November 25, 2013 ~ Blessings come to those who wait

This week was awesome!!!  So great!  I love this area/branch so much!!  They are absolutely the best, I really don't want to leave here!  I think I'll be here for a while:) 

We had lots of meetings this week which is a little out of the ordinary, but so good!  We had a really good zone conference this week too.  Those are always nice to get you reenergized and going again. 

We met with some guy from pakistan in a cafe this week, that was interesting... especially when 50 cent started playing really loud. 

Oh, also our english group started here and we had this super awesome family come!! so cool! 

Thats all for this week - it's taken me almost all my time to figure out how to finally send a stupid picture - not an easy task here.

Till next week!
Elder Robison

Russian "Smile"

Austin's Smile

Palace in Russia

Austin and his companion lived in a building behind the Orange building.

November 18, 2013 ~ Adventures on the Electric Train

Well all, I don't really have a whole lot to say this week, except for how much I love this branch so much!!!  The like 10 active members here are absolutely 10 of my favorite people in the entire world I love them so much!!  

This week we met with a few people - all really interesting people.  Also hahah while I'm thinking about it, we got this really weird txt from a potential from like a transfer or 2 ago and we looked up who he was on the potential list and there was quite a lengthy description.  The other Elders met with him once or twice before they found out that 1 (this is my own assumption that this man is crazy) 2) well, for the sake of some readers, he turns out to not be the safest of people to be hanging around.  So, we ignored his txt.  Then throughout the next few hours he sent us 2 more and wasn't happy that we didn't respond, claiming that is txts were a lost souls cry for help and we denied it.  So we decided to text him back and ask if he wanted to meet.  Then he said to call him in a few days.  We will be calling tonight.  I'm pretty sure this guy is legitimately crazy.  But a meeting with him could make for an interesting story, however we aren't stupid and will only be meeting with him during the day, in public somewhere. 

Anyways yeah, met with a few interesting people - none of them are super progressing, but they have potential!  Just have to help them find the desire.. that is really one thing that seems to be lacking here is the desire to know truth and then act upon it.  We really have been blessed though.  This is the smallest area I've been so far I'm pretty sure and we've had more meetings than I have any transfer before.

Also funny story.  So we usually get back and forth to Peter on the electric train and on one end of the line is St. Petersburg and on the other end of the line is Kaliche.  We get off about in the middle of it.  So this week we decided to go all the way to the end and see what was there (since it's in our area still).  We get there and people seem to be super confused as to who we are (also lets keep in mind that this city is probably bigger than other 4 "cities" (all 4 right in a row and we are there all the time cause they are so tiny) in our area combined  so of course we are just so excited cause there is comparatively so much here.  And then I remembered how when I was in Sestroretsk (on the other side of the finnish gulf - we can see it from our area) and the big Island was in our area, we went there to go check it out and then found out later than that city is not open for preseliting yet (but don't worry, I got right on that and asked president to do whatever he needed to to get it open - and it did open right after I was transfered out...) so the same thought flashed across my mind in this city.  So to be safe, we called the office Elders and asked them and they said they'd call us back if there were any problems.  Then a little while later we get a txt saying that that city is not technically part of St. Petes and we are not legally allowed to be there (my question then - why is it shown on the map as in our area?...).  I think Russia has some weird laws about going to other cities.  You have to be registered to be there.  Not just us, but all citizens, its weird.  Anyways, Our fun was cut short and we came back.  But found a potential when we came back so that was good.

Also this week I have really been noticing how the spirit really does talk through missionaries and put words into your mouth.  I had that happen to me a few times this week where I was thinking to myself as I was talking "what am I saying right now? Where did that come from?"  It is such a wonderful experience to be a missionary and to have the chance to be so close to the spirit all the time.  I really am grateful for that.  And I feel like I am learning so much all the time.  Like Sister Lawrence said as missionaries we really are living a higher law and because of that, we have the ability to gain more light and knowledge faster than most other people because of the standard of life we are living.  It's a huge blessing!  I love it!

Have a great week!

Elder Robison

November 11, 2013~ St. Petersburgs 2nd stake conference!!

We had stake conference this week and it was so awesome!!  I loved it!  We also had a broadcasted conference for the eastern Europe area - St. Petersburg is one of the only 4 stakes in our area so I felt pretty proud!  We seriously have absolutely the best members here ever!  I love them so much!! It was so fun to see all the members from my other areas that I had been in!

So yes, we did have the broadcast, but they somehow messed it up and only had the recording of it in English hahaha.  It started playing and everyone was like uhh... hahha so we had some surprise speakers while they were getting the Russian version.  Our stake president gave a powerful testimony about the future of the church here, specifically in our stake!  Right now its kinda tough, but there is such a bright future.  Then they finally got the recording and we watched it  so our stake conference was about 4 hours long, but so good.  There was an incredible spirit the whole time!  I loved it so much!  Also fun fact, everyone know Bruce Porter of the 70?  Well he gave his talk in Russian.  The whole thing, with no translator.  I was way impressed and quite shocked.  He was one of the last people I was expecting to be able to do that hahha.  Pretty interesting and it was an amazing talk! 

Hmmm what else.. we are going to hopefully start working with this less active kid and his mom soon.  Son is a  member, but the mom is not.  We got him to go with us to stake conference on Saturday and found out that his dad died about 2 weeks ago and his mom is having a really hard time.  We talked with the branch president and we are going to try and work with them if we can.  Hope that works out.

Last night was so awesome.  This cute little family here that just about every missionary that has ever served here is in love with, couldn't come to conference yesterday cause they have no money.  My first branch donated them tons of clothes and stuff for winter and we took them to them last night and had a little lesson and talked about what they talked about at conference.  It was so awesome.  I love this family so much!  They have the cutest little kids that were just running around the whole time and trying to get us to play with them.  We had an awesome spiritual little lesson then at the end we all sang some primary songs "я хочу быть звёздочкой" (Jesus wants me for a sunbeam) and "Следуй пророку" (Follow the prophet - all 9 verses!).  It was so much fun, the spirit was so strong, I never wanted to leave!  I just love the people here so much!  It's kinda funny cause I had been on a split here in like march I think and I did not really like the area - I didn't want to serve here.  Then I was a little bit relieved (sad to say) when this area was closed over the summer due to violence towards towards the missionaries, but then it opened again and 2 transfers later I was sent here.  I have to admit that I was not super thrilled, but this area and more specifically this branch just has this magic about it and you can't help but fall in love with this place. So bascially I'm glad that I've been able to change my opinion about this area haha.

Also, sorry that a lot of this has been so vague... apparently they are really restricting what we can say in letters home as a result of I'm not really sure what - probably cause there is still lots of hostility towards the church - no specifics at all basically... so my letters will be vague, but when I get home my stories will have a lot more specifics haha.

Have a great week!

Love
Elder Robison

November 5, 2015 ~ "Красота всегда вокруг" в России!

This week has been great!!  I love my new area and I'm not really sure why.  It's tiny and I way prefer serving in the city, but I just love Peterhof!  So beautiful and I'm not going to lie, definitely my favorite branch so far.  All the members are amazing!  The majority of the branch is not actually Russian hahha.  The branch president is from Cuba, there is the cutest family ever who are from Uzbekistan and one woman from Estonia and then 4 americans (the missionaries).  That is literally more than half the branch haha (active at least) but I love them all so much!

 

The Elders that left, left us a wonderful surprise... the most perfect investigator ever!  She is so prepared!  We met with her last week and are going to again tomorrow and she came to church 2 weeks in a row and is already acting like a member basically.  The members have done a wonderful job fellowshipping her.  Really, this past week, this new transfer has just been amazing!  I love it so much!!  Which is funny cause I wasn't super excited about it, but just shows how the Lord definitely knows best!  So grateful for that!  (oh PS now that I've remembered to tell you, yesterday was some sort of holiday so the libraries were closed - at least the ones that don't have our websites blocked - so thats why we are emailing today).

 

Yesterday we went to the huge Peterhof palace and walked around the grounds.  It is unbelieveable!!!  So pretty!! Unfortunately the water was off so the fountains weren't going, but the were so nice without water.  SO pretty.  There are also like 4 or 5 other big palaces in our area... not exactly sure why, but apparently all the past tsars  and kings and stuff of Russia all thought that our area was the most ideal area for their homes.  I'm not opposed really. 

 

This transfer my companion and I decided to go all Russian all the time!  It really helped last transfer not being able to speak English with my native companion so, we are doing it this transfer too and its not going to bad... we'll see if we can make it 5 more weeks hahah.  Last transfer there were also 2 americans in the appartment with whom I spoke english so there was a little bit of a break, but this transfer there's no break.  But it helps! 

 

Well, I am super looking forward to another amazing week in Peterhof!! I just love it!  Hope you all have a great week as well!

 

Elder Robison

October 28, 2013 ~ Transfer Calls!

Well all it's transfer time again and guess what?... I'm going to Peterhof (look it up on google images - I think it's only like the biggest tourist attraction in Russia)!!!!!!  I've heard such good things about it there (and I was there on a split once my first transfer).  Appartently the branch is absolutely tiny but one of the strongest cause the members there are so amazing.  I'm so excited to meet them all.

 

This week we had a fun little activity at the branch put on by the young adults of the branch and they day before I called this guy who was a former investigator but just kinda disappeared, and invited him and he came!!!  And he loved it!  It was so cool and so much fun!!  Then in church yesterday they made me speak cause I am leaving and lots of people came up and told me how they were sad that I'm leaving which was really nice, but I was a little surprised cause I LOVE the members in this ward, but never really had super strong relationships with anyone in this ward yet.  Anyways, it was nice.  I was actually really surprised to be leaving Nevsky.  I love this area and hope I can come back here again.    President likes to do a lot of interesting things with the transfer board.  This transfer there are a lot of people going to areas that they've already served in and lots of people who are being paired as companions for a second time hahha.  It really is a huge surprise transfer call.  Keeps things interesting.

 

Last night we went and stopped by this member who has just recently gone less active (like my first sunday in this area he was crying as he bore his testimony about the temple), but he got a new job and got super stressed and started smoking again and drinking.  He is never home, always working.  This is the 3rd time we've ever been able to catch him.  But when we got there he was like "guys now's not a good time" and I'm pretty sure he said he was drinking (but he wasn't drunk).  Anyways, my companion really has a way with people and we just stood in the doorway and talked to him for like half an hour.  My heart was just breaking for this guy.  He has a relatively young family (2 daughters at home) and work hs gone bad (they've stopped paying him) and he just bought this new car that he now has to make payments on and he is still smoking and drinking and it's just so sad.  He started crying as he was talking to us and he said that he has just messed up his whole life and he knows it and he knows there is only one thing that will help him.  He said he is planning on coming to church next week and gave us an actual time that we can come back and meet with him and his family.  It was just so sad.  But, there are a couple of lessons that I learned from this:

 

1st:  Satan knows how to tempt us and pull us away from church (in this case it was a new job that paid really well but required him to work on Sundays)

2nd: like I read somewhere for personal study the other day (somewhere in Alma I think) Satan does not support those who follow him.  This man was just kinda pulled away and then had the rug pulled out from underneath him and is just kinda left with a huge mess.

3rd:  There is only 1 way out and we must be humble enough to accept it and do what we know we have to.

4th:  No one is immune to this.  This man as the Elders quorum president and one who helped the missionaries all the time on lessons and seemed to be the strongest member of the ward.

 

It was so interesting talking with him he talked about all these spiritual experiences that he had had in the past and all the times he had felt the spirit so strong and almost felt like he was walking with God.  He said then you get to this point where everything seems ruined and you remember those feelings and experiences and realize that they are very real feelings and very real connections with God that you had because sometimes you might not recognize it when everything is good, but when everything seems lost, you feel that lack and realize how real those feelings were.   LIstening to him, I could feel so much how much god loves him and is waiting for him to come back and is absolutely there 100% of the way to help us make the journey completely.  I love this man so much and I'm just sad that I am leaving in 2 days and won't be here to see him progress again..

 

Sorry that was really long but I have to tell you this really hilarious thing that happened this week too.  My companion and I went to visit this less active who likes to teach us and help us with our Russian.  Obvously my companion doesn't really need any help, but we just went anyways and he talked with this guy about how to learn English (my companion just cannot get English and this less active knows English really well)  so long story short, this guy told my comp. that if after living with americans for a year and he still can't speak English, he just will never learn and might as well not try.  He suggested he might be able to a different one.  So My companion has been on a search to find "his language" and needless to say I have taken it upon myself to teach him German the past few days:)  and he is just loving it haha oh I'm so happy:) 

 

Anyways, have a great week!

 

Elder Robison

October 21, 2013 ~ Short letter

Well nothing really interesting has happened in the last 3 days except that yesterday they called 3 new ward missionaries which I am totally excited about!! So this'll be kinda short, but I just want to share something interesting - a cool little thought or little revelationish thing that I had yesterday. 

 

Yesterday in church as Sister showed up to our branch.  She is a return missionary from Moscow who served in my mission.  She went home a little bit after I got here and has already been home for 6 months (thats a scary thought).  But it was so cool to see her yesterday and she was talking to my companion and me and just was saying basically how sad she is to not be a missionary still.  She said you can never turn back the time and come back to this.  You can serve people still and meet with the missionaries all you want, but it will never be the same.  She said that God just fills you with so much light and love for these people that you never get at any other time in your life.  These are all things that I had heard before, but it was different this time.  The spirit really told me how important this time is and how important it is to use it correctly and wisely and to always remember your purpose as a missionary.  I think the reason that it touched me more this time than any other time was because this was a sister that I knew when she was still a missionary and was now talking to as a returned missionary.  I remember her final testimony at the transfer meeting.  It was so powerful, you could just tell that there was nothing that she loved more than her mission.  Just to hear that from someone that I had seen in action as a missionary and then seeing them afterwards really impressed me and really made me think about my mission and where I want to take it for the next year.  A really powerful experience for me. 

 

Hope you all had a great weekend too and have a great week this week!

 

Elder Robison

October 17, 2013 ~ Keeping us Guessing!

Hello all, I think I'll just email a different day every week to keep you guessing haha.  This week (and last week) has been crazy!  But awesome!!

First of all, we got a new investigator!!!  He is so cool!! He's 20 yrs old and is studying here and is so awesome!  He's met with the missionaries a lot before so we were able to just get right down to it.  It was a great lesson (by the end it was hahha, the middle was rough) and we should be meeting again on monday (he's super busy with work trying to earn enough money to pay for this semester of school so can't meet super often until Nov).  I'm really excited about that!

Also this week on monday I sent my companion off to Ukraine.  One of the Elder's here (from Ukraine) had a visa trip so my companion went to go be his companion.  So I got to work with his companion who he is still training and he is so cool!  He is another veteran of Brother Kylikovskyi's class at the MTC!  It was so much fun!  We talked to some really awesome people who hopefully might be interested.  So needless to say, weren't able to  make it to internet monday.  Then tuesday we had to go to the Hermitage which was fun cause 2 new girls from BELGIUM started working there with us.  It's always fun when there are more volunteers there than just us - usually they are, but all go in the afternoon and we have a morning shift so never see any of them.  THen we had to go to district meeting and right after that we went to the metro and met with the zone leaders and I went back up to sestroretsk to go on a split with them.  That was fun!  I love going on exchanges, they always shake things up a little bit and make things more interesting.  So today was the first chance that we had to get to email. 

AND we got to watch conference!!!  I loved it so much!!  Even all the random 70's talks I got something out of.  Actually Elder Dube was one of my favorite talks.  I loved the story that he told at the beginning about his mother.  Great talk!  And I loved Elder Oaks and Elder Cook (usually I'm not such a huge fan of his).  Such awesome talks!!  Also P. Uchtdorf in the Priesthood session and P. Monson's.  Acutally I think if I were to keep going any further I would end up mentioning every single talk... WAIT I can't believe I almost forgot about Elder Bednar!!!  He is a rock star, I loved it!!!  Actually in all honesty I did get more out of his talk that most others (which is funny cause I have nothing to pay tithing on right now haha (at least that I know of).  I just really loved the idea of small and seeming insignificant and unexpected blessings.  I have never seen that more than I have here.  It really is so true.

I thought it was interesting how many speakers talked about a few very common topics: the role of women (and men), covenants (I loved that sister's talk about the endowment), abortion, priesthood, and enduring to the end - basically the importance and structure of the family!  I loved that I felt like all the speakers were very bold in their statements (something that we are encouraged to do a lot as missionaries) and just really defined right and wrong very clearly.  I loved it.  Everything.  Unfortunately I don't have my notebook with me or I could keep going on forever haha.  I cannot wait to get the liahonas and re-read them all!!  And you should all do the same thing... I promise you'll learn something new!

Talk to you in about 4 days again (maybe) hahah.

Elder Robison

October 7, 2013 ~ Short Email

Holy cow kyle looks so much older and bigger! (Referring to Kyle's homecoming picture with Jasmine Young) What happened to him??
he didn't look like that when I left..  But I'm happy for him.
I remembered about sierra's birthday - also i wrote a letter and sent
it a few weeks ago, did she get that already?

I am so excited about genereal conference this week!  I don't get to
watch it until this weekend, so I hope this week goes by fast.  And
about the group of women... I hope none of them have temple reccomends
anymore.  That is absolutely insane. Clear example of people who do
not really understand what they are learning from the prophets and
apostles (it seems).

So because of some laws or new rules or something we can't send home
anything specific about any person (no names or anything) and we are
not allowed to send home pictures of anyone except for me.  Not even
American companions.  And there can be no other people in the pictures
that I send home (i suppose that means I am limited to send home
pictures of the sky or something haha), I will take pictures, jsut
can't really send them home...  so sorry about that.

Hope you have a great week!  Love you and miss you!
Austin