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Excerpts from Mike's Letter Home:

03/15/2004

Dear Family,

Hopefully all is going well for you. This week has been pretty busy as well. We've had a pretty good week, all in all.

Wednesday we went with the First Ward missionaries to Pawhuska. We did quite a bit of service cleaning up a yard (yes, think what a yard looks like in Pawhuska Oklahoma), and helping put some shutters on a house for the Church ranch. In the evening, most of the priesthood brothers came out and we did 5 different exchanges in the evening to his most of the inactives. We had quite a bit of success, and most people had a good evening. I enjoyed getting a little bit more caught up on what is going on in Pawhuska. There have been a few changes, as you would imagine in a year and a half.

On Thursday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leader. I went with Elder Shirley to Tulsa, and Elder Green stayed with Elder Clay (Zone Leader) here in Bartlesville. Nothing too exciting happened on exchanges, except for the fact that everyone we tracted into was pretty friendly. That is a pretty rare occurrence.

If you remember the moving company I once mentioned, "Two guys and a truck". While I was in Tulsa I saw "Two Fellas and a Big Vehicle", so there is some competition. We tracted into a pair of Pentecostal guys. They talked with us for an hour and a half. It was a pretty good conversation, though as usual they told us everything that was wrong with our religion and didn't really respond to what we were saying. We pulled out a few scriptures and they totally didn't even mention their interpretations of them, but just said ours was wrong. So, needless to say it wasn't worth the effort so I didn't do too much talking. Elder Shirley, having been out 8 months enjoyed talking so he did quite a bit. They seemed to be pretty polite though.

Friday, we had something kind of unique. We have a young man in the Ward who is reporting to the MTC on March 30. He is the step son of the first counselor in the bishopric. Well, he had an open house BBQ. It was pretty nice and went well. We got free food and got to see quite a few of people. It is always nice to see that many people show up. We helped set up and take down.

Saturday we worked on our recent convert's house as usual. It is pretty much ready for sheet rocking. The heating/cooling system is pretty much done. The roof sags in a spot, but we don't know how to correct it anymore than we have. I did a lot of sweeping to clean up the floor. I even broke the wooden push broom doing so. I broke the metal joint that holds the two pieces together. They are hiring out the sheet rocking, but the guys that are doing it don't show up reliably so it is anyone's guess when that will be done. After working on the house, we had reserved the club room at our apartment complex and had a Fajita party with the family, the First Ward Elders, and others that worked on the house. It was a nice little gathering, the kids enjoyed table tennis and all went well. We were having the party in honor of Elder Green & Elder Wolfgramm's probable departure.

Sunday we had a pretty spiritual church meeting. The young man leaving on his mission got to talk and tell us about "Preparing for a mission." His Brother from Utah gave a talk, his Step-Father (first counselor in bishopric) gave a talk, his mother and other family did a special musical number. It was a good meeting and went well. His step-father mentioned the mission had to be all the young man's idea since they couldn't even get him to pick up his room unless he really wanted to. His step father also mentioned a little bit about himself, being Catholic for 34 years and converting. It's interesting, he's only been a member for about 4 years and he just seems like he has always been a member.

I got to play piano for priesthood meeting on short notice, but it definitely wasn't one of my better performances. Apparently the brethren don't know "Faith of Our Fathers" too well. Anyways, after that I took the young man who is leaving on his mission and we went to visit one of the CTR classes for a few minutes. They were talking about missionary work, so we came in and the teacher had made them mini missionary badges. That went over pretty well also. A five minute visit to Primary is usually pretty good.

Sunday after church we gave two blessings. It was kind of interesting, since I don't think I have given one for a little while. The first one was pretty routine. The second one I anointed in English, and then the person's son said the blessing in Spanish. So, we had a Bi-lingual blessing. I understood most of what he was saying. But, I would hate to attempt and mess up the anointing, so I did it in English. Elder Green just stood in; even though I am sure he didn't understand the blessing. There is still a great spirit around it all.

I would also like to say that I hope grandma is doing well, and that the attention hasn't died off too much yet. I received a card from her this past week (Scuba diving like missionary work). Thanks so much for caring.

Anyways, I think that is about it from this end. We will be doing quite a few things this week, since Elder Green will probably be leaving. I don't expect to be transferred, but I will let you know if I am. There is quite a bit to do.

Take care, I miss you greatly and wish you all the best. Thanks for all that you do. You truly are the #1 family!

Love,
Elder Mike Robinson