Debilidades

Well this week was filled with crazy experiences. One of such was a visit we had with some recent converts. My companion and I were seated outside and the sister we were visiting has two little kids who are 4 years old and 2 years old and during the closing prayer we started hearing water pouring on the ground and I opened my eyes and the 4 year old was peeing on me. All over my pants and shoe and my companion had his eyes opened and we were both in shock and the mom just kept on praying and had no clue what was going on. Needless to say I made a quick stop to the house afterwords and quickly took a small shower and changed clothes. I hate children......just kidding, but I don't like it when they pee on me either.

There was a baptism this week of one of the sisters converts, La Hermana Savi, I baptized her and it was cool because after the baptism the two sisters and the two of us elders were singing a special musical number and during the musical number the lights went out in the whole city and including in the chapel and everyone attending the baptism was freaking out and we just kept on singing the hymn hahaha.

Last Monday night we were teaching one of the Familia Caguas and there were two small earthquakes and the second one was a little stronger but it wasn't really that strong but the whole Familia Cagua was freaking out and like ran out of their house and we had to like convince them to come back in to finish the lesson......#earthquakeproblems

Well we are seeing a lot of miracles in our sector, I don't think we are going to have baptism this weekend but the upcoming weekend it is very possible that some of the Caguas could be getting baptized. My companion and I have had a ton of success with them and we are having a lot of success getting the less actives to come back to the fold.

I wanted to write a little bit today about weaknesses. I like a verse in Ether 12 and I am going to copy it here in English

 27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. 

I really like this verse because the mission has taught me that I have a ton of weaknesses but that doesn't mean that we have to be helpless and that our weaknesses always have to be weaknesses it means our weaknesses can be strengths. For anyone that knows me well knows that I love to talk, I like talking a lot. I love giving talks in front of people. but in the mission I have learned how to be a listener and how to let other people speak. 

A weakness that my companion and I have been seeing was the assistance at church we were doing everything that we could to get our investigators to come to church and for weeks and weeks nobody came and then the miracles came. I know that Heavenly Father listened to our prayers and that he showered miracles from the Heavens because the last couple of weeks including yesterday we have been able to get everyone to come to church. 

I know this church is true. I am excited to work hard and be obedient and see what miracles this week has in store. I love being a missionary and I love and appreciate all of you. I am going to give these last 5 months my all. I love Ecuador and I love representing my savior Jesus Christ. I know he is real and that he lives and that means everything for me. 

p.s. I am super sorry because I had a TON  of super cool pictures to send to all of you, but my memory card got a virus or something and like isn't working anymore and this is the only picture I could save and I am super sad because I had a ton of really cool pictures, but I will try to get the memory card situation figured out and get some cool pictures for next week. Here is my companion and I eating ice cream with our convert Cesar, he is super cool, he is getting ready for the mission.

Love, Elder Roberts

Attachments area

And the rain came tumbling down

Being a missionary is the absolute best experience ever. I have learned so many lessons being a full time missionary and I am learning that there is nothing that brings a greater joy than helping someone change their life and come unto Christ. Like it is cool being in a different country, speaking a different language, learning a different culture, but what makes my time out here special is helping people find the truth and change their lives. It is indescribable. It is so beautiful helping someone in such a special way. I am cherishing this beautiful time I have to serve my brothers and sisters here in such a special part of the world.

Well this week we experienced two different types of climates, super hot and super hot with rain. hahaha. Saturday night my companion and I were out in the jungle far away from the city and it started to pour and pour hard. the streets turned into rivers and we had to walk up to our waists almost in water, it was pretty cool stuff.

Miracles that we saw this week, I don't even know where to start.

I am not sure who of you reading this consistently read the emails I write, but a couple of months ago my companion and I taught  a multitude of people up on a hill and we had like 30 people listening to us and it was one of the coolest experiences of my mission. Well just from that one visit where we decided to stand up and preach to a whole neighborhood on a hill we are seeing so many miracles from those people that we first started with just a couple of months or weeks ago.

Friday night the sisters had a baptism and my companion and I got to baptized their investigators, it was my companions first time baptizing in the mission so that was special for him. Anyways, we had some great miracles because before the baptismal service we went up to that hill and taught la familia cagua and invited them to the baptism. Before the baptism my companion and I had to go give a blessing of health to a sister from the ward and when we got back to the room where we were holding the baptismal service all of the seats were full from our investigators. Famila Cagua came and they brought all of their neighbors and extended family. ke we had 20 investigators there not including their kids......and the whole ward was like elders how did you get so many people to come and we were like.......YAY. Anyways, we had a ton of people come to the baptism and it ended up being a spiritual experience for them, many of our investigators received answers to their questions in that baptism.

Yesterday church was great. La Familia Cagua couldn't come because their mom who lives four hours away had a medical emergency but they told us they are going to come this next Sunday. Michale Jackson didn't come again, so we are going to see whats up with that, everyone that we thought would come to church didn't come and everyone that we thought would never come to church came. Right after the sacrament was blessed and passed we had all of those families from that Hill come and listen to the talks and they all stayed for the three hours. YES! We have so much to be grateful for. 

This last week we decided to have a plan as a district called plan 10 20. This plan means that every night at ten twenty we get down on our knees and offer prayers individually pleading for the progress of our investigators with baptismal dates and I think by doing this plan we as a district are seeing so many miracles. If anyone would be interested in praying with us at 10 20 or another hour here are our investigators we have as a district.

La Familia Cagua for the 6th of August

La Familia Cagua Serna for the 13th of August

Savi Perea for the 30th of July

Fernando for the 6th of August

Miguel for the 20th of August.

I think if Heavenly Father listens to so many prayers at the same time for the same thing that he will really see how determined we are to help our brothers and sisters in their spiritual progression. 

Love, Elder Roberts

 Chillin with the companion

 Baputismo

 We saw a river otter 

Butterfly in the bishops office

MICHAEL JACKSON

Well all of our hard work has been paying off. yesterday EVERYONE CAME TO CHURCH. I was so happy, there is nothing better than seeing the people you teach progress. We were able to get a lot of our investigators to church and I think they all had a great experience. I was asked to give a talk yesterday in church and I talked about my bad leg and explained why I walk like a penguin but how the trial has made me a stronger missionary and a better person. 

We had a great experience this week because my companion and I decided to take La Familia Cagua on a tour of the chapel. We showed up to their house and they put on their best clothes to tour the church and as we were heading to the church we passed by two of the sisters in law of Hermana Cagua and they also wanted to check out the church with us and we were able to show them the whole church and we ended with a prayer kneeling down in front of the baptismal font and it was a spiritual experience for everyone.

When we are living worthy of the spirit we can do whatever the Lord needs us to do, we just have to follow the impressions that the Spirit puts in our minds and in our hearts and we can be epistles of the Lord. I had several experiences this week where the Lord put us exactly in the right place at the right time. One of our families of recent converts was passing through a huge problem and my companion and I showed up right in time to help them out and it was super spiritual. Another one of the recent converts was super depressed and we showed up and it was super great. I love being able to be a missionary and be guided towards those that need to hear how much God loves them.

Well this week my companion and I had to drop a family that has been investigating a long time but hasn't come to church for months. We gave them a super direct charla franca and told them we would check up on them in 2 months to see if they have changed their minds and as we were leaving in the neighboring house there was this kid staring at us. He was super interested in the church and we contacted him and his name is literally Michael Jackson. We didn't believe him until he showed us his identification card drivers license thing, I am not sure what it is called in English....and he accepted a baptismal date but he didn't come to church, so we are going to see what is happening, but the two visits we had with him this week. How cool would that be to baptize someone named Michael Jackson.

Well the work here is going great. I miss you all so much, but the mission is the best! YAY VIVA ECUADOR!

Love,  Elder Roberts

 The dangerous snake.

 We saw this little guy crossing the road and then it got hit by a car.  There are a ton of these snakes in my sector and they are dangerous .

bacan diga

mas temblores diga

Well, this week starts change 2 of Elder Delgado and I being together I am excited that I will be staying here in Quininde. There are so many people that I want to help out before I get transferred out of here. 

This week we got to know our new Mission President, President Murphy, he is super great. He came to the coast to get to know us and had brief interviews with him.  Even tho I still don't know him super well, I feel like I can really depend on him and I think he is going to be great for the mission. We certainly miss President and Hermana Richardson.  It was weird not having them there, but I think it is kind of cool having two different Mission Presidents.

Last night at 9:20 there were two more earthquakes here. Since I have been here in the coast I have felt probs like 20 to 30 small aftershocks, but only 5 big earthquakes and last night were two of them. We were heading back from our appointment. Here we have to be back in the house at 9 but if we are in an important appointment we can get back at 9:30, so we were heading back to the house and we ran into some members and were talking with them in the street and then the street started to shake a little and it got stronger. About 5 minutes later came the strong earthquake it was a lot stronger, not as strong as what there was about a month ago, but it was significantly strong and my companion and I are going to go check out the poorer part of the sector to see if any more houses have fallen or anything, but I feel like I am getting used to the whole earthquake thing now, it seems like we are always feeling aftershocks.

This week my companion and I taught the law of chastity in a super direct manner to a family whose children are the members, the mom is an investigator, and the dad doesn't really show much interest, but we were super direct with them telling them they are living in sin and all of that and they need to get married. Anyways, we got to the part about talking about pornography and stuff and I realized that they had one of those inappropriate calendars on their wall ( most of the people here in the coast have inappropriate calendars on their wall including some active members, I think it is just kind of a cultural thing) but anyways I realized that the calendar counted as pornography and the spirit told me to tell them to take it down. I didn't really give the spirit much credit and I kept on blabbing on, but the spirit told me to tell them to take it down and they will feel more peace in their house. I indirectly told them, yeah we shouldn't have inappropriate things in our house and if we do we should get rid of them to have the spirit with us. I then passed the time to my companion and the spirit told me ¨that isn't what I told you to say, tell them to take the calendar down¨and I was super nervous about being super direct to them, but I knew I needed to obey this prompting and I prayed for strength, and it was super awkward, probs one of the most awkward moments of my mission, but when my companion passed the time back to me, I told them, you will never feel the spirit in this room unless you get rid of that calendar, can you please take it down and get rid of it? Well, anyways even tho it was awkward, I felt better for confiding in the spirit. It made me think of the calling of prophet, the prophets have to be direct and are rejected a lot and I guess sometimes we have to declare repentance in a difficult way to people too.

We still didn't have too much success getting people to church on Sunday, but my companion and I last night came up with an excellent plan for getting our families to come to church this Sunday, I am really optimistic for this upcoming week. We had a ward activity Saturday night where we converted one of the classrooms into a movie theater and we popped popcorn and prepared pop for the people and the  Hermanas brought the movie Meet the Mormons and we got a ton of people to come and it was a super successful activity, we are going to be planning more activities.

My companion and I have the goal to talk with everyone we see this week, when Elder Holland came he told us if we don't talk with everyone we are sinning, because we are judging who is worthy to receive this gospel and who isn't, and that hit me hard. I am going to do my best to talk with everyone I possibly can this week and not judge them.

Well things here in the coast are going hot, humid, and great. Thanks for your prayers and support, I love and miss all of you, but I honestly couldn't be any happier than I am right now here in Ecuador. I am absolutely in love with this country and I am enjoying every second of my mission. Its the best! 

Love,

Elder Roberts

With La Familia Mendoza

Elder Gerber, Elder Delgado, and I

Elder Kerr, Elder Gerber, and I 

Like Father Like Son 

 All of the kids from my sons group in Quito

I was studying the scriptures in kichwa and saw the biggest word I have seen in my whole life

Iguanalandia

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

Duo Otra Vez

Yeah, so the trio was fun while it lasted which wasn't for very long. Last night we got calls again from the zone leaders and found out that Elder Unzueta was getting changed to the beaches of Atacames.  We are all super jealous of him, Atacames is one of the coolest parts of the mission and I know he is going to enjoy it. The other part of the news for changes is that there are only going to be 4 of us missionaries here in Quininde. When I started there were six and now we will be four, it is kind of crazy but kind of cool also, because everything that belonged to the other elders is now ours. I really enjoyed my time in a trio, it was super fun and Elder Unzueta was a great companion, I know he is going to work miracles in Atacames and I am excited to continue to see miracles here in Quininde with Elder Delgado. 

So our sector now consists of our old sector as well as the sector of the old elder and it is gigantic. We have soo many people that we need to be visiting and teaching and helping and there just simply isn't enough of us as missionaries or enough time to do it all. SO right now we aren't concentrating as much on finding as much as we are as prioritizing who we are going to teach. We have had to make some drops, not because we don't love the people or because they are bad people, just because we don't have time to visit everyone. We can only be focusing on the people that are most likely to progress. But the sector of the elders is huge and it is like all dirt roads without street names.

So last week when we were working as a trio, we worked mostly in the sector of Elder Unzueta which ended up being a huge miracle because now that he is gone my companion and I have to visit the people he was teaching and our time with Elder Unzueta allowed us to learn a little bit of his sector, but the Bishop is going to help teach the sector with us tonight. Working in a trio we had a lot of visits to do in both sectors and I got to do a lot of splits with the members and it was great.

One of the most spiritual lessons I had in my mission was last night we taught Milton Caughua and his family. Milton was one of those that listened to us in the street that day when we taught a ton of people in the street. Anyways, I didn't recognize him, but he surely recognized us because a couple of days ago we were walking in the street and he found us and told us he wanted us to come to his house and teach him more. FAMILIA DE ORO. they are super awesome. We are so excited to be teaching them, but they have a hard time reading. The majority of the people that I have taught here in Ecuador have difficulties reading and writing especially in my last sector in Otavalo and here in the coast, the majority of the people cant read. So I went on a split last night with the ward mission leader who is a recent convert and we read the introduction of the Book of Mormon to this family and it was powerful. I know the Book of Mormon helps us learn more about Christ and have peace. I love reading the Book of Mormon, I have read it in English, Spanish, and a little bit of Kichwa and I finished reading it again in Spanish this last week and I know without a doubt that it is true. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who promises his holy spirit to us.

Well, something that Elder Holland told us when he came here is that right now the Lord is hastening his work.  He said that back at church headquarters they aren't walking, they are running and I feel like that is the same here in the mission, we aren't walking, we are running from visit to visit, there is just soo much to do. The world needs more missionaries, there aren't enough of us to teach everyone. The mission is the best decision that I have made in my life. I love being a missionary, I love all of you and hope you all have a  great week.

Love Elder Roberts

 Chillin with Elder Larsen, he finishes his mission in 2 weeks with the Zone. 

With the zone

TRIO

Hello world, this week was incredible. It was filled with fun and spiritual experiences. I am really loving the mission and it is just so amazing to be a missionary. My companion and I got a suprise call last night and found out there were changes in our district. Elder Roney went to Quito and now we are with Elder Unzueta in a trio. Elder Unzueta is super cool, he is from Cusco, Peru and I was with him when he started his mission in Otavalo. He knows a lot of Kichwa so we are conversing quite a bit, but for the part of the day we have been in a trio, it has been super fun. I think we should all be together for like 3 weeks and we are going to be working the two sectors here in Quininde. Elder Unzueta is going to help me out training Elder Delgado. But for realz I am so blessed to have such great companions. I feel like these next 3 weeks will be fun with fun experiences and hard work.

We had a super cool experience Monday after we wrote and when we got back to work. My companion and I went to contact a reference in a sketchier part of our sector and they were super interested so we all brought lawn chairs outside and started teaching and we started with a group of like 7 people. As we were teaching the neighbors came to listen and little by little more people came and when we finished there were 35 people listening. It was so cool teaching such a large group of people and they were all reverent and listening well. Since then we have gone back every day and we are seeing some cool miracles in this little part of our sector.

I ran into one of my mamitas from San Roque this last week. It was super awesome seeing her. She was the Relief Society President there in Otavalo and it was cool being able to speak some Kichwa. I found out she is doing well and my family of converts there in Otavalo are super active. Right now the CopaAmerica or like the American Cup for soccer is going on in the U.S. I am not sure how many of you know much about it but here soccer is a huge deal and so is the American Cup. Anyways, Ecuador had its big game this last week against the U.S. on Wednesday and Wednesday everyone was dressed up in their Ecuador jerseys and were just like messing with me in the streets. It was dangerous to be a gringo here especially because the U.S. won and everyone hated me. 

Yesterday we didn't have any investigators in sacrament meeting and that made me sad especially since we had worked so hard and I feel like we did everything that we could to get our investigators to come, but we had an absolute miracle. During priesthood there was a man named Jose Angulo who just walked in. He spent the morning attending different churches seeing how they were and he walked into ours. He enjoyed the experiences here because he said our church is the most reverent. Anyways we visited him last night with the bishop and the elders quorum president out in his plantation which is super far away ( the bishop here is a taxi driver and helps us out with rides.) anyways we had an amazing lesson with him and he accepted a baptismal date, but then we found out he isn't married so his date wont work out until he is married, but hey he has a ton of interest so that is cool.

Well, I love you all, especially you dad, happy fathers day. You are the best! I am so grateful for my dad and the example that he has been. I have learned so much from him just from his example. I am grateful for his infinite love he has for me and how he has been with me during the good and the hard moments of my life. He is filled with wisdom and dad I love you a ton. Have a great week. 

BYE BYE,  Elder Roberts