike person in their lives. I have made it a goal to smile more. People seem to be more inviting and interested when I smile. I am sure when Christ was walking around Jerusalem he was smiling all the time. Sometimes a smile is all people need to have a good day and since smiling is service then smiling is to be christlike. That and the world is just a better place in my opinion when I smile more. So we should try to smile more. Trials aren't so hard when we smile. Who can be sad when they have a smile on their face? Thats about it for this week.

love,

elder robertson

he tried to buy this but they would'nt let him

his baptism