A poor wayfaring man of grief

Dear Friends and Family

Well this week was another toughie, haha wah wah wah.... gotta roll with the punches. Our investigators just don't seem to be progressing, or care. Its hard to care when they don't. But we are trying our hardest and trying to keep the good attitude. Happiness is a choice. Here on the mission it seems like your doubts and frustrations are the strongest first thing in the morning when you get up, at least for me. Satan is trying to kill the day before it even starts, haha so I've learned to just say a prayer immediate on waking up and then start working immediately, if I even take a minute to think about the tough things, the day is over in the first couple minutes. Keep it positive man!

As far as highlights of the week there are two that come to mind now. First was on Thursday we had a conference with our Mission President, which went well but it was what happened afterward that sticks in my memory. Me and my district went and got pizza afterward and walked over to a park to eat it. We were talking about how hungry we were after the conference, and started chowing down. While we were doing this, a street beggar came up to us. He was missing his ears and half his mouth and could barely talk, and was wearing whatever he found on the street. He put out his little cup to ask us for money. We gave him lots of pizza and as soon as he walked away the song "a poor wayfaring man of grief" came into my mind. Christ has truly blessed us with so much, how can we not give? Our "hunger" was nothing, we hadn't eaten in 6 hours, who knows how long it had been for this guy. Puts things in perspective for sure. Another guy in the park saw that we did that and he wanted to know more about the church because of it. Sweet. We got a lesson in humility and a new investigator, win-win.  

The second was 5 kids in our ward got baptized this week and I got to be the witness for all five. Its cool to see all these kids dressed in white and so excited to start their own path to Eternal Life. You could just couldn't help but feel the spirit and feel happy when they got baptized and then the day afterward in church when they got confirmed. 

So overall good week, just gotta get those investigators to commit man!

Love

Elder Roberts

The Will of God

Not gonna lie, this week was frustrating. A lot of our investigators aren't progressing or aren't home when we come by. On the bright side when they are home I am able to understand so much more and speak so much more, it seems like I progress in the language literally every day. Its really nice, Gift of Tongues is real, you put in you effort and The Lord comes through. As far as for our investigators I was feeling bad on Sunday morning so I prayed and it was a freaking miracle - we had every one of our recent converts show up, 4 less active families that we are teaching, and 3 investigators. It was a huge turn out. When the first couple showed up I was like, oh that's nice, but they just kept coming, and after a while all I could do was just be grateful that the Lord gave me some evidence of our work even when I felt it wasn't paying off. I felt genuinely happy and like we were really changing lives this Sunday. So overall the week was hard, but God provides.

One thing I wanted to share from something I read this week was in John 15. It says that Christ is the vine, we are the branches, and our Heavenly Father is the Husbandman. All those that don't bring forth fruit (good works) are cut off, but all those that do bring forth fruit He purgeth so they bring forth more. I didn't know what to purge meant so I looked it up and it means to to rid of whatever is impure or undesirable, with plants it means to cut down a lot of the growth of the plant. So in this story that Christ uses, we as the branches are going to be cut down over and over again by Heavenly Father (through trial and experiences) until we bring forth the fruit that He wants and that we and others need. Its hard to be cut down sometimes, sometimes I feel like I'm on a roll and then something comes along that it feels like knocks me off course, but in reality it was what I needed in order to become better. 

Anyway overall feeling this week is that the mission isn't all fun and baptisms but God provides if we will endure the purging and work hard. 

Love 
Elder Roberts

I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus

Well this week was a big week of goals. It's weird once you get out on the mission you realize how much time and energy you wasted before. You look back and realize all you want to change now. So I've made myself a ton of goals this week to try and be more like the Savior every day.

As far as lessons things are going well, we are having pretty good success here. We found a woman this week who says she has been praying for an answer from God and says that a couple days later we showed up. We were all psyched about this and she is super receptive to our lessons....but there is a downside,  her husband is a devout catholic and doesn't believe our message. We asked if we are causing problems in her home by teaching her and she assured us no so we've taught her a couple times. But this Saturday we went by to teach her and we were teaching a pretty good lesson and her husband walked in... He took one look at us, took a deep breath, rolled his eyes, and pointed to the open door and whispered "por favor." We immediately got up and left. Never been kicked out of a house before and I gotta say....its awkward..... haha so were not really sure what were going to do about this investigator.....

But overall our lessons have been going well. Me and my comp constantly practice both lessons and language in the streets between lessons and its all going pretty well. 

Sorry not a lot of time this week. 

Elder Roberts

Edification and Progression

Dear Friends and Family,

Don't have a lot of time so I just wanted to share two quick things.

1) I have been studying and thinking a lot about God our Father and who He really is. Here is some of my insights this week. D&C 50:23-24 - Edify that is what Father is. He is perfect and we are fallen, and honestly, nothing in comparison.  So His whole purpose in giving us the Spirit is to edify, or build us. God is progression. If you have prompts or thoughts that are negative, tear you down, are discouraging, or make it so you no longer want to talk to Father, than it's not edifying, and so is not of God. It's weird to think about but honestly everything of God is progression even if it feels like your taking steps back or don't see where your going.

2) I was also reading in Alma 32 this week, I have probably read this chapter 30 times since coming on my mission, I think this one and Moroni 7 are two of the most interesting and inciteful chapters in the Book of Mormon. After studying edification I realized this ¨growth¨ that Alma is talking about in this chapter is the exact same thing. ¨If the seed groweth it is good, if it groweth not, cast it away.¨ 

Anyway if you had to plan a Sunday School lesson this week your welcome. Haha things here are good and I'm just pushing along. No really big experiences this week, just teaching and obviously learning.

Keep the faith
Elder Roberts

Familys can be forever

Well this week was alright. My Spanish is coming along and I'm understanding a ton more than I feel like I was even a week ago. We had another 2 baptisms this week - A woman named Ro and her daughter Ra. They have been investigators for a while and stopped taking lessons then all of a sudden they wanted to get baptized and so started taking lessons again and we got ´em dunked!

This week I would like to talk about the power of teaching. I have noticed that as we walk in between lessons its really easy to let your mind wander or to feel discouraged. You gotta just go into the lesson and first thing immediately is say a quick prayer in your heart that the spirit will be there then if it's you or your companion that says the opening prayer invite the spirit again and after that just go. I can't really explain it any better than that. I have only felt once or twice the spirit actually say something and I was like wait...what? Did I just say that, haha its really cool when your learning from what your saying, you pause for a minute and have to ponder what you said. Its really cool. But most times its you just go with what you planned and have a hope that the spirit will be felt. If you will just give it your all, all the discouragements and problems in life shrink, for a couple minutes its just you and them. 

One cool experience we had this week was with a lady that have been taking lessons for a while and just doesn't really progress but is always willing to listen to our message. This week she had her two sons sit in with us and I felt like we needed to focus on them and see where they are and what they need. We taught about who Jesus Christ is, who Heavenly Father is, and the importance of prayer and the Holy Ghost. We invited the two sons to read Moroni 10:3-5 then I asked if we could say a kneeling prayer with her family. She agreed and her ten year old son said the prayer. He started to cry and prayed for his parents who are having some problems and you could just feel his sincerity and desire to have his family with him forever. It was actually really sad. This is why we have the gospel.

Anyway to wrap it up life here is good when you give it all up and work, and it is hard when you focus on all the problems and whine and complain and just give up...go figure.

Elder Roberts

Eternal Truth

Family relationships can and will exist beyond the grave as families make and keep sacred ordinances and covenants in God’s holy temples. (4:14)