Week 61

Hey all!

This week was pretty sweet! We worked hard! It feels good!

After district meeting on Tuesday, Elder Thompson locked the keys in the trunk of the car! It was this day that I learned that God can work through anything. We walked over to DQ to get some ice cream while we waited for our spare key to arrive. As we were talking to the cashier, she said "oh so you guys are from the church? I always wanted to learn about the Mormon faith..." Score! We got her contact info and now the YSA sisters are teaching her!

Thursday night we went on splits with the high priests, I went over to visit a less-active family who hasn't been to church in 10+ years. They were so awesome! They really hit it off with the member I brought and they accepted his offer to give them a ride to church!

We had another blitz in our area! We made up a list of people the ward doesn't know and tried to contact as many as we could. It was sweet! Next week we'll have blitz's in Burien and then West Seattle. This zone likes to do these it seems.

Yesterday we went over to teach one of our investigators, J, and she was like "hey do you know this couple who lives below me? They say they are Mormon!" So we all 3 went down and met them, turns out they're semi recent-converts and just moved in from Burien! It's been a while since they came to church but they're going to come back! What's really funny is that our investigator is the one who's going to give them a ride! Ha!

Love you all! Hope you have a good week!
Elder Robb

Week 60

Hey Everyone!

It was a pretty good week! We had a lot of service lined up, a stake carnival (this is the best stake to be in for parties because the Tongan, Samoan, and Spanish wards make so much food!), and we had a zone conference too. We were busy!

This transfer the mission made a real big push to have every area in the mission have a baptism. A lot of good things are happening! Historically Seattle zone doesn't struggle so much, but it's been a different story the past 6 months or so. So this past week, to try and get something going, we had a blitz in Normandy Park! All the missionaries here showed up and we spent two hours out looking for people to teach. It was pretty sweet and pretty unifying for us as a zone.

We had an awesome zone conference! President gave a training about the importance of the little things in life. He said "If you can't do the little things in life right, how will you ever get the big things right?!" Then he talked about making our beds. He's a funny guy! "If you want to change the world, start by making your bed!"

This week I was reading in Alma 17, where the King's flocks get scattered and all of his servants start crying like babies! Then Ammon comes in and fixes everything, he gets all the flocks back together and everything's good again. It made me think: "what kind of servant am I? What do I do when my flocks get scattered?" It seems like when something in our lives gets tripped up, we naturally start saying "Why me?", when we really should be asking "what" questions. That's what Ammon did! He looked at the situation and said "alright, what can I do?" Ammon was proactive! That was a big life lesson for me, straight from the good ol' Book of Mormon!

Love!
Elder Robb

Week 59

Hey all!

 This week was sweet, I figured out my motto for this transfer! It's "The Lord Will Provide!" Let me explain... My companion thought I was silly on P-day to spend my money on things other than food, because there was no members signed up for dinner, for the whole month! And I ran out of money! But hey, God takes care of me out here! Elder Thompson was surprised when we got calls from members offering to drop off food from Monday-Wednesday, a less-active to feed us Thursday, and an investigator to take us out lunch on Friday after we stain his deck! It was sweet!

Alright let me update you on the things that made me happy. I got a text from President on Thursday telling me that P wanted me to come up to Mercer Island on Saturday and speak at his baptism! It was a really sweet experience, I love that kid to death!

This past week I had the great opportunity to go on an exchange to my old stomping ground: West Seattle! It was so fun, I visited some people I used to teach, and some of the members too! But here's the highlight: my district leader really felt like we should try to find this mother and daughter that he had met a few weeks ago, but didn't get their contact information. So we went to the general area and started picking a few doors to knock. We talked to some cool people but not who we were looking for! Then we said a prayer and asked to be guided to them. We felt like we should go back to where we began looking. As we were walking back, we saw a mother and her daughter walking towards us. Sure enough, it was them! We had an awesome conversation and they came to church on Sunday. So sweet!

I love you all!
Elder Robb

Week 58 - Normandy Park

Hey all!

Well it was one sad week! It was hard to leave Mercer Island! I don't think anywhere will ever live up to my time in that ward. I got sent back to Seattle zone! I'm in Normandy Park. They just combined this ward with Seatac and Des Moines so it's a huge ward. We actually live in Des Moines and it seems we spend a lot of our time there. We have 3 sets of missionaries in this ward! Des Moines is a lot different from Mercer, to say the least!

Here's a gem I found in the Book of Mormon this week: "27 And they were among the people of Nephi, and also numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards men; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end."

There's a lot of definitions of what a successful missionary is, but in my book, it's one who gives it their all. And everybody's "all" is going to be different! Check this out; Usain Bolt will run the 100m WAY faster than me! But as long as I am giving everything I have, I get just as good of a workout. God doesn't ask for a definite price, he just asks us to do our best.

Love you all!
Elder Robb

Week 57

 Hola Amigos!

It was a solid week! But, and that's a big but... I've got some sad news. At long last, Elder Anderson and I have been voted off the Island. They're replacing us with sister missionaries. The zone leaders gave us a call Saturday night to let us know, so we'd be able to tell the ward at church. This ward really embraced us, we felt the love yesterday. It was such a warm send-off. One member even got up and dedicated his musical number in sacrament meeting to us! It was a song he wrote and it was sick!!

Mercer Island has been the place where I've grown the most, I'll miss this place. Okay, enough of that sappy talk. Here's some notable events from the week:

You know that Pokemon Go app that everyone's playing? One of our members took us to the church (which is a pokestop, whatever that means), and we dropped a lure so tons of pokemon would show up and lure people to us! President tells us to be creative in our finding, and I think we succeeded that day!

P's mom showed up from Peru on Wednesday and surprised P for his birthday! He's now set to get baptized on August 13th. Better yet, we have started teaching his mom and she'll probably be baptized soon after! P helped us with the translation in our lesson with her. He's a good missionary already!

We helped out with two moves this weekend, one of them was at 9AM on Saturday in the south end. Well, we left our bikes at the Bishops house the night before and so we decided to just run down there, it was good weather after all. We accidentally ran way past their house and had to backtrack a mile! It was a 5-6 mile run! My legs are still wicked sore today!

This scripture I read this week reminded me to stay humble; 2 Corinthians 3:5-6: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." Like Ammon in the Book of Mormon, I will boast in my God!! He's the one who enables me to do all things.

Life is good! I love you all!
Elder Robb