Meeting the Prophet!

guys, it happened. I shook hands with the Prophet of God. Let me tell you how it went down. (It's a really long one, sorry, but it is seriously so worth your time to read!!!)

A few weeks ago, Lorenz Rindlisbacher invited me to come with him to a time capsule opening. He said there was a small chance that Thomas S. Monson would be there.

you see, 50 years ago, Lorenz was in the same ward as President Monson. The time capsule was for the ward they were in 50 years ago. Well he invited me and i said yes as fast as i could!!!

Well, the day came on Saturday the 21st. We got to the church and there was already a lot of people there... maybe a hundred or so. Of those who were there however, none of them were the prophet. Not yet at least... After about 20 minutes talking with Lorenz and a bunch of old guys that i didn't even know it happened. The prophet had entered the area.

Everything was completely silent! he was walking right through the crowd up to the porch where the microphone and his chair were waiting for him. When he got half way the song arose from all of us. we sang "we thank thee oh God for a prophet." He then thanked us, and continued forward til he reached his seat. I remember looking back at Lorenz and he looked back at me. The only thing he said was, "we'll get you to him rob, we'll get you to him" Now honestly, can you seriously just try to picture my face at this moment? i could not have been happier!!! well, i could have, within the hour in fact.

There was a whole program that went on, and if you want details about the actual program just come talk to me. I'll never forget it, i just really want to get to the AWESOME stuff right now!

the program ended, and we said the closing prayer. After the prayer he started making his way back to his car with his wife. i remember thinking to myself, what a great guy. what an opportunity i had to see him this close.... Just then, i felt a push from the back. It was Lorenz! he was pushing me all the way to the prophet! we made it all the way to him and he was shaking hands, so i stood right in front of him. Now he'd either have to walk through me or shake my hand first! ha ha, or his body guard could just push me back, which is really what happened. He pushed me back and said to stick my hand out and he'll shake it as he walks past. So i do just that, but for some reason that i don't really understand, he missed my hand!!! he just kept on walking. My heart somewhat dropped at that point. How was i ever going to get this chance again?! i came within inches of the prophet of God and i didn't even shake his hand!

Just then i hear this from behind me. "President Monson!" (it was Lorenz) after he heard his name, he stopped everything, and turned around while Lorenz finished speaking saying, "I am Lorenz Rindlisbacher, son of (blank) and (blank) Rindlisbacher." Monson looked at him with a huge smile and said, "well what do you know?!?!" (Monson obviously knew Lorenz's parents well) Monson shook his hand, then Lorenz pointed to me and said, "And this is my boy Robert!" Immediately Monson looked at me, shook my hand, and said, "well that's a strange German name!"

(k now just please try to image this scene. I am shaking the prophets hand.... but i have no words to say, i am just totally lost in the moment... i shook his hand forever! i couldn't stop, i didn't want to let go! i just shook it for like ten minutes it seemed like and didn't even say a single word, in fact, i wouldn't be surprised if my mouth was wide open!)

Lorenz told him that i got called to Australia and Monson said, "really! what part?" and i told him Melbourne. (still shaking his hand...) He told me that that was where his own son went on his mission! i was so excited about that! and then i finally got the courage to ask him for a picture, and he kindly obliged. He put his arm around me, and then looked at the phone, we took the picture and then he shook my hand again, said "you'll love Australia" and he walked away.

I had tears in my eyes and a HUGE smile on my face as i walked away. My arm was tingling all the way up to my shoulder and i didn't even want to wash my hand for a bit. I came home and the first thing i did was shake my mom's hand with it, then told her all I've told you. World, it was amazing, i will never ever forget it. It seriously was a chance of a lifetime.

Bike Ride of the Century?

Under popular demand, this blog entry was made possibly by... well actually no one else suggested it but i figured it'd be a good one to do.

Coleton will appreciate this one i hope, if no one else will. well i will too i guess, but here it goes.


So Rog-dog, coleton, jimmy lee, and i were going to go do the triple challenge, however things came up for rogers and jimmy so it was just coleton and i so we postponed the triple challenge for now. (if you don't know what that is, just stay tuned for a future blog entry...)

But coleton and i still wanted to ride our bikes because why not? we are cool, we can find our own little bike ride to have fun on right? Well we did have fun, and it was a great bike ride. Let me tell you about it.


I bring up an idea for the ride that i got after hearing about it from my cousin joe. I said hey coleton, lets go ride the parkway and go as north as it does, then come back. Coleton was all for it. So i get my bike and head over to coletons place. Not too much longer after that we are heading north up the parkway. So this entry would be 6 miles too long if i gave you every detail of the ride so for now I'll just give the highlights and hope its shorter than eternity.


We're riding north and north and north and nothing really all that exciting happens... except for Travis Larson just about killed coleton by running him over! but everyone was all smiles and we pressed on. pretty soon the trail doesn't go north, it starts heading west. or northwest... but at anyrate, we weren't going as far north as i thought we would but we kept going anyways. Pretty soon we found ourselves in west valley. yeah... scary creepy west valley.


Land of gangsta music blasting everywhere and all the guys are wearing shirts 47 sizes too big. but there is one good thing in west valley though! pretty sure its hard to describe without a picture or anything like that, but basically, we went through a tunnel, (that was closed by the way) with a foot of water all the way across the tunnel. you better believe we tanked through that! waves coming out from behind us and up to the sides! it was so cool! but it was kinda hard to petal because our feet were under water half the time! but we were strong and we made it!

Whats pretty funny about it is when coleton saw the water he just stopped... but i just kept going (thinking it was probably an inch deep, no big deal...) halfway through it i hear this, "is there no other way?" yep, that was coleton! but i made it through, then coleton decides what the heck and he follows, he said later on he wish he didn't stop and he just would have kept going like i did... but now we are soaking wet, but we don't care, cause you know what? it rocked!

We kept truckin along westward.. hoping that it would eventually go north... when we found ourselves in a pickle around 21st south. we had 3 choices... choice number 1-we could go on the dirt path on our left, thinking it was the parkway just not paved on this section. choice number 2- turn left on the street and go wherever that leads us, or choice number 3- turn right on the road and hit redwood eventually and head north from there. At this point we figured out we wanted to ride our bikes all the way to the salt lake temple, and seeing how we made it this far anyways why turn around?

So we took all three choices... we did the first one, and it detoured us about a mile around this pond and right back where we started from. we did the second choice and we ended up looking right at the intersection of i-80 and i-15. We also were right in the middle of all the trucking business' headquarters... not really territory to take a bike ride to if you know what i mean! Finally we have to go all the way back to where the pickle started and turned right. We hit redwood and turned north.

We went ALL THE WAY to the 4th south street, then turned right... not too much longer after we followed 4th towards state street, we ended up finding, (believe me, we were kicking ourselves for this) the Jordan river parkway! what a joke, i swear it just disappears and ends up reappearing somewhere... anywho, we continued on til we got to the temple and just chilled outside, and looked for Australian missionaries to talk to. Coleton and I decided that if we found an australian sister, that her companion would be from where coleton is going to go on his mission. We found two. they were both way cool! and their companions were from brazil and minnesota respectively. So there ya go coleton. Brazil or minnesota! So Then the way home wasn't nearly as exciting, we took trax... but our butts were sore, we were drenched in sweat... I'm sure we smelt like the prettiest flower ever seen too! but would i have it any other way? of course not! i wouldn't take that bike ride back ever! i am so proud of coleton and i for being able to do that! we rock kolipoki, and don't you forget it!

Peace out y'all
Keep in touch

Spiritual Thought

I just got back from a little meeting with my bishop today, and we got talking about lots of different stuff. Bishop Furner seriously is the greatest man i know.  I really should take notes from what he says in the office, or even out of the office for that matter. Everything that he tells me is just so great and useful for my everyday life. 

But today in the middle of our meeting he asked a favor of me. He asked me to be available each week to step in and teach a primary lesson if someone doesn't show up. Which of course i don't exactly know how often that happens but they still need someone to back them up if someone doesn't come. So if i do teach it'll be completely off the top of my head, and hopefully spiritual enough for the little kids. 

I guess i had a message on my forehead saying something like, "how am i going to teach if i don't have a night to prepare something up first... do i really have to do this?" He went on to say that this would be great practice for my mission. And he backed up his point by telling a story, (by the way he has a story for any situation, and they all involve a church representative somehow... totally amazing in itself...) and he talked about Thomas S. Monson. He told the story which i wont get into all the details but at the end he basically challenged me to this Monson Challenge. 

This is the challenge. I am encouraged to everyday memorize a scripture, and once a week think up a talk that i could give someone. A spiritual thought that could be brought about in a 5-7 minute period of time. So i took it upon myself to do this. Monson said that if you do it for your whole mission, you'll get a photographic memory by the time your back. It is a lot to take in at once though. It might be hard to just jump into it so I'm going to probably fade my way into it and gradually get better about it. But this blog is going to help me. Each week I'll put some kind of message on it. If anyone reads this really they can give me feed back on what they think. We'll see how it goes though, I'm still not sure how i feel about pouring out my testimony onto the web. But this is what I'll be pondering for a bit... either way, i plan on writing it in my personal journal. Nevertheless, i am taking this challenge to have a spiritual message once a week, and i encourage anyone who is willing to do the same. Let me know your doing it though.

 I love you all

Peace

Birthday Bliss

My birthday is on the 24th this month... and you know, its not all that exciting for me as it used to be. I mean if you look at every kid and ask him or her what her favorite holiday is, i guarantee they either say Christmas or their birthday. Don't get me wrong, i used to be that way too, i just don't feel that as much anymore. My mom recently came and asked me for a list of things that i want for my birthday and you know i never really thought about it. Maybe its because i am leaving in august and have no need for anything way cool and fun. I told her my birthday should be pretty easy this year. Ties, scripture pencils, temple clothes, and other missionary stuff.

Everyone has their significant birthdays too. For lots of people it is 16. Driving becomes a freedom that everybody seeks out. Everyone wants it... then after you drive awhile and pay for gas and such you opt OUT of driving and start riding your bike everywhere instead! Ironic huh. If your lds, 16 is also monumental because you can actually start dating! woo-hoo! the great wonderful experience to go out, and spend lots of money on someone else's wife! Fantastic! I love dating i promise... just not now. I'm not really in the mood for dating like i was when i was 16.

But birthdays. they mean a lot to you when your younger but slowly fade away as time passes. Pretty soon your birthday is just another day. An excuse to hang out? definitely! but still it is just another day of your life, and a friendly reminder that your getting old!

How depressing is that? seriously. I want to just stay the age 17 forever. Can that be arranged? i don't want to grow older. Just another day, and tomorrow will be just like it as well... and the next day, then the next day and so forth. We are all just getting older and more boring lol sometimes at least. Lets avoid growing older though deal? lets be like little kids again. I want to play everyday.... work less, smile more, and hopefully, maybe, i might be able to get to the point where i am excited its my birthday again...

new chapter to embarrassing book

Ode to the embarrassing moments... If you know me at all, you know that i have many many of these. Honestly, my mom is always telling me i aughta just write them down into a book somewhere. So with that i've joked with a bunch of my friends of an idea of something like that. A book of rob's slip ups or other embarrassing junk. How about one of those calandars? you know, the ones that you tear off a page for each day, and there is a little message or picture of some sort one each page. I just need to write down 365 embarrassing moments and i could be a calendar!! wow, that'd be great wouldn't it.
k, well i had quite the experience today. One full of interesting stuff, allow me to enlighten you...

Once upon a time rob had some work pants that he wore to work at macey's. Well these pants had a few little holes in the backside. Rob's mom being the kind lady she is was concerned for everyone who had to look at it... yet Rob being the dumb kid just thought "who's gonna look at my butt anyways?" So Rob's mom takes the innitiative and goes to the store for more pants. She brings em home and throws away the bad pair. Well... the next day rob needs to go to work. So he gets up at 5 to get ready to go. First he takes a shower, then comes back makes his bed cleans his room a bit then finds the new pair of pants.

Well rob tried to put them on... turns out they are two inches to small in the waist. and of course the other pants are long since gone. But rob is running late there is not very much time for many options here. He had to choose to either suck it up or go get his dad's pants which would be wide enough for him, but there just is something wrong with guys wearing capris... I chose to suck it up.

I go to work... feeling so awkward. Please put this image in your head if you dare. Rob is wearing pants that are skin tight to work. If i kneel or bend over at all i am somewhat limited to how much i can do before i hear a rip in the back side. but if i was really careful... and slow... i could do anything i needed to at the job! now add this to the image. The only way to get the pants on is to pull them up clear up to my belly button, thats the only place i could get the button to work... So i get my apron on and get to work. I'm working, hard workin man at macey's... all of the sudden i just feel so sick. I'm guessing its all the pressure on my bladder. You really have no idea, i felt like i was getting stabbed in the gut. I practically was.

So My mom, being the fabulous wonderful and most awesome mom ever sends me a text saying she got new better pants and asked if i wanted them now or not. I said yes as fast as i could. So she says she'd hurry but didn't know exactly when she'd be over. I wait patiently and get back to work. So now your wondering where the embarrassing part is right? well let me tell you, its pretty embarrassing to be seen in these pants in the first place, but the worst is yet to come...

Mom shows up with nothing in her hands. I go and talk to her and i ask her where they were. (totally expecting them to come out of her purse or something...) but listen to this. This was not the answer i needed to hear. "I gave them to emily at the service desk."

Emily just happens to be one of the cutest girls i've ever met. A girl that it took me months to even get the courage to talk to. But now we talk and just kid at each other all the time. can you imagine the fear i have going up and getting the pants? "hey uh... can i get my pants?" no doubt the first thing she would say would be a question of why i need them... oh boy that'd be bad... well turns out everything went fine and it didn't turn out to be as embarrassing as i thought it'd be... but it still was pretty bad.

Thats the embarrassing plug for today, maybe i can dedicate a day of the week for embarrassing stories.. i'll think about that one, but for now, peace out world. Keep in touch. I love you all.

P.S. Congrats to matt ruben, going to perth australia!!! aussies rock! haha way cool, two missionaries in australia from the same ward at the same time!

Life, the way it used to be

So I know this is the second post in the same day and that is all sorts of nerdy... I just have a lot on my mind and I want to get it all out on this post while I've got it there. Remember back in the days where we were all so innocent? Think about it, it all starts in elementary school when you hardly know anything other than the fundamentals you learn in school. No one cares about other religions, or problems of any kind. All you care about is what your going to do at the next recess.

Lets move forward a few years now. You go to Jr. high. As far as I'm concerned, girls still were another species and nothing to really associate with other than homework buddies or something like that. But compare to elementary school, and you notice a lot more things about other people. Suddenly cuss words are coming out of peoples mouths you'd never imagine. You start hearing about kids your age going out and getting involved with sex, drugs, and all sorts of other problems. Separations start to happen. Pretty soon you don't want to be around certain people because they are "different."

Next comes high school. Relationships become normal. Everyone seems to have someone else attached to their hips. Kids get more serious about life. Religions are being all but set in stone, Friends seem to be locked in place, ideas and thoughts of the future and careers are beginning to be developed if not completely done already.

Then you graduate.

How crazy has the past year been. From a death, to a few marriages, engagements, pregnant women, mission calls, kids moving in every direction. Everyone has a different path. Everyone makes choices, and sadly many bridges that connect friends together fall apart.

I miss life, the way it used to be. I miss my friends. Now i realize a good portion of my friends are scattered across the four corners of the earth serving the lord in a great work. I also realize that i soon will be like them all. Out in Australia preaching the gospel to the people of Melbourne. But I am scared.

I don't want to grow up. I don't want people to go off in separate directions just yet. I don't want everyone to be married off, have 12 kids, pick different religions, living life any differently than the way i remember it, or even more than that... i don't want people to die. I've come quickly to having my biggest fear to be to lose the ones i care most about. Whether they be family, friends, pets, you name it. i want life the way that i liked it. Why can't we all go back to the days when there was not any stress other than high school finals.

Minus the drama of the relationships or lack thereof life in high school wasn't so bad. Can't we just please go back to that? Life is kinda stinky. You love it and hate it at the same time. Unfortunately, I do not think it'll get any different at anytime. Life is great, just make sure you look at the glass half full. Keep in touch. I love you all.

vegemite

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is vegemite. let me explain what it is real quick. Vegemite is considered as much a part of Australia's heritage as kangaroos and the Holden cars. It is actually an Australian obsession that has become a unique and loved symbol of the Australian nation. A Vegemite sandwich to an Australian kid is the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to an American kid - but the taste is very different! Its basically an extract of yeast with a few other ingredients... if you really want to learn more just google it up.

It has a very interesting taste... You either love it, or you hate it. Turns out my friend's cousin who went to australia on his mission loved it. Thus he sent it home with him a couple years ago and brought it with him to a party last night. I had some of it. He put it on there nice and thick for the first time, and later said that he would garuntee the other missionaries pulling a vegemite prank on me once i got there.

I was nervous a little but i sucked it up and tried it anyways. and here is what i thought of it... The smell itself was so utterly disgusting. I cannot put into words how bad it smelt, but he put it on some toast for me and i ate it... I didn't hate it, but i didn't love it at the same time. I guess I'll grow on it when i'm out there but yeah. So thats it for this blog, i just thought i'd share this new experience with ya'll... so next time you have something you really don't like, just think..."rob had some vegemite, i can handle this"