October 4th ~ So Many Miracles!!!

ok....well, I have lived in the philippines, so any apartment will do, It doesnt need to be nice, Im not a spoiled brat anymore...haha. SO this week had been FULL of miracles!!! Grabeh!!!

So the second week in a row, we have had 100+ people at church, when I first got here, we averaged 50...this branch is a MIRACLE, I’m still in shock, complete shock. I feel the love of the Lord so evidently, I actually felt yesterday while i was walking that i was enveloped in the love that my heavenly father has for me. its absolutely amazing. Pres. schmutz came to our branch last week and he was amazed too, apparently he told s. schmutz i cant go home, and i was like i would love that, but once again they told me, “ sister robison, YOU NEED TO MOVE ON”...haha. But as for miracles, we should have a baptism this next week, her name is daisy and shes 9 years old...but what is amazing, is her family before was somewhat less active and now they are soo strong and her father is going to get the priesthood and baptize her, they’ve been practicing which is soo cute...and its been a long journey with her, so pray nothing hinders her baptism this upcoming week.

2nd miracle, we had a csp harvesting rice in a community of people that weren’t what you would call open to the church b/c of a lot of gossip and untrue sayings....well lets just say the lord does soften hearts, after they saw a white girl and filipina missionary working along side them in the heat and not complaining about the itchiness or dirt and having a good time laughing and getting to know the people, everyone LOVES us now. we have soo many new investigators from that area now, EVERYONE greets us and loves to talk to us, yesterday we had a lady that took my hand and introduced me to every single person she knew...haha. we had a TON of i2ls.

we had an amazing experience the other week. Well you know, there are no bathrooms here, so I really had to go pee. and so i told s. bosio im going to find a place to pee...and she’s like what are you doing...b/c i just started trudging through the mud...what she didn’t know, and i didn’t completely understand is that i needed to go in that direction, i didn’t know why i just though i had a feeling there was a place to go pee over there. well all the sudden this lady comes out and asks what we are doing and i told her i needed to pee and she’s like you can go over there...they had a little place covered by towels and you can pee between the floor boards, so while i went about my business s.bosio talked to her and when i came out we asked if we could teach her...she’s like yes of course! after the lesson she cried, she said she’s never felt this was before she feels all light in her chest, she said when she saw us walking she felt that feeling and had to come out of the house and see who we were...we told her that was the spirit. She is continuing and we’re teaching about 6 other b/c of this and they are progressing and want to come to church. WOW...thank you for obedience and the spirit that is WHY we are experiencing such miracles, the Lord pushes you until you almost cant go anymore and the BAM here is a miracle to keep you going strong.

3rd miracle...we found this american man named steve...he was kinda a referral from president, but the whole referral didn’t make sense, they didn’t know if he was a member they told us his purple house was pink, so we had a hard time finding him. as a missionary we are soo busy usually a referral like that we would give up finding him, plus we finally found him and he was busy and we tried again and he was busy, so usually i wouldn’t have kept coming back. but for some reason, once again the spirit was telling us to keep trying. WELL...we went back again with the strouds and he had amazing questions and we ended up giving him to the strouds to work with him, well in just a couple weeks he has completely come back to church full force, going to classes participating and just being amazing. and he had been inactive for 20 YEARS!! right timing and spirit, wow....the Lord really does plan for all of his children, b/c if we didn’t have the strouds, nothing probably would have come of it, so the Lord places people for him, and gave us the opportunity to find him. ALSO, last week, the elders found another american who is actually a friend of steve's drunk out of his mind, with a load of problems,,,but he likes mormons. and so they referred us to him and we told the strouds and steve to come with us. he needs all the missionaries he can get, b/c he is a heavy alcoholic almost to the point where he will not be living much longer b/c of his depression and choices...for him its this gospel or his life. we got in there and we started the lesson and you could just see the spirit working in him. 1st of all he was prepared by the lord b/c the first time he had been sober for 3 days, which steve said is a miracle and he went from just saying mormons are nice to the end of the lesson saying wow i night be the first mormon in my family, AND he’s coming to general conference this week. WOW. We’re kinda making an american branch here, b/c the strouds just recently reactivated another african american...haha.

and last miracle, so we are really close to one of the members, s. gonzalez, and wow does she have a hard life she is a widow with 5 kids, and barely has enough to get buy...sometimes they have no food. BUT she has been paying her tithing FAITHFULLY and fast offerings and wow money just keeps coming into her life. just as there is no money left some how from the mercy of the lord she receives enough money to get by, she’s received a job or something at last minute. one day she was praying, cause their is a promise from pres. hinckley that if the filipinos pay their tithing they will always have rice on their table. she had no rice and was praying where is the promise of prophet hinckley I’ve paid my tithing and that day came the strouds with a huge bag of rice for her and her family...this doesn’t happen once but happens all the time for her and her family. what a testimony for me,. who never had a huge testimony on tithing...i cant wait to get back and pay my tithing!!!

I love these people I love their examples...i work hard EVERYDAY, even if its pouring 100 gallons of rain on me, we came completely soaked and dripping last night and i bought s. bosio dinner b/c she didn’t complain, we refuse to complain b/c the bigger the sacrifice the BIGGER the blessing...I love my mission, I love who I am b/c of my mission, i hope i can keep this light and spirit with me the rest of my life. I am completely changed person and i never realized how much i would need my mission until now. I look back at how i used to be and what were my goals and what was important to me...it has all changed....i know every women doesn’t need a mission, i guess some are just more refined than me, but I NEEDED this, I NEEDED these people almost more than they need me. I will adopt 5 filipino kids haha. i don’t know how i can leave this. I am walking everyday with jesus Christ's name on my chest as one of his soldiers, with miracles happening everyday changing my life. i love this...carry on!!!