One month down!

Hello my wondrous familia!! Wow where to begin? Life seems to all blend together now. The days seem like weeks and the weeks seem like days. Haven't you heard that from every missionary? Yeah it is so true. Well we have had some incredible miracles. I think I have seen a miracle every day. The Lord is totally doing His work and he is just allowing us to witness it. We have so many investigators who have had very difficult lives. Prostitution, drugs, near death, divorces (super ugly ones), deaths, you name it. It is the craziest thing. But the cool thing is, that each of them have seen the Lords hand in their lives. They aren't bitter about their life, they are joyfully that they have had so many chances to be better. Now they can learn of God and show Him that they are wanting to follow Christ and be better. It is hard to watch them struggle through some things, to believe in certain principles but not all. Sometimes I really dislike agency but then other times I am so grateful for it. It is a gift God has given us. He has given me. He has given you. I don't want to take it away. It is so central to everything. Being here and talking to people and getting to know people has made me super appreciative for my life. For my childhood and family. Don't get me wrong not every one here has had it bad. There are those who have had a really great life. I just haven't really met them yet. I am very grateful to have had the gospel growing up. To have had the protection the church gives us. So I don't and didn't have to face those ugly trials and consequences. In our ward we have about 400ish members. Only 60 are active and go to church regularly. It is so crazy to see a chapel so small! And we are the only ward in the building!that is my goal. To fill it. Who thought that bringing people to church would be so hard? I just want to go over to their house and drag them all the way to church most days. But I don't because agency... and Satan sucks. Oh well. Work harder :) We have this neighbor named Bob. Bob is the coolest old guy ever. He is retired and takes pictures of Birds and clouds, (I thought of you bomps!) He is always teasing us and makes us laugh so hard. We are on the first floor of the apartment complex and have a little patio cement block thingy outside. Well, he found some plastic chairs and put them out there for us to use. We love them! We use them all the time and eat lunch out there. He came over one day and saw us sitting on them and said " it makes me really happy that you are using those. Just knowing I could do something for you makes me happy." So we are making him cookies today :) We have an investigator named Christina. She is going to get baptized here soon with her daughter Lene. She just has to get her marriage license and that should be the end of this month. So hopefully she will get baptized next month. You can pray for her and her family :) Anyway, we had an appointment scheduled with her yesterday afternoon. So we went over and knocked on her door. Her husband answered. Note about her husband. His name is Barry and he is the coolest guy ever. Sister Zelaya was telling me that when the first Sisters started coming around he didn't like them at all. Over the past few months he has been warming up. But whenever a lesson started he would run to his room. Sister Zelaya said he wouldn't even talk to the Sisters, including her and her last companion. Well when I got here he was talking with us a little. And we even asked him if he wanted to pray with us one night. He said not tonight but he PROMISED he would next time. So we go over 2 days later and remind him about it ;) he complains and asks how long it will take haha. But we have been praying for his heart to be softened. So Barry answers the door and tells us we woke him up! But he tells us Christina isn't home but should be shortly. So we start talking with him and he decides to come out and hang out with us for a bit. Well he asked about the details of a mission. We talked about being away from our families and it is hard but knowing we can be together forever helps a lot. Then he asked about that so I pulled out my picture of us being sealed and we explained it. He then told us he was a Catholic and believes in God but no hell. OH MY GOSH MOM. We freaked out. We were so excited. But we played it cool because we didn't want to freak him out. So we explained the plan of salvation. We even went and got him a pamphlet out of our car. When we came back he started flipping through and as we explained he was agreeing. Well then his other daughter, Shy, came home from school. The Sisters have been teaching Shy a bit too but she isn't really interested. So Barry asks if Shy has learned about the Plan and she says yes but she couldn't remember. So he asked if she sits in on our lessons and she tells him no because it is boring. He tells her she better because then she can learn about God. So we asked Shy what could we do to make them less boring. That got her exited. We also asked what she wanted to learn. She told us her Grandma and Aunt want her to go to church with them so she wants to know why ours is different. We are thrilled!!! Now we know what to do with this family :)Also we gave Barry a book of Mormon and asked him to read the introduction. He said he would give it a shot and he could read it with Shy. I also gave Shy some sticky notes so she could make her book of Mormon like mine. She was so happy. Oh my mom. It was seriously a blessing to be there. God totally put us there and created that whole situation. Christina called us later that night and told us she had gotten lost and was lost for 4 hours!!!! She took a wrong turn and kept going on the highway for miles!! If that isn't a miracle and witness that God totally pulled all that together yesterday than I don't know what to say. It was so amazing!!! We are going over to their house for Father's Day so I am really excited to see how it plays out!

I will be in Manhattan next p-day. So I'm not sure I will get to email. We have to go because Sister Zelaya has a DR appointment. So I get to see the city!!! I'm actually really excited :) but email me anyways because who knows maybe I will still email!

Mission life is so amazing. It can be really hard too, but D&C 100:12 has become my favorite scripture. When life gets hard. When you have a trial that seems impossible (1 Nephi 3:7) don't give up. Don't murmur against God. Keep going. He is there. You just have to look for him. I love you all! Thank you for the prayers and support. ♡ Sister Robison