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