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