This week we ran into a ton of wild iguanas, unfortunately I didn't take a picture of any of them, but after this week I am convinced that ECUADOR has to be the Iguana capital of the world.
I am now a dead sister missionary. That probs doesn't make sense to anyone reading this who isn't familiar with the missionary work, but the missionaries who are men serve a mission for two years and the women only serve for a year and a half and this last week I completed a year and a half being a missionary. I want to testify as to how much the mission has changed my life. Being a missionary is the absolute best decision that I have made. I am not sure if when I finish that I will be able to say that these have been the best 2 years in my life, but they surely have been the best 18 months and soon to be 2 years for my life. I have changed so much. Physically I have changed just a little bit, a little bit balder, a little bit tanner, a little bit skinnier, a little bit older. But spiritually I have changed so much. Being a missionary has helped me become a better disciple of Christ. My priorities in my life have changed. Worldly things like music or movies or sports just aren't important to me anymore, the only thing that is important to me now is living this Gospel and preparing myself to live with my Heavenly Father.
This last week was great, but hard, in fact it had to be one of the hardest weeks in my mission. I have never been more exactly obedient or worked harder in my whole mission this last week. We were blessed to visit and find so many people. The visits we had were super spiritual. One of the things my companion and I were able to do was work a lot with the members. Every day we had members accompanying us and we were able to go on a lot of divisions. All day yesterday was basically just going on splits with the members and we were able to cover alot. We did everything we could to make solid plans for our investigators and less actives come to church and yesterday I was expecting a mountain of people to come to church and very very few came. The church was basically desolate yesterday. there was like this elementary school cultural celebration thing going on at a park here for all of the elementary schools in Quininde and everybody in the world went to that...I was so sad during all of church. I was so sad that we had worked our tails off and we weren't able to get our investigators to church.
Saturday we went to our super awesome family la familia Caugua and we had visited them every day this week and they were progressing so much, one of the strongest families that I have seen and we got there Saturday to teach and verify that they were going to come to church and the dad was hungover from drinking the previous night.....I honestly started crying, it was like the worst news i could have possibly heard in this moment. We are going to visit them tonight and teach them about the good old word of wisdom.
BUT WE HAD MIRACLES
Yesterday I was honestly so sad after church, we went back to the apartment to change out of our suits into regular pants and short sleeve shorts and I just started praying, but then I felt the spirit so overwhelmingly strong when my companion turned his speaker on and we started listening to some missionary hymns, I knew that everything was going to be ok. I felt Heavenly Fathers love and I felt the spirit comfort me. I actually felt so overwhelmed by the spirit. The mission isn't about having a mountain of baptisms or anything like that, it is doing your best and giving your best to Christ.
Last night my companion went to visit Jose Angulo with the Elders Quorum President and the Ward Mission Leader on a division and I stayed in the city with another leader and one of our recent converts who is a ward missionary and yesterday I felt a need to visit a contact we had earlier in the week. Turns out the contact that we visited is the sister of the Hermano Caugua that we had been visiting and this sister has attended church a lot and she wants to be baptized with her kids....that was like the best miracle I had, and I know that the Lord had answered my prayers that after working through a hard week that we were able to see the fruits. So please pray for the other familia Caugua that they can be baptized the 30th of this month.
The mission is great, I am just loving it. My companion is so great, I am so happy and blessed that he is my companion. We are enjoying our time together. EVEN tho we haven't really been blessed with a lot of baptisms or anything like that, we are giving it our all and seeing miracles every day and we are becoming better disciples of Christ.
I love you all and hope you have a great day.
Elder Roberts
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