9/24/2014 - Arrival in Ecuador

So I'm here! It was a very long day of travel that's for sure. On the plane we all realized how in trouble we are in with the language. The announcements were made in Spanish and many of the people around didn't know English. Oh my gosh!

The first night there were transfers going on and I was so lost. There were about 25 Elders at the house and Spanish was flying. Some of the native speakers have pretty good English, others do not. Tomorrow we go to the Temple and after that we get shipped off to our new areas with our trainers. I'm excited to start doing the work. Hopefully the language comes fairly quickly for me.

Love.
Elder Roberts

Mailing/Contact Information - Ecuador

Letter Mailing Address:

Elder Tanner Roberts
Ecuador Guayaquil North Mission
Casilla de Correo 16160
Guyaquil 
Ecuador


Package Mailing Address:

Elder Tanner Roberts
Ecuador Guyaquil North Mission
Cdla. Kennedy Vieja, Calle G, N° 601
y La 8va. Oeste, Edif. Mallorca 3er Piso
Guyaquil, Guayas
Ecuador

Ph: 593 4-228-4323

Note: Packages must be valued at less than $400, weigh less than 8 lbs. 8 oz., and be sent via USPS only. Otherwise VERY high customs fees will apply.


Dear Elder.com:

Select Ecuador Guyaquil North Mission
Elder Tanner Roberts

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Pouch Mail address:

Elder Tanner Roberts
Ecuador guyaquil North Mission
PO Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

Detailed instructions can be found here:
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9/17

We had a pretty boss devotional yesterday. We had Elder Scott come speak to us. It was broadcast to all the MTCs around the world which is pretty insane. I had a pretty baller seat. I was fourth row back smack dab in the middle. He talked about prayer and it was a solid talk. Elder Hatefi almost fell asleep though.

So a couple of Elders in my zone are headed down toward Cabo next week, or so they thought. They haven't gotten word on if the hurricane is going to postpone them or not. Hopefully things can get fixed up enough that the Elders can get there.

Well that's just about it... Oh one more thing, I went to the doctor today. Apparently I have a ear canal infection, but the doctor said not to worry because it isn't that bad. He gave me a prescription for some ear drops and anti-biotics and said that my ear will be all fine and dandy in about 6 or 7 days. :)

Oh did I mention that I got my flight plans to Ecudaor? Yeah that happened.

Editorial note:

Thank goodness I was online right as the first message came through so I could push for more information. I didn't get a lot of detail, but did at least get the departure date.

Follow-up email:

So I'm not going to leave you with just that. I got my flight plans yesterday. Elder Taylor, Elder Palmer and I leave for Ecuador on Monday. For some reason Elder Hatefi and Elder Norris still don't have their visas so they will be temporarily reasigned either today or tomorrow. So in about 5 days I will be in a different country. So that's the big news. Okay I actually think that's all that is going on right now.

Love, Elder Roberts

9/10

Same Old Same Old
Every day is the same exact thing. I'm actually starting to go a bit insane. Also me and my district are starting to have a little bit of tension. We've just been cooped up in the same place for too long now. 

We're about to lose the two districts who got here one week before us in our zone. That'll be sad because we've grown pretty close to some of those missionaries. They're pretty much all off to different places in Mexico. Then on the Wednesday before we leave we'll get two new districts. Other than nothing really special has been happening.

I had a dream of where the whole district was going to visa wait (we're still not sure if we are yet, but we haven't heard anything good so I'm preparing myself). The dream said I am going to New York, Taylor is going to Massachusetts, Palmer is going to Georgia, Hatefi is going to Florida, and Norris is going to Irvine mission. These might not make sense, just what my dream said.

Here's a fun story: Elder Palmer has trouble with not saying the H's in Spanish. He can't get used to the silent H, so every time he says a word with the H sound Hermano Griffen makes him eat a piece of paper. This past week he had to eat a piece of paper and then like half an hour later we went to teach our investigator/teacher. In the middle of the lesson Elder Palmer starting choking and ran to the bathroom and threw up the paper. 

Here at the MTC you have to be creative with your fun. Last night Elder Norris came up with a game. Normally it would be really lame, but since it's a way to get away from the routine it's pretty fun. It involves a stress ball, the wall, and kicking. Pretty much the game is baseball with your feet. I've only lost once and I've won 8 times.

That's all for now, I am so ready to be out in the field.

Elder Roberts



Tie Trade Day:

9/3

Well nothing much has happened this week. Honestly the MTC days are all pretty much the same. Get up at 6:30, go to breakfast, go to class for like 4 hours, go to gym (which is the best hour of the day), go to lunch, then class for another 3 hours, go to dinner, then yet another 3 hours in class. 

The days are pretty much all the same other than Wednesdays (P Day), Tuesdays (night devotionals), and Sundays (best days of the week). The Sunday and Tuesday Devotionals are pretty much the best things of all time. One thing that is really starting to kill me is lack of sleep. We get to take naps on Sundays and Wednesdays and I definitely take advantage of those opportunities.  

This past week my district has started going to a nice zen river place for personal study, which I love - it's awesome. So yeah, that's all that's going on. Things are going well here. 

Love, Elder Roberts

One more thing...

You should send me news stories that you think I would like so I kind of know what's going on in the world.

8/27

It is so interesting how quickly everyone in my district is improving. I didn't realize that we would learn so fast. I'm sure when I get dropped off in Ecuador I wont be able to understand a word anyone says but that's okay because I will have a solid base for it. We have pretty much our entire day planned out with around 11 hours in a classroom. It's been a really good experience so far though. 

The meals here are still pretty dang good. My favorite so far has been chicken cordon bleu. I think I might be in trouble though because they have donuts out every breakfast so I just like take one every morning, it's bad. And they have ice cream after lunch and dinner... yeah it's bad.

I thought that P-Day would be a lot more relaxing than it really is. P-Days are actually pretty stressful. We have to get quite a bit of stuff done. We get to go to the temple every P-Day which is pretty awesome, and we get to go down to this small shopping center down the sreet from the MTC. There's not much there but there is a pretty great burger place. The MTC schedule is basically insane. When you're not in class getting spanish shoved down your throat you're at a meal where you're supposed to speak spanish or on your way to a devotional (which are actually pretty cool) but there really isn't much down time.  I'm glad that we get to go to the temple every Wednesday though. That's nice and relaxing. But then we have to do laundry, email people, and then we have class again at 6. It's kind of crazy. My favorite day is probably Sunday because we don't have any classes we just go to like 2 hours of church and then have a devotional which is pretty fun.

 I don't remember if I told you yet but one day last week me and my district had a tie trading day. I got 4 new ties that I like quite a bit. I actually traded away one of the Daiso ties that we bought for like a dollar for some really nice like 40 dollar tie... pretty sweet deal if you ask me. I didn't trade away any of my favorite ties and it was nice because I had plenty to choose from. It's crazy because everyday you see so many cool ties around since everybody has to wear them all the time.

8/20 - 1st message from MTC

Hey! So it's my first P-Day!
It's loco how much stuff they have been shoving into our brains in just one week. We have an "investigator" that my companions and I have been teaching in Spanish. It's awesome how well we can communicate with someone after only one week here. I mean obviously it's not perfect but we've had so much improvement in just one week.

So my district is me and four other elders who were all supposed to be in the Mexico City MTC with me. We're all headed to the Guayaquil North Mission and we all got the call about the change on Monday. So I'm in a trio with Elder Taylor and Elder Palmer. Elder Taylor is from South Carolina and he is a super great companion. He is working hard at the language and is great at getting his point across to our "investigator". (He's our "investigator" because next week he is becoming our second teacher, but we're not supposed to know that yet.) My other companion is Elder Palmer. He is from SanTan Valley como abuela and the rest of the Roberts Clan. The other two people in our district are Elders Norris and Hatefi. Elder Norris is from Mississippi and is a major nut-ball. He is hilarious but sometimes he is hard to work with. Elder Hatefi is from Vegas. I was assigned to be District Leader so I guess you could say I'm a pretty big deal... My main job is to pick up the mail from the mail room. (By the way your Dear Elders are getting to me just fine.)

So after one week here I don't really have a whole heck of a lot to say... mostly we are stuck in a classroom for like ten hours a day getting the language drilled into us and studying the scriptures and all that good stuff. I think the funniest thing that happened this week was on the first night. When we got here we had to go through this check in procedure so the people who were showing around the new missionaries took our suitcases and showed us to our rooms and where our classes were then we got straight to work. When we returned to the apartment that night we started unpacking and everything was going fine until Elder Taylor opened his last suitcase and realized that it wasn't his suitcase. In the check in process he got his suitcase mixed up with a hermana (sister) missionary. His face when he realized that he had the wrong suitcase was pure terror. A few minutes after he opened the wrong suitcase someone knocked on the door and told us they had his bag in the front office and that he needed to take the one he had and switch back. That was really funny.

At the MTC we have two devotionals a week, one on Tuesday Night and the other on Sunday night. The first one I went to was the Sunday night devotional. The speaker was Jenny Oaks Baker, she is Elder Oaks daughter and she is some insane violinist so she and her kids played some music for us throughout her talk. Her talk wasn't really about being a missionary which is okay because if I had 12 devotionals exclusively on being a missionary I would get really bored with them. I did like theTuesday night one better though. The speaker was Sister Bonnie Oscarson who is a Young Women's General President or something like that. She talked about the experiences and advice that she and all of her kids who went on missions had for missionaries about to leave. It was a pretty good talk so yeah that was nice.

The way that going to church is set up here at the MTC is you have meetings with every missionary in your zone, and your zone consists of districts. We have 5 districts and about 45 missionaries in our zone. (That's called your Branch) My branch presidency is President Shallenberger, Brother Slangerland, and Brother Dowdle. President Shallenberger is awesome. He talked on Sunday and it was a great talk. He made people laugh and cry at the same time. Okay I'm running short on time so I guess I'm going to sign off.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot to tell you. I'm on West Campus and you should post on the blog if anyone wants to write me that would be awesome and I would try to respond to each one of them.

Love, Elder Roberts