Week 40 - Mercer Island

I'm livin' the island life!  Just got transferred to Mercer Island with Elder Anderson!  The same Elder Anderson who was my zone leader when I was a brand new missionary.  It's a bike area so my legs are getting sore, and my companion is whoopin' me into shape in morning workouts.  We'd be in perfect shape if the member here didn't spoil us with so much good food every time we stop by!  I've already had two steak dinners this transfer.  Life is great.

I never understood the elderly saying, "I used to walk to school uphill both ways!" until I got to the island.  No matter where we go we're climbing hills on the bikes.  Good workout!

The ward mission here is super supportive, the best I've ever seen on my mission.  They really care about us as missionaries and our testimonies and how we're doing, and they're really involved with our investigators too, it's pretty awesome.  They're also really beg on doing community service!  Twice a week we do four hours of service at the thrift shop.

Right now we're working with one teen who's super cool and goes to church every week.  He even wants to be baptized but needs his Grandma's permission.  We're just teaching him more and more until she feels he's ready.  We're also teaching a couple of other people who really want to get baptized.  Cool story, M and V were looking for a church to join, and M's daughter is a member of the church in California, so she told her friend, "I'll take you to the LDS church, but I won't join."  She made it really clear to the missionaries here that she was only going to give V a ride to church, but the elders would continue to invite her to sit in on lessons, and eventually she started reading the Book of Mormon and listening at church.  Now she's really excited to get baptized on Memorial Day weekend.  V is still working through some doctrines before she's ready, but even she has a great desire to get baptized.

Of course we spent a lot of time this weekend watching General Conference.  It was great, lots of great advice from our leaders.  I really loved Elder Holland's when he talked about not fearing tomorrow and continuing in faith.  I loved it when he encouraged us not to be discouraged when we might feel like we're so far off the mark of where we need to be.  He mentioned that what's really great about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that you get credit for trying.  It reminded me of a verse in 1 Timothy, about the reason that we even put forth the effort, "That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe."

Love you all!

Elder Robb