Splits and Investigators

What a week! I feel like I was just barely here typing last weeks email, the time is flying by! 

This week I had the opportunity to do splits with our district leader named Elder Lainez (no pictures, I know. boo me) which was such a fun experience. he has a little bit over a year in his mission and we really enjoyed working together. We visited a guy in his sector who several of his kids are members, has received all the lessons, just needs to commit to baptism at this point. His problem is that he wants to know everything before commiting, so we decided to talk to him about faith and how we will never ever ever know everything about the scriptures and the church, we just need to know that it is true and follow in faith. We felt the spirit so strong, we testified a lot, but we cant force him to make the choice. I hope to hear good news about him soon! 

Yesterday at church we had 4 investigators at church and it was awesome! one of them sat next to us and we were able to answer his questions about the church and he seemed to really enjoy it! we have another cita with him this thursday and we are pumped to see what he thought! 

I am so happy to be here! i know this church is true and we are here to spread the light of Christ. the more I study and learn of Christ I am even more blown away by his sacrifice and his love for us. In elders quorum yesterday we were talking about christ and I was for real fighting back tears. I the mission definitely made me a cryer. 

Love you all! 

Elder Roberts

after splits we were meeting up at the bus station and found our companions talking bible with some jehovahs witness, it was a good little chat

for light the world on saturday we did a little public service with the members and it felt soooooooooo good to get my hands dirty (and a little bloody) cleaning weeds and stuff out of the sidewalk and street

I love dogs even if they dont love me

District pizza today for pday. we ate 3 of those big pizzas. me, Elder Sellers, Elder Wright, Elder Pinto, Elder Chamorro, Elder Lainez

Be of Good Cheer

Good afternoon! 

Week one down here in Turubamba, and guess what? its colder than Latacunga! but that is to be expected since my zone is literally on top of a mountain. my sector is called "Oriente Quiteño" and we live in an area called Argelia Alta. We have an awesome view over all of Quito, I took pictures, but naturally pictures just cant do it justice! 

My companions name is Elder Chamorro and he from Huancayo, Peru. he recently completed 1 year in the mission and he is really fun! He is super patient and chill, which is so awesome for me to be around because i really need to learn how to be more like that! he is also really good at english. on wednesday morning he surprised me by says "can we talk in english today?" so we decided that every other day is english day! 

So the week before I got here, Elder Chamorro and his previous companion to decided to drop a lot of the investigators that weren't progressing, so most of our planning this week has been contacting and visiting members to ask for references. we still have a few people that can progress that we have a weekly visit with planned so that is good! 

Honestly i expected the first week in a sector to be harder, but i have really enjoyed it here so far (except for it rains allllllllllll the time lol) and I am excited for more! 

I am so grateful for this opportunity that i have to be here, I know that this is the Lords work and that we are gathering scattered Israel. I know that with faith and hope we can achieve miracles. Be of good cheer! this is the Lords work! 

Love,

Elder Roberts

monday night I had to say bye to Fausto. when I told him I was leaving he responded with a "NO!!" but I got him to smile for a few photos so it was a good few last minutes with him! 

My name is Elder Roberts and welcome to my crib

some of the view from my sector

me and Elder Chamorro (it took us too many times to take this picture) also, behind us is a map of our sector

also on sunday we ate crab for lunch

¡Turubamba!

I finished my 4th transfer! Last night we got the call and I am headed to Turubamba tomorrow morning! I am sad to leave Latacunga and all of the amazing members here, but I am so excited for the next adventure! 

This week we had the opportunity to go out contacting with some of the youth in the ward, it is really fun to kinda show them the ropes of missionary work, as some of them are preparing for their own missions. I was really hoping to get a random lesson from contacting while with them, but we didn't! so we just contacted for a little bit! 

Yesterday our district leader, Elder Reynolds headed off to Quito, and tomorrow morning he is getting on a flgiht for home. he finished! I absolutely loved getting to work with him while he was here, I learned so much about myself, about humility, and showing genuine love by following his example. I was going to include a picture of us together, but I dont have any of just the two of us lol.

anyways, thank you all for your love and support! This is going to be an exciting new week learning a new sector! 

Elder Roberts

The Simple Things

Good afternoon friends and fam!

After last weeks email I might have scared some people about missions, but this week I am going to hype it up a little bit more. I hope!

This is seriously such an amazing experience that I and everyone else have. We get to spend 2 years completely dedicated to helping other people. something I love about my companion is he ALWAYS asks people if we can help them with something. he even lists stuff off! cleaning, painting, cooking, all of it. its so so so awesome that we get to do this. 

I dont really know why, but Latacunga loves parties and that stuff. lots to celebrate here. Yesterday was a big parade RIGHT IN FRONT of the church. for all 3 hours of church there were drums and all kinds of noise, but hands down it was my favorite sunday so far in the mission. here is why. 

During sacrament, one of the members gave talk about keeping everything simple in our lives and relying on the Lord always in everything we do. He shared stories about his life and when he had work and when he didn't, and how his faith would be tested and then strengthed. such an awesome talk. he then said something along the lines of "what have you done in your life to get better?" and the answer needs to be "Everything" 

In our second class we talked about the atonement, and the teacher got so specific but still so simple on the explanation. he didn't explain anything too differently than we would have, but he put so much emphasis on the things that Christ did, and the things he felt. I realized that we need to spend more time focusing on Christ during the lessons,and that is one of my personal goals right now. 

today we went back to quilotoa, which was pretty much the same as last time, but its so crazy to think that I went there 3 months ago. its insane how fast time goes by out here. I am trying to savor every minute that i have, because it goes way too fast! 

that is all this week! Thank you all for your love and support!

Elder Roberts

decided to throw a fat gainer into the lake too... maybe not

also, it rained super super hard this week and my shoes are still drying out from it 

Missions Are Hard

Good afternoon!

This next sentence might be controversial, so buckle up. Missions are really hard. I know, shocker. but let me explain why! 

We all as people have different personality traits and strengths. The Lord wants us to become stronger than we ever think we can become, but in order to do it, he has to make sure we are ready for the changes he wants to help us make. so how does he do it? he breaks us down first. makes us into molding clay where he can construct us into something we cant even imagine. 

today we were with a bunch of other elders and we got into a discussion about the work, faith, and all sorts of cool stuff. Something that was brought up is that on the mission, we sometimes reach the lowest lows of our lives, so that we can grow and become better. and usually its because we are realizing the areas that we can improve and we ALSO realize how important those changes are. 

Recently I have been praying and studying a ton about developing more faith and charity. But something else I need to do better is focus on making the necessary changes to become the missionary that He wants me to be. not the missionary that I want to be, or even the missionary that my parents want me to be. Faith is having the ability to keep on pushing through, knowing that this work is in His hands, and we need to keep on working until we become the mouthpeace he needs for His people. 

anyways, those are my thoughts for this week! nothing too exciting during this week. we had zone conference which was really awesome, but after that we had to stay in the house because of La Mama Negra round 3. so thats cool! 

Love you all and I excited for another week here in Latacunga!

Elder Roberts

Today for p-day we went and looked at a super cool waterfall and we all looked like total tourists.

Liquid Diets and Scavenger Hunts

Good afternoon!

Another week has flown by, and I feel like I have done so much personal learning and growing during this week with Elder Nieto. Our companions truly are inspired and we are put with them for a reason. 

This week we had a lesson with a new investigator named Cinthia. A couple years ago her husband passed away and she has been raising their 3 kids solo ever since. when we first contacted her door we were just talking and she opened up and started crying and everything. she said we could definitely come back and teach her a lesson! During the following week, she talked to one of her friends who apparently is an inactive member of our church. this friend of hers said "The years I spent in the church were the happiest years of my life. I can't say anything bad about it." WOW. Now we dont know why exactly her friend is inactive, but that was absolutely amazing to hear! We are so excited to go back and visit Cinthia again this week, we think she has such a strong spirit and desire to learn more!

thursday morning I woke up with bicicleta, which no, is not a bike. unfortunately. I'll let you guys figure that on out on your own. but anyways, on with the story. The rule in the mission is you need to start a 24 hour liquid only diet, which I was not excited for. when I dont eat, I crash really easily and I get really annoyed super fast. but, thursday was easily our most productive day. we found a ton of new people and I had all the energy I needed all the way until I laid in bed and was OUT. Definitely was blessed with energy to get through the day! 

The ward here had a fun little scripture scavenger hunt on saturday so we stuck around in the church to watch. there were groups of 3-4 people, everyone tied together and some blindfolded. they had to go around and find the hints and all that fun stuff. pictures below.

Faith is following along without knowing all the answers. Sometimes we dont know exactly why we do the things we do, but we do them. As one of my friends in the MTC told me "the lord will give you strength according to your faith." Just keep on doing the small little things, and everything will work out!

Love,

Elder Roberts

I have a little paper on my tag cause I was one of the clues

Spanish Words

Good afternoon!

Not too much to report on this week, so I'll keep this short and sweet. 

first off, a lesson in spanish. there are a lot of words here that we use even when talking in english that I keep typing into my emails and I have to correct so I decided I'll just teach you all those words so I can justify leaving them in my emails. I know. I'm so smart. Fecha means date. Pilas literally translated means batteries, but in Ecuador they use it as like "on the ball" or "killing it." when I think of more words, I'll teach them. 

You all remember Ivan? our golden investigator who asked if he could get baptised? well, talking to him this week we found out that he lives in the sector of the other elders. so we basically handed him over to them. We taught him basically all of the lessons, just one or two more at this point and he can get baptised. 

Elder Nieto and I have been working really hard this week! we found a lot of really cool people that we are excited to return and teach again! We also have a lady named Graciela and her granddaughter with fecha for the 17th of november, so we are also really excited about that! 

Thats all I really got this week, but more to come for sure! 

Elder Roberts

me and Elder Nieto

Me and Elder Nieto again

suprise! me and elder Nieto again (and Elder Cox)