Second week in the Mission field.

Hey y'all!
It's doing great down here. So this week went
by so fast! It's already a blur. We've had a lot of people cancel on
us and we've had to do a lot of work just visiting members in our area
because no one has time for us. It just sucks when you spend such a
long time lovingly preparing a lesson for someone who doesn't care or
just isn't home. And they don't feed the members here very much, in
fact I think I've been fed about twice since I got out, so I've had to
spend a lot more money on groceries or just skipping meals. If this
happens again next week I'm making a missionary calendar to pass
around at church next Sunday. So our only investigator that is really
progressing is Pheach from the Cambodian Branch. He's such a cool guy
who really wants this but it's just tough getting him ready for
baptism on the 15 of November because we can only see him on Sunday's
and we talk through a translator. Our area book app stopped working
for the past day or so and so everyone here couldn't save and lost a
lot of info of the past day. It's such a nice piece of equipment but
sucks for 100% reliability. I mean paper doesn't just stop working.
Anyways I joined the mission choir, so I practiced like 7 songs once
and then performed at the mission presidents Devotional on Sunday
night. We watched inspirational movie clips and then in between had a
testimony and then sang, then repeat. It was nice but I wish I was
more prepared for it. As a mission we saw "meet the Mormons" which was
very good. We watched it at the stake center. Yes my bike has two flat
tires which I don't have time to fix so we've been walking everywhere,
which has led to more street contacts but we've been a wee bit late to
some appointments. Our area is small but awesome. There is about half
my area that is designated agricultural land. So each house has like
an acre or less of land but can raise any kind of animals there. It's
so weird to see. The elders before us were butts and I say that
because they left our apartment in such a mess! Each p day we have to
spend most of our day cleaning the nasty messes they've kindly left
for us. Yeah fun. My companion elder Cook has been trying to pick up
on his Canadian accent as he serves with me... And wow is it amusing!
Haha "oh fer sher eh?" Toque and back bacon and dog sled, igloo. You
know. Haha hmmmm lets see... That's about all folks! Thank you all for
the emails and I love to hear about all y'all even if I don't have
time to respond back to all of them.  And yeah I
love you!

Love Elder Patterson

Rob's new mailing address.

Hey everyone here is Rob's new mailing address. 

#3, 2532 south lake park circle, west valley city, Utah, 84119

My first area.

Hi friends and family,

I apologize for my writing as I am getting used to typing on an iPad.
So I'm here in what we call little Mexico because everyone is Hispanic
and don't speak English very well. I arrived by train, the front
runner. That was neat but sadly very short. I got out and met my
mission president and his wife. We got packed up and headed to the
stake center for transfer meeting. I introduced myself and then met my
companion Elder Cook, who is flipping awesome! He's amazing at the
piano and sings and is quiet like me and just a really nice, caring
guy. I bought a bike, got to ride it for
two days and got a flat tire. Yeah not cool. I cleaned out the fridge
cuz everything was rotten, so all we had to eat for the last three
days was cereal and soy milk. Actually wasn't that bad. But yeah the
members hardly feed us because they can barely feed their own families
so we're on our own most nights. We just bought groceries today and I
had to use my Canadian visa to pay, I didn't have enough funds on the
one they gave me. I called the bank and they said the first month I
only get $86. But here's some interesting things. So I did have a meal
with one family this week, the Carters, and get this, we ate a rabbit
and a squirrel that they hunted with their pet mink. Yeah so weird but
actually squirrel tastes really good! Haha ummm so everything I do is
on the iPad, our area book, planner, calendar, everything! We also are
the only set of missionaries who cover more than one Ward. We have the
Jordan view Ward and a Cambodian branch. Yeah didn't think I'd need to
brush up on Cambodian. So I went to two fast Sunday sacrament meetings
yesterday and the one I had a little electronic headset where someone
would translate for us. It was neat! But then we got pulled aside and
were asked to meet with a investigator form the Cambodian branch named
Pheach Phin. We had a translator and slowly taught him about Jesus
Christ and the atonement and finally invited him to be baptized... And
he said yes!!! Ahhhhh I've been out six days and so many blessing have
happened. A part member family we work with and almost all the
families we met this week came to church and it was awesome!!!!! Ahhhh
I love it here and I love these people already. I love y'all at home
too now don't worry. Sorry but I have to go now. Pday is almost done
and we have to go help someone move after we eat. Love you! Keep
sending emails!

Love Elder Patterson

General Conference weekend.

Here is Rob's email from today. 

Hello family and friends. As an update, I leave on Tuesday morning to catch the train to get to my area, I will miss it here at the MTC,  I'll miss my teachers and roleplay experiences and spiritual experiences and especially miss my district here. Its amazing how quickly and strongly the spirit can bind friendships. I have come to love everyone in my group. There's Sister Brown, Sister Pontius, Sister Anderson, Sister Howard, Elder Greer, Elder Hernandez, Elder Willden and myself. Okay our district found the mystery tree that smells like cream soda and bubble gum here on campus. A rumour went around that there was a tree that smelt like cream soda and bubble gum so in our free time walking to and from class we sniffed trees till we ACTUALLY FOUND IT!!! haha yeah not that exciting. I have been being made fun of for my accent already and the way I say sorry, about, touque, eh, you know all the good stuff. But before I go I have a spiritual thought for you. In class our teacher was explaining how to learn from the scriptures in a very personal way. He wrote an equation on the board, Read-Insight-revalation-repentance/change (those dash marks are supposed to be arrows pointing to the next word on their right) and then he gave us some scripture to read and asked us to share our thoughts with the class after we tried this formula out. I read in Ether 12:4 and as I read it I saw the words Hope and Faith stick out. As I re-read this verse and pondered it I felt inspired to write something down, and this is what I wrote... "Hope and Faith will not feed doubt. It will feed charity, the pure love of Christ, leading us to serve Gods children, always abounding in good works." so I just read it and rearranged it in a manner that meant more to me personally. So I read, received insight and revelation for me, now what to do about the last part where i try to change to become better. So I wrote this for my repentance /change part... "Step out of my comfort zone, share those truths I've prayed and received witness of, know that God will prepare His children to partake of His infinite mercy and love, after I put in work and faith to invite all to come unto Christ, through revelation of the spirit." I had never read the scriptures like this before and I have never gotten so much out of them before yesterday. This experience has grown my love for the word of God and it has become delicious to me, kind of how like chips are. haha I invite you to try reading the scriptures with that same formula and to write back what you got out of it. I love ya'll very much and appreciate reading your emails! 

Love Elder Patterson

Here is a picture of Rob singing in the MTC choir during the Preisthood Session of General Conference! It's great to see him.