Elder Tanner Roberts: 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.