WEEK 7

 So the mission is realy something else. On wednesday we went to cauayan which is a three hour bus ride and when we got on they were playing the movie undisputed 4.....the most evil movie satan could throw at 6 missionaries haha luckily i had my sword of truth (the book of mormon) and my shield of faith (the name badge) with me haha.Which also made me realize that the spirit was not present on that ride due to my more sensitivity to it these days. the world is evil and only becoming more so. We must put on the armor of god, this isnt some wimpy medieval armor. this is like iron man armor. If everyone would just say their prayers twice a day and read the book of mormon for ten minutes then spiritually we are like iron man....no bullet (of satan) can penetrate our armor. when he tries to attack us we say "HA! nice try!" and just keep going like iron man does in the avengers. and like he keeps upgrading his armor, we keep upgrading our testimony when we do the simple things like go to church and repent and read and pray. Everyone wants to be like Iron Man but we can! spiritually. Christ is our engineer, he has given us all we need to build our armor and it is our choice whether to act. The fact is that christ wants us in the celestial kingdom and as long as we try our hardest he will say "it is enough" and let us in. From what I've seen here people think that "the gospel is too hard, i can't do everything and people gossip about me" no, it's not. if we are truly christlike we won't care what other people say, we know we are imperfect but we are trying. This mission has really opened my eyes to the core of the gospel, the atonement. The atonement can be studied so much for so long and i'll never fully understand it, but can be summed in up in one sentence; it can make us like christ. lets appreciate the atonement a little more by doing the little things. Well thats what I have to say because nothing much else happened this week. worked hard, taught some lessons, chased by some dogs, had an investigator chew us out cause we told him he couldnt get baptized until he got married. got invited to a funeral for this next sunday.......weird. overall its a fun place the philippines. Glad to hear it is cooling down there cause it is still insanely hot here! but typhoon season is coming.....party on! time is flying and I cannot believe that next week is october! have a good week everybody! Love you all!
Mahal Kita!
Elder Robertson

WEEK 6

How is everyone!! It was a good week here in Cataggaman area! We had a baptism!! his name is roel and he is 19, hopefully he will serve a mission next year! We had a couple investigators at the baptism. So that was good! Hopefully we have two or three the first few weeks of october! So New stuff this week investigator wise. We met this family named bucayo, they are super nice and have a lot of questions about the church and they have two kids. they are an interesting story because the dad is really interested and wants to be baptized but he wants his whole family to join, the mom is gone up north all month to teach so we are trying to refer her to the other mission but she asks a lot of questions and says she feels the spirit when we come over. the daughter is 14 and is listening to jehovahs witnesses.......the son is 8 and does whatever the dad does so it should be interesting to see if the read the book of Mormon and pray for an answer hopefully they do and they all will be baptized cause once they commit to something that family does it. Our other two investigators that will probably get baptized are Erickson, he is 19 and his sister and girlfriend are members and he reads and prays and knows it is true so we are just teaching him and waiting for October 13 and hopefully he keeps coming to church and doesn't go off the deep end. the other is TonTon. He is 15 and all his family and cousins are members and he is in the same boat as Erickson so hopefully we have two on the 13th. Members are the best way to have investigators because they already have a good influence and they have friends or family to take them to church and it is so much easier for us to teach them the gospel. If members really knew how helpful they are missionary work would move forward so much more! Pray for missionary experiences and pray to have courage to speak up. it doesn't have to be like what us full times do but a situation will present itself and if you open your mouth you will be guided by the spirit even though you may not know it. More baptisms and bringing people into the fold!So here in the philippines they have ward activities called one day missions, this where members go out with the missionaries and go visit less actives and investigators for a few hours. The sisters in our district had one and we went and it only works because like 6 people show up and they just follow us around while we teach. But we had six lessons and two referrals for the sisters so it was a good stats day cause we counted those in our weekly report. And yeah, the power just went out here for thirty minutes. it is really funny cause it does that randomly all the time here. No Place like the Philippines!!
Mahal Ko Kayo,
Elder Robertson


Elder Robertson in a tryke

Elder Llorin, Roel and Elder Robertson

week 5

So this week was a pretty good one. I got to go on splits with elder nay and let me tell you, it was so refreshing to be with an american for a day. I could actually understand a lot of his tagalog and it gave me hope that i might be there at his point some day. from what I could understand he is a very good teacher and I enjoyed working with him. he pushes me a little harder than elder llorin cause he has been in my shoes and knows what it is like so I really enjoyed that struggle but he says i know more than he did when he was one month in. So we taught three lessons on friday and we didnt get to bed till like 11:30 cause we were partying but i had to sleep in the other elders bed and i took off his sheets and slept on my towel haha cause the beds were like twenty years old. and then we had to travel three hours to the farthest area in our zone for a baptismal interview and then another three hours back cause me and elder llorin had a baptismal interview. Then llorin and I had 4 appointments in two hours so saturday was a little tiring. Then on sunday I had to teach a lesson by myself and a priest who didnt know english cause we have to teach after church cause some people live to far away so that was a nightmare cause i cant speak this language yet but luckily she was only 9 haha. So I think that the lord is rewarding us for our hard work cause on saturday we were walking and some random guy offered us a ride and he seemed really interested to listen to us so we are going to go back to him and then yesterday we were walking and this old guy called out to us and said "elders come teach me!" so we did and gave the baptismal challenge and he said yes so yeah it might be our reward for hardwork and obedience. We have been teaching a lot of investigators recently and it is hard to fit in less actives haha which is good and hard cause we want everyone to come unto christ. But we had one girl we broke through to this week. Her name is delma and before she wasnt to enthused because of her baptist boyfriend but some random lesson about joseph smith and she finally said she prayed and said she really wants to know that our church is true and she came to church yesterday and same with her inactive family so hopefully she'll be baptized. And i realized here that noone of the women shave their legs haha. I am finally getting used to showering twice a day with a bucket and cold water with the spiders crawling around me haha i guess i'm just so tired to not even care. and elder phippen might have dengue fever, he has been sick since like wednesday so that could be bad so I am a little ocd with the bug repellent right now haha. I cant believe this month is already gone! it was a hard first month here but also a learning month an time is only going to go faster! I'm thankful to be out here in the philippines and become a real man. working hard and getting used to the culture. it gets a little easier everyday! Take care say hi to everyone. Until next week!

Mahal ko kayo!

Elder Robertson 

Excerpt from the email chat with elder Robertson

Did you guys have a good week teaching?

elder R:Yeah we had like 30 lessons, with splits and we had to travel down to a different area like 4 times cause one of the elders is sick and kept wanting us to buy groceries for him. We have two new investigators though and another 4 on date for baptism.

  That sounds like a good week.   You guys should be having a baptism next week or the week after? Any succes with the less actives in church today?

elder R:we have one this week and the next week and we had 8 investigators at church and 4 less actives so yes it was a good day at church yesterday. we have another 4 investigators on date and two hopefully three new ones so yes working hard.

Lots of good things happening, 8 at church is a pretty good number. Sounds like all the hard work is making good things happen.

Elder Robertson and Elder Llorin with their shirts we sent them

p-day with his district

week four

So this week was good! we had 9 investigators at church yesterday! we have a date for September 15 for a kid named Roel and a date for the 22 for a guy named Mariano. The weather here is crazy it can be like sunny, hot and no clouds at 3 pm. then at 4 there will be clouds and it will start raining like nothing you will ever see in the tri cities, we had to leave an appointment cause the water was up to our ankles. Crazy!!! When I am walking around now the filipino kids all say "whats your name?"cause thats all they can say in english so I say kobe bryant and they are liked shocked for a second then they all say "oooo kobe bryant!" it's pretty funny. how is everything at home? I can't wait to hear about how school is for everyone! We taught 30 lessons this week and have been having good success with investigators, we keep finding new people to teach and so we keep having to drop less actives. its tough but there are a lot of souls to save here so i will never have a non busy moment. I cant believe it is september already! time is starting to go really fast! pretty soon it will be 2013! insane!! We havin fun and working hard! not much else to say except next week we are going to callau caves and so i'll send pics from there, hopefully this week i'll try horse and dog so i can tell you how that tastes. and I am pretty sure there are no health laws here cause i saw that you could buy vikadin in bottles for like 80 pisos (2 dollars) so if i ever get really sick or anything i might just buy that....jk. but really. anyways ask dad he has a whole conversation with me haha. say to howeird for me and tell him that his advice of getting people to the temple is really coming in handy!
Mahal Ko Kayo
Elder Robertson

In Elder Robertson's mission the missionaries are able to email back and forth with mom and dad on P-day IF mom and dad can stay up till 12 or 1 in the morning!  (Philippines is 16 hours ahead of us) Here is an excerpt from that conversation:

How are you doing?

Elder R:  Working hard, I got a cold yesterday so yeah but we had 30 lessons this week but could have had 40 but dang less actives are never home.

30 Lessons is a good week,that is a lot of teaching.  Didn't you guys have some baptisms scheduled?

Elder R:  2, a kid for the 19 and a 50 year old guy for the 22. they both seem really strong.
 How is the language coming along? Are you working well with Elder Llorin?

Elder R:  Yeah, he's easy to get along with. the language is frustrating. i feel as if it's at the tip of my tongue i just cant formalize it yet like the filipinos. they speak so fast but it is taking a lot of patience.

Thats good, we were reading the blog of Elder Nay and he had great things to say about Elder Llorin. Have you had a chance to work with Elder Nay? The language will come, it usually takes about two months for it to really start to take hold, just keep working with it and being patient. Where do you get to email from?

Elder R:  We are splitting this week, elder nay is my zone leader and he is really cool and nice. we email from an internet cafe. everyone around me is playing video games and then other missionaries.
Elder Nay will be good to work with, sounds like all the Elders are good workers. Did you feel the effects of the earthquake that hit by Manila? How is it going with the food?

Elder R:  very little, just a little shaking and thats it. elder llorin says all the americans are really hard workers. i guess he says the hardest mission is cauayan cause the area is new and still lots of jungle. the food isnt bad actually. meat that is still on the bone and rice and usually its all fatty, takes some getting used to but its not bad at all. there is some interesting stuff though ive seen.

 How big is the ward?

Elder R:  380 but only 100 go to church, and all we can do is give them the good word of god and thats it. we try to go every other day to inactives but no one is ever home and it is tough cause sometimes they actually run away to avoid us but i want to chase them down to. its tough
What did you guys do for P-day today? Isn't it about over?

Elder R:  in about two hours, pday ends at six here. we did laundry then jollibee which is like a fast food place and we still have to go to the store and get food for this week.

Do you do things as a zone on P-day? Are you mostly walking or riding in those jeepneys?

Elder R:  not yet but we are going to some caves next week, we actually ride in tricys here which are like a motorcycle with a little side car and they fit three people but ive seen seven in one. and they are not made for americans at all

week 3

who knows how long before i get your letter and package, we get mail once a week at district meeting and i have no idea how long mail takes to get here, just remember to use us postal service cause fedex and ups are way expensive apparently. so this week was frustrating again, we got a list of fifteen names from the ward of inactives and we started visiting them, they are a pain...they are either never home or are to stubborn to take any interest in the church and we walk like half an hour to get to them and it is not fun when they are not home or reject us. investigators never read the book of mormon or pray and always make excuses...ridiculous. I am trying to find ways to have fun but it is just to hot and to tiring haha. anyways we still have three baptismal dates, i know there for sure should be two cause one kid will spend a 100 pesos to come to church if he misses his ride and the other older man keeps improving every week, now we just need to break his wife. working hard mostly. so here in the philippines i am pretty sure there are no health laws, there is this acid stuff that is pure HCL and you use it to clean dishes, i think my stomach hates me. the laundry takes forever and I am really thankful for laundry machines, but the bleach here is more powerful than the stuff at home but it also burns my skin so pros and cons. there is so much pollution about 5 minutes from my house that everytime I go there i can feel the years being taken away from my life. the best part about here is all their music and the movies they watch (all american stuff) is pirated from the internet, they have the dark knight rises here on dvd already for only 40 pesos (1 dollar) and about any other movie you can think of, it's hilarious. for foods this week i tried cooked blood which was really salty and stuff and that's about all the weird stuff. i saw a huge spider a few days ago that i have a picture of. well the work keeps going, i keep reading in the bofm on how alma and his brethren were dilligent in teaching the word and patient in all afflictions so i'm taking a leaf out of their book and just trying my hardest, one day it will come.

Mahal ko kayo,

elder robertson

this is the really big spider conner saw

 

week two

so this week was better, i'm getting the hang of being here in the field. i tried frog legs and bananna leaves and adobo and other weird vegetables. it still is a little weird being here and eating all the weird stuff but my comp is a good cook and he makes chicken and rice for lunch so its good. so i am literally the tallest person member or nonmember in my area, everyone one is so short and i swear that 20 year olds look like they are twelve and what not and it is crazy, everyone always says stuff to me and it always has americano in it so i don't know if they are making fun of me or loving me or what but i don't really care cause i can't understand them. they all stare at me too like they have never seen a white person before but i could take any of them in bball, from the looks they never had formal training in the art of bball. i'm getting eatin alive by mosquitos and i'm using my bug repellent but they seem not to care so i just hope i don't get dengue fever. so far as work wise, we have four baptismal dates set and hopefully those investigators will pull through, one is an old guy who was really stubborn for like four months then all of the sudden when i get here he says he'll be baptized, and they understand english if i talk slow and they are just afraid to speak it so i have been using a taglish when i am testifying mostly other than that i just try to translate what everyone says to no success but it's been interesting week. walking a lot! we have like 6 or 7 appointments a day with a like 20 to 30 minutes of walking in between so yeah thats fun. and everyone drinks coke here and it's nasty even when it is warm so i have to carry water wherever i go. it rains like crazy for about half the day and some houses are really muddy to get to so yeah it's a fun mission. My area is some corn fields and ends at the bank of the river and i think follows it for a bit but idk. mostly i just enjoy reading my book of mormon and trying to bear testimony at the end of each lesson so it's going like a greenie part of the mission, i just never realised how much faith it really takes to come all the way out here, if people knew what we do for our church they would call me insane but it's worth it to see people come to know of the truth and feel the love of god change their lives. It's been exhausting, but the district meetings are fun and the bakeries are amazing and everything is so cheap here so pros and cons. so goldfish (there is no such thing as those here) in the package and more granola bars and american candy and disney or motab cds cause we can listen to music! and perhaps in the next few months could you send me a dwight howard, steve nash, and kevin durant jersey shirts? i want to see dwights and stevies names on the back with lakers in the front and durant cause he is durant. Well thats about it, hopefully you get the pictures which will say more than i ever can. i have time to read all the emails you guys send so keep that up and update me on elder bell and elder creer, i feel for elder bell. i want to know if he has to shower with a bucket and can't ever flush the toilet and has to squat over it to go number two, my legs get tired when i do that and there are ants galore in my house! i am waging and endless war against them, this place is hilariously awesome. and send mail to the mission home, it'll just take forever for me to get it. have a good week everyone!

Mahal ko kayo,

elder robertson

 

dinner

the roads

their room

 

week one

Where to begin.....So there were no problems on the flight from slc to la, normal flight and what not we landed at like 9. Once we got to la we had like a 30 minute walk to the international terminal and then had to go through customs and what not and elder phippen lost his ticket so by the time we got to the gate it was like 11:30 and there was no food stores in the international section so it was not fun. The 14 hour flight from la to hong kong was even less fun, i slept for like seven hours and the other seven read that SI and tried to not watch the avengers. it was the longest boringest thing ever. once we got to hong kong we had to go through security again and walk like a mile to our manila flight gate and had like 20 minutes before we boarded. then once we got to manila customs was way easy, nothing like costa rica. then we met some guy from the church office and all 24 of us from america split to our separate missions. Those that were going to cauayan went to the mtc for a few hours and then with the filipinos that were new we caught a bus to cauayan, we were supposed to catch the 830 but because of the monsoon we had to catch the 10 and that was the longest ride ever. we had to sit on the packed bus with people standing in the aisles for 10 hours! i tried to sleep but maybe got two hours. so getting off that bus i was in a daze and then I met the shaners and president carlos and then went through the new missionary thing and sister carlos's cinnamon rolls are really good. then there was a transfer meeting in which he assigned me to elder llorin and then all the missionaries went to some chicken and rice restaraunt which was pretty good. I'm in tuguegarao south zone in the cataggaman area and then we had a three hour bus ride to here from the mission home and by then I was so tired i could barely stand without falling asleep. luckily there were no appointments scheduled so i just slept for like 12 hours. I left the mtc on monday and 430 and got to my area on thursday at 730, the longest i have ever traveled and have never been more tired. and on friday my mission started, in the morning we have an hour of personal study, two hours of comp study because theres this new training manual in which we do an extra hour of comp study and then we have an hour of language study where i learn tagalog and elder lorrin learns english. then we have lunch then go out and work. so the work is hard of course, we walk he whole time and prolly walk 6-9 miles a day. the culture shock was more than i expected it to be, super poor and there are cows and chickens and dogs everywhere! there are few streets and houses are like piled back behind each other so we have to walk through houses to get to other houses. there are cornfields we walk through and there is no trash service so everyone burns their trash so there is smoke everywhere. No paved roads, very few cars and a lot of dirt bike things with side cars which spew out exhaust that is really bad and there are tons of them! This place is just so much different and it will take some time to get used to. the language is a joke because i have no clue what anyone is saying or what is happening unless elder lorrin translates for me. which he doesnt do often. And the heat...oh the heat. it is so hot and humid that i haven't stopped sweating since i left the mission home, there is no ac and the best i can get is when i sit right in front of the fan. I have prolly lost weight this week because of how much i sweat and no matter how much i drink i prolly can't replace enough water. so work wise there were no investigators when i first got here but now we have like 5 new ones, i have no clue who is inactive, investigating and a member, they all act the same. when we are not teaching we are walking basically and everyone stares at me cause i am the only american within miles so i just say hi to everyone and they are thrilled that they spoke to an american. food wise, i tried intestines on saturday and got ridiculously sick yesterday cause i guess they were bad and still had food that the pig ate inside of them! so from yesterday at like 4 to when i went to bed i couldnt leave the toilet or move or i'd be sick. and there is no flushing here, just taking a bucket of water and throwing it in the toilet to flush it outside into the drain. there is no shower so i shower with buckets of water and it is cold so yeah. it is really hard to be in a positive spirit because everything is just so different and i got sick my first week here and everything else and if it continues it will be a long mission. the members are of no help either, they gossip about everything! even investigators who come to church and there are kids running around in sacrament meeting like crazy and they teach false doctrine and what not, it's nuts. this has not been easy and it's really easy to think if it's even worth it being all they way out here to teach people who have no clue what I am saying, but if thousands of others have done it then so can I. How is everyone doing? that's awesome dwight howard is a laker! steve, kobe, pau, and dwight! oh boy it should be really interesting season, hopefully they'll bring home ring seventeen! I wish I could watch this next season. Almost time for school! the kids here all have to wear uniforms. hopefully everyone is doing well and glad to hear that the golf is coming along very well, I am going to be terrible when I get home, also I am going to have a really bad spine, because I have to bend over all the time to get into houses and there are no chairs with backs and no cushions. There will be a lot of asking for strength these next few weeks from me and hopefully he gives it to me. anyways, hopefully everyone is doing well and enjoying the comforts that america has. pray always and read the book of mormon. someone said that no one will ever go astray if they read the book of mormon for ten minutes everyday and pray in the morning and when they go to bed. have a good week! I forgot my camera so I'll have pictures next week and i have taken quite a few, plus i need to get a converter thumb drive so I can put my pictures on the computer. until next week!

Mahal Ko Kayo,

Elder Robertson

new missionaries

President and Sister Carlos