WEEK 66

12-15-13

Hey Grandpa!!

Guess What! After a year and a half and almost giving up hope I finally met someone that I think you know from your mission! Her name is Judith Mariano Obungen but I think the last name is her married name. She said that you helped her with her mission papers in Hong Kong and that she served her mission in San Pablo. She says hi and and wants to know how you are doing. I was sitting outside of church yesterday greeting people and she comes up to me and says "robertson....you don't happen to know the robertsons who served in Hong Kong?" I freaked out! I thought is was hilarious and crazy cool at the same time. She just married our branch president last year and now they have a little baby. It was the coolest thing ever. She thinks the world of you and grandma and that helps me haha cause now she loves me. I thought you would like to know that. She says hi and hopes you are doing well!

That was a cool thing that happened this week! We also had a baptism and it was a great one. It was short but good. Her name is Jenny and she is 16. She is the only member now in her family but there are a whole bunch of members that live close to her so that helps with fellow shipping. We also got a couple referrals from the members. And the investigators came to church, thats how we got to know them! So now we know they have desire so we can work with them solidly. The members here are pretty good. They have great desire to help. Just no amazing template in this country to go from so we are helping them. I would love to say more but here are pics from the week. Next week is xmas so I will skype yall and you can ask questions then haha. Thats about it then. Have a great week everyone!

Love, Elder Robertson

 "This is Judith. Look familiar?"

"the Baptism.The old dude in the hat is a stud. He works with us all the time" 

"Reminded me of the trek"

Week 65

12-8-13 

Hello Family!

How is everyone this week? Well I was transferred this week and now I am in my new area. Mallig Roxas. Its the area theSshaners were in when they were on their mission. Let me tell you. It cannot get anymore third world than this. Basically it is farmers who work in their fields all day and and are very poor. There are a lot of people to teach but they are all less actives. The branch has about 60 active members and the meetinghouse is nothing special. just a tiny little house with a church sign on it. Every family here is part member families so there are plenty of opportunities to get investigators, everyone just wakes up at 2 am to go to the bukid and then they get home at 5pm then they all go to bed at 7pm so teaching is a tough but we do have a baptism this week. Her name is jenny and she is 16, she lives next to a bunch of members so they help her go to church and what not. Mostly here the women are active and teenage girls. Almost all our teaching appointments are old nanays and teenage girls cause the men are always working. So tough but staying positive can help haha. Roxas itself is not bad there is just nothing here and the internet is not good. It's just really third world. I guess God is trying to teach me a lesson in humility. But life goes on. Luckily I have been in the mission for a while so I am used to the country. If this were my first area it would be terrible.  Love to here from everyone! Well have a good week everyone!

Love, Elder Robertson

WEEK 64

Hello Family!

Happy December! The Philippines is getting ready for xmas. The way they do it is by caroling for money on the streets and shooting off firecrackers. Yeah I'm glad its my last xmas here. The weather though has been great! It has been cloudy and windy all week! Like 65 degrees haha. It has been great except the water in my bucket shower is really cold haha. Other than that it was a pretty good week. We did a lot of contacting and mostly tried to help members get over their fear of sharing the gospel with their friends and family. There are a lot of part member families here in the philippines and so the best way to get referrals is by teaching peoples families. But the members are so scared to share the message because their family might not like it. So we try to tell them not to worry at least they are trying and the worst that can happen is that they say no. It's kinda working cause we have a few names we can contact. It all depends on the missionaries. We have to be more assertive or we will never get referrals. I am looking forward to it in my next area. I am getting transferred this week so I will be in my fourth area next week! Other than that it was just a week of work again. And everyone here is so sad that the guy from fast and furious movies died, they love those movies. probably because there is no acting, just car chases.

I did read a cool talk this week by Elder Christofferson called "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread" he gave it at BYU and there are three mormon messages that are basically the talk and are really good to. I feel like this is a good New Year's talk. It is all about life a day at a time. He talks about how sometimes during trials it is easier to take life a day at a time and not think to far ahead. He also talks about repenting and becoming christlike and how progression is a day at a time and if we are a just a little better than we were yesterday then it is enough. He says that a lot of almost imperceptibly small changes over time equals a very large change. Conversion really is a long process. But we should not get frustrated because perfection will come. It was a great talk for me to read especially going to a new area and with a new year coming up. That's about it!

Love,

Elder Robertson

WEEK 62

Hello Family!

Well It was kinda a slow week, basically we went tracting and around to members to ask for referrals but with no success. I had an interview with president and he really helped me learn about what I need to do in the slow times. Sometimes we hit a wall and we feel like we can't go anymore and feel burnt out. . Investigators are slow in coming and the area isn't really progressing. It has been hard to stay obedient and work hard and what not. But president said that these times come and times like this are to test to see if I can be obedient and work hard so I can take the next step. Progress is like a staircase and sometimes the stairs are easy to climb like at home sometimes the stairs are like scaling a wall. I am reminded of Ether 12: 6 "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith" I guess I am at a wall to scale. With the lords help I have been able to be obedient and work hard. Just keep going. I read a talk called "His Grace is Sufficient" a talk given at BYU a few years ago. It is a great talk that really helps put the atonement in perspective. Here is the link: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1966 I recommend reading it sometime this week. Very enjoyable talk and I learned a lot about what I need to do to be a better missionary and a better person. Well thats about it for this week

Elder Robertson

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

NOTE

Nov 11, 2013
The Philippines typhoon hit quite a bit south of where Conner is and barely affected him.  He said "the cuffs of his pants got a little wet".  Please keep the Filipino people in your prayers.

WEEK 60

Hello Family!

Welcome to November! My how time flies.. This week was interesting. We had a typhoon come through here. It was rainy with rain. I have golfed in stronger winds and it rained pretty hard but not exactly what I thought a typhoon was. It was only a number 2 though. I guess a number 4 or 5 would be crazy. Other than that we spent a lot of time finding. We went to a birthday party for a members kid and talked to this one lady and her sister. They said that the missionaries have visited them before but were wondering why they stopped coming. So we set up an appointment for the next day and were all excited to teach them and everything but they live in the sisters area. We actually taught them once then gave the referral to the sisters. I was so excited to cause they were really interested and had a lot of questions. We are trying to help part member families get the courage to ask the nonmembers if we can share with the family members but so far no success. However, we do get Elder Nielsen the Area President in our zone conference this thursday so that is exciting. He will come up on wednesday and the members will have a devotional with him that we get to go to and then a zone conference on Thursday. I am excited for that look forward to learning from him.

This week I watched a thing by Elder Bednar called Act in Doctrine. It is a DVD where he answers questions based on his book by the same title. It was amazing! He talked about the Character of Christ. It was very instructive because the Character of Christ turns outward from the natural man to bless and serve others. The Character of Christ does not think about self but solely on others. He mentioned a few attributes of the character of Christ including observing, listening and patience. He used examples from the life of christ where he would observe and listen rather than speak right away. He used the example of when Peter cut the guards ear off in the Garden of Gethsemane and even then Christ healed the man and Elder Bednar admitted that he would have been thinking about himself than blessing others because Christ had just come out of the suffering and was just betrayed by one of the chosen twelve and was going off to a gruesome death. He never said "Why me?" or "Why can't you give me a break?" He was focused on blessing others until the end. Then Elder Bednar gave a challenge to pray with faith to see where we are on the Character of Christ to see us as we really are and then when we do see ourselves on the scale to work on our weakness. The longer I am out here in the field the more I find I need to work on stuff. Also the Character of Christ does not focus on "I" so one more thing to work on. Bless and lift others. I hope he gives a conference talk on the Character of Christ cause it is such a good topic. Anyways that is what I learned this week. I am gonna try to listen and observe more during lessons and not focus so much on the content but the person that I am trying to help. Thanks for all your support!

Mahal Ko Kayo!

Elder Robertson