Nothing is Forever Lost

Dear Family & Friends,

Happy Easter! I don't know about you, but this was an awesome weekend.
I hope you all felt the same. This Easter, like this past Christmas,
felt different than past Easter holidays. In the past all I wanted to
do was avoid the hard boiled eggs and rot my teeth with peeps and
jelly beans. Yeah sure we talked about Jesus, but it hasn't sunk in
until now. There was something special about this General Conference
that really just hit me. A lot was said about families and marriage
and young single adults and returned missionaries staying strong and
faithful...take a hint Elder! Ha.

We were able to watch the first session with the Yi's at their house,
chimichangas in hand (courtesy of Sheila). The kids actually weren't
too bad for the two hours. Derek was so restless he looked like he had
ants in his pants, but they all stayed put and thoroughly enjoyed
listening to living prophets. We are working with especially Kyle and
Derek to be a little more responsible and organized in their
schoolwork and in helping out around home. We talked to them about
cutting back on video games and giving their mom the help she really
needs.

Our teaching pool is all new investigators and recent converts. It has
been quite a struggle to get people to just keep their appointments
and progress. We are seeing success with some less active members or
active members who need a little help getting on the road to the
temple. We had Zone Conference last week and talked about how
missionaries are called not just to baptize, but really we are
"full-purpose" missionaries in that we help with retention,
reactivation, teaching the gospel, member missionary work and temple
and family history work. It makes sense to have us more fully
involved. So currently we don't have a whole lot to report on our
teaching pool. Oh except there's this couple we met that lives on the
site of an old airline hangar. William and Nancy, kind people who
showed an interest in learning a little more. William is a family
history fanatic and we heard from his daughter last night that he'll
bring like 47 pages worth of family history info and what not to
family reunions. So the Spirit of Elijah is active amongst the
inhabitants of the earth. So we're working with them and helping them
feel the power and Spirit of the Book of Mormon.

Right now I'm driving home from center city Philadelphia with Caleb
Coe. We are professional mooches and he was willing to take us. He's
fun to hang out with and I like it here in philly. Oh last Sunday,
Palm Sunday, Elder Bergman and I were invited to attend a Presbyterian
church service with two young women we met at Zwahlen's the week
before. So we made a deal with them that if we came to their church
they would come to ours. So it was a deal. And we made it! Just to
find out that the whole service was in Spanish. Poor Elder Bergman
doesn't understand a lick of Spanish.  Well he understands and knows
like como esta and what not. So we're sitting there with blasting
music which neither of us understand, waving our Palm leaves for Palm
Sunday, and I was feeling very grateful for the truth and for prophets
who teach us how to worship. But at the same time I was also grateful
for faithful people who were coming to worship the best they knew how.

Something I was impressed with this conference was Elder Holland's
talk on Christ and the Atonement. I'm sure we've all felt those
moments when we're slipping off the edge and we reach just a little
further to find the heaven sent help we so desperately needed. When
the great apostasy occurred, God knew that His children living on the
earth would be lost and confused because there really wasn't much to
give them solid direction in life. But He called another prophet to
let His children know that indeed they were not lost. Such is the case
with each of us, if we follow the counsel of one of my dad's favorite
scriptures,

20 "And now, my beloved brethren, seeing that our merciful God has
given us so great knowledge concerning these things, let us remember
him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are
not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our
inheritance; but we have been led to a better land."
2 Nephi 10:20

We are never lost if we reach out to Him. Love you all, have a springy week!



Elder Jake Robins