Week 52

heyoooo fam and friends,

Sorry if I start out every email saying "it was a great week", but it was a great week! We're in a pretty good rhythm of meeting consistently with all of our investigators and so they're moving forward, some faster than others but that's ok! We brought a ward missionary with us to teach G and E. This member has helped us out a ton with his Chinese speaking. It's a lot easier for G to explain himself in Chinese. We read Ether 12 with him, that's a pretty popular chapter but verse 12 stuck out to me this time; "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them". Crazy right? It's all about the faith. Be like the '04 Red Sox! Keep the faith!!

Gordon B. Hinckley says the most ineffective way to do missionary work is tracting. The best way is when someone brings their friend to church! Guess what happened yesterday!! One of our members brought a friend to church. He's been taught so much by his friends and we're going to meet with him later this week. Good stuff.

I think I talk about food too much when I write home, I could make a big list of all the food members dropped off/brought to church for us yesterday but just know I’m taken care of :) A whole year without mom's cooking and they've kept me alive! Yesterday I felt like Jeremiah in chapter 4:19-21! (Jeremiah's tummy ache)

Peace, love, and temple marriage! Adios!
Elder Robb

Week 51

Hey everyone!

Transfer calls have come and gone, and I'm staying on the Island! And so is my comp! It's round 3 baby!! We were so pumped when we found out we were staying.

So I think I mentioned a while back that the ward wanted us to start an English class, and that never really took off. But this past Tuesday we had some members come and bring two of their friends! Actually, the members just dropped their friends off, and they didn't speak a lick of English so we struggled to be honest. But we broke out our ol' high school level Spanish and taught them some stuff! We talked to some of the Spanish members and got some ESL class materials we could use for them, we were prepared for more conversational level, but now we're prepared for the basics.

We had a great lesson with V. M sat in on it with us and was just super bold! We got to the root of her concern, now we can really start making some headway.

I've been thinking a lot about God's love for us. It's so impossible to describe so I won't bother right now, but I've been feeling it a lot. Well actually, I think the best way to describe it is like this, (for me): I'm stepping up to the plate at Fenway Park, and waaaay out in right field, even past Ted Williams' seat, is Heavenly Father. He's wearing my jersey, he's got on his ball glove and he's going crazy! He's cheering my name and hoping that I'll hit that ball right to him and break Ted's record! That's how God feels about all of us, he's wearing our jersey!

I hope all the dad's had a great father’s day. I thank God every day for my Dad and the good example he's been to me. I don't know how my parents did it but the biggest punishment for me wasn't a stern rebuking or a swift kick in the pants, (don't get me wrong, those scared me too!) but it was feeling like I had let them down. My Dad makes me want to be a better person.

I love youuuu all!
Elder Robb

Week 50

Some weeks I have to rack my brain for things to write about, other weeks there's plenty. This week falls under the latter. Here's some of the highlights

We started the week off with an exchange to Issaquah with the zone leaders! Elder Sill treated me to some teriyaki for lunch, now that's a good leader right there! He really knew how to gain my respect.

Remember Annie and Ella? They were the Chinese people who walked into church a couple months back. They've been really busy working on a remodel of a house in New Castle so our contact with them was pretty sparse. A member told us that they had gotten anti'd. We just had a new member move in to the ward who served a mandarin-speaking mission so we had him go over there with us and see what was up, and it turned out really well! They're going to be moving in the next couple months but they'll still be looking into the church. We're actually working on starting a Chinese Branch in the stake that will probably meet here on the Island. Annie told us that she's especially interested in the church for her daughter because we (the missionaries) seem very mature and responsible compared to other people our age. She obviously doesn't know us very well!

Friday we had a lesson with S. She's Jewish but she believes 100% in Jesus Christ. She wants to get baptized but her hold up is that she works for a Hebrew school, and she's won’t be able to work and come to our church.

Saturday we decided to bike the loop around the island and stop at every member on our list. Well, we were in over our heads and had to start being more selective with who to visit, there wasn't enough hours in the day! We were going around inviting everyone to the fireside on Sunday. We actually ran into a less-active member who said he'd come!

Sunday we had a lot of people at church. V's back in town, P is going to come more regularly from here on out, and another guy just walked into church! He was there just for learning purposes, we tried to get a phone number and/or an appointment but he said he'd think about it and contact us. Not super solid but we'll see what happens!

Here's a verse I really liked from
 Mormon chapter 9! "27 O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things soever ye shall stand in need. Doubt not, but be believing, and begin as in times of old, and come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him."

Love you all!
Elder Robb

Week 49

Hey all!

I'm getting taken care of real well up here! A member pulled over the other day when she saw us walking and took us out to Baskin Robins, then she gave us a $20 gift card for us to use in the not so distant future! Last night we had a steak dinner, and then another member brought us tons of cereal and milk and some other stuff too! The quickest way to a missionary's heart is to have them over for dinner, but the next level of love is making sure we have food for our apartment too. :)

This week we had a lesson with "V" that went really well. It was actually the first time we could talk to her since M's baptism and it sounds like she really enjoyed it. We talked about her main concern with joining the church. Both of her sons are really supportive of whatever she wants to do, but V says that when they ask "why this church?” she can't quite answer that. She said that when she can answer that question for herself then she'll be ready to go. She also really wants to have her sons come up for her baptism and she worries they'll be too busy until next summer, I don't know if they're that busy though!

We had Zone Training on Friday. The topic among the leaders is finding, so that's what we talked about. We've knocked doors like crazy and that's not too productive, so now President wants us doing one finding activity each week. It was a good meeting.

It was stinkin' HOT yesterday!! It hit 100! That was crazy and fast Sunday nearly killed us, we didn't even ride our bikes because we would have killed ourselves. The heat just drains you and everyone in Seattle is too prideful to admit that it gets hot in the summer and buy air conditioners.

Anyway.... I finished Alma this week! From chapter 62:

"49 But notwithstanding their riches, or their strength, or their prosperity, they were not lifted up in the pride of their eyes; neither were they slow to remember the Lord their God; but they did humble themselves exceedingly before him.

 50 Yea, they did remember how great things the Lord had done for them, that he had delivered them from death, and from bonds, and from prisons, and from all manner of afflictions, and he had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies.

 51 And they did pray unto the Lord their God continually, insomuch that the Lord did bless them, according to his word, so that they did wax strong and prosper in the land.

Always pray, and always remember the tender mercies you've seen. Love you all!
Elder Robb


Here is a picture of us with "M".

We had zone sports day today.

Below is a picture of Elder Rosson and me from a couple of pdays ago after having a sword fight at the stake center. hahaha  He was Captain Moroni and I was Amalickiah.  I think he has a video, it’s pretty funny, I’ll have to get that from him sometime.  Elder Rosson is from Albuquerque! We went on exchange Saturday and we had a ton of fun. We biked a lot!