Tyler's Missionary Blog: July 2013

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

7/29/2013

Birthday Dinner made by Elder Jensen

Birthday District Meeting

Birthday Card Elder Smithson made me :)

Sam acting crazy

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

Monday, July 22, 2013

7/22/2013

Hey! Happy 24th of July! (Happy Birthday to me!) :)

Not incredibly sure what we are going to do today. But we are going to try to have some fun :)

Last week was pretty good. We had President Interviews on Wednesday, which was a lot of fun! We had a good time getting to know him a little better. He is super overwhelmed haha we can tell :) We are doing our best to keep it somewhat sane for him :)

We also had exchanges. Elder Wadsworth and I taught Ellissa, who is a recent convert from this area...she is preparing to go to BYU-I. Cool part is, she is Elder Wadsworth's first convert...It was pretty cool lesson. She then took us over to one of her friends to teach. We had a great lesson, but it ended up not working out :( oh well.

I went to Mahomet on Thursday, after District Meeting. We had a remarkable lesson with a Part-Member family. Brother Goodrich, while he was driving us there, gave us a little of a low down on what was going on. The wife, who is a member, was having crazy vertigo and wanted a blessing. Brother Goodrich, was acting a lot like he was not going to really say much and that he wanted us to run the show with the way he explained it, which we did till the blessing. We had a great conversation with her and her husband(non-member), and we taught a simple lesson.

Once the blessing started, it was like Bro Goodrich turned into a whole different person. The Spirit fell upon him as he gave the blessing, and after he asked her what she felt during the blessing. She bore her testimony and then Bro Goodrich asked the husband what he felt, which he bore his testimony of miracles and that he felt peace that he knew came from God. Bro Goodrich then said, to consider being the one, in the future to give his wife blessings like the one that took place. The spirit just filled the entire room. It was great.

Last thing I want to mention was Saturday, we spent time with Laci, and it was a lot of fun. We played some basketball with her and then just talked about some of the things that have been going on. Hopefully she will start to feel that we really want to bless her life, if she will let us help.

Anyway, that is it. It was a good week :) I love you all. have a great week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

7/15/2013

Not a lot to report this week. It was a very slow week. Melissa officially moved. The AP's were on exchanges w/ Decatur the day she moved, so they went down and helped her get moved into the new place, she seemed very appreciative of that.

We taught a couple other lessons, but for the most part, our week was very uneventful. We tracted a bit, and got a couple referrals, but no new investigators to talk about.

We did have Zone P-Day on Monday, we did not play laser tag though...We played a bunch of sports and had a pizza party :) It was a lot of fun.

This week we have interviews and exchanges with our District Leader. I think it's going to fly by haha.

Anyway, I wish I had more to share, but that's pretty much what's been happenen. Weather is awesome here, btw. Not very humid and not incredibly hot. It may rain today though :( Also, the corn is about 4 foot high, and covers miles and miles and miles and miles of our area.

Anyway, I love you all very much! Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Tyler Robinson

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

7/8/2013

Happy late July 4th everyone!!!

This year was much more eventful for July 4th then last year. We were allowed to stay out till 10:30, so we were up in Champaign and watched their fireworks! It was way good. We also got to see Fireworks on Saturday. It's weird out here. They line up their fireworks so you can basically have a full week of fireworks if you are willing to go to all the small towns near by. Montecello had theirs on Wednesday, Champaign Thursday, Matoon Friday, Tuscola Saturday, and Arcola Sunday. It is really weird, but it made it a lot more fun.

Well, we met with Melissa 3 times this week. Needless to say, things have gotten a lot more difficult for her. She is moving, because she is scared in the place she is living, and it is happening this week. She is jumping the border of our area, so we will probably no longer work with her. Hopefully she doesn't fall between the cracks.

We met President Morgan and his family on Wednesday! They are really awesome! This mission is in great hands :) They are from Farmington, Utah. He was the owner of Morgan Asphalt and loves skiing. They have 3 kids, but one of them is still 17 so she get's to join our mission family for at least a year. We had a great time with them on Wednesday. As a weird side note, apparently Elder Jensen looks just like their Nephew because all 3 of them said he did at different times haha. It was pretty funny!

Anyway, we have Zone P-Day today. It'll be fun if it doesn't rain. We are going to try to go see Melissa today as well, but we don't know if it will work out. Anyway, not too much more to report. It is nice weather here...80's and Low 90's. I hear both the West and the East are getting hit by crazy heat waves and other crazy weather patterns. It's dodging us :D

Have a wonderful week! Work hard, play hard!!! :D

Elder Tyler Robinson

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

7/1/2013

What an interesting week! So many great and crazy things happened.

First and foremost, we had a baby. Well actually we had a mini missionary, but we called him our baby boy :D He was with us all week long, and had some pretty fun adventures together.

The first day we got him, we had been contacting some people we had from an old potentials list, and ended up in the far northern part of Tuscola. Literally out of no where the sky turned black. Clouds rolled in and all of the sudden the sky turned green. We instantly turned back home and as we walked, the clouds started to swirl around like the beginning of a tornado(The green sky is a good indicator of that). We hurried home, and the second we got home and walked in the door, water began to poor like crazy out of the sky. Major lightning and thunder began to hit. No tornado touched down, but it definitely was in that direction. The lightning and rain went on all night, and we got some sweet videos, including a lightning strike that was right next to our apartment :) What a great first day for our mini missionary :)

On Wednesday, we went to jail. Well actually we went to the jail...We were looking for possible service opportunities there, since several people said they may need our help. No luck, but our mini missionary thought it was very funny that he went to jail. We then taught a lesson with Georgia, which went well. We got her a giant Book of Mormon and Bible and marked the Book of Mormon for her. We'll give it to her tomorrow.

Next we went to Melissa's house, and taught an awesome lesson. Within the first 5 minutes of the lesson she asked if she could be baptized. We set a her baptismal date for July 20th, and set up a baptismal calendar with her. She is so awesome! She came to church on Sunday, and all the members were very impressed with her, and she just loved how nice everyone was. She keeps telling us that we are fulfilling dreams that she has had for a long time, and that she knows that this is what she wants for her and her daughter. We are working on helping her with the miracles she needs to get back on her feet, as far as providing for herself and her daughter. She is very prepared, and I'm so glad the Lord took us all the way out there to find her. We are going to see her tonight.

Friday, we were in a little hobunk town called Villa Grove. We had been visiting people that missionaries had previously found and didn't have any luck. As we were leaving, an extremely nice gentleman pulled next to us and said he wants to buy us some drinks, because he knows we had been out working all day. He took us to the VFW, and bought us some soda's and some cheeseburgers. He was super nice, but it was very weird to be in the VFW at the tables that were in the same room as the bar haha. When we took our mini missionary went home, he made sure in his report he told everyone that we took him to a bar :S His report was seriously, we ran from a tornado, we went to jail, set a baptismal date, and then went to a bar. Ugh. We cleared it up, but man we sure looked super irresponsible lol.

Oh I forgot that the AP's came down and went exchanges with us. It was fun. They are trying to meet with as many missionaries as they can, as they go through the transition of President Clark and President Morgan(which officially happened 2 days ago). This week, we have quite a few lessons scheduled, meeting President Morgan on Wednesday, half a day on July 4th and a July 4th party on the 6th. It's going to be a busy week. :)

Anyway, the work is good! I love it dearly, and I couldn't ask for a better companion this transfer. It occurred to me that Elder Jensen is a ton like Jordan Swapp...they even sort of look the same haha. But I've had fun with him, and we have seen so many miracles as we have worked hard and play hard. It's so good. :)

Love you all! Talk to you next week!

Elder Tyler Stephen Robinson