January 8, 2018 - New year, New investigators, and a forgotten email

Hey everybody! I totally forgot to send out an email last week so sorry about that. Elder Pouwer and I have seen so many little miracles in the past two weeks. It's been super cool to see how much the Lord has been preparing the hearts of all these people. The past two weeks I have been working on having more faith and listening to the Holy Ghost.  I was able to go on my first two exchanges the past two weeks. They are a lot of fun and it's cool to see what other missionaries do throughout the day.  I had my first interview with my mission President. I passed and went on my way.

Some days are super slow and others we are packed. It seems like it's either a hit or miss there's no in between haha. Depending on the day we could have more than 4 lessons and a ton of other stuff to get done or we are finding all day. I enjoy it all though.

It's fun going out and talking to people because half of them tell us the same thing and so I'm pretty sure other churches around here might be very anti Mormon. The other people we talk to are so nice and we have some pretty good conversations with.

I love the lessons because you become so close with some of the people. We have a great family that we are teaching right now. We have a few other super good investigators that are doing so well and loving everything they are learning.

I’ve grown so much while I've been out here. I’ve learned a lot about life and I've created some habits that will hopefully last for life. My favorite habit is reading the Book of Mormon. You can gain so much knowledge from it about pretty much anything. It has helped me the past couple months, it has helped my investigators so much. I know it well help all of you guys too. If you aren't reading it at the moment I would challenge all of you to start. Not only will it make you happier but it will help give you guidance too. I love it out here in Oregon and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. Love you all and hope you have a great week! -Elder Robbins
Other info from Tyler:

This past week was a great week. We have been so busy though. I'm starting to love the mission more and more. At first it was kind of hard getting used to everything. Now it's just another wonderful day haha. The hardest thing for me to get used to is talking to all of the people. I'm getting better at it though haha. It's crazy how many people just say no or something along those lines when we just say hi. (Upon further questioning) Lots of people don't say hi back they just say no or tell us to go away. It's kind of pathetic. I think that other churches are teaching people how to get rid of Mormon because they know we're right haha.

• I always feel like there is somebody else there with me. I don't think I could get through a day on my own and have as much energy as I do throughout the day. 
• They had 11 investigators at church yesterday!!!  A couple (same one they brought food to a few weeks ago) that are going to get married on February 14th!  It'll be 15 years to the day that they got engaged. They taught them about eternal marriage.   Another lady came that is doing great. She is trying to stop smoking but has said this time it's with God's help.  Tyler and Elder Pouwer's brought her dumb dumb suckers to help:)  Tyler says - It's very hard to stop smoking though I would imagine. She is married he isn't interested at the moment but her dad is! She brought her daughter last week but she was sick this week.  They are going to pizza on Tuesday with this family and her father. And lastly a family with 5 kids came!  Tyler says they are a great family! The dad has had a rough past but he is one of the nicest guys! They are changing their life around though.
• They gave a blessing to a 1-yr old twin this past week.  He's not sure how he's doing now.
• Yes get fed every night and some sometimes lunch too.
• We do exchanges 2 times a transfer (every 6 weeks) just so the district leader can see how we are doing. 
• (For the car)We have something called tiwi basically we have to have a card that logs into the car so they can track if we are driving too crazy. I don't have my card yet.
• The interviews are pretty short like 10-15 minutes. We just talk about how I was doing. How Elder Pouwer is doing. How the area is doing. I learned a lot too. I like my mission President a lot. 
• The weather really isn't too bad right now. It's just a light rain it's almost a mist. I've never felt it in Utah it's a weird rain.
• We walk to less active members homes or potential investigators and just talk to people along the way. There aren't always people out but on nicer days there usually are.