December 2015

12/7

My companion was a little baby during his surgery. He kept putting his hands by his face like he was going to take the doctors hands out of his mouth, so they ended up tying his hands down. Really it wasn't too bad, he didn't suffer much, just missed dinner a couple nights.

 This is us painting a house, the house of Carol to be exact, with Josue. It was turning out super bad for a time because Elder Silupu had said he knew how to mix paint, but he really didn't. So we were like what do we do? We ended up putting in way more paint, but it still didn't really work. Then Carol came home and fixed it.

  I don't remember if I already sent this picture or not, but here we have proof that my companion just buys EXACTLY what I buy for the week.

 Thank you Alejandra forTthanksgiving dinner! Side note is that my companion was at this time in the house suffering with his wisdom teeth. I was with Jamil.

12/14

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!! So we're getting ready for the Christmas activity that we will have on the 23 as a mission. It's going to be super cool. We're getting a couple songs ready to sing. More than anything, we're focusing on the inactive of the church. We have found that people are pretty open right now thanks to Christmas, but also a lot more busy. We are visiting a ton in the night, and in the afternoon we are visiting members to ask for references. We have found a good number of families to work with, We have an older investigator who knows the church is true, but doesn't want to get baptized yet. We're working with him so he gets baptized as a Christmas present to Jesus, but he wants to get baptized as a birthday present to himself (in February).

I just kind of realized that I should have made this into a couple different paragraphs... I don't really remember the paragraph format thing... that'll be a problem.

There were changes this week. There was speculation that I was going to be changed, but in the end I stayed. Elder Zeta (my house mate) got changed to Vinces. There's not many missionaries in the mission right now, so instead of closing a couple of sectors they put several trios en 2 different sectors. So now I'm with Elder Silupu and Elder Arellano, We have my sector, Samanes 2, and also Elder Arellanos sector, Guayacanes. We're going to be able to do divisions, so it shouldn't be that big of a problem, but it will be interesting to go to the church on Sunday because they want us to stay together as companions.

This week there was an activity for Christmas for the Primary which was pretty cool. We brought some investigators. We also had a meeting with President. We talked about the power of a testimony of Joseph Smith and The Book Of Mormon. Okay, that's enough. Next week I'll have pictures. I know I always promise that, but this week I'll really try.


12/21

Merry Christmas from zona Orquideas - the best zone in the world.

 Esto es mi arbolito de navidad (This is my little Christmas tree) with my presents from the beloved members of Samanes 2!

This was a Christmas activity that we had in the ward Sunday. We had the Young Women/Young Men choir and orquestra of the stake and it was pretty cool. There were a ton of people there.

This is New Years here in Ecuador. They make super cute little creacions... and then at midnight they throw them in the street and burn them... okay.

Elder Blackhurst... gettin' big in a creative way!

 That's Familia Larreategui for ya. This was in the activity for the little children!

So we had an interesting week with the whole trio thing. We had to find members to come with us pretty much everyday so we wouldn't leave a sector empty for the day. I went out with a few different young adults from the ward. I went on an intercambio on Friday and met some really good people. We found one guy who had both of his legs chopped off by a car accident. We decided to sing him hymn and even though we don't have the best voices ever, it still ended pretty cool. 

We practiced for the little presentacion for the mission. We are going to sing two little viancicos (christmas carrols) that are a little bit Catholic, but they're cool I guess, although they don't make much sense. They're called Mi Burrito Sabenero y Peces en el Rio. 

This week we will be with President on Tuesday and Wednesday and that'll be good. Well, that's just about it on the whole me front... HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12/28

Tuesday and Wednesday we were together as a mission. It was a good time. We did a lot of singing, which was interesting considering I can't sing, but it was fun. We started on Tuesday singing on the side of a street. Lots of cars going by and a couple of people stopped to listen. At night we went and sang together as a mission at the temple for the temple presidency and workers. Then Wednesday we went to the temple in the morning, ate lunch, then went to sing some more. We sang at an old folks home and on the street again (the same street, just a little way from where we were Tuesday). Then we went to the church and ate Christmas dinner and there they did the slideshow with the photo that they asked from y'all. Then we had a little presentacion. All the zones had gotten a couple of songs ready and we sang and then we went home. 

On Christmas Eve we went out with a family to sing Christmas carols to some other families we're teaching. It started to rain a little bit, but not too much. We ate 2 dinneres and we almost DIED, so much food, a ridiculous amount of food!

On Christmas day we also went and sang some Christmas carols. Good stuff. Here they set off fireworks for Christmas, not as many as on New Years, but still... so that's the story of Christmas. 

I still haven't gotten my package. We'll see when I get it. That's all the news I have for you. 

JUST KIDDING! I got transfers today. I'm now here in El Triunfo with Elder Carlisle. It's a small little city in a small little district. We live with 2 other Elders (if you remember Elder Accordino) and after that the closest missionaries are 90 minutes away and the next closest are 2 hours away. It'll be interesting because it'll be the first time I will be working in a place like this. so that's fun. Il'l keep you posted on my new sector.

New Year, New Sector.

This was supposed to be a picture of the fantastic 5 from the MTC, but we couldn't find Elder Palmer.

This is my new companion. I took this picture in the activity of Christmas before I knew he was going to be my companion. He's from Utah. I think half the mission is from Utah, and the other half is from Peru.

 Christmas Dinner.... Rice and Chicken!

 Happy Birthday Josue! His birthday is the 24th.

This is the new house. It is pretty nice. The church is next door. Good stuff,

good stuff!

Niño jugando con sus juguetes. A child playing with his toys.

Opening my presents.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

November 2015

11/2

So we had a Noche de Hogar with President Riggins on Sunday that was pretty cool. We brought a couple of people, and people said they learned a lot, so that's good. Today we went to Parque de las Iguanas! I fed the iguanas mango from my mouth (see picture) which was interesting. 

Ummm... I'm not really very good at writing about what happened during the week... we talked to people, we walked around, we drank water, we slept, and then we did it all again. People are already starting to bug me about how I'm going home soon, I can't even imagine when I get a little bit closer how it will be... interesting. Ummm... I guess that's it for now.

Just feeding the iguanas a little bit of mango... WITH MY MOUTH! A little iguana kiss never did any harm! A ton of Ecuadorians took pictures of the crazy gringo feeding the iguana like this.

Cupcake that someone gave to us. Everyone here is crazy for the minions!

DINNER! So about half  the people in this picture were getting ready to go to the USA for Thanksgiving dinner with the family of the other gringo in the picture. They said they're going to bring me back DR. Pepper!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Elder Clark Kent :)

11/9

Okay, so this week I don't really have much to say... I don't have any pictures and well... yah. I'll try harder to do interesting stuff this week.  :) LOVE Y'ALL

11/16

This week my companion has been having pain in the wisdom teeth area and it looks like he will have to go to the dentist and have them taken out like Elder Lafuente. We also had to go to the Ministry of something to take out the visa of my companion (that is the most spanish formed sentence - I'm speaking spanglish) There's a family in my ward where the whole family speaks English. The parents are English Professors, the nephew served his mission in Pittsburgh, and the daughter understands everything but doesn't like to talk. So anyway, we were with them this week do a small little service and we were talking a bit of English. I was saying something and I wanted to say mas grande and I said more bigger.... I'm pretty much latino. 

Today there were cambios in the mission. A couple of people from the zone got changed, but I'm still here with ELder Silupu, AND Elder Norris is still here in the zone too. In this transfer we're going to pass the 1 year mark in the mission that we've been together in the same zone... that's a long time! People are already getting ready for Christmas here which is pretty weird. 

UMMM... sorry if the email is a little bit short. I just feel like we do the same things every week, so I don't really have much to write.

11/30

So this week I pretty much didn't do anything for fault of my companion. He got his wisdom teeth out on Tuesday. We had a last minute meeting with President this week to talk about the new video for Christmas. #hanacidounsalvador  whoops... #latino...  #asaviorisborn. 

Anyhow, I did eat some Thanksgiving dinner this week which was pretty cool. It wasn't turkey, but I did eat some rice, so that's good news. :)

We had the primary program this Sunday at church and some people came that I had never seen before. Good stuff. We also planned what we're going to do for the Christmas activities that we have. We have to sing a couple of songs so that should be interesting. 

Ok that is it I think. Sorry, this week there isn't much cause I really didn't do much, and I forgot my camera at home... next double photos.

October 2015

10/5

We had a zone conference this week with President Riggins. He talked more about what we had talked about with Elder Calderon. We talked about baptism and did some practices. We went to the temple in the morning which was really nice. When we were going home after they gave me my package. Sand, candy, ties, all the good stuff :) Thanks a ton! As far as clothes I'm doing fine. My shirts and pants are fine, and members have given me 2 pairs of shoes, plus I got my favorite old shoes sewn back together, so yeah... Ecuador!

General Conference was super good. I only was able to listen to the Priesthood session but that's okay because I understood the talks just fine, I did miss hearing the actual voices but that's okay. Almost nobody came to the chapel to see conference, everybody just watched it at home. We were inviting everybody this week but we didn't have that many people come. Well, nothing much else happened... JK! Elder Lafuente had cambios! He is is Duran now. I'm still here in Samanes. I will be training again, so I will get my new companion on Wednesday. For now I'm with Elder Morga. I don't know why they don't like telling me when I'm going to train, they tell other people they're training, but they don't tell me anything, so I show up in the terminal and think I'm just picking up my comp, and BOOM! Elder Roberts you're training! O well... so next week Ill send you a picture of my new companion and all that good stuff :)


10/19

So my second kid, Elder Silupú, is doing fine. He's learning and he's really excited and it's all good! This week we had an activity in the Stake. It was to celebrate 50 years of the church in Ecuador. They invited the stake over (Estaca Pascuales) and we had almost 2 thousand people there (supposedly). The missionaries from our stake did a little sketch which was pretty fun. We did a little representation of the Plan of Salvation. It was a fun activity but it was sad cause not many people from my ward showed up. President Riggins was invited to talk so he came. There was food there and Hermana Riggins tried Salchipapa (hot dogs in small pieces with french fries) for the first time in her almost 2 years in Ecuador and LOVED it!

People are already starting to bug me about going home, which is incredible seeing as how I still have most of a year left! I can't imagine how it'll be when I'm actually close to going home. We're searching for investigators right now. We have a couple, but we need more! This week that is coming up we're going to have a huge service activity with all of the stake so that should be pretty fun. Well, that's pretty much it. I'm going to see if I can send some pictures, but I have a pretty gnarly virus on my memory card,  so we'll see if I can do it. That's the bad part about the cybers here, you have no idea what kind of virus you can pick up. Fun stuff,  right? I haven't lost any pictures, but the cyber I was at last week had a virus security system (I don't remember how to call that) that didn't let me open up the files last week. AHH! Bueno, eso es todo! Ten una buena semana y manda saludos a todos allí en casa!


10/26

Elder Silupú is from Peru, from a city named Chiclayo. He is 21 and only has 2 years in the church. His family aren't members, and after he met the missionaries we got baptized 6 days later. The service project got postponed, I'm not really sure why, but yeah... it's coming up towards the beginning of November.

As far as me this week, we had an interesting Sunday. A companionship of Elders called me at like 11:30 (after my church and after their Sacrament Meeting) and told me they were going to have a baptism in like an hour and they didn't have baptism clothes, so I had to find a member to take us to our house to pick up the clothes and then over to a different chapel. We got there and they said... hey the baptism got changed to 4 instead... whoops. But that's OK because it gave us time to go to lunch and then pick up an investigator and take him to the baptism. After the baptism we had to go super fast to the stake center cause we had Priesthood Conference. That was the day on Sunday. Hectic!

We had a pretty good week this week. Elder Silupú is learning quickly so that's good :) But we are having some problems working with the ward leaders. We're not really working efficiently together. We'll see what we can do to change that.

 This is a handcart for the activity that celebrated the history of the church. Pretty cool. They didn't let us take pictures as missionaries, so I don't have any pictures of the actual activity.

 Yo y Elder Silupú en el faro!

September 2015

9/7

These pictures are from a couple of P-days ago

Last week was pretty crazy. Tuesday I was in barrio Condor and Friday in barrio Orquideas, and on both Wednesday and Friday we did invasions in different sectoros in the afternoon. I also had an intercambio with the AP, Elder Fernandez. He is from Chile, lived in Brazil, and is super cool.  So yeah, really interesting week. 

On Saturday there were 11 baptisms in the zone. We had the Noche Blanca and everybody was running all over the place. Hectic. We are using the members a lot right now to find new investigadores. Today we ate with a family from Brazil. They made us a Brazilian Lunch and it was awesome!  

9/14

This week we did invasions again everyday. With the invasions they can come from district leaders or zone leaders, but the invasions this week were a request from the stake president. We had an activity in the stake on Saturday, so we were inviting everybody to that. 

9/21

So this week that went by really wasn't very exciting. But this week that is coming up should be pretty awesome. We have a 70 that is coming to talk with us and also right now the zone is pretty close to meeting the goal for baptisms and rescues. If we meet the goal we are going to have lunch with President, so that should be pretty cool. 

Today we went to Parque Samanes and played a couple different things. The plan was futbol, but President isn't giving permission right now for futbol, so we played wall ball, hand ball, basketball and tennis. I left with a bit of a sunburn, but it was pretty fun. This week we have ward conference and to get people excited we have activities every night, so we're going to try and invite a ton of investigators so they can get to know the members. Bueno, that's about it... 

9/28

Well, truthfully we didn't have a great week this week, but we've figured out a little of what happened, and we're ready to have a much better week next week! I had intercambios again. I went to 2 different sectors, so I was away from my sector a lot again. 

This Sunday we had Ward Conference and that was cool. We had a TON of people at church, but a lot of them were from the stake. We are growing in the ward though, which is good. This week we also had a visit from a 70, Elder Caldaron. He is from Quito. He gave us a pretty good capacitacion (I dont remember how capacitacion is in English).  Nothing else special happened. Well, we did celebrate my birthday a couple of times, nothing too big, just nice and small.

Last night we had a little Happy Birthday dinner with the Familia Torres. They are super awesome. La Hermana Torres just had her birthday on Saturday, so we met in the middle and celebrated on the 27th. :)

This is the Hermana Gina- She is a member that we're working with. She got me a tie for my birthday :)

 Familia Plaza... Thank you for the Birthday Cake!

 ZONA ORQUIDEAS! LA PODEROSA! We did a service project as a zone. That was pretty dope.

August 2015

8/3

We had a BBQ with a pretty dope family this Sunday to end fast! They are the Family Plaza and they are super cool. There is a recent convert in that house, and some less actives we're working with, and also an investigator, so when we go to that house we get 3 lessons for the price of 1 :O 

Really good BBQ!

This is the Family Cuenca. They are super nice and super cool and we had lunch with them! They came to pick us up at our house so we wouldn't have to walk... not even that far away. It was still really nice. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDELYN!!!! She invited us to lunch on her birthday and then that night to eat cake! She's the bomb. Here in the corner is her boyfriend who is from a different ward and who leaves on his mission in 2 weeks to PERU! So that's the story!

 This is the Family Becerra. This Sunday was their last week here in the ward... Sad face. 

The ward got even smaller.

 This is Alfonso Quijano. He is a recent convert with his family. He was like a really big futbol star in the 60s and 70s. His nickname was El Rey (The King) This is him and his Wall of Fame. This family treats us like their sons. Theyre the best!

8/17

So my year mark came and went without anything big happening... I didn't have a super awesome year day, but it wasn't very bad either, just normal. This week we've been back and forth between our sector and the office of the mission. My companion is having problems with his wisdom teeth so he's had a couple appointments in the city with the dentist and this Wednesday they're going to take them out so that should be pretty interesting. We're going to be stuck in the house for a couple days while he rests, so that'll be pretty boring. 

Other than that we had a meeting in The Kennedy (pretty much the main building of the mission) which was the first church building built in Ecuador. We got taught a little about Family History. I don't really have much else to report... we have a couple of investigators that are progressing which is pretty cool... we'll see how things go with that. 

8/24

I don't have much to write this week because we were mostly in the house all week with Elder Lafuentes teeth situation. He got SUPER swelled up so that was pretty funny. He's getting a little better already, so that's a good thing. We almost had a baptism this Saturday, but the whole not being able to visit her messed us up, so we had to reschedule the baptism. That was a bummer. I don't really know what else to say... I read a lot of scriptures this week :) That was a good thing. I kind of started to go a little crazy in the house, so I asked for an intercambio for a day to get out of the house and work. I felt bad cause Elder Lafuente was also going crazy in the house, but he couldn't just say I want to leave.

8/31

We had a pretty cool week. We worked normal this week. We had Stake Conference and we had a Setenta presiding, Elder Ardila. There were some pretty good (and super long) talks. 

The baptism we were going to have is going to get baptized this week that is coming. In the zone we've have a goal of 15 baptisms, so we're trying to do something really cool... Noche Blanca... White Night. All the investigators will go to the stake center and President Riggins will give a talk and then we will do the baptisms. Super cool! We'll see how many of the 15 actually end up in the water. There are a handful of sure baptisms and some more potentials. 

Yesterday we were visiting one of our investigators and she had this "prophecy" or something I guess. We were talking about baptism and out of nowhere she said "Elder Roberts, one day when you're in your house, you're going to be a really important person in your church. Mark my words!" I was just like okay whatever you say crazy lady (she is a bit peculiar this girl). That was pretty funny. So yeah... that's what I've got for you. 

July 2015

 7/6

The Pope is visiting Guayaquil at this exact moment. People have been pretty crazy for the past weeks with him coming. I'm about 15 minutes from where he is, along with thousands and thousands of Ecuatorianos. I know we have at least 3 investigators and a couple of members that went to see him. We couldn't leave our sector today because President didn't want anyone to get too close to the craziness. In truth for me it would have been better to leave because I would have been going farther away from where the Pope is, but we just hung out in the house.

This week was the end of the Copa America, which is all the South American countries and Mexico, so for the past weeks everybody has also been pretty hyped up on that here. For the 4th of July I didn't do anything special. I just worked, I didn't even think to use a special Red White and Blue tie.

Pretty much what's going on right now is we're working really hard, but we haven't seen any results. We have a couple of people that could potentially progress, but it just depends. It's tough in this sector because people are really only home from like 6 or 7 at night, and there isn't enough time in the evening to visit everyone we want. I think I kind of understand the difficulties of being in a U.S. mission. I'm not sure what they do during the afternoon, because most places in the US it is probably even worse.

As for the new area a week ago they made the 2 zones in Orquideas into 1 so this is the biggest zone that I've had. Elder Norris and Elder Hatefi form the MTC are here, and we're all in the same district. We have pretty good support from the members in the ward, and the food is really good.

We met some interesting people this week. One is from Hong Kong, he was one of the first members in Quevedo, but he has been MIA for a really long time. He told us we could visit him. We also met a super big family this week. They're cool, but the mom is Evangelica, so we'll see. Well I think that is just about all I have for ya. Send my love to Grandma and tell her to feel better! Have a great week!

This is right outside our house. There are parks all over this sector. It's pretty cool, but the sad thing is the kids are hardly ever playing in the parks.

 

 

It was the birthday of Andres, a recent convert, and they invited us over to enjoy a little bit of cake and milk... that was cool.

 

 

THANKS FOR THE PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went a little crazy on the gummy worms when they first got here, but now I've calmed down a little bit. I also went crazy with the beef jerky. THANKS!

 

 

7/13

 



 You're stressing me out with this whole college apps thing. I'm just going to stay here in the mission for a couple more years if that's okay with you. (insert mom response = NO, it's not!)

This week I had an intercambio with an Elder that goes home tomorrow and it was so weird. He doesn't want to leave the mission at all. Everyone was asking him about it, and he was like yeah, shut up! I still have time! He is a really good Elder and he obviously has learned a lot during his mission. I hope in about a year I will be like him and not like some other Elders who completely turn themselves off as missionaries a couple months before they go home. I want to work hard until the last day!

This week we met investigators that are absolutely golden. We were walking home at about 9:15 pm 2 contacts short of the goal for the day, and there were a group of people hanging out in the park, so we went to talk to them. We said we have to go like right now, but we would love to come by to talk to you some other day, and they said yeah you can come on Sunday. So Sunday night we went to visit them. We walked in the house and it was the most beautiful house I have seen here in Ecuador (other than President Riggins'). We shared the Restoration and they understood like PERFECTLY! They had the PERFECT questions and it was AWESOME! I will keep you updated. That was pretty much the week.

I had an intercambio this week. I was with Elder Norris' companion, Elder Sanchez, so I stole one of Elder Norris' ties for the day. HAHAHA. Elder Sanchez goes home tomorrow. That's weird to think of. 

 

This was our Gospel Principles class this week. It could have been even bigger. We brought like 6 more people to the church, but they left after Sacrament Meeting. There were only 70 people at church this week, and about 30 of them were recent converts, less activos, or investigadores. It was a weird week.

 

 

This is the zone. It is a pretty big zone. There are a lot of new missionaries. Of the 9 companionships 6 of them are in training.

7/20

 

This week I don't have pictures because I left my camera in the house of the other Elders... whoops. As far as our week it went really well. We had 4 investigators at church, met 3 new families that say they are coming next week, and had 8 less actives at church.

 

We had a huge service project with the zone on Saturday. We went and helped clean a whole neighborhood. We met some really cool members from the other ward, and one of them drove us home and offered us lunch. We already had lunch that day, so they offered to have us over on a p-day.

 

This week we had some pretty spiritual experiences. We had a blessing we gave to the friend of a member who is super sick. The daughters of the memeber were there too. They are less active and they were all saying how strongly they felt the spirit. Sadly they didn't come to church. :(

 

We also visited a mom who has been less active most of her life. Her daughter is sick right now. We shared a message with her and asked if we could end with a prayer, and she started crying because she felt the Spirit, which was pretty cool. Also didn't come to church though. All we can do is put them in situations to feel the Spirit.

 

Last night we were a little short of the goal of contacts for the week, so we were really looking for people. That is the bad thing about this sector. People don't pass outside, they just hang out in their house. We did find 2 guys to contact, but one was drunk and the other was a Catholic Missionary who wanted to ask the Vigin Mary to bless us. When we said don't ask that for us, he kind of tried to start fighting with us. My companion did something really cool. Bear a simple testimony and invite the guy to pray and ask God. I don't think we're going to teach that guy. but we defintely felt the Spirit. Pretty spiritual week this week which was cool.

 

 

7/27

 

So this week was kind of rough, and when I say kind of rough, I mean to say REALLY rough. We pretty much just walked around all day every day. We didn't have many lessons, and you could see that on Sunday because almost no one came to church.

 

We did find one new familiy. It's funny because they are references from Hna Rojas (Pic). She says that the Testigos (JW's) were passing by to talk with this family every day, and she told them that she was going to send her angels to talk with them, and that was way better than JWs. They are a pretty cool family. Other than that the week was pretty rough.

 

 

This is what happens when you leave your camera with Elder Merrit. There's about 15 pictures just like this.

 

 

CHILI'S! We went to Chili's today and it was delicious. I also got my hair cut today and I had hair in my shirt all day, which was not as cool as Chili's. This is Elder Norris with his baby Elder Bianco and me with my baby... they grow up so fast.

This is Hna Rojas. She has a health club and she invited us over to have a herbalife shake this week. She's awesome and my companion was super happy to find some workout equipment!

This is Laura. It was her birthday and she invited us over to eat cake!