1/22/2013

I was messing around with one of my puzzles that makes a cube, and got this :)

Our district! :)
L-R: E. Taylor, E. Hunter, E. Beaumier, me, Sister Cornick, Elder Cornick.
The Cornicks were just visiting...they actually are in Steeleville.

Hello World!

I'm happy to report that this week was not nearly as big of an explosion of events as last week :)

To start off, I'm not leaving Waterloo this transfer. Another 6 weeks with Elder Beaumier to be exact :) We are going to rock this area, this transfer. We only have 5 weeks, but we can make it the best transfer, with all the great potential that has been laid down for us so far.

As far as the work we've done this week, we taught the Stop Smoking Workshop to Connie and Danny. It did not go as well, as we hoped...they chose not to keep all 15 steps, and I think it was partly due to their lack of faith. We are going to teach them the Plan of Salvation today. We are going to help build their faith up in such a way that they may be able to accomplish anything the Lord commands, especially quitting smoking.

I did go to the office Friday and Saturday. I don't know if I explained what they had, before...They used excel, using 12 workbooks representing the months, where data was added, and 9 workbooks representing the 8 zones and mission, that layed out the data that was entered in the 12 workbooks. It was a mess. Now I can't say I made it any better...as far as the amount of places that data is juggled, but the new version of the zone workbooks is way simpler, and I only needed to make one, which then I copied to make 9, and it works great...It was dreary work, but I felt good about what was accomplished.

In this time in the office, I went to two baptisms...one of them in St. Charles...a man I met and heard much about in Weldon Spring. I also got to see my boy :) He's doing great! He's going to Moberly in the Columbia district on Wednesday, but he is baptizing Adrian and Andrew this weekend...I'm going to be there, and I'll make sure to get pictures :D I'm excited for them! Actually Weldon Spring has 4 baptismal dates so far, and may have a 5th real soon :) (of course, after Saturday, there will be 2 less haha). It was super exciting!

A side note, Elder Francis was the missionary who replaced me in Weldon Spring. Officially, he has served with E. Beaumier in the MTC, Elder Williams(became my companion the last week in the MTC) was his trainer, Elder Hoffman(my boy) is his current companion, and on Wednesday will be serving with Elder Elkington. Weird huh! He's served with nearly all my previous/current companions! Weird huh! I didn't realize how connected he was to me haha!

Anyway, one interesting thing that happened, is that I saw how transfers work! It was very interesting and I know that the Lord works through President Clark when transfers are being prepared. It's cool! I also was there when the new AP was called. They have interesting traditions when they call a new AP haha.

Another thing that was cool that happened this week was a phone call we received from a former investigator in our area. Neither one of us had ever met him, but he called us out of the blue and asked if we could come over and teach him. We did just that, and had a really spiritual experience with him. He declared that he believes we might be the true faith that he's been looking for. We testified to him, that God would NEVER expect us to just guess that we are in the right faith, nor would he want us to follow blindly towards any beliefs, but if he truly did such a wondrous thing, he provide proof so that we can know...More or less, he will give us fleeces(Like the story of Gideon), so that we can be confirmed in our faith. We then testified that the Book of Mormon is God's evidence that it is truly his path. We then asked him to read and pray and he agreed. Unfortunately, the reason he called us when he did was because he knew he may be going to jail this week. He wanted materials to read, in case he did go to jail. We'll see what happens, but his heart is in the right place.

Last thing I want to share is a cool little success that came from a small act that happened almost a year ago. I'm not sure if anyone would remember without having to pull out the emails I sent about it, but there was a point in time where we were teaching a Hispanic family that lived in a city called Alto Pass. This family was a referral from the Shiloh Elders, who referred Francisco because he loved the lesson they taught so much. If you remember, we went down there but forgot to bring the address, when we were first planning on meeting them, and there is no service down there, so we were blindly walking the town to find this family. We just happened to show up, at the same time as a young Hispanic lady, who was by chance also visiting Francisco. Her name was Theresa if you can remember. She was also with Francisico when they had the lesson in Shiloh, and while we were at Francisco's house, she taught nearly the entire first lesson to Francisco's mom. She was awesome, and we immediate got her referred to Steeleville Elders.

Well after this event, the Steeleville missionaries taught her for a bit, but they were removed from Steeleville and we didn't hear anything about her since. Well, the Cornicks are now in Steeleville, and they have been teaching her! She has gone to church 4 times, and is going to have a baptismal date real soon! Her son is also just loving the lessons! She said that she has been looking for a church that will make her feel good, but she has not found one yet. She has continously felt rejected in other churches, but says our church has made her feel wonderful and welcome! How cool, huh!

Anyway, I just want to say I love you all! I pray for you all everyday and hope that you will seek out great things this week and enjoy the great blessing of life!
Elder Tyler Robinson