Week 71 - Patience in our afflictions

Well I am going to be honest I am not really sure on what to report for this week. It was a really busy week but as for news that I have for y'all that would be mildly interesting, not a lot.

We had two exchanges this week and my companions both times were the missionary sisters that I trained here on the mission so it was so fun to be with them again right before I go home. We had some great days together. One of the days, Sister Gepulla was so nervous to have exchanges because she felt as if we would get rejected all day and have nowhere to go. But I prayed and prayed that I could help her area in some way. And then the WHOLE day we taught people and had 6 lessons that day which is a lot for a good day and a good area. So it was truly a day of miracles and I was so happy to see the tender mercies of the Lord in that day. It was a true manifestation of the truthfulness that God listens to our prayers. No matter how many times God answers my prayers, it touches me every time. It never gets old. I love the truthfulness of the gospel.

We also had zone conference, which was my last zone conference in the mission. I was called on to bear my testimony, which is what they do to all those who are about to go home. It was really sad, but to be honest, I am so numb. It does not feel that I am about to go home. I dont really feel anything. It's like a weird point where I feel like just normal and no other emotions. I dont know its hard to explain. But yeah it was all surreall as we went to leave zone conference and everyone I was saying bye to, I did not know if I would see again or not. It was sad for sure. I will miss everyone here so much.

I studied a lot on patience this week in Alma about bearing with patience our afflictions. Like I can't count the amount of times I read that phrase this week. I think it really is important to take a step back and let Heavenly Father do the driving. Just trusting in the conductor and not putting trust in ourselves. God knows what He is doing so there is no reason to fear. He never gives us something we can't handle and that's pretty comforting to me. I know God lives and Jesus Christ is our Savior, and because of that, there is nothing we can't handle. There is nothing we can't overcome. I love this gospel. I love my mission. And I love the gospel of Jesus Christ so much. This church is absolutely the one true church on the earth.

Sister Robertson

sorry its so blurry but this is angelica who is about to get baptized and we served her by painting her house!

Last Zone Conference

exchanges with my child!

Week 70 - Service makes me happy

What a full week of awesome experiences!!! Like I did a lot of awesome things this week that I am excited to tell y'all about! This week was soooo tiring but the best because we spent almost the entire week serving!!

It all started on Wednesday when we woke up and changed right away to go out and plant some sugarcane. We jogged to the tricycle terminal where we waited until there were way too many people on it and then we left to our farthest area and that's what we did all morning! We helped this one nanay that was complaining to us the day before about how heavy her work is and how hard it was so we volunteered to come and help and we would carry the heavy sack for her so her back didnt hurt as much at the end of the day. Of course, just like last time, everyone around us was laughing that an American was planting sugarcane. But it was a lot of fun and this nanay's kids who we have been inviting to come to church for months now, finally came yesterday!!! So I know our service was blessed and helped this family feel the Savior's love. Then later that day, we helped another person we teach to pump water for her laundry. It was literally so tiring but I sure didn't let her know that!! I got a realllyyyy good arm workout out of it hahha! I loved it and the whole day was full of service and I got home that night and even though I was DEAD tired, all I felt was a happiness in my heart that I got to help God's children to feel closer to their Savior. I love my calling as a missionary because most people think we are just here to teach as many lessons in a day, but in my eyes, I am here to serve God's children in any way that I possibly can. If I teach 0 lessons in a day, but I got to serve 5 people that day, I am happier than if I teach 5 lessons and serve less. My happiest moments here on the mission has come through getting my hands dirty and serving those around me. I love service I really really do.

The service didn't stop there though! It got even more exciting on Saturday when we went to one of our other farthest areas to teach someone we teach there and she actually wasn't there but we saw people going out to plant RICE. So of course what entered into my mind? That I was about to go help them do that. Planting rice is very different than planting sugarcane. You have to plant rice into feet of MUD. So you have to trek in feet of mud and throw the seeds of rice to spread out the seeds by hand. So I pulled my skirt up a little (to no effect because it ended up getting crazy muddy anyway) and we went and trekked through mud and threw rice seeds to the wind. IT WAS AWESOME! I had seen people doing this and put it on my "need to do before I go home" list. And I did it!! The guys who we helped were so confused why we would choose to get muddy to help them but I loved it. Let's just say these Filipino people are some dang hardworking people cause we did it for like an hour maybe but it was so tiring. But I literally had so much fun. It felt like a free foot spa!!

Anyway, that is the major news for the week. There was a missionary that came home from his mission this week in our Branch and we went to his homecoming and it made it really surreal that that is about to be me in a short month. In exactly a month, I will be traveling to Manila. Wow. Wild. I can't believe it. PRay for me that I will be able to give my ALL to this last month so that I can show God how grateful I am for the time He has given me here. One of the newly RM's showed a video on the TV of a vdeo compilation of a bunch of RM's coming home to their families in the airport and he said "Sister Robertson this one is for you." Hahaha ouch. It made me super sad but also way excited to run into y'alls arms so soon. I can't even believe it all. It all feels unreal.

I loved what y'all shared about the Come Follow Me this week. I also love Hebrews 11 about faith. There are endless examples of people showing their faith. I loved in particular the one about Abraham and we talked about how faith is really trust. I have felt that so much on my mission. Faith is just having trust in God's plan and trust that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can heal all wounds and can perfect all imperfections that we have. I have learned how perfect God's plan is here on the mission and I continue to learn that everyday. Life is so hard for every single person here on the earth, but if we have true Faith and true trust, we will not let the hardships that pass our way let our happiness be affected. Everything that happens to us here on earth helps us to be happy. If we remember that, nothing can get us down!! Faith is so key and that is what we endlessly help people to realize here. Faith is only shown through action. It's not enough to say we have faith or to say we trust God, rather we must SHOW it to Him.

I also got to speak in Sacrament meeting yesterday. They gave me the topic of missionary work and had me speak after the newly returned missionary from the Antipolo Mission. He talked all about Ammon in Chapter 26 of Alma, and that was exactly what I had prepared to talk about. But he focused all on the rejoicing of Ammon and their successes, and I more focused on how he is rejoicing DESPITE of it being incredibly hard. The night before I gave that talk, on Saturday night, I felt in a very personal way the scripture in verse 27 that reads, "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." I think the whole reason I idolize Ammon so much is that yes, he is rejoicing humbly in his God but more because he is doing that WHILE he is in the midst of a really hard time. I have never related more with anyone in the Book of Mormon than I do with Ammon. His feelings of his Savior he expresses is exactly how I feel. Especially in verse 16. And I also relate to the Sons of Mosiah getting so sad or so overwhelmed they want to turn back. I felt that very thing on Saturday, but then as I was speaking in church and focusing on how missionary work is the hardest thing we can ever do, but it is the most rewarding as well because we get to feel the things that Christ himself felt in Gethsemane. We get to go through a little personal Gethsemane here on the mission and I have never been so appreciative of the weight that Jesus Christ bore for us so that we don't have to suffer as much as He did. And I have never felt so close to Him than I have on my mission and I am excited to keep coming closer to Him even if I am in the Philippines, in Texas, in Utah or wherever I am. The Atonement reaches everyone and everywhere!!

That's all I got this week. Next week may be a shorter email cause we are going to Bacolod so we won't have a ton of time to email cause I have a lot of things I need to sort out before I go home. But I love yall and anything I forget in my letters I'll just tell yall in person in a month(: MISS YALL!!

Sister Robertson

this is the process after harvesting sugar cane,  they burn the whole field and its terrifying looking

Me barefoot in the rice field

More Rice Planting

this is how rice planting is really done

me gracefully throwing rice seeds into the air

this is what they use to carry the rice. its also heavy

before we got really muddy

free foot spa!

the family we helped plant sugarcane with came to church!!!!!

we found a worm and it was yummy! ha joke

i get why they say their back hurts after working in the field

the crew of harvesters!

this is a truck after harvesting sugarcane

i think i win for finding the smallest rat! i love this picture though look how happy that kid is

it was my tatay's 61st birthday!!

Week 69 - I love missionary work!

This week was an absolutely crazy week but full of miracles as well! I just love the mission cause I just constantly get to witness people coming to know their Savior and helping people to make sacred covenants with their Father in Heaven. Is there any better calling? Not in my opinion.

This week was the Baptism and Confirmation of the sweetest Alemania family. I will include their conversion story below for your happiness and for the record:

The Alemania family was one of the most prepared families I have ever taught on my mission. From the second we found them to the days they got baptized and confirmed, miracles were flowing in on all sides. The day we found them was in of itself a miracle. Sister Baczuk and I went to teach and Nanay and Tatay we had been teaching for awhile. but this time they were acting different. They had been trying to come to church for awhile now but just never followed through. The tatay actually hid from us that day and pretended he wasn't home. So while we were sitting down with the nanay about to teach her, we saw a head peek out from the back. There was a woman that was cooking in the back that heard our voices and recognized us as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ. She was shy though so she would not come out in front of us. She stayed behind the wall cooking until we finally got her talking with us and then slowly she came closer and closer until she asked the question of why coffee isn't allowed in our church.

I asked if we could pray before we shared to her why and she excitedly agreed and sat down in our lesson. We taught her and it was an amazing lesson. She was speaking straight Tagalog so it's a good thing I understood it or else no one would have. She understood everything more than most people ever had my whole mission. She soon opened up to us that they were actually weeks away from being baptized a while ago but then she moved to IloIlo and lost contact with the missionaries. She also told us that her husband had died a few years back and she never really got back in contact with the church. She, then, asked about tithing so we gave her a pamphlet to read and set a return appointment. And if that all wasn't a miracle in of itself, 5 minutes after we left that appointment, we received a text from a member here saying, "When are you guys going back to Remedios because you need to go there soon because there is a woman named Mary Vic that wants to be taught." And that was the woman we had just 5 minutes earlier, met and taught. What a miracle. Every lesson after that was like a treat to us. She kept every single one of her commitments we gave to her and read every pamphlet we gave to her and understood it all. She basically taught herself. We absolutely loved teaching Mary Vic.

We soon met her two daughters that were just as shy at first but just as interested. They both talked about wanting to get baptized before we even mentioned it to them. They were so prepared. We invited them to pray about Joseph Smith and Russell M. Nelson and they prayed 3 times before they received their miracle of an answer from heaven. They kept trying until they felt that they were 100% sure that they were true prophets of God. Mary Vic got really sick the week she was praying about it but then miraculously healed because of her faith and was able to come to church for the first time even though she should've been at home resting, but she promised God that if she could work the Saturday before, if she could heal from her sickness so that she could work, she would go to church on Sunday no matter how sick she was. Well, she was healed and she kept that promise. And from that day forward, they have known that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the one true church on the earth. Mary Vic bore the sweetest testimony at her baptism and cried the entire time as she expressed how grateful she was that she found the truth and that one day they can be sealed together as a family in the temple. She loves the gospel and so do Via and Queen, her two daughters. Her oldest daughter has plans to be baptized in December as well. The Alemania family is proof that the field is white, already to harvest. We love them so much.

For other news, we got to teach a girl named Angelica that was a referral but she is very much like Mary Vic. She read the entire Plan of Salvation pamphlet and summarized the ENTIRE thing to us in one sitting. She is remarkable and not to get anyone's hopes up, but she could very likely be a baptism I have right before I go home. She is super elect and is an earnest seeker of truth. I love missionary work more than words can describe. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is true. There is nothing more truer in the whole world. There is nothing better than being a full time missionary for the church that Jesus Christ himself established!! Life is happy and life is good.

Sister Robertson

you don't see this in america thats for sure

my companion!

after the confirmation of the Alemania family!!!

it was really sunny but here is the baptism of the Alemania family!!

this is the cutest sister named Sister Appleton and she is from Australia and has the CUTEST accent! she sounds like she's straight from H20

my batch!! We all came into the mission together

my child (the missionary i trained) got invited to MLC so she will be a Sister Training Leader just like her mama(:

sister sta barbara!

i dont know if yall can tell but this is the TINIEST little sacrament hall ive ever seen

Week 68 - Birthdays and Funerals

Hello all! This week was a very interesting one for sure but a good one nonetheless!!

The first part of the week was all crazy and stuff from having emergency transfers and getting adjusted to all the changes that happened but as of now, we have gotten pretty settled. But the craziest thing that happened this week was we went to teach one of the people we have been teaching awhile and once we got there we noticed there had been a death at the house of a neighbor (because here it's very obvious if someone has died in the family because there's a table outside of the house and people are gambling) so we asked what had happened and one of the people we teach, her brother in law, who was only 13-years-old has committed suicide while his parents were at work. Devastating. We quickly went to the house of this child and talked to the mom and offered our help if there was anything we could do to help her, and it turns out she's a member and so is her child that committed suicide. They are all members except one 9-year-old in their family. She explained that they had gone inactive for years now and the mom said "I think this is God telling me to come back to church." She was humbled by the experience.

Here in the Philippines you can not hold a funeral at a Catholic church if the death was a suicide, so this mom had nowhere else to turn except to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which made her contemplate why she had gone inactive and that the only people that truly supported her through this whole experience was The Church of Jesus Christ so she feels as though this was God's way of reminding her family about their covenant they made. It was amazing to see her apply this horrible thing to how it could possibly be a blessing in disguise. She is so strong and we attended her funeral yesterday on Sunday. It was heartbreaking but again, I am grateful for the knowledge we have that this life is not the end. Families can be together forever and I think that is what this sweet mom learned through this experience. God gives us trials to remind us that we can't do this life alone. We desperately need the help of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

At the same time that was all happening, we also attended two birthdays on Sunday and we were very full because here if you have a birthday, you cook a LOT of food and have a LOT of cake and a LOT of ice cream and the guests are supposed to eat A LOT. So it was a good thing it was after fasting because we were very hungry but we went to bed last night veryyy full. 

In other news, we had ELEVEN people that we teach show up to church yesterday which was literally such a huge miracle. When I got to this area, it was struggling pretty good. After the four people got baptized, there wasn't really anybody left that was progressing towards baptism and I was pretty stressed about how I was going to help this area. But I have slowly seen this area progress through our diligence and lots and lots of help from my Father in Heaven. Yesterday I almost couldn't believe it. That's like a record for La Carlota in who knows how many months. I felt so loved by Heavenly Father and I know that one day, when I leave this area, I will leave it in a good enough condition for other missionaries to pick it up and take care of it. I love La Carlota and have seen so many miracles here. This week is Mary Vic, Bia, and Queen's baptism which we are so very excited for! Like super! They are so prepared. They have their interview on Tuesday so please add them to your prayers that they will not be shy and be able to pass!! We also have exchanges this week with some sisters and Mission Leadership Council so it will be a VERY busy week full of craziness but full of goodness!!

That's all I can think of right now, sorry! I love y'all and will talk to y'all (for the last time before I come home) next week!!! Keep being awesome! Oh and pray for the people in the southern Philippines because there's crazy earthquakes going on.

Sister Robertson

this is called boodle fighting here in the philippines! it was sooo yummy. no utensils, no plates, just boodle!

my loves. i dont know why tatay mede is so far away but its fine

my beautiful companion!

everyone just needs to see this cute nanay who didnt have an umbrella so used a bucket thats meant for laundry instead