FELIZ NAVIDAD ÑAÑOS

Ok, so this week was going great until Saturday night. I started feeling super sick and started throwing up. We called it a day and went back to the house early and I was throwing up super hardcore and I started freaking out. After 2 hours of only throwing up I went to the emergency room and suffered there. Fun way to wake up the mission President at almost the middle of the night to tell him you are in the e.r.....I found out I had a bad stomach infection. I was pretty bummed out because I was super sick and I wasn't able to go to church yesterday. But I am starting to feel a little bit better. 

Holy cow, San Roque es la mama! It is pretty hilly here, but I am not walking up and down mountains all day, I am walking up and down a volcano all day. el volcán Imbabura. It is kind of hard for my leg, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

My sector is so crazy. It is awesome. There are a ton of people in my sector that literally don't speak any Spanish. It is actually kind of hard. We want to talk to people in the street and stuff but they don't understand us. haha. There is like one latino family we are teaching, but they don't like going to church because they don't understand what's going on. 

The church is sooo strong here. Otavalo really isn't super big, but there are 2 stakes here and I think they are going to put a 3rd one in combined with Ibarra sometime in February. The members here are super strong. They are hard to baptize but when they commit they commit and stay strong in the church. We went on divisions this week and I am new to my sector and stuff so I was like ok lets talk to that family in the street. Every contact I have had in the street so far has been members.....lol. But it is awesome how strong the church is here. It is awesome. I love Otavalo, I just hate being sick. It is the worst. We are going to have a white Christmas. We are going to have at least 2 baptisms this Saturday. I hope you all have a great week and remember the birth of our Savior, the King of Kings. I share my testimony that he is the Son of God and he has come here to save us from ourselves. 

Love,

Elder Roberts

 Pictures from our Zones Christmas lunch at the mission home from last week.

SAN ROGUE, OTAVALO

Ok, so today was changes, I was super sad to leave Tulcan, as always it was super hard to say goodbye to everyone and leave behind four and a half months of memories and work, but I am so stoked to be here in Otavalo, I have been hoping my whole mission I would be here and I am finally here. I am with Elder Quispe from Peru, he seems really cool. Here the streets are just filled with Indians in their cool indigenous clothes, all the guys have ponytails, and my companion tells me that all of the church meetings including the sacrament and ward council are in Kichuwa. I will finally be able to put the little Kichuwa I know in use! I am so pumped!

For those of you who haven't been following my blog much, when Spencer W. Kimball came to Ecuador he said that the Otavalians have the purest lamanite blood out of any other group of people in the world. They dress differently. All of the men have ponytails including in the church, for example some of my past wards have had priesthood leaders with ponytails. The missionaries that leave from Otavalo also have permission to keep their ponytails, we have one in our mission. They speak a different language, and the culture is different, and I have had a special interest in them my whole mission and I am super stoked to be here.

Yesterday was the Primary Program, it has been the first Primary Program that I have seen in my whole mission and it was super awesome. It was the cutest little thing in the world. I ended up getting to play violin which was super awesome. Romel wasn't able to get baptized, but I know that I could help bring him unto Christ and hopefully this week or the next I will be getting a picture of him wearing white. 

Four and a half months in Tulcan without baptizing made me kind of sad, but I know I worked hard and I did what the Lord needed me to do there. There are so many ways to help bring others unto Christ, whether it is reactivating less actives, getting future investigators ready for the next missionaries, strengthening the branch, helping the city become more receptive to the missionary work. I can look back with happiness for my time in Tulcan.

Not really anything interesting to say, I am hoping you are all getting ready for Christmas. have a great week. 

Love,

Elder Roberts

 Me with my friend from the hardware store

 The primary

Elder Veliz and I 

 Carina our investigator

mis amigas 

 The rest of the pictures are me saying good by to my friends in Tulcan

EXTRANO COMIDA DE MI PAIS

So, this week we had the opportunity to go down to Quito to go to the mission house and have a Christmas lunch/dinner with President and Sister Richardson and it was amazing. I loved it. I could feel a special spirit there of Christmas. My mission President and his wife are the best, they are so loving and have helped me a ton and Sister Richardson knows how to cook. The food was so good. I have gotten so sick of eating plates of rice and beans every day for lunch. It was awesome eating turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, salad, brownies, ice cream, it made me trunky for American food lol. In other news our lunch this Thursday will be chicken and I have been the one selected to kill the chicken, should be fun. 

I was super sad to read about what happened in Lakeville with the Nerf War. That made me terribly sad to know that 2 kids from my High School died this past week in that tragic accident. I don't understand everything at all about why Heavenly Father gives us some of the trials we have,but I testify he lives and that his plan for us is a plan for happiness that we can have the peace and hope that we are going to be eternal families and live forever with our Heavenly Father if we love him and keep his commandments. I pray that Lakeville can rise up from this and that Christ can shower his mercy and grace upon those families affected.

Not much happened this week. We weren't able to baptize Romel, but it is looking very promising that this Saturday he is going to get baptized. I am going to pray my soul out for him that he can be ready. We have changes next Sunday and I think I am going to leave and I would love to see Romel get baptized before I go. He is such a stud! This less active that I helped reactivate in my time here received the priesthood last week and he didn't have a white shirt or a tie, so he got a white shirt and I gave him one of my best ties and I saw him bless the sacrament yesterday and it was awesome. I almost started crying when I saw him hand the tray to his son. I hope this family can go to the temple soon to be sealed for time and eternity. I love the rewarding moments of being a missionary. It is such a blessing for me to be here. I hope you all have a good week and are enjoying this Christmas season.

Oh and my sister is getting married soon asdlkfjaslñdfkjasodifuas dpfasdfklajsdfasjdfaslñdfjkasdflkjasdfljasdfa. that is all I know what to say. 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Me from Presidents house looking over Quito

 Me with Pres.and Sis. Richardson

Chillin with Elder Jeffery and Elder Whetten on the bus

Dios ama a TODOS sus hujos

SO this week I had a toooonnnnn of crazy experiences with drunk people. It is interesting how they just come up to us because we are missionaries and just start unloading all of their problems and there is nothing we can do to help them because they are drunk. We had a guy named Dante tell us he was Satan and he tried following us back to the house and we had to like do laps around the city for him to not follow us and finally he ran into a group of other drunk people and got distracted there and we left.

I was able to help out someone with a history of being drunk this week. We went to the rehab clinic where Romel is at and they received some new people. There is a new man probably 40 years old there who has a super messed up face, he is all cross eyed and stuff because of his drinking. My companion and I shared a message with like the 50 people there and afterword's we went to know this new guy better. I felt so sad for him seeing how drinking cost him so many things. He told us thanks for our message and he seemed sincere. He then told us that he knows he is a child of God. This simple phrase penetrated me. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I had on this mission. This man with many problems knows his true identity of a child of a loving Heavenly Father. I know Heavenly Father loves all of his children without exception perfectly. It doesn't matter what we have done in our past. What matters is who we are now and who we are becoming. I know God loves this man a lot and I am happy to be here a little longer to work with him.

Speaking of the rehab center, Romel went to church and had his baptismal interview.......and HE PASSED!!!!!!!!! If things work out he could be getting baptized this Saturday. What a miracle! I hope he can get baptized so bad, I have seen him turn his life around. He understands what the Atonement is and what it means. Please Pray for Romel Argoti that he can enter the baptismal font this Saturday. 

I didn't realize it was Thanksgiving until the end of the zone meeting we had in Ibarra this Thursday when a new missionary was like happy Thanksgiving. I was like holy cow its already Thanksgiving. this Friday we are going to go to Quito to have Christmas lunch with President and Hermana Richardson as a zone, so that should be awesome.

I hope you all had a great and amazing week. It is good to hear from you all. Enjoy the cold while I am here in the Ecuadorian sun. hahaha

Love,

Elder Roberts

 Me with la familia Solano

Elder Veliz attacked me

Pablo

  I am in a beautiful mission

 It took me an hour to walk here after taking an hour bus from the middle of nowhere

There is a big volcano in those clouds

Caminamos en Calor o Lluvia

Well, this week was great. It is cloudy here basically every day, but this week it was raining super hardcore. On Friday the rain just poured down like no tomorrow as we were contacting in a part of our sector on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere. My companion was like lets go back to the house there is nothing to do and I was like, hey the people will feel more sympathetic for us. 10 minutes later as we were just soaked in the cold rain and walking down a muddy swampy street this guy waved us down who was like working under a tarp painting a door. We walked over there and he let us chill under his tarp gave us some herbal tea and bread and then we explained what we were doing. We ended up teaching him lesson one. It was pretty sick.

There is this older man that has a little hardware store by our house and he lived in New Jersey for a year and always wants to speak English with me ( even though I don´t understand anything he says). Anyways we were talking with him and then we talked about religion and then we taught part of lesson one focusing on the apostasy hardcore and he is convinced Joseph Smith was called to be a Prophet.

This returned missionary that lives by our house is always making out in the street with his girlfriend as we are walking back to our house in the night and we walked by and they said hey elders and we were like hey when can we teach you about God and she said tomorrow. We went with him and his girlfriend the next day and she now has a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true and is progressing for Baptism. 

I played the Violin this week in Church. It was awesome, I played Come Thou Fount. I started low and super slow and it was peaceful and then I tried to mimic the actual song that when the men come in it is super strong, so I did a cool key change a lot more stronger and it was amazing. I felt the spirit super strong. I am so glad I can share my talents with the people here in Ecuador because quite frankly violins don´t exist down here, there aren´t pianists here in the church, music isn´t the same at all here, I think the Lord has helped me share the Gospel in a unique way. I am so excited to get back and play my viola. yay.

I love the mission. I love all of you, I would love to hear how you are all doing. If you haven´t written me, repent and do it. I miss you all, but the mission is going by waayyy too fast and I am going to take advantage of every minute I have representing Jesus Christ our Savior and King in this beautiful country.

Love,

Elder Roberts

me in front of the University of the province Carchi

 I guess you could say I am addicted to avocado

Elder Jeffery, my best bud on the mission

My priesthood line of authority in Spanish

So we had a pioneer recognition activity in Ecuador, the church this year is celebrating fifty years in Ecuador here. All of the members here in Tulcan that have 30 years or more years as members got a certificate at a ceremony this past Saturday ( which I also played the violin for). I played Come Come ye Saints.

siento tonto

Ok, so for a fun fact I found out that Roman, the investigator that I have been working a ton with lately, well his name isn't Roman, it is Romel. I was like hey can you write your full name here and he wrote Romel and I was like wait isn't your name Roman. and he is like no. And I was like what the heck, why didn't you ever correct me and he is like I thought it was funny how you said my name, you gringos are funny........

That is cool that you guys had the stake conference there in Minnesota. We had district conference yesterday and we had permission to go down to Ibarra to attend. Our zone ended up singing a musical number and I got to conduct the song, it was pretty cool. They talked a lot about the Sabbath Day. Interesting about the church release of Gay Marriage. It is interesting how in the states how it is a big deal and everyone debates and stuff and down here everyone just straight up accepted that it is super wrong. 

Romel is doing awesome. I honestly feel like I was sent to Tulcan just to help him out, for real. I have learned on the mission that everything has a purpose. I hope I can stick around here long enough to see him get baptized. We have intermediate changes in a week and I already have a lot of time here so I think it is possible that I will leave, but I hope not. I really want to see Romel get baptized it would mean the world to me. This man understands the Gospel. He wants to live it, he is anxious to live it. He is an amazing example to me. When I think of him I think of one of my favorite chapters in the Bible in Luke 15. 

I hope you are all doing amazing. The mission work is amazing. I love Ecuador. The time is flying by waaayyyy tooo fast.

Elder Roberts

NO SEA CHUMADO

This was a great week. For starters yesterday before lunch I was playing with our mamita´s grandson, I love goofing off with the kids and he punched me in my bad leg and I was like ooooowwwwwww.  He asked me why it hurt and I told him it was my bad leg then he pinched it right where my scar is. Needless to say it was really fun to walk the rest of the day

I had the most craziest experience with a drunk person this week. My companion and I were hauling back to the house from a family home evening late in the night, we had like 10 minutes to get in the house and this drunk guy was like hey, we ignored him and kept on walking and then he ran in-front of us and like grabbed my companion so we listened to him. He started bawling and with tears just running down his face he was like I need your help. We were like ok how can we help you. He told us we needed to stop him from doing something bad, we were like what are you going to do and he said I need to kill my sister. He started shouting I need to kill her, I need to kill  my sister. I want to kill her so bad. Everyone on the street was just staring at us, and we were like yeah uhhh don´t kill your sister. Then he like knelt down and hugged my companions legs and was shouting help me kill her, help me kill her, and my companion was like do you want our help and he said yeah and my companion took his alcohol out of his hand and poured it all onto the sidewalk and threw the bottle against a brick wall and it shattered. Lets just say this drunk guy got super mad at us and we hauled out of there super fast. If you are reading this and have a problem with drinking repent and get help. 

We had a MIRACLE THIS WEEK. Roman finally got permission to go to church with us. It was freaking amazing. He felt so awesome there. Probably the best question I have been asked on the mission was asked after church when we were heading back with Roman to drop him off at rehab, he said when can I get baptized? I really want to get baptized? Can I be a missionary? and we were like why can´t all of our investigators be like him. It is amazing to see how the atonement has changed his life. I know God is a God of miracles it was absolutely amazing that he could be in church. What a miracle!

I hoe you all had a good week! keep me updated how things are going. 

Elder Roberts

Ecuador

I am pretty sure the real Jesus isn´t black 

LA MISION ES LO MEJOR

I got the picture of Clayton with the short hair. Made me sad. I got a haircut today, nothing super exciting. hahaha. By the way a haircut here is usually between a dollar fifty to two fifty. Be jealous. 

Yesterday was changes and all the 6 of us in Tulcàn are staying! It is awesome being in a district of just elders 3 hours away from the closest misioneros.  It is a party and a brotherhood here.

This week went by way to fast, it was pretty cool. This family that lives way out far away we are able to visit. I feel so special to have known them and everything, they have come to church for the full three hours the past three weeks and they are doing awesome. I found out that my sector is almost the whole province of Carchi. The southern limit of my sector is the province Imbabura. and my sector goes west to the province of Esmeraldas. yikes. hahaha. 

I was super happy in sacrament meeting yesterday. This inactive family that elder Damian and I contacted has been progressing poco por poco and this week we had some major progress with them. Last Sunday Bryan their 14 year old son received the Aaronic Priesthood and yesterday for the first time he passed the sacrament and their little daughter went up and shared her testimony. Last night we went to their house and shared a video about the family and everyone was crying and for the first time it really clicked for them the importance of having a temple marriage, so they now have the goal of getting sealed. I love how the gospel blesses families. 

This week everyone in the branch was sad about changes and thought I was going. I had like 5 people cry and tell me that they are going to miss me playing the violin in church. MOM THANKS FOR MAKING ME LEARN TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT. I love music. I love my viola. When I get back I want to play my viola for like 4 hours right after I get released. 

I love you all. Have an amazing week. with a big abrazo (hug) from Ecuador ( the best country in the world) 

Elder Roberts

Tulcan

 

Cemetery

 Cemetery

 Tulcan

 la famlia ordoñez

 I think my smile was a little to big

 la famlia portilla, with brother portilla wearing my tie that I gave him

Roman and Me 

 Elder Whetten

It hailed here super hardcore and looked like minnesota

el centro de nada

Well this week, was pretty cool. Elder Castro and I are working well together. At first I was pretty intimidated because he is the 2nd oldest missionary on the mission and is 7 years older than me, but now I feel more normal about it. 

The super sad news is that we couldnt find Genesis or Monica this week. We called like 4 times every day and they didn't answer and we coudn't find them and they didn't come to church, so we are trusting the Lord is taking good care of them and in his own time will help us do what we can to help them in the buen camino. 

We had a zone conference in Otavalo this week with another zone in the mission and we were walking towards the chapel, I saw in front of me some missionaries that looked somewhat familiar, as I got closer I realized it was my first companion, my trainer, my father, the famoso Elder Morgan. I ran up to him and hugged him so hard. It was so cool to see how he was doing and to pass the day with him. He was such a good companion.

 My "Father" companion, Elder Morgan

 

Saturday we had a visit in the city San Gabriel which is part of our sector but it is like an hour to the south so we really haven't gone there because our mission President told us we should focus on the work here in Tulcàn. So we went to San Gabriel for the first time and found this less active that came to church two weeks ago.  We didn't know San Gabriel so she told us to find her at the bus stop. She was like alright we are going in a taxi to my house. Turned out her house was in the absolute centro de nada, middle of nothing (no where) I don't know how to say no where in Spanish. lo siento. anyways, their family is super humble, such a sweet family, but I was kind of upset thinking wow it is going to take us an hour and a half to walk back to the main road and then an hour in a bus to get back and we aren't going to be able to do anything today and I viewed this lesson as a burden, but then I was thinking it was a burden for them to come to church. They have to wake up at 3 in the morning to leave their house at 4 to get to church and they are super ppoooorrrrr. They spend like all their money to get to the chapel and go back. I felt the Spirit slap me in the face and then I got super grateful that I could be able to go to their house. They never have anyone visit them and they were so happy to have us there, it was such a blessing. I am grateful that the Lord Humbles us and lets us see the good in everything we do. 

Thanks so much for the letters, emails, and goody boxes, keep them coming.  Have an amazing week and a Happy Halloween. I love you all.

Elder Roberts

 Me with some cure kids.

My new tie