12/9/2013

Well not too much to say. It's frozen here. The weather from the west found it's way and froze everything, so of course that's been joyous. It's not as cold as home, but it's cold. This week has been good. We had 3 lessons this week with members, we also have a baptism in our ward happening next weekend(my last weekend :D). That's going to be really awesome...He's super solid(I talked about him last week). 

So our goal this year is 450 baptisms...We are at 399 as of this weekend. We have about 45 solid baptisms that will happen this month, with a handful that could or might happen...it's going to be an extremely close year! :) It's been nice to see both years all the way through and to see our success as a mission. Both the 365 and the 450 goals were part of me as I served here, because I was here when they were set and I was here when we were on the final stretch for both. It's going to be very interesting.

Well, we have a trip to columbia planned for today with the big van. We'll make sure to take it safe. Next week, on Monday, Elder Bullough and I will be going to the Visillica :D It's an old Cathedral with a ton of stained glass and paintings and stuff. Jake is taking us to that, and I'm pretty pumped. I guess I'll tell you more about that when it comes :)

Love you all...See you in a weekish :)

Elder Tyler Robinson

12/6/2013

It's been a long road, these last 2 years. It’s been full of difficult, and yet ever so wonderful experiences and growing points. There is a lifetime worth of stories and lessons learned that I could put here, but instead, I want to share some remarkable results that I've seen that has influenced my testimony in missionary work. 2 years ago, a young man in Carbondale was referred by a member in Washington (the state) to take the missionary discussions. After learning, praying, and reading, his firm testimony lead him to quit smoking and was baptized. 1 year ago he was sealed for eternity to his dear wife in Washington. 2 years ago, a young lady, also in Carbondale, was referred by a really good young man in the ward...through her independent decisions, and in some ways opposing her family's core beliefs, she was baptized. She now is a faithful member, going to school at BYU-Provo. Another story; A 30 year old woman with 3 children, suffered through a divorce was left homeless. After struggling personally to keep her life in check and keep her children fed and taken care of, the Lord led her to the Church, through a Less-Active member. She was baptized a month or so later, and her children followed suit.Just last month she took out her endowments in the temple. Another 30 year old woman with 2 children and a wonderful husband, struggled to make it in somewhat of a crazy time in their life. Although life was good, things were missing and they knew it, and struggled to find it. Through interesting coincidences, her doctor suggested learning from the missionaries. Within that year, 2 of her friends had been baptized after taking the discussions, and her search for a path that was straight was finally brought to her. After taking the discussions, and truly searching her heart, she was baptized. She was endowed a month ago. 3 years ago; a young man was invited to go to a institute function. At that function the spirit whispered to him, and led him to eventually start researching the church. He began reading the Book of Mormon, and although he was skeptical, it began to speak to him, and eventually led him to pray about it. He began coming to church, and eventually stayed all 3 hours. Missionaries began to teach him the discussions and after a few lessons, invited him to be baptized. He accepted and was baptized. He went through the temple 2 years ago, and is writing this Harvester message at the end of his 2 year mission.

Elders and sisters, this is the work of God. These are just small snippets and only a handful of the absolutely amazing experiences that I have seen happen on my mission. Make your own miracles. This work is real and the God is ready to richly bless you for your faithfulness! Do not give up! Don’t take this opportunity lightly, because you will never serve in this capacity again. Believe that God is the creator of the Universe and that he is finishing his work in us and through us. It is a marvelous work! In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

12/2/2013 only 2 more weeks!

This week was awesome! It was super busy, but we made it through...It's interesting being a missionary on Thanksgiving, because it seems like everyone slows down, where we seem to be just as busy :)

On Tuesday we had a zone conference in St Louis. It was really good! Our zone leaders are awesome and they prepared a really good conference. This was our "Actual" zone conference, so we participated like a normal area, and it was fun and we learned a lot. I bore a departing testimony in the meeting; It was nice since, we won't do departing testimonies any more, to be able to share that with them before I left.

We then, after zone conference, met back with the Office Sisters, and went to a famous St Louis style BBQ restaurant called "Pappy's." I got a full rack of ribs, and it was soooooo good! Yum, Yum :)

Wednesday, we had North zone conference. We switched their phones out and did some of their media. We only stayed for part of it...We had MLC on Friday and had a ton of preparations to do. So we took off early and did a bunch of printing....Like 2000 pages haha. It was good.

Thursday, We had Lunch at President Morgan's...It was awesome! We had a ton of missionaries there, and the rule this year was if there was a football game on, we weren't allowed to tell the members to turn it off, so we got to watch the Lions and Packers game...It was a pretty embarrassing game, but it was fun to watch :) We left around 4 to go to our dinner appointment, which was with the Christensen family in the Rockwood 1st ward. They are from Australia, and they were awesome! They made a great Thanksgiving dinner(believe it or not...they make great American food :D), and then to top it off, he owns a custard shop, and so he pulled out this giant tub(like 4 or 5 times larger then what you buy at the store) of ice cream, and it was the best ice cream I have had in a really long time! It was sooooo good!

After stuffing our gullets, we went to the office to prepare supply orders for MLC. Usually, all day thursday goes into getting ready for Friday, but since we had the day off, a lot of the prep ended up taking place Thanksgiving night. We ended up working on getting Supplies to the building and getting the building ready for the day after, and didn't end up finishing till around midnight. Rough night for sure. Friday we had MLC, which was good. My last one :) We then went to Buffolo Wild Wings, and had a great dinner. Basically, this week we ate very well! :)

Saturday, we drove back up to Decatur(remember how we were there the week before...we had to go again this week haha). We helped move Decatur 2 in. Long drive, for a 20 minute drive but that's just how the work is sometimes :)

Sunday was amazing. Fast and Testimony meeting was awesome. There is a young man, Matt, who is getting baptized on the 14th. He is being taught by some other missionaries, but has been going regularly to the YSA. He got up and bore his testimony, even though he's not a member yet...It was aboslutely amazing! I loved his analogy that he shared...He said he was a man of faith his whole life, but he felt that he was like an explorer with a compass who was in the middle of the South Pole. every direction pointed him North, but there were so many choices and that not all took him to the destination he knew he needed to go. After finding the church he knew the correct direction and he is going to be a strong member of the Church! It was awesome!

This morning we got donuts...That's just a random thing I wanted to share...We got them from this amazing donut shop and they were awesome! :)

Well Christmas is on its way...We've been listening to Christmas music! It's brought a great spirit into our work! It's nice to rejoice everyday that a baby boy was born into the world, that would forever change human kind by the things he did for us. :)

Anyway, I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Elder Tyler Robinson

11/25/206

Hey world!

Another week has gone by and of course that meant for us, a lot of traveling and preparing and planning and going to meetings, etc and so forth :)

We spent part of the week replacing phones. We were in O'Fallon, Illinois and Decatur, Illinois through the week. It was fun. Let me just say, I will never go with Sprint...They make things sooooo difficult, it's remarkable how hard it is to do something simple like replacing the phone. Anyway, we got to participate in these zone conferences, which was fun. We inspected cars on Tuesday...that was  new experience. We had a guy from Salt Lake, training Elder Batchelor so we took his job for the day :)

On Wednesday, we went to Fitz's with Evan Crowder, which was a ton of fun. I don't know if I've talked much about Fitz's but it is really good. I got this burger with bacon and a cooked egg on top. We also got bottomless root-beers with frost mugs :) Sooo good!

This week we are going to this really famous place called Pappy's here in St Louis. It's going to be awesome! I'm super excited.

We helped the new mission nurse move in this week. She lives right above us and is really awesome! We are really excited to work with her! Her husband passed away this year, but she doesn't let it bring her down. She is ready and excited to work! What an amazing trooper!

Anyway, I love you all! We are looking forward to having an amazing week! :) I hope you do too! ;)

Elder Tyler Robinson

11/19/2013

Sorry for missing last week! I'm not sure what happened...I wrote a ton of personal letters and managed to forget to send a letter home :S

I'll catch you up and then I'll tell you about my week. We had transfers; It went really smoothly. It was the first time we switched from Thursday departure to Tuesday departure. Elder Cooper stayed an extra 2 days, so we brought him around with us and the work that we had. He enjoyed that a lot. His family picked him up and they were off. Other then that, we made a  9 hour deliver drive, and 6 hour delivery drive/move for that weekend...Busy, busy, busy!

Anyway, let me tell you about this week, because this is the good part! First off, we had a mission trainer come into our mission from Salt Lake. He came in on Tuesday, went on exchanges with the AP's and then with President Morgan, and then gave an 8 hour training to 60 missionaries in the mission. It was awesome! We learned a ton of, not really new things, just refined things. Things that some of the missionaries had been doing, but maybe not to the fullest potential and for some missionaries it was a completely new way to look at things. It was awesome! We left feeling pretty pumped and ready to work hard!

On Friday, Niki Anconetoni went through the Temple. If you remember, I was the one who performed the baptism on November 10th, 2012. November 14th was almost as soon as it was possible! She is just doing absolutely amazing! She still has trials and storms still hit, but she glows, and she was definitely glowing after her session! Her story is still an amazing one to me! I love sharing it and I love the fact that I had an opportunity to watch it happen. It was just another real evidence to me of the truthfulness of the Gospel, and especially in the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Nothing else could have made such a difference and could have changed her life as much as it has, both personally and as a family. It was amazing to see her go through on Friday!

On Saturday, Sylvia Taylor(used to be Phelps when I taught her), and Letecia Bracewell went through the temple to get their endowments taken out! I taught them both in my first area, Carbondale. The Bartholomew's brought them up. We went through and in just was amazing! They are both absolutely amazing! Time has taught them both a lot of things, and all the challenges that were presented to them while I was in the area were lifted over time. Sylvia, when I met her was homeless with her 2 kids...she was living with her sister in a doll house outside of the actual house. She had no job and was going through just the worse struggles because of her husbands choices. Now she has a house, a job, her kids are all with her living in the home, she is a huge strength in the ward and is extremely happy! I was so impressed with how happy she was! Letecia was glowing the entire time. Her husband still attends with her, but he is not all that interested still. She on the other hand has just grown in her knowledge and desire to do the things Christ asks her to do! It was amazing!!!

Sunday, we had Bring a Friend to Church Day. I gave a 10 minute talk, and was able to share these stories and my testimony! It was really good! We then had a Linger Longer after church and we got the opportunity to meet a handful of the friends that were invited and they are all really awesome and just all had a great time! 

Anyway, I'm still in awe from this weekend! I love this work so much! I love the Savior and I love the power of the Atonement! It is real, and it is amazing what it does to the hearts of men! I'm grateful for my time here and those millions of experiences where I got to watch it happen to others, just like it happened to me! 

I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

 

 

The other picture was from when we picked up the new missionaries. I didn't have a picture with the Morgans, so we took one :)

I forgot to mention on Friday, we helped set up an activity at the branch. We set up an inflatable obstacle course and a mechanical bull! I was at the temple during the activity but it was pretty cool to set up! I got to run the obstacle course once :)

 

11/4/2013

Well, for the first time since the beginning of my mission, I'll be in an area longer then 12 weeks :) I'll be finishing my time here in the office.

Today is the beginning of Transfers. We get all the departing missionaries today and are having a little party at the mission home. That will be fun :) We get the new missionaries tomorrow and transfers is on Wednesday.

This week has been pretty cool. The Cardinals lost the World Series, and it's been raining ever since pretty much lol. It was awesome they made it to the world series, but it sounded like we totally blew it :( The Red Socks were definitely the better team this year.

Anyway, we've been moving apartments all week. That's just the life of the office elder...moving apartments :) It's a lot of fun but it's pretty tough when you have deadlines on things. We will have 6 missionaries without apartments this week...they'll have to stay in other missionaries places for now. 

We have had dinner at the Presidents home twice this last week, and we will have it twice this week too :D Halloween was very interesting...we ate at the Morgan's and they had some weird colored potatoes and black rice. It was really good, but Sister Morgan was trying to make it look weird haha. We handed out candy and then planned for transfers. We are probably the only missionaries in the mission that ended up doing a meeting for Halloween rather then taking the night off haha.

Just an update on how everything is going with preparing for school; I have finished my financial aide and next week I'll be able to register for classes. My counselor recommended me the classes I need, and I only have 7 classes to graduate. So things are moving a long well.

Well, we have a ton to get done today, so I will talk to you all next week!

Have an awesome week,

Elder Tyler Robinson

Pictures from trip to Hillsboro

10/30/2013

Another week has gone by...and what a week.

We are transfer planning right now(I've sat out for now, because I wanted to get my emailing done...I didn't get to do it on Monday).  I am staying in the office until I go home, so you don't have to worry about anything Crazy happening :) My companion is leaving for Champagne though.

Well, Couple things that have happened this week...We switched out a butt load of phones haha. Probably 15 to 20 in two different zones as we did interviews. We've been trying to figure out what works best, and at first we were doing every single one, but Sprint made a bunch of mistakes on us, so we tried a new approach of having the missionaries do it themselves with our help, so if Sprint makes a mistake, at least it doesn't kill our phone. :) It's worked so far.

We drove to Centralia because some missionaries locked their keys in their car. That's about 2 hour drive for us...Thank goodness I love those missionaries that are out there :) It was fun...Elder Norton served there and so he showed me a bunch of cool things about the area. He loved it there, and the missionaries who are there now are doing amazing.

We moved Washington's stuff back to the old apartment that we moved last month. Turns out, it wasn't our stuff that we took :S It's all worked out now but it definitely was a big oops on our part haha. We also had MLC this week. It was a great meeting. We got to stay the whole time but I had the sniffles so I was kinda miserable haha It was ok though :)

Saturday we went to the Adult Session of Stake Conference after being invited by the 1st Presidency. That was really awesome! They talked all about Hastening the Work, and there was some powerful commitments extended to the entire stake. Hopefully they follow through :D Sunday was Awesome as well. We had stake conference and it was a great session. 

Oh I forgot to mention  that we went on exchanges and I actually had the opportunity to be in Hillsboro again. We taught a solid lesson and had a good time. Hillsboro is going through some major changes, as far as the area goes. We are moving their apartment and getting them re situated so I'll probably be down there again soon.

On Monday, we moved Lincoln to Springfield, which is about 2 and a half hours from St Louis, we then took their washer and dryer to Mahomet which was another hour the other way. We got it all done but it was a full days job which played part in not being able to write this week so far :)

Yesterday, we did transfer planning. It is so fun and amazing to sit in on these discussions. I love it. It's wonderful to know the Lord is watching our mission :)

Anyway, I love you all. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

 

First Picture is Evan and I when he took us to Cracker Barrel

Second Picture is Sylvia, the Soccer mom van. It's our main vehicle

Third Picture is Chester, it is the van we drive a billion miles a transfer to deliver stuff. It will be our main vehicle next transfer(There is also a trailer)

Fourth Picture is the Pie I made for The ward

 

10/21/2013

Well another week has flew past us. We've ha a lot of emergencies this last couple of weeks. Nonetheless we've had some really great things happen as well. We are in some final stages of getting the big project for the key indicators for the mission finished. That's taken a lot of our time this week. It is super easy now. You just run a report and it runs through all 113 areas and creates a nice summary report that will make everyone's life super easy. There are some things to work out still but for the most part it looks good :-)
One awesome thing that happened this week... Evan Crowder took us to lunch... it was really awesome to be able to talk to him about what he saw as a missionary,  while he taught me the discussions. It's pretty interesting to hear what happened with their companionship, their area, and just the situation in general. I'm super blessed to have such a connection here on my mission. :-D

On Sunday we had a really awesome church experience. First, we had a full house. There was a ton of people there which is great for a small young single adult branch in the middle of St Louis. one of the members brought a friend, and she agreed to learn more :-D. We will be following up this week. We also had a linger longer iron chef after.  My mom sent me pie filling so I made a pie and it was fantastic! I won a prize for it, but I made sure I had the biggest piece out of the pie because I knew it would be good!

Well we Are going to go play softball today. It should be fun. We haven't had much of a pday in a while, so it'll be nice to go have fun with some missionaries
Love you all,
Elder Tyler Robinson

10/7/2013

Hey everyone!

We had an awesome week this week! General Conference was great, and definitely was a highlight of the week! There was some amazing talks given and a lot of great instruction for us to be better missionaries as members of the Church. 

I'm not sure I've talked about the big shift in our mission yet; For 3 zones in the mission, we've moved away from going door to door, and talking to people in a place where they feel least comfortable, and have moved to strengthening wards and branches in doing their missionary work, and then working together with those wards, bringing Zion to their friends and family. It's been an interesting move, and missionaries have found some very good success in doing this method. It is challenging to find new investigators though; It is one of those, pay it forward, and receive abundantly later methods, so it requires a lot of patience and love for those members we work with. We've been working with the members of our branch and have seen a lot of excitement with missionary work flow through the branch. We haven't seen the results of that work yet, but I'm sure it will come over time. We are just laying foundations for future missionaries.

We started the week off with FHE with YSA. It was fun...we had a competition for cake design...we lost. The cakes were really good though, so totally worth it :D The rest of the week, I worked on a new program that we will hopefully will be able to get finished this week. It will basically make life a million times easier. I love it when that happens :D Of course we also moved in 2 apartments, handled 2 emergency transfers, and a bunch of other emergency tasks through out the week. That's the life of an office elder :)

Anyway, I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

09/30/2013

What a week!!!! It was awesome and busy and hard and crazy, all in one week!!! :D

So of course, I told you we went to a cardnials game...That was really fun! We actually went to two cardinals games, and if you know anything about the cardinals right now, they are doing awesome! We won all week against the Washington Nationals. Our first game was on Monday and wasn't a surprise, but we surprised the departing missionaries with a game before they left. It was the last game before playoffs. 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I've gotten an average of 4 hours of sleep this week a day, because of our crazy schedule. We picked up the new missionaries tuesday, which was a whole lot of fun. Elder Wunderli is the new AP, so we had 5 of us to pick these new missionaries up :) We treated them...they were exhasted because their flight left early and they were woken up extremely early, but we made it through the whole process and decided on their trainers. That was a very interesting process, and I think we successfully line them up with great trainers. Needless to say, we didn't get home till 1. 

Wednesday we woke up early, picked up all the new missionaries, had transfer meeting, and then took the departing missionaries to the ball game. Had a fun time and brought them to the mission home for dinner. Of course they didn't sleep at all, so we were up all night(although I was able to get about an hour of sleep). We then ran them to the airport and got them on their flight. We were supposed to have a meeting at 2, so we went to the office, prepared for MLC(the big meeting at the end of the month...it took the entire day to prepare). We didn't get home till after 11,  but we got everything ready for the next day. 

Friday, we had MLC with all the zone leaders and Sister training leaders. I was wasted by this point haha, but it was a great meeting(I didn't fall asleep, but I was tempted :D). We kept going till bed time, and man I was out, and I still was way tired the next day! We moved in a apartment in Mt. Zion Illinois which is about 3 hours away. It's the area Elder Jensen is serving in. They were living with Elder Hoffman, and his compainions, so we took them all out to lunch! It was awesome! I love both those missionaries a lot! :)

Sunday of course was church, but we got to sit in on a meeting that our branch was having. They are working on preparing goals and a vision and a direction for next year. It was very cool to watch the leadership teach these young men and women about goals and about setting good goals that will provide amazing results! I honestly think that this branch is going to explode with activity very very soon, and we are the lucky missionaries who get to help them make it happen! How awesome is that? I'm super stoked!

Today, we went golfing, which is why this email is late. We did 9 holes with President Morgan. It was a lot of fun....I'm terrible. I hit some awesome drives, but you learn pretty quick that the real secret to the game is your short game, not your long game :)

Anyway, I love you all! I hope you have an awesome week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

9/23/2013

So, I don't know exactly what to say...This week has been extremely busy! It is transfer week this week and we spent the entire week preparing for it. We opened 5 new apartments, moved one set of missionaries out of their top floor apartment, and carried as piano upstairs at the mission home. Talk about heavy lifting. I think by the end of my mission I could be considered a fully trained professional mover :) It's been tough but we lived through it :D

This week we have also planned transfers, so we sat in with President Morgan, and the AP's and through the inspiration of the Spirit, decided the destiny of all the missionaries in the mission for the next 6 weeks. What an amazing experience! There were a lot of remarkable things that happened and this transfer will be absolutely amazing! Elder Facer, one of the AP's, is going home, and the process of picking the next assistant was absolutely awesome! It was just very cool to experience :)

This week, we have 30 new missionaries coming into the mission and 12 going home, and so we will be directly involved in making sure they have a good experience, both coming and going home, but as you would guess, it's going to be busy! :) It'll be fun :D

Anyway, I got to go...We are really crunching for time today. I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

PS We are going to two Cardinals games this week :D

9/9/2013

Well the train keeps moving forward! We are still working hard and super busy.

This last week, we had 3 zone conferences...St Louis, Springfield, and Columbia...the went pretty well. We drove Sister Morgan, coming home from both Springfield and Columbia and all I can say is that it is just the greatest blessing to have the opportunity to work with them so closely and to get to know them so personally.  

It wasn't all business though, on Monday we did get the chance to go to the city museum and we went on the roof this time. I will send pictures when I get on a computer(I'll explain in the minute). After, we went to a YSA activity. It was awesome! The YSA branch is so fun! We actually did some work for YSA this week, which meant we got to teach lessons :D Our BML is great! He set up our appointments and our fellowshipper for each lesson. We also got a couple referrals and got invited to a dinner in parkway2 ward. It's been great, but yes we are crazy busy.

So right now, I am emailing you with an ipad mini. On Friday we discussed with President Morgan about his tablets he has...the church gave him a Galaxy Tab2 to use for his work but he already had an IPad and preferred it over the Tab so he asked us to take it and use it as our means of staying productive with office work even when we are away. Well, later that day, he received in the mail an IPad Mini, so now we have a Galaxy Tab and an iPad mini to share between us and the AP's lol. For all of you who thought i wouldn't touch real tech till I got home, I'm getting a 3 month early preview :)

Anyway, we have mission conference and an ET to do today, which includes all the prep for that today. We have a second mission conference tomorrow, so it will be busy, but we'll be working hands on with Elder Godoy from the 70 :) 

Lastly, I got some awesome news about Emily Cisco last week! If you remember she was the third baptism I had in Carbondale. She is in Provo right now, going to BYU! Isn't that awesome! She rocks! :)

Anyway, I love ya'll! I hope you had a wonderful week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

9/2/2013

Another busy week.

We had 2 zone conferences and Mission Leadership Council this week and we have 3 zone conferences next week, and 2 Mission conferences the week after, which we are bringing in a 70 to our mission. So yeah, we are busy!!!

Lets see, what can I tell ya. Monday, we were busy taking missionaries to airplanes and other related emergencies lol. 

On Thursday, we went out to eat with the AP's for Elder Facer and Sister Minnard. It's a world famous resteraunt in Fairview Heights called Latawata Creek. It was soooo good. They are famous for their giant portions, and the quality. I got a huge pile of ribs and they were really good. I took pictures of other peoples meals too because they were huge too :)

On Saturday, I got some work done with the Indicators and I think I've come up with some great ideas to move the office forward in effeciency and in helping all the units as they try to increase their missionary work. It's still in process, and hopefully I'll have time to sit down this week, but it's going to be crazy for sure :)

On Sunday, we went back to the YSA branch and Evan Crowder was there :D It was awesome to see him again! We taught Sunday School, and he was just saying that it was totally surreal to be taught by one of his old investigators. Hopefully we'll be able to go out sometime here in the future :D We talked with the Branch Mission Leader about our situation and how we want to help, but also our concern that we don't want to go above what we are capable of, and he is totally down. We decided we'll plan to block off some time and then leave it to him to fill our time with appointments. This should help get some things done in the branch and get things moving. Our goal is to be traded out by full time missionaries.

Last thing before I have to go, with the mission conference we are going to have personal interviews (office Elders and AP's)...That's awesome!!! We may even end up driving him to the conferences...isn't that crazy!!! It's way cool to be in the office. We get a lot of rare experiences and opportunities for sure!

Anyway, I got to get going! Next week we won't be in a rush so I'll be able to talk a little more about the week.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

Eating at this awesome place in Fairview Heights called Latawata.  The servings are HUGE!!!

Eating at this awesome place in Fairview Heights called Latawata.  The servings are HUGE!!!

Eating at this awesome place in Fairview Heights called Latawata.  The servings are HUGE!!!

I got a giant plate of ribs as you can see :)

Eating at this awesome place in Fairview Heights called Latawata.  The servings are HUGE!!!

Eating at this awesome place in Fairview Heights called Latawata.  The servings are HUGE!!!

Eating at this awesome place in Fairview Heights called Latawata.  The servings are HUGE!!!

Elder Norton with one of the guys he taught after he went through the temple.

Elder Norton with one of the guys he taught after he went through the temple.

Elder Norton

 

8/25/2013

WHAT A WEEK!!! lol Man, it has been a crazy week!!! 

Lets see, I guess I'll start with Monday. We went golfing in the Waterloo area for P-Day. It's 5 dollars for as many balls that you can hit on the driving range and mini golf course. It was fun. I can't believe I never went when I served in Waterloo haha.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we ran Zone conferences in O'Fallon, North, and Champaign. It was rough. A lot of driving! It was nice to hear about what's happening in my old areas though. Tuscola, Weldon Spring, and Waterloo are all doing pretty well :) Waterloo is doing great actually from what I heard. It's always nice to hear good news about people you have taught.

On Friday we went to see the Cardinals play the Braves!!! :) So before you start thinkin I'm slacking off, it was actually a command from President. He asked us to take Sister Wayment(who is an office sister) because she was super bummed that she would miss it cause no one could go with her. She was soooo happy! She was smiling all day long :) She loves baseball. Her son played for the Atlanta Athletics. The Cardinals won, but it was a great game, and we kept her safe :P

Saturday, we did service with the Zone Leaders and then helped with a missionary who had a big accident this week. He stayed with us as we ran errands with us and did office work.

Sunday we went to the YSA branch. We have some news with that...We are officially the missionaries in YSA Branch. We are halving it with the Zone leaders. In that branch, Elder Crowder(Evan Crowder now...he was the missionary who taught me) is the branch assistant clerk, and the Elders Quorum President is Peter Southerland from the YSA ward I was baptized in and also the ward I left from. It was way cool. Evan wasn't there but Peter was. I talked with him a bit and we discussed the possibility of us also working in the branch. It's gonna keep us busy, that's for sure :)

Anyway, today is going to be full of meeting prep, taking missionaries to the airport, and more meeting prep, so there won't be time for any fun :( lol jk work is fun, but it is busy today! We are having an awesome time here though! I love you all! Keep your heads high and smile :D

Elder Tyler Robinson

pictures from Cardinals game

pictures from Cardinals game

pictures from Cardinals game

at the Theater(We were running an errand...we did not see any movies)

Peter Southerland from the ward I was baptized in...he's elders quorum of the YSA branch that we are taking up officially :)

8/19/2013

It's been a remarkably fulllll week!!! Whew!! I guess I'll start with the beginning.

On Monday, we threw a party for Elissa, for her 21st birthday. We went bowling, played some games at the church and had dinner. It was a lot of fun! She is recent convert  and a rock star. The party was both for her birthday and as a departing party for the fact that she's leaving the beginning of next month for BYU-I. It was fun :)

Tuesday, we said goodbye to Georgia, and did our last round of service at the nursing home before I left. We stayed at the ZL's apartment and prepared to head out at 4 in the morning! 

Wednesday we hopped on the bus and took the 3 hour drive to St Louis, where I sat with the AP's next to the Mission President for transfer meeting. Since then, we have just been moving and moving and moving! Wednesday night, we spent with the departing missionaries. There was a lot of friends in that group, including my trainer. Elder Bassett. We had dinner w/ the Morgans and spent the night with all these missionaries preparing to go home. We then dropped them off at the airport the day after. It was a great day!

Thursday, we got indicators in, and I got an idea of many things I'll be able to work on this transfer. It takes forever at this point, so I plan on changing that for the future :)

Friday, we did a bunch of errands for some missionaries, and did some office work. I'm starting to see that very quickly I'm gonna know this mission like the back of my hand :)

Saturday, we drove most of the day :S In total we drove about 6 hours, delivering box springs and medicines and other things like that. It was not as bad as it sounds, plus we went tracting in Steeleville for about an hour and taught a lesson :) We then went to a baptism in Hazelwood, with a girl, Katie, who Elder Norton(my new companion) taught. 

Sunday, we did some office work...I made a bunch of changes on the mission website, sent out the mission emails and some other administrative stuff. We then went to the Hazelwood ward for church, where Elder Norton confirmed Katie. We stayed all 3 hours, and then went on exchanges with the Hazelwood 1 elders. Elder Spencer was my companion again for a day :) We taught Katie, and then exchanged back, so it wasn't too long but it was fun to be together again. Later that day I spent some time working on the indicator sheets, which I'm completely redoing because it is broken...like super broken :) It should be a good project :D

Anyway, that's a week in the life of the office. We have zone conferences for this week, next week, and a mission conference the week after, so we'll be busy :) 

Love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

 

Elissa's birthday party. The 21 is made with a snickers bar :)

Elissa's birthday party.

my shoes that I left behind. I wanted to keep the memory that I wore them out so bad,but I didn't want to carry them around anymore. :)

my shoes that I left behind. I wanted to keep the memory that I wore them out so bad,but I didn't want to carry them around anymore. :)

my shoes that I left behind. I wanted to keep the memory that I wore them out so bad,but I didn't want to carry them around anymore. :)

my shoes that I left behind. I wanted to keep the memory that I wore them out so bad,but I didn't want to carry them around anymore. :)

my shoes that I left behind. I wanted to keep the memory that I wore them out so bad,but I didn't want to carry them around anymore. :)

our corn picture right before we left Tuscola

on the Champaign train on our way to St. Louis.

on the Champaign train on our way to St. Louis.

on the Champaign train on our way to St. Louis.

on the Champaign train on our way to St. Louis.

me and Elder Bassett, as he went home, at the temple. He never took me while he trained me, so I made sure to get one before he left :)

 

8/12/2013

I don't know if I will have enough time to explain the remarkable week we had this week! Hopefully I can do it justice :)

On Monday, we made an awesome music video that we made in Champaign. I wish I could share it, but it is a mighty big file, but when I get home, Expect there to be an awesome video uploaded for you all to see :)

Monday night we were in Arthur. We went over to "grandma's" and had dinner, and taught a lesson to Jed, who is a friend of Elissa's. He's a stud! He has a lot of good questions, and if we can keep him on track, as far as teaching regularly, I think he will accept the Gospel :D

Lets see, Tuesday we had a lesson with Georgia. I gave her a book, Our Search for Happiness, and she has almost finished it already :D She asked us a few questions, but for the most part it seems she really agreed with it :) We then had a Bible Study with a Methodist group that we've been studying with every week. John 14! it was excellent. 

Wednesday was a day of miracles! We went to Arthur and had lunch w/ Elissa. Earlier that day we got a phone call from Charleston Elders, asking us if we would join them in their appointment with Katelyn Schrock, because she is getting baptized and she is in our area(She lives in Arthur), although she is getting baptized in the ward just south of our area. We said yes of course :) We then walked with Elissa to Katelyn's house(because they know each other pretty well) and asked if Katelyn would bring Elissa to the appointment. Of course, she said yes, and we had a huge lesson(10 people). In the lesson, Katelyn wasn't so sure about her baptism date and wanted to wait a year and a half. That's a pretty long time of course, so we talked about it, but didn't push further then asking her to pray about it.

We then went to dinner with Katelyn, Elissa, Kurt, and Sherrell at Steak n' Shake. Invited them all to come with us to meet w/ Laci at the park, which Katelyn and Elissa did. This gave Laci some time to be around Elissa(a recent convert), and Katelyn(thinking about joining), and in the time she had with those girls, something clicked more then it has in a while, and she got her permission slip signed and texted us saying "I'm getting baptized!!!" which is great news.

After we had met with Laci, we left the girls alone and went to a lesson with Jamie Sims and her neighbor, Michelle. It was an awesome lesson and Michelle seems really open to learning more! She had been very interested in the Book of Mormon and so we discussed the Restoration and challenged her to read 3 Nephi 11 which she was excited and agreed to. I'm looking forward to hearing what is going to happen with that :)

We then went back to the park to say goodbye to the girls. As we left to go back to Tuscola, it started to rain and it was hard rain. The windshield wipers were full speed and you still could not see...It was like driving through a waterfall. I texted the girls to let us know when they are home so we knew they were safe, and then immediately I told Elder Jensen I was going to say a prayer. As I began to utter the prayer, the rain completely stopped. From crazy rain to no more rain at all. Full blast windshield wipers to off. And not just for us, but also the girls on their way back to Arthur on the complete other side of the county! It was awesome :) God is good!!! :D

Thursday we had dinner with the Branch President, which was really good! It was Amish Buffet :D

Friday we helped the Zone Leaders move...a lot of fun but not all that exciting. 

Saturday, we had a meeting with Elissa and Katelyn. Those two are becoming really good friends and it's doing wonders for Katelyn! I'm so happy for her. 

This is actually a good time to mention another cool thing that happened with Katelyn. It was Thursday, I felt prompted all day to let Katelyn know about what Laci had told us earlier that day. About mid day, I texted her thanking her for her influence with Laci because she had decided to get baptized after she hung out with them. Later Elissa told us that Katelyn was, at that moment or really close to it at least, praying for a sign that what she was deciding to do was right, she then received that text, and instead of waiting a year and a half, she wants to be baptized in 2 weeks :D

On Sunday, we met with w/ Katelyn again with the Charleston Elders. She is super committed now! They set up her baptismal plan and she is on her way for the 23rd!

Later that day, we saw Laci, and set up a baptismal calendar for her. She is getting baptized on the 7th of September!!! She is also very excited about it :D

Well, I'm sure you are blown away by all of what I shared, but here's more...I'm going to the mission office as an office elder this transfer! So, for all of you who love having my address, rather then the mission address, now they are one in the same :) 

1850 Craigshire Dr

St Louis, Mo 63146

What I was told, is that I will have a prosylyting area, but I don't know how that will work. Basically, I'll probably still go tracting every once in a while and maybe teach some solid lessons :D

Anyway, email overload!!!! I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

8/5/2013

What a week! It was awesome!

 

We had a lot of service to do this week, and most of our time went into doing that but we did a lot of really fun activities a long the way. I don't know if I mentioned but this transfer is a service transfer, and I think this week definitely an example of that!

 

We did our normal service at the Food Pantry and at the Nursing home, but we also did about half a day at a Thrift Store, helping them work through which clothes to keep and which not to keep. We also did a half a day up in Rantoul at a retired Air Force base, where we were given the job of Security Guards for a State scout activity. That was a lot of fun.

 

While we were wandering the halls at the Air Force museum; making sure no body is eating on the carpet or running, ect, We got randomly pulled in to teach American Culture. It was quite the interesting experience...Those kids are sharp!!! Some wouldn't settle down, but I think all of them got a lot out of the class. We taught a little bit about Italian, German, and Korean culture that has played part in the culture of America. We also talked a little about the Church and it's influences in American Culture, which was very cool.

 

We also got these sweet dog tags. We were able to customize them, and now we have them hanging on our rear view mirror till we figure out a better place for them haha.

 

We had a great afternoon with Laci on Friday. She talked a little bit more about some of her feelings, and what she wants to do. Hopefully we'll be able to move forward in teaching her the Gospel soon.

 

Wednesday we taught a lesson with Elissa in Arthur. It went very well, but the lady we taught was not entirely interested. We were there for someone who lives there but wasn't there at the time, so we'll be going back probably today :)

 

Umm I think that is all that's been goin on this week. It was a lot of fun, and quite different haha.

 

Have a wonderful week and we will too! Love you all. Transfer calls this Saturday!

Elder Tyler Robinson

7/29/2013

Birthday Dinner made by Elder Jensen

Birthday District Meeting

Birthday Card Elder Smithson made me :)

Birthday Card Elder Smithson made me :)

Birthday Card Elder Smithson made me :)

Sam acting crazy

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Playing Tennis with Laci, Sammie, and Elissa

Elder Jensen wearing Josh's glasses

This is what you see...miles and miles and miles and miles of it

Onward to Arthur

This is a picture of the curvature of the earth. The camera couldn't capture as far out as you can actually see of the ground before it disappears on the horizon

What a week! Of course, my birthday was awesome! We had a combined District Meeting, because I share a birthday with Elder Hubbard. We did a potluck and played some sports after the meeting before returning home.

This week, we got together a good group to play Tennis with. It was fun...a really good fellow 

shipping activity. We are trying to get bigger groups to come up with us. Laci has been trying to invite a bunch of friends, and so hopefully we might have a really good opportunity to share the Gospel with some of her friends. 

We also gave two blessings on Friday. 

We have been getting quite a few referrals. Elissa(a recent convert) has been wanting to share the Gospel with a ton of her friends, and so we have a few leads for the next couple weeks from her. Jamie Simms has also given us a referral that we are going to teach today :)

Other then that, it's another week. It's been beautiful here! The weather is perfect :)

I love you all...this library is full so there is a chance I can lose the computer at any minute now, so I'll call this a letter.

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Tyler Robinson