BYU news

Elder Robertson has been accepted into BYU for post mission.  I sent him his acceptance letter and then did the most wonderful congratulatory email.  Infact all of the family did emails with RISE AND SHOUT THE COUGARS ARE OUT as the subject heading.  I received a lovely lengthy email and he gave not one mention or hint of any excitement for his news.  So I ask ... 'what about your BYU acceptance?'  He replies ... I am excited, but I have work to do first.  Well you can't argue with that.  He has spoken to his brothers about it, which is good.

The past week was a full and good one for him.  He's enjoying teaching the gospel to the wonderful people he is privileged to meet.  Here's a few things out of his email home this week.  It's great to hear how he is serving and thinking of others over his own needs.

Thanks again for the package, though I'd given an assignment a week or two before upon that very talk by Elder David A. Bednar on becoming a Preach My Gospel Missionary. I have re-read it several times before I even recieved the copy from you :D Shows that you are on the right wavelength though!! My favourite part could have been the Nesquik, only because a few days ago, I had mentioned it to Elder Fahl about having had nesquik in Reinach to have hot chocolates and chocolate milk. I hadn't had any since, and then the package came. The toiletries were a laugh as I'd also just bought some new ones the previous day.

The appointment with C  was a good one; he's making good progress. He just has a lot to do with his work and he was in England this weekend due to business so he couldn't meet us then or attend church. We shall see what he has on this weekend and try to get back on track.

We seem to be meeting way too many people that are not Swiss, and its funny you mentioned this Iranian man, because we too "will find" an Iranian man through an Afghanistan boy who we met and both are seemingly religious. The boy converted to Christianity about 3 monhs ago, but his German is basic. The man speaks English, and he also translated for the boy when we last met.  

Otherwise, this week we had a killer service project helping an elderly couple move house. The man is Swiss and his wife is actually English. They have three adopted children who are cool; two at home and one in the US. They'd lived in the UK for a while and so listening to her accent and the accent of their daughter and son that live with them was funny, though the husband still has his Swiss twinge. Their daughter was there in the afternoon to help though their less active son had work to do, and you could see the disappointment in his face, knowing that he couldn't help. We go back on Wednesday to help throw away some old stuff :D

Still, its been a busy one, and we hope to make this week anoher busy one though we don't seem to have too much on the cards yet.

I love you and miss you

6 Month Mark

Today is Elder Robertson's 6 month mark.  I can't believe it's been that long since he gave me that last hug.

He's pulling a face for the camera!  I'm sobbing ... haha

I can't show the reverse of this picture, the ugly, crying face I have is not for public viewing!!

In the last six months he has grown so much both spiritually and temporally. The experiences he is having not only serve him well now, but will prepare him for work, service, choices and commitments in his family life, uni & employment and church life ... for the rest of his life and eternity too!  How grateful I am that he has chosen to serve his Heavenly Father and represent his Saviour and work for Their purpose.  He's a great example to me and the rest of our family. 

So proud of him!

Jumper problems and no leder hosen!

Elder Robertson is feeling the cold.  The jumpers I've sent from M&S are really going via snail mail.  I thought having them sent directly would have meant him getting them quicker than me sending them to the mission office in München .. how wrong I was.  I hope they've arrived already!  He's not got a lot of fat on his bones to keep him warm ... where's the wool?

This week I had a lovely long email and lots of detail.  But alas no pics ...

He's had a really busy week and this week was already full of appointments.  He said he loves it busy.

His 'Orange you glad you're a missionary?!' package had arrived, you can read about that here.

Here's some of what he's had to say ...

My package got to me safe and sound, thank you for everything! However, my jumpers still haven't. For all I know I'll get back to a note saying i missed the delivery and have to organise a new one... but I am resilient at not ever having a pair of lederhosen; they're too expensive.  I see many people attending beer festivals in the traditional dresses and lederhosen. I also ordered some stuff from church, and I'm still waiting on that too.  

We don't have many activities here, or even any, at all. The members here are starting to warm up though and so maybe I can suggest that. But I hope they'll be somehing heading off for Christmas. We're getting sisters in our ward this Thursday. One of them was in the MTC with me and also in my EFY from 2011, and she is training a completely new sister. That's a small world. Funny thing is that me and Elder Fahl guessed as to who would come, and we both assumed it would be her.    Elder Fhal will "die" (as we say in the mission) at the end of the transfer as he goes home.  

This week I saw a couple of pretty cool miracles. The first happened on Tuesday; we had an appointment with 'J', but we also had an exchange so I was there with another Elder. I decided to simply take him to the church so he knew where it was an so that he could feel the spirit a lot stronger. We had an amazing lesson, he definitely felt the spirit, and I think his eyes got teary in the last prayer we said together. 

Even better, was that, although he didn't turn up when supposed to to meet us, we called him and he knew where to go so that he was able to actually be in church that Sunday. It was funny to see our row on that Sunday: there was 'C' (our other investigator, who loved conference and we have an appointment with him tonight), myself, 'J', Elder Fahl and then 'S' a new convert that was baptised in the lake whilst Elder Fahl's younger brother was serving here about 3 monhs ago.

Another miracle was that as this exchange happened, this Elder brought us the name of a less active who had gone less active in his youth, still believes its true but doesn't think that he can come back. His sister had referred the name to this Elder a couple of days ago who passed it on as he had moved into our area in June. Believing there was a reason for this, I wanted to visit him ASAP, but plans during Wednesday weren't going as planned so we visited him on the Thursday. We walked in the freezing rain for 25 minutes to get from the train station to this guys house as there was no bus on the route we had to take. Cold, wet and somewhat apprehensive we follow this terrible train service map that I had printed out to where we are supposed to be going, except we got a little lost and took an alternate route and followed some promptings of the spirit to get there ( I guess it just seemed like a good idea or a hunch at the time as it always does) but then we find ourselves magically on the right street, which we found out only from discerning a few details, and we we're practically by his house. His name is on one of the many doorbells of the apartment block and so we ring. 

I still smile at his first reaction as he comes out of his apartment on the same floor of the main door, opens the main door, greets us, and asks, honestly and completely surprised "Was macht ihr hier denn?", basically, "what are you doing here? I wasn't expecting a visit from you guys all too soon." He went on to explain that his sister has only referred his name two days ago, of which we were unaware of at the time. The best bit was, that on this day he was off work because he was "coincidentally ill". We got his number and need to make an appointment to visit him this week. He also lives with his girlfriend, so we may have another person contact, and a less active to reactivate :D

All in all, we have had a very good week, and a somewhat busy one. This week is also a busy one full of appointments, so hoping that we can get all things done and all goes to plan, it will be another good one!! We still have a few appointments we need to make and follow up on, so we're going to be very short of time in the coming days, which I'm glad about. It seems as though everything is starting to head in the right direction, and we just need to get the members involved, but the sisters will help with that as they seem to be especially good with members.

Letter from 7/10

Sorry I haven't updated the blog over the last couple of weeks.

Here's the catch up from the 7 Oct 13

"Firstly, we had a good lesson with [C] this week in preparation for conference. We haven't seen [J] yet, but we made an appointment for Tuesday.   We will just invite him to church and pray that he comes.  I enjoy the busier days the most.

In other news this week: I cut my own hair myself this weekend in the evening time to get it done before Sunday, I felt like I had left it a little too long so decided to cut it. Somehow the clippers in the apartment weren't too functionally perfect so I had an awkward cut until the next morning when I was able to repair the damage :D  (Maybe this is the reason I haven't seen any photos! haha) 

I'm glad to hear how you are getting motivated in the missionary work movement. I honestly believe that we cannot have complete success until we all move forward together. There was so much stress on unity in conference. As active members we mostly have it down to a T, except for small details and the things we don't always do. That's why I love the fact that the Prophet himself spoke of Home teaching. Its basically a part of missionary work, retaining those we know! As we all move forward together the work will expand rapidly!! We all have work to do. The Lord really needs each and every one of us to play our parts!!!"

Of course it is our responsibility to share the gospel with our friends and family.  Because we love them we want them to be able to have the happiness and blessings that the gospel itself brings.

'Orange' you glad you're a missionary

This week I finally posted my orange package to Elder Robertson.  I've been collecting orange things as I've been out and about.  It doesn't help that the post office will allow me to post 10kg within Germany for 5.99€.  Great price, but it means I keep shopping so I can get my weights worth! haha  I post to the mission office and Elder Robertson gets it within a couple of weeks, delivered by the district or zone leaders.

I decorated the inside of the box in orange and Thomas loves googley eyes, so we stuck some of those on the lid.

Do you ever get the feeling someone is looking at you?

Here's some of the stuff in the box before I did my final shop to make sure it was full! oOOppps

Er is sehr wunderbar!! 

I also included a letter from me and a talk from Elder Bednar with a family photo.  

I'm hoping he gets it soon! =)

Family & Friends ...

Elder Robertson's email was full of interest in the family and friends this week.  On Sunday it was his youngest brother's 7th birthday and he had sent home a box of gifts for him.  It really touched me that he took the time to send that home. Thomas loved it!! Amongst the gifts were a smart tie for Sunday and a big rubber snake ... (I know! ... but we have had some laughs with it since, so his intention paid off).  Thomas carried it around for days. haha

He is also mindful of his two friends that both enter the MTC this week.  Both really lovely, valiant young men that will be a great addition to magnificent missionary force the Lord has.

He is really enjoying serving in Luzern and is teaching some wonderful people in the area.

He asked about the delivery time on the jumpers that he's requested, as the weather has really dipped.  Hopefully he'll get them this week.  =)

Maybe photos next week! We can but hope!

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