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.