Week 9-has it been that long??

Hi there,
I will be staying in Columbia City for Christmas this year and my companion, Elder Savas, will be getting transferred. I will let you know where he goes next week after transfer meeting and who my new companion is.
I am so stoked to hear about the ducks being undefeated still. We stopped at a gas station on the way home one night to grab some treats and drinks and I saw a newspaper that had college football on the front. It showed the Ducks were number 1 and I was like "GO DUCKS!!"

When it gets snowy and icy I suspect we will have to walk and not bike around when we don't have the car.

POOL PARTY!!! We have a baptism tomorrow! Rhonda Leaszer is the one we are baptizing. Earlier this month we tried to commit to baptism on the 27th and she didn't want to because she had a boyfriend in jail, who we didn't know about, that she wanted to talk it over with before getting baptized. She talked to him and tried to give him a Book of Mormon, but he didn't want anything to do with it. So she was pretty sad about that because she wanted to have him be baptized as well. Then this last Wednesday we went over to teach her and afterwards we asked if she had a date in mind that she wanted to be baptized on. She thought for a few minutes and said, "how about the 30th? That's my sons birthday so I think it would be cool to have a spiritual rebirth on that day." Elder Savas was so excited when she said that cause he pretty much knew he would be transferred the next day. True story.

Thanksgiving was amazing! We played in the Turkey Bowl and only got to play touch, lame, but it was alright because everybody else decided to play touch as well. After that we went back to the apartment to get cleaned up. Then we went to the Kenedy's house for lunch and I ate way too much. I had 2 huge plates of food and 4 pieces of pie. We stayed there for about 5 or 6 hours and played apples to apples, billiards, and foosball. I seem to have gotten a little rusty at pool. We then went to Bro. Hinds house, who is our ward mission leader, for dinner where I also ate too much. After that we went back to the apartment and crashed because we were full and exhausted.

On Friday I had my exchanges with the district leader, Elder Yi. The saddest thing happened. We went by Janet's house to see if she was still coming to church. She said she wasn't and that she didn't want us coming over and teaching her anymore. She explained how she went on the internet and talked to ex-mormons and they told her all this bad stuff about the church. She got anti'ed. That was so sad because the lessons that we had with her were so spiritual and she came to stake conference, we could have totally seen her being baptized, but she had to go and do that. Super depressing.

So that was what my week looked like.

love, Elder Brogan Robertson

Pictures from last week

SICK!!! Boys will be boys, right??  I hope that thing wasn't just playing possum.

Week 8! Oh, I love this boy!!

Hi there,

If I or my companion will be transferred we will receive a phone call a few days in advance. Transfers are on Wednesday December 1st and there will be 17 new missionaries coming in. Holy Cow!! The reason why I had to pay the airline 60$ was because I had to pay for the luggage to be put on the plane.  The mission gives us a credit card that they but money on every month, and they give us about 130$ every month.

We are gonna have a turkey bowl on Thanksgiving too! But I hear that missionaries aren't aloud to play tackle, but we will have to see about that. Also, we were invited over to dinner on Thanksgiving to an investigators house as well as the members who we will go eat with, so we might make an appearance there too.

This last Thursday we had our exchanges with the Assistants. I went with Elder Roundy and my companion went with Elder Davies. Elder Roundy and I went to an appointment with a former investigator who hasn't been taught for a year or two so we taught her the Restoration again. I have never felt the spirit more in my entire life than in that lesson. At the end of the lesson we asked her that when she prayed to know if what we taught was true and if she received an answer that it is true that she would be baptized, and she said yes!! We also invited her to come to stake conference and she accepted and she actually came!! Stake conference was so cool, they had a choir sing a bunch of songs and they sounded amazing, they sang a song that I think Mitchell has sang in choir, I think it was "How Can I Keep From Singing". Our mission president and his wife spoke, so did the stake president, and so did the Chicago temple president and his wife. It was one of the best stake conferences I have ever been to.

So that is pretty much everything that is going on here in Columbia City. I love and miss you all.

Love, Elder Brogan Robertson  

This is from a letter that Elder Robertson sent his dad regarding why he picked the scripture he chose for his mission plaque:

Mark 4:37-40
I imagine the great storm that they are in as either sin of great trials.  When they go to wake Jesus up and say, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?"  I imagine that as somebody kneeling down in prayer to God and Jesus Christ, having been broken down and humbled, asking for help and forgiveness.  Then after we pray for those things Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will be there fr us to calm the storm of trials and sin.  Then after I am freed from my troubles either Jesus Christ or myself would ask me why I was so fearful and why I had no faith.  that is why I love that Scripture.   
Love, Elder Robertson

Week 6 email With pictures!!!

Hi there,

This week has been kinda dull but had some cool highlights. First off, we were walking home from tracting and we hear this guy running towards us yelling "Hey!!" trying to get our attention. When he caught up to us he asked if we were mormon and then told he was Lutheran and he wanted to learn about what we believe and gave us his address and told us to come over whenever. We went over there the next day and he was super excited that we came. He has a whole bookshelf of different religions bibles and a bunch of books on the bible and he even had a book of mormon. He is a super smart guy about the bible and he accepts most of the things we tell him but he still has some lutheran beliefs engraved in his brain so it's a little tough to teach him. Every time we go over there, we stay for like 2 hours or more because he side tracks a lot and he talks for such a long time. One of the first things he said to us was "Your not going to convert me and I'm not going to convert you so lets just get that out of the way". But we know that he definitely has the potential to get baptized and he would make a sweet convert.

I don't know if I told you this already but we volunteer at a Methodist church every Wednesday to help with something called the Midweek Meal. That is where a bunch of people from the community come to have a free lunch. It's pretty fun.

Then on Friday after district meeting we went on exchanges with the district leader. I went up to Fort Wayne with Elder Garcia who is so funny all the time and he is pretty good at free style rapping, and my companion Elder Savas stayed here with Elder Yi who is a freaking brain and a convert to the church. Up in Fort Wayne almost everything was in spanish so I couldn't understand anything. I only got to help out with 1 door knock. Then we had a dinner appointment at a spanish members house and we had some possum meatballs which were surprisingly good with beans and rice and home made tortillas. Elder Savas said that him and Elder Yi taught our investigator Rhonda. She said that she prayed the night before they came and sincerely asked God if what we have been teaching her was true. She then went to sleep and had a dream about the spirit world (we have pretty much been focusing on the afterlife with her cause thats what she wants). She told them that she would probably be wanting to get baptized and they didnt even have to ask her!

Then yesterday on Sunday our investigator Skyler (who has been taking the dicussions all summer) finally came to church for the first time! Booyah!! He even participated in the gospel principles class, then he left half way through priesthood cause he had to get home to his kids. A little bit of info on Skyler, He is originally from Oregon, he has 4 kids one of them is 11 and he had him with an ex girlfriend and the kid lives with her and he has to pay child support on him, he has 3 kids with his current girlfriend which he lives with, his girlfriend has 2 jobs and he was recently laid off of his. So he has it pretty bad right now but he always love talking to us, and we might be his only real friends.

The pictures I sent are of my MTC district, Sister Frederick and I doing a freeze-frame hi-5, me and the Columbia City sign, a haunted house in C City, and the picture where it looks like the guy is going to be stabbed you guys have to figure out what we are acting out. Well I am about to go golfing so I will send you another email next week.
                            Love, Elder Brogan Robertson  

Yeah! Another letter! Week 5

This week has been exhausting! We found 3 new investigators, which we had to walk many miles to accomplish because we don't have a car this week until Friday. We are so close to getting a baptism! The lady says she wants to get baptized but she wants to clear up a debt she has with somebody before she gets baptized. My companion and I had the longest planning session ever last night because we have so many people we need to visit, Elder Savas who has been out for 15 months said it was the most insane planning session he has ever had!
     Here is a sad story about a little 4 year old girl named Sophie Augustus. About 2 weeks before I hit the mission field my trainer was in this same area as we are now. Him and his companion received a call at about midnight from Brother Augustus who was in tears. Sophie had jumped off her bed and landed on her head and had been vomiting which are signs of brain damage and they were in the hospital. He told them to run down to the hospital to help give a blessing. She left the next day with only a cracked skull. 3 weeks from then, just this last tuesday, we received a call from Brother Augustus in tears again, Sophie had been hit by a car and was in the hospital getting some scans. It looked like she had a broken jaw and maybe a chest contusion and she had a cut on her chin which needed stitches. We rushed down there to help give a blessing to her. Her head was so warm when we laid our hands on her head for the blessing as she laid on the table. She left the hospital the next day, her jaw was only dislocated and her ligaments pulled it back into place and she only had bad bruises, nothing broken or fractured. I now have a firm testimony of the power of priesthood blessings.
     Since we had to give the car to another companionship on friday we have been walking many many miles. I got some blisters on my feet because of it. But it has been worth it when we got to teach the lessons to our investigators. This first month of my mission has gone by like a flash and I don't think it will be slowing down anytime soon. I love and miss you all, and those packages have been very comforting.
         I'm so jealous that you guys have been going on hikes, even though we walk a lot here, it's nothing like taking a hike in the beautiful Oregon forests. I miss Oregon and all of it's beauty and the mountains. But I have been having a good time here. I'm so proud of the ducks 8-0! GO DUCKS!! I haven't seen any drive-ins where I'm at but I'll keep my eye out. We had to be in the apartment by 6 pm yesterday cause it was Halloween. But we did get a lot of candy from a family who fed us yesterday. I have come to love church hymns since I have been out here and I think I am getting better at singing. I sing those forgotten carols everyday and I love them so much.                                                                                                               Love, Elder Brogan Spencer Robertson


    P.S. Could you try to get more people to write me? The only people that have wrote me besides my family are Becca Lough and Sister Frederick(she was in my district in the MTC). Try people at church and my non-mormon friends. I will write a letter to Mitchell today.