Matt's letter 9/22/08

Dear friends and family, you should be close to getting in the fields for harvest. I am glad that next year I will be with you for the harvest season. Life for me had taken a serious turn. I am still in Fargo for another transfer but I lost my man Elder Harrison. Elder Durfee went home because he is all done and Elder Imes got transferred to Jamestown. I lost all of my favorite missionaries in Fargo. I got a new good companion, two of them actually. Elder Foster and I are training Elder Dalton. We have a lot of fun together. Elder Foster is from SLC and Elder Dalton is from Prescott Valley Arizona. He is a really cool kid but he is diabetic and not a very stable one. We have to watch him close but he will be a good missionary. Our area is doing well. We had 5 people at church that are baptismal age and 12 people total. We had two African families come that we tracted into. It was nice to have people there again. Today has been one of those days where you wonder what you're doing. I will tell you a short story. As zone leaders we have a conference every transfer at the mission home. It is an awesome experience. Last night which was Sunday night we left Fargo to go to Bismark, which is on the way to Rapid City. It's about 3 hours from Fargo. We went to Bismark to sleep. We woke up to President Cannon calling us. He said not to leave to Rapid City yet. He said he would call that he had decisions to make. We were a little confused. He called back and said to return to Fargo as quick as possible. He told us to go and find Elder K who serves in one of the areas in Fargo. He said don't call him but drive around and find him. Don't say anything other than you need to call President Cannon and hand him your phone. We drove 3 hours back to Fargo did just as were told and at this time Zone Leader council was cancelled. We sat outside the library while Elder K was on the phone with President Cannon. When he was done he walked over and said I'm going home. I screwed up in my last area and had an investigator that turned into more than that and he went all the way. Somehow President found out. We thought our job was done and we could just have another normal P-day. We went home for about an hour. The phone rang again. It was President he said Elders go get back in your car, go pick up Elder K and put him in your car and come to Rapid City. It was about 2:00 p.m. by now. Rapid City is 9 hours away, he said * hope to see you before 9:30 p.m. We did just that and we picked Elder K up and headed off. It was sad to see him without his tag on. He was in his last transfer and is going home dishonorably. I drove for 8 1/2 hours and we made it to Rapid City at 9:30 with the hour that we gained from the time change. President rescheduled the conference so all the Zone Leaders were there when we got there. We had a good fun night. We started our conference the next morning at 7:30 and had it straight through until 10:00 p.m. We left the next day at 2:00 p.m. to head back to Fargo. It is 9:00 p.m. and I am on the freeway about an hour from home. I am tired and ready to get out of this car. It has been a humbling few days. Anyway I hope harvest starts well and I can't believe it's here already. I hope to hear from you all soon. Love Elder Robison