September 13, 2010 from Far Flung Flin Flon

Dear Home,

 

I am in Prince Albert at the moment. It seems like it's been a while since my last visit to the city, but it's probably going to be my last day-trip to PA from Flin Flon. By the end of this transfer, I'll have been here for 6 months. I wonder where I'm going next...

 

In other news, we've had a bit of missionary-ish success lately. ^^ The first story is about a man that we've been able to help with a big project around his house. While we were tracting one day, we asked a lady if she knew anyone in the area who could use a hand with anything, and she informed us that her neighbor accross the street was re-doing his foundation. We dropped by at his house and at first it seemed like he was going to give us a response that we get quite often, 'Yeah, that's really nice of you, and I could use the help, but I'll be alright. You don't have to bother yourself on my account.' But before it got to that point, we showed him that we were serious- that we really wanted to help- by asking him not if we could but when would be the best time for us to come back and lend a hand.

 

Now, normally, I'm not that pushy. I like to be respectful and polite, but lately I've been more honest than I would like to be. Occassionally Elder Sheffield will ask me if such-and-such a thing annoys me, and my old such would answer 'not really. maybe a little', except now I've been answering 'yes' without giving it much thought. That bothers me because it makes me sound like a jerk, but Elder Sheffield says that he doesn't mind my honesty.

 

Of course, a random stranger on the street might not see such honesty in quite such a forgiving light. They might think we're being pushy, that we're trying to force purselves on other people. 'Oh, you don't want our help? Well, too bad! We're coming to help you anyway.'

 

Fortunately, our friend didn't see it that way. He let us lend a hand, knowing full well that we weren't expecting anything in return. He even showed us how a tiny jack can hold up a massive house while you're preparing a more permanent support. We got a good workout and a good feeling inside, followed by a good meal. The man was super nice to us and asked us to stay a little longer and join his family for dinner. We had a great time talking with him and his family. (The conversation didn't go to the gospel. That may come up later, though.) We look forward to helping him again soon. It felt good to be useful. If I can't help my family work on the kitchen, I can at least help a good man strengthen his foundation.

 

 

The second story of missionary success is more related to conventional missionary work. Several weeks ago, we got a call from the mission office. They had a Headquarters Referal for us. Appearantly, a man from near our area visited Salt Lake City (Mostly to see the Choir), and loved it, especially the Temple. He talked to the missionaries there and they gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon, which he was excited to read and learn about. That's where we came in. He told the missionaries in Salt Lake that he wanted the missionaries in Flin Flon to come and talk with him more about this church, so they told the referals people his information, and they told us. From then on, we had been trying to get a hold of this man. We tried calling him in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. No answer. We couldn't stop by him because he lived so far out of town, we couldn't justify traveling that far without a set appointment. Still, we had to contact this man, so we kept trying.

 

Eventually, we got a hold of him and set up a time that we could visit him. He had a lot of questions about the people in the Book of Mormon. "Who is Mosiah? What did he teach? Who is Alma? Who is Helaman?" Elder Sheffield did an amazing job at teaching from the scriptures and following the spirit. I was really impressed. It was a great lesson. That man is definitely ready to hear more about the gospel. =)

 

So that's our newest investigator. We won't be able to meet with him as often as we would like, but we can still call and talk to him, answer his questions, and all that. I'm really looking forward to teaching him again this Wednesday. He's a great man. ^^

 

 

The one thing I can think of that didn't go quite as well as it could have this week was Stake Conference. Because Flin Flon is so far removed and not all of the members have the time or the money to drive to the Stake Center in Saskatoon, we have to recieve group meetings like these ones via Satelite or the internet or whatever other way they can think of.

 

At first, I think they were planning on transmiting the conference by satelite, but that plan changed quickly. Towards the beginning of the week, they (and I have absolutely no idea who "they" are) told us that the conference would be held over the internet, so they gave us the website to go to, Brother Davis showed us how to set it up, and Elder Sheffield and I spent a good 30 minutes figuring out how to get the website to work. By Saturday evening, we had everything all figured out.

 

Then, Saturday night, our Branch President got an Email saying that Saskatoon had some kind of computer glich on their side and that transmitting the conference by internet wouldn't be an option. Instead, they told him how to access the conference call that they were going to set up, and he relayed the info to us.

 

Sunday morning, we called the number that the Branch President gave us. We got into a Conference Call "Room", but the moderator (Saskatoon) never showed up. We just sat there, listening to the On Hold classical music (which was pleasant), while we waited for Saskatoon to tell us what was going on with Stake Conference.

 

As it turned out, someone in Saskatoon got their information mixed up. The conference was still to be held over the internet (maybe the glich got fixed?). Eventually, we got the computer started up, logged on to the website, and finally got a live video feed of Stake Conference.

 

Then we got to set up the audio equipment. Murphey's Law.

 

But other than that, all is well. We're doing lots of good missionary work, and we're feeling the spirit. Life is good. God is good. We're enjoying life in His service.

 

Thank you for your prayers and letters. I greatly appreciate both. ^^

 

Love, your traveling missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

September 6, 2010 Cookie Exercise

Dear Home,

I have less than an hour to Email today, but that's probably going to work out not-so-badly for me because I don't have that much to write about.

Lately (and by 'lately' I mean 'for the past two months'), Elder Sheffield and I have been having a hard time getting up to exercise in the morning. Despite knowing that it's a mission rule and that it has great benefits for us physically and spiritually, we have, for the most part, lacked the motivation to get out of bed on time and actually STAY out of bed for the rest of the morning.  Even the upcoming trip to Yosemite and the (reportedly) horrifically challenging climb up Half-Dome, and Elder Sheffield's sister (who recently came home from a mission in Poland) advising him to exercise with her personal testimony that it'll work miracles for his mission, have been barely any help in giving us the motivation that we need. But luckily, we have recently come up with a devious plan to get us active in the mornings.

You probably remember that I fell in love with the mini chocolate chip cookies that you can buy in the bulk section of the Superstore in Prince Albert. Well, we don't have a Superstore in Flin Flon, so I've been exploring other options. By the way, don't buy No Name brand Chocolatey Chip Cookies. It was a bad investment on my part. No Name Sandwich Cookies are good, though. =) Long story short, Elder Sheffield and I have cookies, which we enjoy. ^^ To help motivate us to follow the missionary morning schedule,  we have initiated the Cookie Deprivation Program. You probably have a guess about what that means: If one of us doesn't exercise, they don't get cookies.  Good guess, but that's not quite how our system works. According to our system, if I'm too lazy to exercise in the morning, Elder Sheffield doesn't get cookies that day.

Right now you're thinking "But that's not fair! We believe that man [should] be punished for their own [laziness] and not for [their companion's laziness]." And you're right. A completely just and fair rule would be that if one of us do something wrong, they should receive the punishment and not their friend, but that's where the effectiveness comes in. Elder Sheffield and I are friends. I don't want Elder Sheffield to lose his cookie privileges just because I felt like sleeping in. That's not fair to him. So what am I going to do? What can I do? Couldn't we change the rule? No, Elder Sheffield and I are committed to this program. So if I want Elder Sheffield to be able to eat cookies, I have to force myself to exercise. That's how the system works, and so far, it's been going pretty well.

There's something else I could tell you, on a completely different subject, but there's not that much to tell. Our District Leader just got back from some special leadership training where he learned all about this new system for missionary work. It's supposed to be like Preach My Gospel, but more basic (if I understand the concept correctly). Unfortunately, I don't know it well enough to explain it. In fact, I barely know that it exists. Elder Sheffield and I have been majorly out-of-the-loop about this whole thing, and that has been a challenging trial for Elder Sheffield. I mostly just figured that I'll learn what the new system is all about soon enough, and in the meantime, God wants me to serve these people as best as I can with the amount of knowledge and skill and training that I currently have (and can develop myself without hearing much about the new system). I'm just going to do the best with what I've been given, and If God has more in store for me later that'll help me to do even better, I'll receive it with open arms when God sees fit to give it to me. In the meantime, it's business as usual for the Far-Flung Flin Flon missionaries.

And now my time is up.

Love, your comfortably content, regularly exercising missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

August 30, 2010

Dear Home,

 

It's not opposite day. On Tuesday, Elder Sheffield and I were NOT invited to a members' home for dinner, and their daughter did NOT tell us 'It's not opposite day.' Because of that, everything made perfect sense to everyone, and we were all bored out of our minds. Nobody laughed all evening. It was probably the most miserable night of my entire mission. Even the girl's parents hated it.

 

I hope all of you had trouble understanding that. Hopefully, nobody understands it, so no one will be able to explain it to you. =P

 

I'll go back to speaking normally now. Which means I won't. Which means I will. I'm gonna stop right now before I confuse myself. Elder Sheffield really got into it and started making my head hurt. But it's all good. ^^

 

Other than that, there are only two interesting things that I can tell you about, and they both happened on the same Saturday. First, just after dinner, Elder Sheffield and I had just left the church when we realised that I didn't have my keys. Since Elder Sheffield and I each carry keys, I'll explain which keys I'm responsible for. I hold the key that allows us to get back into our apartment every night. I also (with the keys) hold the remote that deactivates the alarm on our truck after it broke off of the keychain with the key that lets us start our truck, which Elder Sheffield holds. I also hold the key that lets us get into the church building so we can eat our meals there, and retrieve anything that we may have accidentally left in there after our meals. Basically, our church keys were locked inside the church, and without our church keys, we couldn't go in and get them. Luckily, we still had our truck-starting key, so we were able to drive to a member's house and borrow their keys. I was almost surprised they trusted me with their keys.

 

I'm out of time (already), but really quick; just after we got our keys back and returned the members's keys to them, we ran over a screw which puntured our front right tire. Luckily, it's stuck in there fast and it's not letting any air out, but eventually, it's going to become a problem, which will make this situation even more funny. But until then, we just have to keep an eye on it.

 

Love, your frequently over-time missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

 

PS, What should we nickname our little screw friend?

August 23, 2010

Dear Home,

 

It's great to hear that you're all doing well. =) Elder Sheffield and I have been doing alright, too. Of course, we haven't been doing anything as fun as soccer matches or surprise parties, but we've been having some fun talking about the fun things we would do at home. Elder Sheffield is a really good strategist when it comes to playing games. I probably wouldn't do well in a game of monopoly against him. Then again, he's a very nice, polite, good and kind person, so he probably wouldn't defeat me too ruthlessly. But he'd still play to win. After all, it's only a game.

 

With the missionary transfers coming and going, we now have a new District Leader, Elder Lovelace (I hope that's how his name is spelled). I've never met him, but I've talked with him a few times on the phone already, and it sounds like he's a very fun-loving, diligent missionary with a positive attitude. I can't wait to meet him face to face, but I'll probably have to wait a few weeks before that happens.

 

A strange change in the way we do things out here in the mission field: We now only have Zone Conferences every /other/ transfer, so we won't have the next Zone Conference until almost two months from now. What does that mean for us? Well, it might mean another delay before Elder Sheffield and I get whatever mail has been sent to the mission office for us, but another change is that now we're having some big meeting for all the leaders, which meeting will take place in Winnipeg, so the leaders plan on bringing mail with them when they come back. Not long after that (or so I'm told), Elder Sheffield and I will be heading down to Prince Albert to share a District Meeting with them in person. In all likelihood, we'll get our mail then. At maximum, that'll be three or four weeks from now, rather than next week, which would've been the case if we were still having Zone Conferences every transfer.

 

I hope that wasn't too confusing for all of you. The main point is that I'll probably meet Elder Lovelace face to face in a few weeks. =) I'm looking forward to that. It'll be nice to be able to put a face to the name and voice.

 

Running low on things to talk about and having not taken very good notes on what I've been up to this past week, I'll just ramble on about how my studies have gone the past few mornings. I've decided a short time ago that I'd like a stronger conviction that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. So, following the scriptural advice that 'Ye shall know them by their fruits', I decided to read a few of the words of our modern prophet, and test that against the already proven word of God. I read out of the May 2009 Ensign, which listed the talks we heard in the last General Conference I attended before leaving on my Mission. President Monson (during the Priesthood Session) spoke about Being Your Best Self, and he offered three suggestions: Study Diligently, Pray Fervently, and Live Righteously. I took notes.

 

One thing a prophet does is make prophecies, which are promises or warnings concerning that which is going to happen. Thomas S. Monson promised that as we study the scriptures diligently, our ability to recieve the guidance of the Holy Ghost in all that we do will increase. (I'm paraphrasing. I don't have my notes with me. For more information, I recommend that you study this talk for yourself. It starts on page 67 of the May 2009 Ensign. I think most of what I'm talking about comes from page 68.) I believe that. And I believed it even more when I started taking notes.

 

See, I started writing down my favorite quotes from that talk, particularly the quotes that included If/Then statements. When I write or speak a quote, I try to get the quote absolutely perfect, right down to the spelling, so I found myself frequently looking back and forth from the Ensign magazine to the paper I was writing on, trying to make sure my notes were all correct. As I came to a word whose spelling I had not yet memorized at that time, I felt the impression that it was spelt a certain way. I paused and checked the Ensign to confirm my feelings, and found that they were correct; 'I' does come before 'E', even in a word like Priesthood. But I learned a lot more from that experience than just how to spell a word. I also received evidence that President Monson is a prophet of God, or at least that he knows what he's talking about when it comes to studying God's word and receiving His spirit. As I read the words of the prophet and took notes, I found that I was 'Studying Diligently' and then, as I was in the act of doing so, I found that something, perhaps the Holy Spirit, was giving me promptings to help me along the way. Because I studied the scriptures diligently, I found that my ability to receive guidance from the Holy Ghost was increasing, thus fulfilling President Monson's prophecy.

 

Of course, that one experience isn't enough to prove that President Monson is a prophet, but it helped to increase my faith a little. So I'll keep studying, and as God's words, given through His servant, the prophet, continue to ring true, I will continue to receive further evidence that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, until I know for myself, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the counsel we receive from President Monson

 

May we all gain this conviction, so that when General Conference comes again this October, the words we hear will have special meaning to us as then we will know that we are hearing a prophet of God.

 

I love you all and I look forward to meeting you again when my time in Canada is over.

 

Love, your diligently studying missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

August 16, 2010 Rubics Cube and missionary service

Dear Home,

 

Last week, I forgot to tell you that transfers were coming up. Elder Sheffield and I got our Transfer call last night. No, not last night. The night before. It came early this time. Anyway, we can all breathe easy because we're staying here another month and a half, making this my second (and certainly my favorite) 6 Month area. Where will I go for the last 6 Months of my mission? God only knows, but one thing is almost certain: I won't stay in Flin Flon much longer. 6 months is about the longest time a missionary stays in one area, unless something unusual happens, so assuming we don't run into any problems, I should be here until about the end of September, by which time I expect I'll be moving on. =S

 

In the meantime, the weather has been stunningly beautiful up here. =D The light showers that we had been receiving has broken up into the most gorgeous clouds yo've ever seen. Beautifully colorful yesterday, now a remarkably pure shade of fluffy white. ^^ Lots of sunshine, too. I'm really loving it. =) ((Note to Mom: And don't worry, I put suncreen on arms, neck and face every morning before we head out. 0=) ))

 

The weather has also been contributing to the growth of the local berries, which has been both good news and bad news for us. Good news because one of the members has a raspberry patch. She recently gave us a large ziplock bag full of raspberries, and they tasted delicious! Especially in ice cream. ^^

 

The berries are also bad news because one of our investigators has been spending all her free time picking wild blueberries, leaving little time to read her scriptures, let alone visit with us. =S But that's not a huge problem. This investigator's daughter is an active member, and the investigator has been meeting with the missionaries for a long time. The summer may have slowed down her progress a little, but she's still receiving the gospel, and as the autumn breezes blow in, berry season is drawing to a close, and I'll soon has very different problems than the risk of getting a sunburn. xD But hey, that's Canada for you! xD

 

Something interesting that happened recently: We used Rubic's Cubes to teach a lesson at the end of a dinner appointment with a member family. We taught about the creation, how it wasn't the fruits of some random accident, but rather that it was formed and organised by inteligent design. To demonstrate this, my companion challenged me to 'organise' the Rubic's Cube in front of the whole family... in less than two minutes.

 

Now, just to lay some background information, Elder Sheffield is amazingly good at solving Rubic's Cubes and he has been teaching me some new tricks and manuevers that helped me to solve a Rubic's Cube faster, and (on P-Days) I've been practicing and timing myself, so Elder Sheffield knew that unless I got a very unlucky cube shuffle, I could easily solve the cube in less than two minutes.

 

I solved the cube in a minute and fifteen seconds, my fastest time ever. It was even faster than Elder Sheffield's best recorded time for solving a fully shuffled cube. We were both excited. But unfortunately, I haven't been able to solve a Rubic's Cube in less than two minutes since then. At least, not that I recall.

 

And thus we see that when we are actively engaging in the service of the Lord, whatever we may be doing, ALL our attributes, skills and talents may be increased far beyond our natural abilities. That's very comforting, especially when one is required of the Lord to do something that we think we can't do. Think of Nephi. There was probably a point in time when he was tempted to think 'What am I doing? There's no way I can get the brass plates from Laban all by myself.' By the funny thing is, he wasn't 'all by himself', and neither are we.

 

Love, your miraculously quick-fingered missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

 

PS, I bet my Words Per Minute have improved a lot since I've been on my mission, too. =) Just wanted to point that out. ^^ God is good. =)

August 9. 2010

Dear Home,

 

I'm not sure how much time I have left. Probably about 45 minutes. I spent some time arguing with the printer before I figured out that it was short on paper.

 

My week has been good. ^^ We spent the first part of the week having P-Day with the missionaries in Prince Albert, as you all know. That went pretty well except that most everything was closed. Some stores were open, so we were able to do a lot of our shopping, but other than that, not very many P-Day things got done. For example, the libraries were closed, so we couldn't Email then (That's a problem we never have to face in Flin Flon because we Email at the church). And the banks were closed, so we couldn't get the coins we needed to operate the coin-operated laundry machines (another problem we never have to face in Flin Flon because we do our laundry at a members' house).

 

Some good things happened while we were in Prince Albert, though. For example, I saw a few things that I thought I'd never see. Namely, a SUPER dark chocolate bar that was 86% cocao! Of course, I had to try it, so I bought it. (I don't recommend it to others, though. It was VERY bitter!) But if my jaw dropped when I saw the 86% bar, it fell off completely when I saw a 99% cocao dark chocolate bar. Luckily, I had learned my lesson by then, so I didn't buy it. Maybe I should've bought it. Then I could've taken a picture of it... Oh, well. I got a picture of the 86% cocao bar, so that's something.

 

When our two-day, two-night stay in Prince Albert was over, we topped off our gas tank, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed back to Flin Flon. Unfortunately, we forgot to grab something on our way out and ended up leaving it in Prince Albert. What did we forget? Elder Sheffield's laundry bag, containing most of Elder Sheffield's white shirts and undergarments. He did not have a good week. =/ But luckily, the other missionaries thought of a plan. They ended up paying a Greyhound bus to take a box containing the laundry and laundry bag up to Flin Flon, so none of us would have to waste the K's making an extra trip. That's a good thing, too, because it's a 4 hour drive from Prince Albert to Flin Flon. Plus there's a time change involved, too. The bus with the laundry left Prince Albert at 4:30 pm. 4:30 plus 4 hour drive, plus one hour time change equals...  The bus arrived in our neck of the woods at 10:45 pm. At least the bus was driving the speed limit.

 

There were a few things that were funny about this whole event. One of those things is that while we were waiting for the bus, there was a group of people playing baseball in the field beside us, so we got to watch them play. They were terrible! But it passed the time. Another funny thing, and I think this is the funniest thing, at the end of the day, Elder Sheffield received a box full of dirty underwear, and he was very grateful.

 

In other news, the missionary work in this area has been going pretty well. I've been finding a lot of ways to improve the way I do missionary work, and I'm excited to see some improvement over the next week. =) More bearing testimony. More feeling the spirit. It's going to be great! ^^

 

Um, so, I'm pretty sure that my time isn't all the way up yet, but I don't have much more to say and we'll have to go change our laundry pretty soon, so maybe I'll just log off now, and log back on for a few minutes a couple of hours from now.

 

Thanks so much for reading this! Sorry it's not as insightful as my blog posts usually are. I'll hopefully have something better for you next week. Talk to you then!

 

Love, your fun-having, hard-working missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

 

PS A word to the wise: Don't let your paperwork stack up! We haven't updated our tracting records for almost two weeks and now we're swamped! =S Oh, well. We'll get it all sorted out. ^^ Bye!

August 3, 2010

Dear Home,

 

Probably one of the hardest things about being amissionary is that you're so out of the loop with the rest of the world. Of course, I'm lucky that I have a loving family that keeps in touch with me, but still, comunication isn't always easy. Case in point, I'm visiting Prince Albert right now, and since it was Saskatchewan Day yesterday, we weren't able to Email then. Sorry for the delay. =/

 

Things have been going fairly well here. I believe I already told you about the truck driver (who may or may not still be planning on driving trucks. I think he's doing something else for work right now). He is VERY ready to recieve the gospel, and he wants his family to recieve it, too. ^^ He is what some missionaries would call a 'golden' investigator. I agree with the 'some missionaries'. I really look forward to teaching him more about the church. He sincerely wants to learn, and I know that God is blessing him for that. =)

 

One person that I haven't told you much about yet, though I really should have, is Elder Sheffield. Elder Sheffield is a lot like my younger brother and I are (which is probably why Elder Sheffield and I get along so well). He described me to his family as a red-headed him from California, so I suppose it'd be fair to say that he's a blonde me from Utah. We laugh at each others' jokes (most of the time), and we always love sharing ideas and insights with each other. We think a lot alike. I think serving with him has been helping me overcome a few personal weaknesses that I've been struggling with. One strength that he has that I wish I could gain is that he is amazingly good at giving compliments and being supportive. He is an astoundingly humble missionary, and very charitable. Plus, though this isn't really missionary-related, we share a lot of the same interests. We plan on exchanging Email addresses and continuing to be friends long after our missions. Plus, he (with a little help from one of his John Bytheway talks) has been encouraging me to do something that I've always wanted to do, but doubted if I had enough talent for it: writing a book. It would probably have to be a fiction book. One involving fantasy magic. You know, elves and wizards and the like. That would be so much fun. I'll have to make time for it somewhere later in my life. But in the meantime, I am a servant of God, and that calling requires as much time and attention as I can devote to it. Later, I will be a diligent scholar and employee, then, eventually, a husband. I expect that I'll only get busier as time goes by, assuming I use my time wisely.

 

But in the meantime, my time is up.

 

Love, your day-late, day-dreaming missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts