ESTAMOS VIENDO MILAGROS

So, we are seeing some absolute miracles here in San Roque, I feel like all of the hard work I have been putting into my mission is really pàying off,. Right now my companion and I are seeing the fruits of our labors and it is perfect timing too because next week are changes.....It will be sad to see what happens, I am going to miss Elder Quispe.  We have had some hard moments, but mostly some super amazing moments.  He has been an amazing companion. It will be interesting to see what changes bring. I think it is more probable that he leaves since he has four months here in San Roque and that I receive another Elder, but we will see. My mission isn't like other missions.  Here we receive the call for changes at like 11 at night on Sunday and then we have to be in the bus station at 9 in the morning on Monday, so we don't have any time to say good bye to anyone

THE FAMILIA CORDOVA TITUAÑA IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON FRIDAY. ASLKDJFASLDKFJASLDÑKFJASDFLKJASDFLÑKJASDF. IT IS going to be so awesome. Like, they are the perfect family of Gold. I have prayed and prayed and prayed and hoped and dreamed of finding a family like them my whole mission and here they are. They have been so ready to change their lives and in this little time we have had with them they have already changed a ton. It was so exciting to see them get interviewed this week and to be able to announce their baptism in church and everything. It is going to be a white night, una noche blanca. The husband is officially an active member, he got rescued yesterday and his wife and his three kids who are older than 8 are getting baptized on Friday and my companion and I, and the Bishop and Brother Montalvo Pineda Montalvo will be baptizing the four of them. I will be baptizing Malki, he is super cool. He is like 10 years old and he is going to be an awesome future missionary.

This week my companion and I were running from visit to visit and we saw this super old lady who was blind trying to walk up the street. Well the streets here really aren't streets, they are like trails....Anyways, it was a pretty steep climb and she was hugging the gutter taking it really slow and we didn't know how we could help her, but we decided to do something, so we tried to talk to her but realized she only spoke Kichuwa, and we just kind of held her hands and helped her walk up and up the hill. It was awesome, I felt so happy to be helping her. We had to ask her in Kichuwa where she lived and we finally were able to drop her off at her house. She must have been at least 90 years old. But she started to cry, we coudn't see her eyes cuz they were covered, but she was just kind of whimpering and saying dius sul pagi. which in Kichuwa is like muchas muchas gracias and she grabbed our hands and kissed them. I truly felt like a servant of Jesus Christ in that moment.

I am so excited for this week. It is going ot be a dream come true baptizing this family.

I love you all and miss you. I hope you are all doing well. bye bye

Elder Roberts

I like corn

Not sure why I am not smiling

Still not sure why I am not smiling

Helping to make Empenadas

Here is our washing machine.....oh wait.

With la familia Cordova Tituaña

Mi Compañero y yo con nuestras familias favoritas

La Familia Montalvo Pineda with La Familia Cordova Tituaña

We live between two volcanos, here is the first one, Cotacachi

Here is the second one, Imbabura

Elder Quispe taking a picture of me as I take a picture of him

When Elder Holland came

I WAS INTERVIEWED BY ELDER HOLLAND

Yeah, so this week Elder Holland came to our mission and it was super awesome. Definitely one of the highlights of my mission so far. We left San Roque at like 4 on Tuesday to go wait in the Coliseo in Otavalo where Elder Holland addressed more than 3000 members. His message was amazing. He talked a lot about how Otavalo isn't living up to its potential.  How this is the city most likely in South America where every person could be a member and how the members need to get more involved in the missionary work here, a lot more members are now excited to help us out which is awesome. 

On Wednesday we woke up early and went to the bus terminal in Otavalo and met up with all the missionaries in the 2 zones here. We all went in one bus to Quito.  It was sick, a bus of almost pure missionaries and we got them to put in Lion King, It was awesome. I haven't seen that movie forever. We got to Quito a little early and I saw all of my friends. It was the first time in the history of the mission that the whole mission has gotten together for a meeting. I saw all of my companions that haven't finished yet, I ran into Elder Morgan, Elder Pinto, and Elder Damian and a ton of other friends. Then we got all situated for a group picture and Elder Holland came in. After the picture, he told us he wanted to shake all of our hands and look into our eyes and he wanted us to tell him our names. It was super awesome looking into his eyes and feeling the power this man has. Afterwords, we all went into the chapel and he started his talk by saying Hello, I honestly don't care what your name is or where you are from, the purpose of me shaking your hand and looking into your eyes is because I wanted to interview you. He then turned to President Richardson and said President I am pleased to tell you that you have very good missionaries who are obedient and know why they are here except for two of them, but hopefully they get things taken care of soon....Wow, it really hit me in that moment that there are living Prophets who are also seers. Super cool.

My companion and I are seeing miracles here in San Roque, the familia Cordova Tituaña is progressing super well. We are going to pass by them every day this week. But they are like the dream family that I have looked for and looked for my whole mission. They are so ready to change their lives. and they have. They have been ready their whole lives for the Gospel and we were an answer to their prayers being able to find them. Oh, how I love the mission. The Lord really has prepared people for us, we just have to give it our all and work hard, but if we have faith we will find them. This is the work of salvation. One thing Elder Holland talked to us as missionaries is that the mission isn't for 24 months, it is for life. We can NEVER go back to who we were. The gospel is a gospel of progression. I hope when I get back from the mission I can help out the missionaries in Minnesota a lot. But for realz, I love the people here in San Roque, I am going to be absolutely heartbroken the day changes came which will hopefully not be for a while cuz my companion has more time than me here in this sector. But I am going to be heartbroken when I leave Ecuador, it is just too beautiful of a place and the people are just way too amazing. I am literally living my dream right now being here.

I hope you are all doing well. I love every one of you and hope you are taking care of yourselves. I love getting your emails and seeing how you are doing. 

Elder Roberts

My "interview" with Elder Holland

This is what my arms and legs look like, I hate bed bugs

This is what missionary laundry looks like, now that we moved houses we are back to washing all of our laundry by hand.  All our White shirts.

When elder Holland came to Otavalo

Getting ready for Elder Holland to come

Our zone leaders trained us that we need to be love muffins?

                      

Una Capilla bien llena

So this week was pretty dang exciting. We are very excited as a mission, as a country, and me personally to be in the presence and be instructed personally by a living apostle and prophet of God. Elder Holland will be here in Otavalo tomorrow to talk to the 2 stakes here and the district Ibarra and Wednesday the whole mission will be going to Quito where we will have a meeting with just our mission and him. To say we are excited would be an extreme understatement. 

We had interviews with the President this week and that was super awesome. I love President Richardson, he has helped me a ton on my mission. I wish the interviews would go longer, I have learned so much from him, but I guess it is hard to talk for a whole ton of time when there are 200 missionaries to interview.

Red bananas are back in season. they are so good. Be jealous of the many cool fruits I get to eat here in the best country in the world.

So I had quite a trial on Saturday. I had a super super bad headache. I almost never get headaches, but Saturday out of the blue I was dying of a migraine. Every step I took was just a big thud in my head. Like honestly I just wanted to give up and sleep that day, I thought that was a just cause, just taking a break, but I knew there were important things to do, so I just dealt with it and gave it the best I can. It was going ok until 6 when we met up with the awesome family of members and they accompanied us up, up, and up the volcano until we finally reached the awesome new family. Lets just say I was dying that hike. Like literally it hurt my head so bad. I was literally just begging my Heavenly Father that whole time in my heart that I could make it and I wouldn't faint or anything and somehow he got me there. We had an AMAZING visit with them. We planned on watching some mormon messages, but of course nobody here has a working tv or dvd, so we ended up sharing some random stuff from the bible and then the Book of Mormon and the spirit was guiding us and we finally got the whole family to accept a baptismal date! So that is super awesome. March 5th, please pray for the familia Cordova Tituaña that they can enter the waters of baptism as a family.

Like we had some killer success this week. We had so many people in the chapel. We had 6 investigators, 8 recent converts, 4 less actives. It was awesome. Sunday was just the best to see everyone there. I know the Lords Grace is sufficient for us and carries us when we need it, but we are only given Grace after all that we can do, so we need to give it our all and than the Lord will do his part which really amounts to a lot more than our part. 

I love you all. I hope you have a good week. Keep me updated on whats going on. I love seeing your letters and pictures. I miss cada uno de vosotros. chao mis amigos.

Elder Roberts

 This is the face I make when I realize we are going to get our pants and shoes wet crossing the stream to get to the visit

 Looks like the mamita is going to make us some cuy this week

 Mini Cristian stole my dog annoyer

 Elder Jorgito is obsessed with stealing my nametag

 My companion and I with Jorgito

Eating pizza with Elderes Quispe, Saenz, and Erickson

CARNAVAL NUMERO DOS

Well, this week is carnaval, so tomorrow we are going to spend the whole day in the house. This whole past week all the kids in the street have been throwing water balloons at us. I wish we had carnaval in the states it would be so fun, it is sad that we aren't allowed to play it as missionaries.

We helped kill a pig this week, it was pretty cool. It was screaming soo loud that the whole street came out to see it. 

It was kind of a slow week this week, but yesterday we had a great day. Yesterday I really gained a testimony of the importance of members in the work. We are always asking for references and sometimes we receive, other times the people just say everyone I know is alcoholic or catholic. Anyways, this super awesome family la familia Montalvo Pineda is like super pilas. They want so much to participate in missionary work. We have lunch with them on Saturdays and the sister is like hey I have a ton of references for you but I want to go with you. That is like gold for missionaries. Anyways, at church yesterday we verified the time we had allotted to go with her and her husband to find these references for yesterday in the afternoon and everything was good. We went to their house at like 5 and she said we are going to do a little bit walking.  They live a little bit up the volcano. After walking an hour and a half up the volcano we found this super awesome family. The family is a dad who hasn't gone to church for like 30 years and nobody else in his family is member. The whole day they had plans to leave the house to do stuff, but they just couldn't seem to leave.  They described it as they just felt like something was keeping us there. It really hit me in that moment that this is the Lords work and everything is in his hands and he really prepared that family for us. It also helped me see the importance of working with members, the dedication they had to spend their Sunday evening and night walking up a volcano with us to help Gods Children. For those of you reading this, GO HELP THE MISSIONARIES. GIVE THEM REFERENCES

We were able to watch Meet the Mormons with some families this week, pretty cool. 

Well, not much else to say. Tomorrow we have interviews with President Richardson, so that should be great and then Elder Holland will be here the following week. We will see him as a mission in Quito on the 17th and the 16th in the night we have special permission to go see him in Otavalo where he is going to talk to the 2 stakes and the district Ibarra. We will be able to get to stay out a little late on the 16th as the meeting starts at 7. 

Life is good. I love you all. Keep on writing me, I love to know how you are all doing.

Elder Roberts

 We helped Jaime kill his pig

More pig dying pictures 

 That fish defs isn't a rainbow trout

 A family knew I liked dolphins and gave me this

I ATE SNAILS

So this week my companion and I show up to our last visit and this family just had bowls and bowls of snails.....I have eaten some weird things on my mission but they have all ended up tasting good like guinea pig, bunny, cow tongue, chicken feet, beetles, so I was pretty optimistic about eating snails. But they taste just like you would imagine. Absolutely terrible. Just sucking the snail out of its shell. Gross stuff.

 The Snails We Ate

Me Eating a Snail

Fun fact, I accidentally ate peanuts like an hour ago and I am like dying right now while writing this email. I took another epi pen and took some benadryl, so lets hope I make it out alive today. 

Nothing super interesting this week. My companion and I like didn't work two days cuz we had to move out of our old terrible house. Our new house is like the best house on the mission. All of the missionaries from the zone came to help us move in and were all super jealous. We are basically living in probably the nicest house of all of San Roque now just the two of us. We have so much space to ourselves it is great. Elder Quispe and I even have our own bathrooms. We were happy to see there are showers, because the last month and a half we have only been using like a bucket to shower ourselves, but the bad news is there isn't hot water, so now its been almost 2 months that I haven't showered with hot water, but I am getting used to the cold water.

So spiritually, we had stake conference this week. We saw some miracles there. Some less actives that we have been working really hard with that haven't gone to church for 5 years showed up to the stake conference and I was so happy. It was great. Also, Elena our recent convert, well we have started teaching with her daughter recently and we had some great lessons with her. The people here are just great. Being a missionary is great. Stake conference was really cool.  I have never seen so many indigenous people gathered together in my life. Our mission President and his wife were there, and so was the Temple President and his wife from the Guayaquil temple. Also an area seventy named Javier Espinoza was there and presided the meeting, he gave a great talk too. They were the only five speakers to speak in Spanish. I didn't understand any of the kichuwa but it was still cool. 

I love you all and hope you have a super cool week. Keep up the great work. I love you and the Lord Loves you. bye bye. 

Elder Roberts

The black pig is the one that always falls off ledges 

 There have been a lot of flies here in San Roque this week

 lunch

 Taking the last avacados from the tree by our old house

 We saw this scorpion in the street

 The light orange roof not the one close but in the distance is our church

I am super ready to go to sleep 

Elder Erickson and Elder Saenz helping us move into our new mansion 

 Elder Quispe playing with Zamiro

Zamiro 

Zamiro likes being spun in circles

I am getting bald