General Conference!

This week was interesting to say the least. On Tuesday we went to help a member on her farm. Her name is Mable Adams. She owns a huge farm land and runs it all by her self. We helped her pick up garbage as I dodged between ferocious chickens and one giant turkey! I really don't like animals. haha but I am slowly getting over that fear I can walk up to a house with a huge barking dog with no fear now. Before I would run and scream back to the car now I just silently pray that Heavenly Father will keep me safe and it works! Imagine that! I also got to go to prison! We got a referral to go there and talk to a guy who was getting released soon. The officer wouldn't let us talk to him though and said he had been in a REALLY long time. It was an experience sister Davis was so scared to go and surprisingly I was just super pumped because I thought maybe it would be a good story to tell but nothing happened sadly! This week was kinda hard, but still good. I got really sick on Wednesday night. Don't worry I am doing fine now but we couldn't really do much missionary work, poor Sister Davis was so bored she was building card towers and perfecting her crocheting skills. I got my Easter package from you at perfect time though! It really made my day. I loved the letters and I have gotten so much candy I was grateful for the almonds and pistachios! I don't need to gain anymore weight! haha.

General Conference was AMAZING!! I took twenty pages of notes and I actually stayed awake for all four sessions. haha. I feel so up lifted after hearing from the servants of the lord and I never realized how much they talk about missionaries until you are one! Saturday and Sunday I was able to feel like a missionary again. I notice as I stop thinking about my self and think about serving others I begin to really love the work that I am doing and it gets easier. I don't even know where to start about which talk was my favorite. I loved Sister Dalton's talk about how I am a daughter of God I knew that but I never thought about WHOSE I am. I am his daughter I owe it to him to be different from the world. To stand as a witness of God at ALL times in ALL things and in ALL places. The things I want to change the most about my self while serving a mission is my "me me me" attitude. Well Richard G. Scott said that "selfishness is the root of all evil!" This church is literally centered on service. That is who we are. A church full of love and compassion. I am grateful to be serving a mission. I thought I was ready to get married, to be a mom, NO WAY! The world needs women who are resilient in the faith and my future kids need me to be that way also. this mission is the BEST opportunity Heavenly Father could have blessed me with. I noticed that the central theme was around obedience. Blessing come only from striving every day for exact obedience. That is especially true for me as a missionary I loved the talk by Bruce D. Porter about being optimistic. I really am striving to be happy and not say negative things but when that alarm clock goes of in the morning it takes all I have not to hate it. Well when we talked about his roommate singing Oklahoma it hit sister Davis and I hard. So this morning when our alarm clock went off we sang that song. Then as we were running down the road we were actually laughing and singing the whole way. Attitude really is everything. I love being a missionary. I love this opportunity to change into the person I have always wanted to be.  As the Words of Elder Nelson, missionary work is the thing to do and we should all

"CATCH THE WAVE"!! Give the missionaries in your area people to teach. They need your help we can not do it alone! I love you all to pieces and pray for you all the time. Thank you for everything!

sister Robinson!

Wanting to make a Change

Nothing to exciting happened this week really. It was kinda a slow week but still good. We had another lesson with Mary on Wednesday. We had it at our branch presidents house. It was so awesome! They pretty much taught the lesson to her ,and sister Davis and I just sat back. She is so excited to be baptized. I just marvel at the miracle of Mary. She is so amazing, we met her tracking and she told us no at least a dozen times and now she is getting baptized and she is just so happy. I have seen her change. Heavenly Father has been preparing her for this all her life. I feel so blessed to be a part of it. Then we had another lesson with Haley it was the one I was dreading, word of wisdom, because she likes her coffee and Ice tea. When we taught her she was so willing to just give those things up without question because she knows that the blessing of being baptized will be worth it. She is also amazing. She is so elect and she is going to do so much good with her life. Janice, one of our new investigators is starting to progress. She is divorced and has a nine year old son and is always taking care of her father who is very ill. All she wants is to do what God asks of her. She has been reading so much from the Book of Mormon and always has so many hard questions. but she is really serious about finding the true church and I know her heart is being softened. she told us if Gladys knight believed it was true maybe she could too. haha. So every since I have got to Bedford I have had a goal, to leave an impression on this Branch. the reason I made that goal is because about two years ago there was a missionary her name was sister Anderson and her companion was Sister Webster. They baptized so many people and they brought the Branch closer together. They really had an affect on the Branch and every member talks about them literally ALL the time. They are famous here. and ever since they left no one has been baptized and the missionary efforts have not been as good. So after my first week after hearing all about them everywhere we went I resolved that I wanted to change that, I wanted to help Bedford see that God has prepared people here and that we are doing our job and working hard. So last weekend when we got to meet Elder Oaks, the priesthood in the area also got to so our Branch president, president Hodge went to that meeting there he talked to President Pitt. Well President Pitt called on Wednesday night, which he NEVER calls so we knew it was important. He called to congratulate us on the progress of our area , then he said I was talking to President Hodge at the meeting on Saturday he talked about Sister Anderson and Sister Webster and said they were great missionaries and did a lot for the Branch, then he said Sister Robinson and Sister Davis and doing that again and I am so pleased with what is happening. the missionary fire is in this Branch again. When he said that my heart jumped. I was so happy because that has been my goal since week one. I love it here in Bedord. So every Friday we do service for a food pantry. Bonnie and Jim Norman own it and we have become very close friends they take us out to lunch every Friday and they have been working with missionaries for two years yet none of us have shared the message with them, maybe it just wasn't there time yet. Sister Davis and I have talked about asking them to learn more a lot but we always chicken out. Last Thursday Sister Hodge the relief society president asked Bonnie to speak at a thing for our church after she gave her a book of Mormon. Bonnie has been talking about that experience a lot lately and on Friday we were at lunch and she said that she was cleaning her yard on Saturday I took that as an opportunity and told her that we would love to come help. She agreed and sister Davis wore here I am a Mormon t shirt which prompted her to ask us about the Book of Mormon that Sister Hodge gave her. Sister Davis just said if you want to know about it just read it. That wasn't enough for me so as we were walking the leaves down to the lake side it was just me and Bonnie and I said as my heart was racing a thousand times a minute. Bonnie has any of the missionaries ever taught you what we believe? She said no not really, I have seen some stuff on TV but I don't know if it is entirely true. I really am curious and I want to know more. WHAT! why as no one asked her yet? because she is our friend and being a missionary to our friends is SO much harder than complete strangers. Needless to say Sister Davis and I are going to be teaching her the lessons. I am so happy that we followed the promptings to serve her and ask her if she wanted to learn more because asking is all it took. On Sunday there was a freak snow storm, they canceled church early and closed everything down. It was pretty bad. Sister Davis and I thinking that we could handle the snow because I am from Idaho and she is form Utah decided to go out and visit people anyway. We got stuck getting out of our drive way but we got out eventually and made the trek to Lisa's house (a less active) needless to say it was ridiculous the five minute drive took us about half an hour because there was about a foot snow on the roads and no plows. I got lots of pretty pictures though. SO we spent our evening after that inside and studying. This week I studied about grace and I learned that Grace is literally the power that makes the atonement work. It is that thing that strengthens us from day to day. Without Grace we could not go on. I am so thankful for what Jesus did for me and for everyone. My testimony is growing so much. I love this gospel. I hope everyone has a good week! love always Sister Robinson

Happy Easter!!!

 

What a great Easter it was! I am so thankful for the knowledge I have of my savior and that I know that through him we can all live again. What a marvelous promise. This week was really awesome! On Monday night President Hodge gave me a blessing that this sickness I have been having will subside so I can focus on the work. I am a strong believer in priesthood blessings and although I still get stomach pain it is bearable and I can feel Heavenly Father helping me all the time.
We met a women, Linda. I can't remember if I already told you about her or not but she has cancer and she wanted us to come over Monday the night before she went in for surgery. We talked with her about the book of Mormon (while she was smoking, but people can change) she said she was going to take it with her to the hospital and read while she was recovering. She is really searching for the truth. We sang Be still my soul before we left and the spirit was definitely there. She asked us to please please come back. The lord is preparing her.
Also this week we got air conditioning installed in our apartment. These two guys were installing it and when Sister Davis and I went downstairs to change our laundry they started talking to us about what we believed. We gave them Book of Mormons and all through out the week they kept on asking us question. They weren't in our area so we referred them to some other missionaries but it was awesome cause the one guy Matt he had so many questions like why to preachers get paid and stuff, all the things I could answer.
On Wednesday we had specialized training. Which is when all the missionaries in our area come together with President Pitt and we learn together. I learned that my original definition of the word Sacrifice- to give something up is not correct because actually everything I have is not mine it is the Lords so really Sacrifice means - to make sacred. To bring my will in line with Gods will. It was really deep I still don't full understand that but I have been studying it more and praying more fervently because Prayer is a from of work. After the meeting we all got to go bowling! It was a blast. I got three strikes in a row. I think my bowling skills have improved while being a missionary. I told everyone I was really bad before we went then they all thought I was lying. haha! I didn't think Missions would be fun, but they are. But what does FUN even mean really? My definition of fun now days is bringing people the truth of the Gospel! It brings so much joy.
Oh another interesting experience happened this week. We were visiting a part member family. The Scchicatanos. they live in a very nice neighbor hood and after wards we had like twenty minutes before dinner so we said well lets go knock on these two houses. So we knock on the first house and the guy answers the door and he was really nice and said come in they he saw our name tags and got really really mean. Long story short he almost called the cops on us for "soliciting" on private property. I was just so grateful that I wasn't an Elder cause he probably would have called the cops. It actually wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Probably because we have God on our side. When we left we said a prayer for him that the next missionaries who knock on his door on accident maybe his heart could be softened. All we want to do is share a message about Jesus Christ but NO one wants to hear it.
On Saturday we had a lesson with Mary about the word of wisdom. She was really mad at first because she had just made a pitcher of ice tea and she liked her iced coffee too. She said she didn't know if she was ready to give up those things yet. We bore our testimonies of how the word of wisdom will bless her life and I felt really prompted to share a story with her which I won't mention because I don't know who all reads this and it is not about me so I don't know if a have permission to share it but anyways it was really powerful and then I asked her to pray and ask God to help her give up these things. Her prayer was so powerful and in her prayer she completely changed her mind she said "Heavenly Father I will try.. no I will give up these things I promise in fact I will go dump them out right now because I want to be baptized in this true church". Then she got up and said do you want to watch me? and poured them down the sink and wrote lemonade on her grocery list. that was SO powerful. Then Saturday night was the young women's broadcast. It was amazing. And we went to the church to watch it with Haley. She was the ONLY Young Women who came to watch it and she is not even a member yet. Our two investigators are stronger than a lot of the members. They are even stronger than me. I know that they truly have been prepared and that I have a lot to live up to for the rest of my life since I am the one that brought them this truth and they are already better than me. It is amazing.
Church was so great! President and Sister Pitt happened to be passing through so they came to our church. The speakers did a great job and I learned all about my saviors life. This week as I was studying about my savior I came across one of my new favorite scriptures it is in Doctrine and Covenants 6:34 and it says: "Therefore, fear not little flock; do good; let the earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail." and I know this to be true, as long as we are living the Gospel the best that we can we have no reason to fear because we are his sheep and he is our shepherd and he will always protect us.
I love you all so much, I pray for you everyday.
love, Sister Robinson

P.S My address for any who want it is :

1656 Shady Knoll Ave. Apt B

Bedford VA, 24523

and they just announced that we are now allowed to email whoever we want friends family anyone. So if you want to email me my email address is:

sydney.robinson@myldsmail.net

I would love to hear from you all :)