COLD AND SNOW

This up and coming week here in Wisconsin it is supposed to snow and be freezing cold. But what else is new you may ask, well we have kinda gotten 3 new investigators this week. 2 of them are daughters of a less active that we have been working with and the other is the husband of a part-member family. We met with the France family Saturday night and had a good conversation with them. We had dinner with the Rauls family they are all active but Brother Rauls isn't a member, we talked with him about prayer and asked a few questions about him and why he wasn't baptized he gave us his concerns, and we were able to help him out. Now he is considering getting baptized before June so he can baptize his son. Well this week has been a fun one and I am hoping despite the cold this one will be a fun one too. I am really enjoying my Mission and I hope you all have a great week as well. 

Love you all,

Elder Robert Pike

Hey

Hey, how are things going?

 I has been a while since I have heard anything or even given an up date but I figured I should. So in the past 10 months I have had 4 areas and 6 companions (not counting the MTC) I have been from almost the top of my mission and all the way down to the bottom I have had good times and some bad times but all in all it has been fun. So I started my mission in Iron Mountain Michigan(it is in the UP), then I  ended down in Platteville which is the most southwest you can go in our mission, slid over to Janesville where I ended up speaking Spanish, now I am slightly above Madison in a city called Sun Prairie where I am on my second companion who is waiting for a Visa to go to Brazil. This week has been a great one we are just starting to work with some investigators and also we are starting to work with our youth here. We are starting a sports day and trying to get them to invite their friends to come and have fun while we ask the hard questions about the gospel. Last Monday we had a lesson with our investigators, the France family. We were able to teach the Restoration and they agreed with all that we taught.  They understand that they must read the Book of Mormon to gain more knowledge. They are a truly prepared couple they both are having a hard time with their churches and are excited to learn more about another church. They both have really felt the spirit and we are hoping to be able to allow them to be baptized here soon. I have learned a ton so far on my mission and am LOVING the cold Wisconsin Winter. Hope you all have a great week.

Love you all,
Elder Robert Pike

What A Week

Hello

This week has been a crazy one. So it started off last Monday being -22 for a high to today being 42 so the weather needs to make up it's mind. Last week we were advised to stay inside until Wednesday and even then it was only a high of 3. This week we had interviews with our President, it was awesome to talk with him and to be able to find out new ways to progress the work here. We are going to start doing a sports/game days on Saturdays for people to bring their friends to to have fun in a nonthreatening environment. Then we got to have an okay lesson with our newer investigators, the France family. He is a high school teacher and she is from Ecuador. We are going to have a great lesson with them today and we are going to extend a baptismal date for them so pray for us that we may have success. This week is going to be a great one we are going to do a lot of work with the young men. I hope everyone has a great week I love you all.

 

Elder Robert Pike

New Years New Goals

 

 

So this week being New Years our mission need to set some new goals so it was awesome to see our mission collaborate  on goals. This last year we set a goal of 300 baptisms and we achieved that goal and this year we are going to stretch ourselves and baptize at least 400. It has been awesome to feel the spirit here in the past few months as we strived to get 300 baptisms and then this year we are going to do everything by spirit bombing them with the Book of Mormon, our sickle. This week was a good one despite the Packers and Badgers loosing, we were able to find/meet with a family that is interested in the church. We were able to contact somebody that was being taught but moved and he is moving back and wants to be taught and feel the spirit that he felt at our church. So this week has been a good one here is Sun Prairie. I am truly falling in love with this ward. They seem to have the same mentality of the San Miguel ward where everyone is family and they love to have new people enter into their lives. I am excited for the whole state of Wisconsin. They are a wonderful people and have great hearts, but they are very religious and not willing to change but the Lord is truly hastening his work and they will notice the world may be changing but our church isn't and want to find out why. 

I also want to extend a thank you to every one for the gifts and notes and encouragement and prayers.

 

Well I love you all,

 

Elder Robert Pike

Christmas Week

 

 

 

 

Hello all,

This week was a great one we have done a lot of work and a lot of people visited. So this last week we spent the majority of this week at members houses. We spent Christmas Eve with our Bishop and his family. To make you all jealous we had steak chicken and shrimp. Christmas morning out at the Miler family, they gave us some great food and goodies as well, then we got to spend some time with the other missionaries here in Sun Prairie. We then went to the Schrishuhn family and had Christmas dinner with them.   We Skyped after that. Then Thursday and Friday we decided to spread the Christmas spirit to all the less actives in the ward by visiting them. So this week has been great. I love Wisconsin and the people here. BTW today it was -9 this morning. 

Love you all hope you have a great week.

 

Elder Robert Pike


Note from Robert's mom.  We had an absolutely wonderful time talking with Robert on Skype.  We were laughing with him and enjoying him all the way to the end.  Then he said don't cry mom I have to go.  Well you can't tell a mom not to cry.  I did my best and cried after we hung up.  Love this boy soo much.

Merry Christmas

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a great one we got about 6-8 inches of snow Sunday morning so they canceled church. So today we went and played basketball at the church and that is why I sent you the photo of me in snow. I am excited to help some people this week gain a greater faith in Christ. I am excited for the time I will get to talk with people and help them understand more about the Church. I hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Robert Pike

Winter Wonderland

Yolo all,

 

This week has been a good one. We have had a bunch of fun with the Christmas spirit because we got to go caroling and have a ton of fun sharing my faith in Christ with others. This week it probably snowed another 4 inches so we got to do some shoveling this week. Saturday was probably the best day this week. We got to do a lot of service. We helped some people move in and they are ready to listen to the missionaries so we are going to start teaching them. We also had an awesome Christmas party and a bunch of less actives there. They were all excited to be there and to come back to church.

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Robert Pike

 

 

New Week

Dear Family

Well this week has been a good one I got my new companion Elder 'Iongi. He is from Portland OR, He is Tongan and awesome. We have done a lot this week. We had an awesome time this week visiting with a bunch of less actives and had some great spiritual lessons with them. We had a rather funny thing happen to us this week we have had some people let us in and we had some rather interesting discussions about faith and Jesus Christ. One of the people we talked with was a wicken and told us about what she believes and how everything has a spirit that causes us to act and live. She also told us about their prayers they say to worship nature. This was probably the highlight of my week because besides praying to nature she pretty much believes what we believe and she said that she would give reading the Book of Mormon a chance and that she wouldn't mind us coming back. I am loving the craziness that is Sun Prairie. Well everybody have a great week and be safe.

 

Love you all,

Elder Robert Pike

Thanksgiving

Hello,

The past two weeks have been quite some fun and interesting things going on. So my companion got his visa and is getting transferred today so I am getting a new companion today. So the past few days have been spent packing and getting my companion ready so he can go to Brazil. Plus we have been working hard to find new people to teach. We were allowed to go to 3 members houses for Thanksgiving and besides getting stuffed to the brim we had some very spiritual experiences with them. President Monson gave a talk in 2004 about gratefulness and has a cool story about Gordon Green and a Thanksgiving he had many years ago. We have been meeting with a lot of the members here and bringing the spirit of missionary work into their lives. We are seeing some great efforts from the members to work with us. I excited to stay here for longer than one transfer to help the people here grow and becomes strong in faith. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving  and have a great week.

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Robert Pike