Week 26

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!  I loved skyping home and seeing the family.  It was a fun day for sure.

It was a pretty busy week with different Christmas activities within the mission, so we didn't get too much solid work in.  We spent a lot of time just street contacting.  Lots of good contacts!  But not any great success stories unfortunately.

On Wednesday we all went to the stake center and president delivered our packages to us, then I went on an exchange with Elder Sundrud from Highline.  He's super good at singing so we sang some Christmas hymns for people that day.  "J" loved it.  She's come to church 2 weeks in a row!  She said that she wants to join, she's just way too afraid of water.

"A" is progressing.  He's only smoked a couple of times in the last 3 days!

We had a Christmas Eve zone party at the stake center which was pretty fun!  The hermanas made enough food for the whole zone so that was sweet.  Then we played jeopardy and watched Christmas videos.  Christmas day was super fun too; we hung out with 2 families in the ward and had an Italian Christmas dinner!

Sunday night we had another fireside, I was most excited to see Moses come!  First time I've seen him since his confirmation.

Last night we got a call from the APs, Elder Woolf and I are staying in West Seattle for another transfer, probably my last here.  I also got released as district leader, but it's OK, I still have my son!!

Elder Hodson got transferred, one of those pictures is from this morning when he came to say goodbye.  We were so sad!

Here's one of my favorite scriptures for the Christmas season, even though it's passing.  Every day is Christmas on a mission!  It's Isaiah 9:6: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everylasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Robb

Week 25

Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season as much as I am!

This week we had our first district meeting and it went pretty well.  I was probably a lot more stressed for it than I should have been.  It doesn't help that the zone leaders are in my district.  It went well.  I trained on the nature and characteristics of God and then we talked about how we can effectively teach that doctrine to others.

Afterwards we went straight to "Y"'s (South Seattle College student) house and we had our first formal sit-down lesson.  Coincidentally, we ended up discussing the nature of God, because "Y" doesn't have much Christian background.  He's only been in the USA for a year and a half.  At the end of the lesson, he said a prayer, he told us that in all his years of praying, he's never felt like he did at that moment.  He literally felt God's presence and His love right there in front of us. It was a super cool experience.  He came to church yesterday and loved it.

Our best lessons have been with "B", they're much more conversation-like, which is the ideal.  We know she feels the spirit and she's even told us that she's planning on being baptized, but every time we try to pick a date she just pushes it off.  It's tough!  She says she just doesn't want to commit just yet.  We know God is working with her and it will work out in His time.

We had our Christmas party with other missionaries on Friday!  It was pretty fun, aside from the fact that they held our packages for another week!  Not sure why. . . but that's OK.  I was planning on opening them right then and there, but at this point I might as well just wait for Christmas.

We found a couple new investigators this week . . . we were tracting an apartment complex absolutely no one was answering.  Only one door opened in that complex, and he let us in and we had an awesome conversation.  His name is "A", he's from Ecuador and he actually ran into missionaries down there at one point and they gave him a Book of Mormon.  We went through the restoration with him and he really loved it.  He talked about how he's been looking for more meaning in his life and how he really wants to strengthen his relationship with his family.  It was funny, how every question he asked, Elder Woolf and I just thought, "the gospel can help you with that!"  It was a great night, only one door but he was ready!  He's scheduled to be baptized in January.

After that we went to get some gas, and this brother in a turban comes up and asks us where the nearest ward is.  He's visiting from Arizona, so we ended up giving him a ride on Sunday.  He's big into music production, and we asked him how he got so high up.  He said his son is a really big rapper and he'd only tell us who it was if we guessed right.  First guess!!  He's T.I.'s dad!!!  We ended up having 3 investigators at church too.  "A" came, "Y" came, and we were able to get "J" there as well.  A great week here.  The work is moving forward!  The Lord is helping us out every day.  Miracles all day every day in West Seattle!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and remember the real reason that we celebrate.

Elder Robb

Week 24

Hey everyone!

Don't have a lot of time but this week was pretty good.  We met a new investigator that goes to South Seattle College here and we just clicked right off the bat.  We invited him to be baptized in a follow-up appointment and he's down!

We're super close to getting Beth to commit to baptism, she just really wants to know without a doubt that this is what she needs to do.  We've been talking with her a lot about faith and how God works through faith.  We "receive no witness until after the trial of our faith!"

"A" was supposed to quit smoking on Saturday but we lost contact with him, so things are doubtful.  His phone is out of minutes.  We were planning on seeing a baptism with him on Saturday, we waited for him there but he didn't show up.  We're going to drop by tonight.

Tomorrow is our first district meeting, now that the transfer is almost over.  It's been a busy month!  I'm excited to get my first chance to give training though!  This week we're also having our Christmas party on Thursday!  We made a video as a zone that I'll try to get my hands on to send home!

We had Elder Daniel Johnson of the seventy come to our mission this week and do a zone conference.  I'll try to remember to write about it next week.

I've definitely grown a lot on my mission, it's been a great few months.

I love you!

Ben

Week 23

HELLO EVERYONE

It was a good, rainy week.  It's amazing to me that it's almost Christmas.  The junction in West Seattle looks super festive, we've got our Christmas lights up in the apartment and we've got the Christmas hymns blasting in the car.  Tis the season!

Elder Woolf and I have been working our butts off this transfer finding people to teach.  We've got a good few people we're working with and we have high hopes for them!  We went through the area book in weekly planning and looked for some more people, and that's where we found J.  We went over later that day and talked with her.  We were hoping she'd come to church with us but that fell through, nonetheless, she said she still wants to be baptized, she just has to get over her fear of water, and her love for coffee.

We've been trying more street contacting.  Fun story though, last night while we were street contacting at the junction, Cage the Elephant was playing a concert at the record store!  Super cool, it's not every day a big name band like that plays in downtown West Seattle.

We got invited into people's homes more than ever before this week.  When it rains on us people are pretty nice.  We went on exchanges with the zone leaders a few days ago.  I went with Elder Jones, who was actually my first zone leader way back in Bothell.  It was pretty fun; he helped me be more bold in talking with everyone.

I had the opportunity to interview 3 people for baptism this week, which was a fun experience.  I always ask them to share their testimony with me at the end of the interview and I love it.  It's great to hear the simplicity of their beliefs.  I always complicate the gospel, so it's great to hear it from others in a pure and basic testimony.  On that note, I love the verse in 2 Corinthians 11:3, "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

I love you all,

Elder Robb

The above picture and this one were taken by Jo.  She is so good to (Ben) the missionaries taking them for dinner and sharing pictures with us.  They had a linger longer after church on Sunday.