Brighton...The Happiest Place in the UK

      I am glad this week is over.  We literally spent all week trying to find people to teach and saw 0 success, so it was a long week to say the least.  We have set goals and made plans to have a successful week this week though.  Missions are really hard, I had always heard people say that before and during my mission, and until now I never really agreed with them.  I hadn't really had a hard time on my mission yet.   The hardness I am experiencing now is totally different though.  We have no one to teach and we are trying so desperatly to find people.  We had correlation last night (the missionary meeting w/ the ward mission leader to discuss the work) and the WML had mapped out the work in Brighton over the past year with the number of lessons taught, baptisms, basically all those statistics stuff.  I came in right when everything was at its peak.  We were teaching more than they had all year, we were baptizing a lot, and we were just doing really good.  Every companionship was at its peak, so I didn't see the hard side of missionary work.  But boy am I seeing it now.  Missions are a learning and growing experience and definitely are a trial of your faith.  Our faith has been tried so much this week, every door we knock we say we have had enough rejection and our faith has been tried enough, success will come at that door, but it never does.  This week we do have so much faith though.  We set the goal to have 2 baptismal dates by the end of this week, where those will come from, we don't know yet, but we are going to try harder than we ever have our whole missions and we know that we will be able to achieve that.  This week was really bad numbers wise, we only taught 9 lessons (usually we are teaching around 15 a week), but we aren't letting that get us down.  

     On Thursday night accounting Elder Green was really worried about us I think, we had literally spent all week finding, so we had no numbers to even account for, but he said last night after accounting that he was really impressed with us.  We aren't letting this get us down, this is the time we have to find people.  I got a letter from Grandma and Grandpa Smith this week and in it there was a magnet that they sent which basically said the key isn't to change our circumstance but to change our attitude.  That is so true.  Attitude is huge out here.  It is something Sister G and I are working on this week.  We are going to have a happy attitude to everyone we talk to, we really do think that that will make a huge difference.  There are thousands of people here, and I know that there is one person waiting specifically for us to find teach and baptize, and we are going to find them this week :) 

     Well this week we also had some pretty funny things happen.  

On Monday I got to take a nap, which was great.  Then we went out to do some shopping and it started pouring down rain.  The weather here has been so weird this week.  It will be sunny and warm one minute then raining and hailing and windy the next, you can never predict it.  But Monday when we went out shopping it started raining really hard, we were walking along the street and a car drove through a puddle on the side of the road and my legs got soaking wet.  I thought that only happened in movies.  Nope, happened to me, multiple times this week.  So that was fun. 

     Tuesday we had our interviews with president.  The Brighton chapel was having work done inside of it, so we had to take a bus out to Eastbourn to do it in their chapel.  That took basically all day.  But my interview was really good.  I was really scared for it, because I had heard different stories about president and he kind of scares me.  But he said everything I needed to hear.  The interview was really good and I came out of it feeling a lot better than I did when I went into it.  It is sad to think I only have one more interview with him probably before we get the new president, I wish I could have the same president my whole mission, but I obvisouly have something to learn from the new one and I am excited to see that change. 

The Sisters in our district/zone at President Interviews.  We were all wearing navy blue that day!

     After the interviews we were on the bus going back to Brighton and I was just talking to Sister G, and all of a sudden the guy behind us taps me on the shoulder and asks me where I am from.  He proceeds to ask me on a date...that was awkward.  He asked if I wanted to go get coffee, and I told him I don't drink coffee, so he asked if I wanted to go get ice cream.  We tried to explain to him we are missionaries, but he is from Iran and hardly spoke any english so he didn't understand at all.  He proceeded to go on about how he can't find anyone to date...I had to do all I could to not bust up laughing right then and there, it was hilarious!  #awkwardmissionarylife 

     Tuesday night we have 'doc n choc' a little class we do with investigators, ward members, and recent converts.  It was the elders turn to teach and so they taught about satan and his "fiery darts" and keeping our shield strong against him.  To demonstrate they had me stand on a chair with a little cardboard shield and everyone there got to throw those plastic fruits at me...I swear the elders just wanted to beat me up.  But I don't have any bruises, so thats okay.  It was funny though.  

     Friday night we had a big Chinese new years party so we helped with that for a lot of the day.  We had a whole bunch of Chinese food, it was so good!  It was a really fun night, the Chinese elders did a really good job.  

Happy Chinese New Year!  Elder William, Lewis and I 

     Saturday we went out and did some contacting.  The church has what is called AUP files, they are members who they lost track of but then they find their addresses through different stuff, so basically us missionaries have to go track them down and try and get them to come back to church.  Less Active work, but more extreme because they have been lost for a long time.  We did that for 3 hours because you have to knock 10 doors for each one you go to, and we saw 0 success.  It was freezing cold, and we walked forever to get there, it was miserable.  But we got back to our flat and had 5 minutes before we were going up to the Deans to have dinner, so we decided to call some former investigators from our area book, and guess what, we called 4 and 3 of them set return appointments.  #areabookmiracles So that was cool and they have all been taught everything, we just need them to feel the spirit and live some commandments and then they can be baptized!  Hopefully we can see success from that. 

     Those were the highlights of my week I think...sorry my brain is all scattered lately.  

     You keep saying you want to hear about lessons, so here are some we taught this week (remember they were slim haha)

We taught Tosin about the Book of Mormon because he isn't reading it, he is reading the bible.  We showed him the clip of Elder Holland bearing testimony of the Book of Mormon with the Joseph Smith movie playing in the background, which is such a powerful video, but we showed that to him and the spirit was there so strong.  Well every lesson we teach Tosin the spirit is there so strongly, he is such a solid member. 

     We also taught a lesson to Ian and Liz, the recent convert older coulple, about eternal marriage.  That is always exciting to teach people about the temple.  Well those were the two lessons that I enjoyed the most this week.  Teaching is fun, I like it a lot better than finding, but then again every missionary does.

     I got your package this week Finally!  Thanks so much for everything in it! Jack's letter and picture made me cry...I showed it to my district and they all thought it was cute...but remember I still have 14 months, no need to make banners yet ;)  

     Well I love you guys and appreciate everything you do for me!  I love it out here.  I actually had a dream last night that all of a sudden my mission was over and I was home and it was really scary.  It was like the last 18 months of my life just flashed before my eyes.  It really scared me, I don't want to ever come home, this is such a great lifestyle.  Thinking about others all the time and how you can serve them is such a great way to live.  

The gospel is true.  Remember that :)

Love,

Sister Robison xx (the XX means like love over here, everyone always puts it after everything...every text to anyone you put it...so that is why I put it...) 

Oh and Brighton was named the happiest place in the UK, so I am basically at disneyland...except its not disneyland...

So we had 2 huge spiders in our flat the other night...we killed one of them, but then the other went behind the counter, so we used my hair dryer to try and get it out, it didn't work and we still don't know where it is!