Simple solid testimony of the humble

Well we spent the majority of this week rubbing shoulders with the zone leaders and freezing  in their house, Mexico is very cold in the winter man! Haha but we actually had a really fun Christmas together. We bought a ton of food, A TON, like steak, and sausage, and pie and candy and ate til we got sick (second time in Mexico that that has happened, the other time was with the sister in Durango who gave us each a cake, yes I'm still talking about it and will until the day I die).

We also went to the mission house and had a dinner with president, had multi-zone activities, I SAW A SNOWMAN IN TORROEN!!! I don't know how, it's cold but there is no snow so who knows how it got there. But after like 4 days of Christmas festivities we had to return to our beloved Tlahualilo and work again.

When we got back we had a really cool experience with a less active here named C. He is a very poor, and uneducated man, but his biggest trial is that he has a lot of problems with his past, he is an ex missionary but made some bad choices and was eventually excommunicated. After 8 years he decided to repent and be baptized again. He was re-baptized about 3 years ago but to this day he can not and will not forgive himself. He lives with the idea that Christ's atonement is sufficient for everyone except him (I would actually say that is a very common lie of Satan, I hate that guy). So he went inactive after a while and when I got here he was pretty depressed.

Little by little we have helped him accept what the atonement and repentance means and this week he was completely different. He has gone with us for 3 to 4 hours every day to help us find people here in Tlahualilo. He has given us the names of several families and we are finding old investigators through him as well. Last night we had a lesson about the Book of Mormon with him present and I asked him to share his testimony of the Book of Mormon, and he did, and there was nothing flashy or special about his testimony but I felt the power of his testimony about the Book of Mormon. He really does know that it's true and as I looked at him bearing his testimony I felt the Holy Ghost carry his simple words to us and make them powerful. I felt Gods love for him, I can't really explain what it was, but as I looked at this guy who has been beat down by doubt, sin, and Satan for years I felt a small part of the love the Christ must have for him. His simple testimony was made powerful by the Holy Ghost.

One time Brigham Young talked about hearing the testimony of an uneducated man and how He (Brigham Young) received a witness of the Holy Ghost through the simple testimony of his friend. I too now have felt that and that truly it is not a knowledge of the gospel nor the doctrine that will give us success, nor is it speaking in perfect Spanish, nor the charisma or talent of the missionaries that will help people truly come unto Christ, but the simple solid testimony of the humble. I know that is true.

Testimony grows on a mission

I have very little time right now, we are getting ready to get on a bus and head off toward a bigger town to spend Christmas in our zone. 

 

I just want to share a quick thought about testimonies. I don't really know when it happened, I never had a moment exactly when The Lord told me but over the course of 11 months in Mexico and over a year now in the mission, I know that the Church really is true. I know that Joseph Smith really did see our Heavenly Father and that through him Jesus Christ restored His church. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. 

 

It's weird but I really am a million times stronger in my faith than I was when I left. It didn't come in a particular moment, I can't really think of a time when it hit me but as I teach lessons now I do feel it more and more every day that this really is the truth that Christ Himself came to proclaim. A testimony isn't gained until you gotta put it to the test, and that is what is done every day here in Mexico, and I am grateful for that. I love the mission in that you either have to grow in your faith or you gotta go home, haha there's no hanging out in the mission. 

Elder Roberts

Happiness verses Comfort

This week we had a very interesting talk with a less active here in Tlahualilo, and its something that applies to me so much. We were talking about happiness and comfort. While we are here on the earth we become beings that are constantly searching for both comfort and happiness and one thing that is very quickly evident is that they are not the same and actually in a lot of cases they are opposites. Before this world we were happy in a very real sense. As we enjoyed the presence of our perfect Father we knew what it was to be happy. Our eternal nature is to become like Him to enjoy such a state of happiness as He does. In the life before we learned from Him how to become like Him and we longed to do so. Satan tried to tempt us into choosing a plan in which it would be impossible to sin but also it would be impossible to progress to the state of our Father.

Luckily our Father protected us from such a plan for all those that chose to follow His. The plan of Satan sounds pretty good at first, not one soul would be lost, but to be forced into obedience and to never progress by our own choices would also mean we would never be exalted either. And so we come into this world but this time with three things we didn't have before, a physical body, the lack of our Fathers physical presence, and without the memory of what we were before. And so here we are, we come into the world as something a lot different than we were, in a physical body and without the presence or memory of Perfect Beings we all of a sudden don't think about eternal happiness and start thinking about immediate comfort. What is eternity for a temporal being?

The natural man that we are in this world doesn't like to be uncomfortable, above all else if the natural man is uncomfortable than automatically we gotta find a something to make us comfortable, at any cost, emotional, physical, mental, and yes spiritual. And so the natural man becomes both an enemy to God and to himself, as he selfishly looks for the things that bring comfort and loses the things that bring happiness.

One huge truth I have learned on the mission is that if the natural man is comfortable, nobody cares if the divine part of us is miserable. I have talked to so many people on this mission that have openly confessed that "Yes I am miserable, but I am comfortable, so why change." It's crazy how easily we settle for the comfortable in place of happiness. How quick we call it quits on God in the minute that He lets us pass through some hard times. We accepted such trials before we came and now that were here we are understanding the price of exaltation - that to truly be happy...we have to be uncomfortable in the natural man sense. Haha and that's hard!

When I started the mission I was the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my life, haha literally nothing was the same, and so the natural man was screaming, and crying and whining and suffering, haha I had fed him for twenty years and now that he had to be starved he wasn't going down without a fight. I so often felt like I was happier before the mission happier before I accepted the Lords will before my own, now a year latter I look back and I realize I was very very comfortable, I had never really done anything I didn't want to do in my life, and here I was having to sacrifice everything for the greater good.

Why did Christ come into the world without any worldly comforts? Why didn't he have a house, or money, or anything in terms of the world? Because He knew what I am learning every day, that to be happy is to be uncomfortable in the natural man, to progress is to starve out the natural man, to deny yourself and do whats gotta be done. One of my favorite teachings of Christ is found in Matthew 10:38-39

 38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

 39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life  for my sake shall find it.

To avoid our the crosses in our lives is the mission of the natural man. To find our own life, pursue our own comfort is what we have come here to overcome. Christ wouldn't have been the Savior unless He was willing to give up everything that is comfortable to the natural man, and sacrifice all that our Father required. He did it, and is our Savior, now we, as disciple of Christ, gotta learn how to do the same, one selfish struggle after another....

The Book of Mormon is true!!

Well to be honest Tlahualilo is a very special area. It's a very small town in the middle of nowhere (rancho in spanish) and in total there are.... 20 active members and none of them show up on time, and like 200 inactive members. The missionaries, and the branch president are the only priesthood in the area so we are in charge of the branch, tithing, activites, reactivation, everything. I also got here and in total we have 4 investigators...so I don't really know what was going on here before but we aren't teaching alot... 

So we gotta change all that. One thing that we are going to change is how we present the Book of Mormon. The majority of the people in Mexico (that have heard anything about the Book of Mormon, which isn't a lot) believe that the Book of Mormon is the mormon bible and we don't believe in the Bible. They also don't realize that we believe in Jesus Christ. In preach my Gospel it says 

"The Book of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is your most powerful resource in conversion. It is the most correct of any book on the earth (see introduction to the Book of Mormon). It teaches the doctrine of Christ plainly, especially in the lessons you teach investigators. Use it as your main source for teaching the restored gospel."

This is something that we honestly haven't done a lot in my other areas. We use the Book of Mormon as homework for the investigator, as a back up to the lesson, if we don't use it as the main source of our teaching the Spirit can not testify of what we are teaching. The Book of Mormon and the Spirit are everything and if people only view the Book of Mormon as homework than clearly they will not gain a testimony of it and we are not using it nearly to it's full potential to bring people to Christ. So the other night I was praying and thinking about how we can reopen the area and the next day I had a the idea, we would contact with the Book of Mormon (We have never contacted with the Book of Mormon before because when people hear Book of Mormon they all of a sudden have no time to talk) and in the first lesson explain who Christ is, Who God is, and what the Book of Mormon is. We are basically gonna just explain articles of faith 1 and 8 in the first lesson and clearly explain what is the Book of Mormon in the first visit. The Book of Momon is in L1 of preach my gospel but at the end and in this mission we divide the lessons into 2 visits so we don't get around to the Book of Mormon until the second visit and by the end of the second visit almost nobody cares enough to find out whether the book is true. This week we are going to try and change it up here to see how the testimony of the Book of Mormon can help people realize the truth immediately. If we just dedicate a whole lesson to helping people understand who is God the father, Jesus Christ and how the Book of Mormon and the Bible work together to bring us to them I am confident that people will be more receptive to when we get around to things like apostasy and pre-mortal life. So to be honest we are going out of order of the lessons but luckily we have the freedom to do so according to what the Spirit says. 

Also got to see the first presidency's Christmas devotional yesterday and it was pretty awesome. This week was hard because to be honest we have no support from members, we don't have the comforts of the city, life in a rancho is tough and I was in a bad mood because we don't have all of the comforts of civilization. One of the messages in the devotional  was that Christ descended from heaven to be born in a barn, to live life without any modern comforts and to work day in day out without concern for personal needs. Why did He do that? in His own words ´´to do the will of His Father´´. Did I come on the mission to work or to be comfortable? To do the will of my Heavenly Father or my own. It's hard to walk around all day, take cold showers, eat gross food haha, wah wah wah but at the end of the day I and every other missionary have to realize we aren't here to be comfortable, we are here to sacrifice. I have lived in the lap of luxury for 20 years before the mission and its probable that I will do so the rest of my very privileged life, Why should I have to complain that I have to give it all up for a very small time. I learn or relearn something every day. 

2 Challenges 1. Pray that people will be receptive to the Book of Mormon por favor. 2. And read the Book of Mormon and send me your testimony.

Elder Roberts

Transfered to Tlauwalilo

Well I got transferred out of no where, because of Christmas the exchange week got changed, so I got transferred a week early, haha and so here I am in a little town called Tlauwalilo, its in Coahuila, so I left the nice, green state of Durango and once again am in the desert.

As far as this week I first want to share an experience we had with two separate lessons in the same day. First we go into a house and I don't know why but I started feeling really angry and nervous and I could not speak Spanish, it was so weird, it was like when I first started my mission. We kept struggling through the lesson and at the end the lady starts telling us about spirits and a demon that supposedly haunts her son, it was a really nasty feeling and I have heard other stories like this on the mission but this was the first one that felt real.  But right after that lesson we had one with E, his girlfriend, and O. and R. and the Spirit was really strong and I could speak and teach like it was no problem. So I just want to say it really is 100% the Spirit in the mission, when the Spirit isn't in the lesson things fall apart fast and when the investigators are doing weird things with bad spirits it goes bad even faster. It was actually a really cool experience to see such a dramatic difference between two lessons, one with and one without the Spirit of God. 

As far as O, R,  E, and his girlfriend  We had a lesson with them right before I left and they really have progressed so much. When we found E he was dead, he wasn't a fan of life, dead spiritually, he just kind of drifted, but after three weeks of coming to church and several months of listening to the message of the gospel it really is amazing to see how different he is. He is way happier, his relationship with his kids is way stronger and as he realizes that not only does God love him but that he has a responsibility to set the example for his kids and so to meet that demand he steps it up every week. O will be baptized in two weeks, R the week after, and E will be active again in the church in two weeks as well. 

My new companions name is Elder P, he is from Mexico City and seems to be a really funny cool guy. He only has 4 months in the mission but has been in this area since he started so he knows it well. He told me on one of the two - 3 hour bus rides we had to take to get here that we have exactly 5 investigators in the entire area, supposedly they dropped almost all their investigators last week because no one was progressing, welcome to the mission, haha naw but it just means we gotta contact a lot in the next couple weeks.

He is the Gift – Christmas Video – #ShareTheGift

The gospel really does bless the family

This week was a really good one. We are working a lot with Fam. Z. In total there are two grandparents (less actives), their sons (less actives as well) and three grand kids (investigators) that are listening to our lessons. It's kinda crazy how much the gospel really can change people. When we started teaching them they refused to come to church, the grand kids were all Little punks and all of them just didn't care. After about a month and a half everything has changed, they are coming to church, the dad's are starting to really think about the responsibility that they have to their kids and their families and more than anything the grand kids are really starting to understand that God means something and He can help them.

The first time they actually showed up to church, we had to show up to their houses, practically force them to come to church, and they all came un-showered, in clothes covered in paint (they paint houses for a living) and just with a bad attitude. So to be honest wasn't the best of situations, but after three weeks of going to church and doing when the gospel teaches them to in their daily lives, they are changing. They have more life and light in their faces, they just look happier. They come to church all cleaned up and ready to go without us even having to come by and remind them, and one day we came by unexpectedly and to our amazement they were all reading the Book of Mormon together as a family and told us that they started reading every day about a week ago.

The dads are changing a lot, they want to help their sons and set the example and it's so cool to see but to be honest it's the kids that are really understanding the point and are keeping their commitments. K. is 10 and he is an amazing kid, his older brothers all treat him like crap and they refuse to listen to our message but he always is ready and waiting to listen to us. He always asks really good questions in lessons and has real concern for his own spiritual welfare but more than anything for that of his older brothers. The other night we were talking about baptism and how we need to be baptized in order to be an eternal family and all of a sudden he says "well what's the point then of me being baptized? My brothers refuse to do it. so they can't come to heaven with me." (Hahahha the grandma responded faster than us and said "well its better to live with God than your family anyway." hahahaha it was funny but we had to shut down that answer real quick) It just amazes me that this kid really does worry about his brothers and so we told him he's gotta set the example and they will eventually realize how the gospel can bless them as well. Haha its weird how kids really do understand the message faster than their parents, the point is not to choose between God and family but to be with both for forever. He also asked us how he can really know if our church is true (his mom is very anti-mormon but his dad is a member so its another obstacle to overcome.) and accepted the challenge to read, ponder and pray about the Book of Mormon.

The gospel really does bless the family, I have seen it so much in my mission. You don't realize how much it really does bless and strengthen us until you find a family who doesn't have it. I'm so grateful to God that I had the chance to be born into a stable home where the gospel is present and more than anything I am now able to bring that stability and help to those that are searching and need it.

Elder Roberts

Go read D and C 138. I don't know why but it really impressed me this week and I feel like you should go and read it and more than anything do the work that they need. Love you and hope life is good. 

El Espíritu de Dios

Bring our brothers and sisters back to God

Haha well Elder A. is returning home this week and I got my new companion today, Elder T, he is from the Federal District of Mexico City and is 27. He too will return home in 5 weeks.

This week I want to write about two amazing exeriences. The first was we had a random investigator call us this week, we had tried to visit him all last transfer and he was never home, so after a while we gave up. Then out of nowhere this week he calls us, so we go over to his house and he tells us how he knows our church is true and he and his daughter want to be baptized, so we put a baptismal date... Haha future baptism out of nowhere, it was so cool. God directly worked in that man's life to help us and him out.

The other and coolest thing that happened this week was we decided to do an activity with our district and our Ward members. So we prepared tons of hymns to sing and invited all the members in both wards to come and had out pamphlets and contact as we sang. To be honest we didn't expect a lot from it, we were so wrong. We show up and there were about 25 members ready to help us out. So we bust out and start singing as they contacted and handed out church materials. We ended up getting about 120 contacts out of it. It was soooo cool to sing the Spirit of God in Spanish as all those who know not God pass by and cant help but feel the spirit.

To be honest it is sooo true that when members and missionaries work together it is 10000000X better. The Spirit is stronger, the investigators have a support system to fall back on and we all reach out as a team to bring ourselves and our brothers back to God.

 Durango apartment and Street contacting with members

Abide with Me - Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comfort flee
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to it's close ebbs out life's little day
Earth's joys grow dim, it's glories pass away
Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power
Who like Thy Self my guide and stay can be
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

Haha well I don't really know what to talk about this week. We had quite a few lessons but no one wants us, nor our message, nor Christ. Everybody has dropped us. We sang this song one day during Companionship study (in Spanish obviously but it was still cool) and Its now one of my favorite hymns. Go and listen to it, its a good one. I'm sorry but I really don't have a lot more to write about this week.

Here are some favorite scriptures

And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.

DC 78:18

Atonement has power to save and heal

Well this week Satan went after every single one of our investigators and I guess we didn't prepare them well enough for it. On Tuesday we went by to visit one of our investigators only to be told that he was forced by his dad to steal from a store, he got caught, and will now be in juvenile detention until he turns 18.... 3 years man..... we also went by to see our investigator I. this week and he was higher than a kite.... are you kidding me? We tried to visit him again throughout the week but every time we went by he couldn't see us and didn't come to church this week. Hmo A. has told us he CANNOT quit smoking no matter how much he or we try, haha so right now God's putting us through a Little bit of a refiners fire. We literally have no one in our área right now that is progressing. We talked with some of the other Elders this week and they told us the same, Durango is rejecting the góspel on all sides. We had interviews with president this week and he told us that we just have to be patient, that we have to just love the people, apply the atonement in our own lives, and let people use their own agency, so we are trying.

The celebration of the virgin Mary started this week as well. Aparently there is a huge celebration in all Mexico on Dec. 12th to worship The Virgin. Its bigger than Christmas... There is a story here that Mary appeared to an Mexican Indian named Juan Diego and he gained her favor. So now they all dress up as indians and have drum rolls and indian dances in the streets at night. I'm not gonna lie it's spooky to see and hear these people beating the crap out of drums and dancing and yelling with murals and pictures of the Virgin Mary all around. I really do feel like I'm in a city that has rejected the góspel completely. Jesús Christ is a name that is only remembered really as the Son of the Virgin. They all believe that Christ died for them but they put all their faith and devotion in Mary.

On a high note a family here in Durango baught me a freaking sweet birthday cake

 

Missionary work is not easy. It is the most demanding, the most compelling, the most exhausting, and yet, with it all, the most happy and most joyful work in all the world. - Ezra Taft Benson 

Love the happiness radiating from that face!!

and Fam. C and S. from Gomez Palacio went to the temple for the first time.

Gonna keep trying hard here in old Durango... 

 "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God"

It's a weird thought to think about the Atonement of Christ. About who He was and what He really did. There are people here that have been termed by themselves, by their family,  by their neighbors, and by the world at large as "worthless", as drunks and losers, as people that cannot change, that the circumstances of birth have made it so they can't move forward or look up, they were born losers, drunks, as the worthless natural man, and they will die that way. The price of the worthless is unimaginably high. What did Christ have to go through to help these people out of the hole they were born into and dug themselves deeper? I look at my own life and what was my price, the price of my weaknesses, of my shortcomings, my sins, my failures, the holes I dug myself into?

I have seen the Atonement help pull people out of these holes, to help man reach something better than he is. I have also seen when people reject that Atonement, that their own personal price to pay of obedience is far to great, when they just don't realize how much of a price has already been paid on their behalf. The Atonement has been there for me in every stage of my life. Christ was there for me in moments of need, He reached out to me when I needed Him most and deserved Him least. I have been carried every step of trial by Someone that is a lot stronger than me. I was a child when I left for Mexico, I didn't know anything, about myself, about God, about Christ, about the real power that is found in the Atonement. He took that child and every day He gives me the opportunity to one day become a God.

That was the point though, Christ stepped down into the depths of Hell so He could carry His bothers and sisters out of it and welcome them into the mansions of Our Father. I know the Atonement is real, I seen its power to save, to heal, to turn the worthless into Sons of God, but more importantly I have felt and am experiencing such things in every step I take in a place that refuses to receive such power to save.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

The yolk is compliance to the Gospel, and the price of discipleship I can promise is a truly lighter load than the self prescribed, selfish, and to be honest, worthless life that we would live for ourselves

God will lead us to the honest seeker of truth

So last week we were wandering around looking for investigators and everybody fell through, so I was feeling pretty frustrated, so that night I was thinking and praying about how we could find more people and it came into my mind that we should go and contact in a place called Ampliancion Pri. This place is sketch, lots of gangsters, lots of problems, and it's far from the chapel so we haven't really touched it too much, but it is a part of our área so I told Elder A that we were gonna spend a day there and contact. So we did. As we wandered through the streets of this part of town we started contacting and EVERYBODY accepted a visit that we talked to, it was nuts. Haha then reality hit and when we went back nobody was home except one kid named I.

 

I. is a 16 year old kid that has had a rough life and has to work hard labor constuction or wash cars in order to help his family. He accepted a visit when we contacted him and when we went back to visit him he wasn't home. We were kinda bummed but as we turned away from his house we saw him running full speed down the dirt road with his dog to come and meet us before we left. Haha when he got to us we were just like... "how's it going...do you remember we said we were gonna come by and talk about Christ...." and he said "yeah come in come in". So we did and taught him lesson one. This kid is different he wants to make God happy, he really does worry about his eternal salvation and that of his family, altough he can't read he understands and remembers what we teach him. In the first lesson we invited him to baptism and boom, he said yes. All this happened last week (I didn't have a lot of time last week to write)  Haha so last Sunday we went by his house with a member to bring him to church, in this área we pass by investigators houses every week to try and bring them to church and almost nobody is ever home so we were a Little nervous. After we knock I. comes walking out in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a hawiian shirt and jeans. I looked at him and was just like "uhhhh... well are you ready to go..." hahahha and he said "yep let's go." He really likes to pray and was praying really hard and was really reverant during the sacrament. All of the Young men in the Ward welcomed him and took him to clases (this Ward really is amazing). Overall his first week at church went really well.

 

So this week we went and visited him every other day and every other day he brought someone new to listen. His mom, his sisters (he literally dragged one into the room to listen), his friends, some drunk guy that we dont really know who he was or how he knew I. (not a joke that really happened) so not only does he believe our message but he is ready to share it with everybody. This kid is on fire, every time we go back he just gets this light in his eyes as he realizes that his hard life can be better. He reminds me of when Christ healed the servant of a Roman and after said "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel (Mat. 8:10)." This kid has so much faith and wants so bad to make God happy and help his family. This Sunday he came again to church, this time in a button up shirt and without the cowboy hat haha. I know that he is one of the reasons I was told to go to a place that to a large degree has rejected God.

Happiness is the purpose of this life

Just wanted to share something I have been studying a little this week with you guys. I have been thinking a lot about happiness, why there are happy people in the world? and why the majority really aren't happy? It's kinda sad to see but it's true, very few people are happy.

The First one is our purpose in life that is found in 2 Nephi 2:25 (Adam fell‍ that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.) This scripture is one of the most simple but most profound in the scriptures. God made us to be happy, our purpose in existing is to be happy. That's a weird thing to think about, when so many come into the world and leave it miserable. How can our purpose be to be happy then?

About a day later I found the answer to the question, our nature is happiness but what is it to be happy? Alma 41:10-11 (Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness‍ never was happiness. And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal‍ state, are in the gall of bitterness‍ and in the bonds‍ of iniquity; they are without‍ God in the world, and they have gone contrary‍ to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness.). This is something fundamental to happiness - GOD IS HAPPY. God is happy and so He knows how to make us happy. To be contrary to Gods nature is to be contrary to being happy. Just as God has laws that govern life, He has laws that govern happiness. Happiness is something as definite as gravity,

So then if the answer is God's Nature is the Nature of Happiness how to we become as God, accept His nature. Moroni 10:32 (Yea, come‍ unto Christ, and be perfected‍ in him, and deny‍ yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love‍ God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect‍ in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God) DC 76:69 (These are they who are just‍ men made perfect‍ through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement‍ through the shedding of his own blood.) I love the phrase that says we have to deny ourselves ungodliness, we have to deny for ourselves to work against the Nature of God (The Nature of Happiness). I have seen so many miserable people here that don't understand how a Heavenly Father could love them when they are as miserable as they are. It is hard to try to explain to people that have been given so few opportunities, that their choices are directly against the Nature of Happiness, we promise them happiness that comes through Jesus Christ and the majority find that it's too hard to be happy. To deny myself of ungodliness is HARD, haha but that's the same as saying that to deny myself unhappiness is HARD. Its funny that to be happy is our purpose but it's against our carnal nature as human beings.

Just to sum up I would like to give two examples of happy, really happy people in the Book of Mormon. Nephi talked about how the Lord had supported him in all his trials and struggles and he adds this small part to his testimony of the Love of the Lord - 2 Nephi 4:21 (He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming‍ of my flesh.) Nephi knew what it was to have problems in life but he also knew the love and Happiness that the Lord offers to us His children through His góspel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Ammon also had felt such love and happiness after having labored and suffered a lot on a 14 year mission Alma 27:17-18 (Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the earth. Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which NONE receieveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness.)

I have felt God's love, I have felt God's happiness and comfort for me in really hard times. I have felt the Lord's love for others and I am coming to finally understand that happiness is only gained through Jesus Christ. Christ is our way to being happy and I know that now. I cannot fight against the nature of God (Nature of Happiness) and expect to be happy. I know that I and my investigators can only be as happy as we are willing to let ourselves be, and that is by letting Christ show us how its done and then doing it His way. 

I am ready brothers

I only really have one experience to share this week. So we are working with a family right now named Fam. A. He is a SUPER nice guy and believes in Christ and living prophets and his wife is very accepting as well. So naturally we invited them and their 4 year old son to conference to hear the words of Pres. Monson and then pray about it. The conference center where we all met is about twenty minutes away in car and he doesnt have a job right now so he couldnt pay for the gas to get to there. So we got a member on board to help us bring this family to conference. So Saturday rolls around and they committed to come to the second sesión of conference that afternoon. So saturday morning we sat with the rest of the rejects without investigators and watched the first sesión of conference haha. After lunch me and Elder Altamirano had to take a bus back to our house so we could meet up with this member and go grab Fam. Amaro. The bus came really late and it took forever to get back to the house, by the time the bus stopped we started running in 100 degree heat in suits to meet up with our ride. hahah misión life. We show up to the members house and then drive over to pick up Fam. A., the whole time me and Elder A. are hoping and praying that PLEASE can we have this family show up. We knock on the door, wait about five seconds and Hmo. A opens the door in a dress shirt and slacks, then his little boy peeks out from behind him in a little suit and yells "¡Estoy listo hermanos! (I'm ready brothers). I seriously almost cried, the whole family was dressed and ready to go right on time. 

When we showed up to conference they were very serious and the only time that Hmo A talked for the whole sesión was when he leaned over and asked us before every speaker "hmo is he the prophet?" So we had to explain about apostles again and what a 70 is. Throughout the entire conference he kept asking when President Monson was going to speak. ahhahah the funny part was President Monson didn't end up speaking in that session, but hey there were some really good talks so its all good.

Another thing that was so cool about conference was the talks in the different languages. It's one thing to hear a guy translate the words of living prophets and leaders into spanish, its totally different to hear these men of God testifying in their native language. Seriously the talks that were given in spanish by native spanish speakers were so powerful and were a huge spiritual moment for every single person in the conference center here in Mexico and I'm sure all around the world. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father has changed things up so members and investigators around the world can feel Gods concern and guidance for them in their own language.

So yeah conference was a success. Missionary conference is so much different than conference as just a member sitting in their house. We are trying to remember and be able to teach every Word that these men of God teach so that we can have the success and the Spirit we need to be missionaries of Christ.

Elder Roberts

What I have learned from 0's

We had very little lessons and no one at church this week. This entire 6 weeks we have walked all day and have had a total of 1 person at church and he isn't progressing right now. Gotta just be optimistic and have faith cuz if you don't than there isn't a point in the mission.

Because of these hard times I have been trying to study a lot more and in my studies I have come across three examples of missionaries that passed through some tough times in the mission as well. 

The first went on his mission and in every area he was in he didn't have a single baptism but right after he left the missionaries after him had success. After a year of having no baptisms he wrote his dad and told him he was coming home. His dad told him to just get to work and forget himself. He did and ended up finishing his mission with a total of 0 baptisms. His name was Gordon B. Hinkley.

The second example was a missionary who was recently married when he got called by the first presidency to serve a mission. He decided to leave his wife and answer the call. During his mission his wife got seriously sick several times but he decided to have faith and kept working for 2 years. He ended the mission with 0 baptisms. His name was Joseph Fielding Smith. 

The last example: There was a Missionary who was getting a lot of attention because He was able to work miracles and He spoke by the power of God. He taught the true doctrine by the Power of the Holy Ghost. But the majority were only listening to this Missionary because of His miracles and not because they had genuine faith in His teachings. In order to divide the real believers from the sign-seekers this Missionary taught a stronger doctrine than the majority were ready to handle. He lost a lot of investigators that day. (John 6:53-69) His numbers dropped drastically. And by the end of His ministry His true converts were very few. And about 400 years after He died no one believed  the true doctrine that He taught. His name was Jesus Christ.  

Something that is kinda sad about today's mission field is there is a lot of emphasis on numbers. Missionaries (me included) love to look at their progress report with a lot of numbers more than at the people they are teaching as literal children of God. It's really hard to see a bad progress report and believe that your still doing your best, that God still is here helping us. But if we measure the success of these three missionaries just by their numbers these two prophets of God and Our Savior left their missions as failures.

I guess the lesson that God has tried to give me in a transfer of 0's is the mission is so much more than the number of baptisms. If it were all about numbers the Lord could send angels to teach people and their numbers would be awesome, but instead He sends weak, whiny, inexperienced 19 year old kids to teach the gospel. It's about the souls of men, missionaries and investigators alike. If we give it 100% and still we get nothing in numbers, we are just walking in the same path that Prophets have.

Eye Single to the Glory of God

To be honest this area is the toughest I have seen yet in the mission. Its super easy to find new people to teach the hard part is getting them to church. We have a ton of support from the local bishop and other members haha but people here just don't want it right now. We have committed several people to baptism but when they find out they have to do things to be baptized they have 0 time all of a sudden. We have gone going around to our investigators houses with a car (seriously the members here are awesome) to see if that would help. Haha it didn't. So we got the bishop on board and he has met with several of the investigator families here to see if he was the missing link. Nope. Haha so then it just came down to accepting that maybe people here aren't ready.

I was thinking about it the other night, about how no body was progressing, no body was moving along, and I was pretty angry at God. We try harder to be obedient every day, try harder to get the members involved and do everything we can for our investigators and what was the point? As I was fuming all of a sudden I realized I wasn't angry because nobody was progressing I was angry because my pride couldn't take another week of 0's on our progress report to president. I wasn't angry because these people were accepting Jesus Christ, I was angry because they weren't accepting me. I was angry because all my work has been for me, to make me feel like Im a better missionary than the rest, not for God nor for these investigators. Sometimes it takes a month of 0's to learn a lesson. God has given me so much on this mission, I've had a lot of success, I've learned a lot, I haven't had a bad companion yet (And I hit 8 months in Mexico this week, holy crap!) and still all I can do is whine when my pride wants more than God is willing to give me. 

D&C 4:5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

Eye single to the glory of God, not to a number on a progress report that I'll just forget by next Monday anyway. Haha so even if our investigators aren't progressing, I am. 

Other fun facts of the week. Something that is rare here in Mexico is dessert - they don't eat a lot of sugar here. So one day for lunch we go to a members house and along with a huge meal of roast chicken and other delicious foods we see 2 big cakes on the table, I was pretty psyched... As we were finishing up the chicken all of the sudden the member comes in with a cheese cake -  yeah that's right, there are three cakes in the room at this point... No invente... As we started in on one of the cakes the member comes in one last time with a giant jello fruit thing. Three cakes and a giant jello-fruit thing. Needless to say it was the fullest I have been since coming to Mexico, the members and the food in this area are unreal. Im going to be GORDOTE by the end of this transfer, i hope.

Also we (me, Elder A, the other two elders in our ward, and the bishop) sang in sacrament meeting this week. We sang a hymn in Spanish called "Oh Santo Dios" (Oh Holy God) that is pretty sweet. After we sung it I look over at a kid in the ward who is having a lot of problems with the church right now and hes bawling. Mission accomplished. 

So yeah just another week in ol´ Durango. 

Oh yeah also last Monday was Mexican independence day.

 Pic #1 ¡Puro Durango!

 

Pic #2 Dia de Independencia

Missionary Work and the Atonement

One thing I have had to learn throughout the eight months I've been here are people aren't gonna try to reach their potential until they have nowhere else to go but up. We taught some pretty good lessons this week, and had 3 families lined up to come to church and are preparing for baptism. We had set up rides for all of them so there would be no excuse for not having a way to get to church - but not a one of them was home. Not gonna lie that walk of shame from your investigators door back into the car of the member is a tough one to take.

On a fun note supposedly there are hurricanes brewing' on both sides of Mexico and this week we had the craziest rain storm I have ever seen in my life. The sky was black and it literally was like we had buckets of water coming down on us. The streets were rivers and we had to HAUL back to our house only to find that we had to spend the next hour getting water out from our street so it wouldn't flood us. It was pretty intense but a fun time. 

Well that's about all I got for this week. We're gonna try hard to really push our investigators this week to try and, well try, a little harder haha. 

Watch the video!

 Love Elder Roberts

Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

This week we contacted a ton, and we found 14 new investigators out of it, and two new families. One day we were looking for a referral in an area that has pretty much no investigators in it, no one there has accepted any missionary activity for a while. As we were searching for this referral out of no where some guy yells out to us from his shop "hey do you guys have a pamphlet of something I can read?" We did haha. So we talked to him a little bit and it turns out hes been looking around at the different churches and wants to know more about ours. We got his address and we will be visiting him this week. Miracle #1 in this "dead part" or our area.  After this experience we kept looking around for this referral, one thing that is really hard about Mexico is that the addresses here either dont exist or they make no sense. In the same street one house might have the number 1 and the house right next to it is #324, so its a little tricky to find referrals even on a good day. As we were looking around some guy just hanging out in the street asked us who we were looking for, turns out this guy knows the area really well and is an active member of the church in another part of Durango. He pointed us in the right direction and we were on our way. Miracle #2. Long story short we didn't end up finding that referral but instead ran into a family of 5 who are all super interested in our message. They accepted right way the story of Joseph Smith and asked us where and when we go to church, Golden Family!

A second thing that happened this week is the bishop in our ward is going crazy to try and get every member active in the missionary effort in the area. So we will be going around to EVERY members house in the ward this week to share with them parts of preach my gospel and "train" them how to contact, give out Books of Mormon, and so on. Hahaha not gonna lie the members weren't exactly excited at the idea but they agreed to do it.

Finally the crowning moment of this week, I had exchanges with my District Leader, and I'm not gonna lie, I don't like exchanges, so as we left to go out to work I wasn't in the best of moods. The first lesson we taught was to a guy who has recently had a TON of family problems, and hes pretty angry at God right now. He wants to know how, if God really loved him, he could let all this happen. We started talking to him about how trials are for our ultimate benefit if we can just learn from them and whatnot, and finally to finish up because honestly we weren't making a lot of headway with this guy, we just shared a simple scripture, that is now one of my favorites. DC 18:10-11. He read the first verse through super fast just to get this lesson over with, then he finished it and his eyes got really big and he read it again under his breath, and then he started to cry. The Spirit was so strong as this man realized in one simple, easy verse he is worth something, God did care. The feeling was so humbling and so comforting.

DC 18:10 - Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

Its one sentence that sums up our purpose both as children of God and as missionaries. I was so humbled as not only this man got the answer he needed, but I also got a reminder from my Heavenly Father why I'm here and to stop having an attitude when I have to do what is required. It's so awesome to think that the thing that is of the most worth to God - the human soul - he trusts in the hands of 19 year old kids. Gotta step it up man.

Elder Roberts

"God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him.” —President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the First Presidency “You Matter to Him,” Oct. 2011 general conference

Called to serve our King!

Haha so our area has got almost nothing. I get here and all we have done is contacted and talked to less actives. We have practically no investigators. What were the Elders before doing here? Quien sabe but we´re gonna step it up.

My companion Elder A is on his second to last transfer, which means he has got 11 weeks left in the mission, so we set a goal and we have been trying hard to hit it - he will have a baptism every Saturday of his last transfer. So we have five weeks to prepare the area and find the six people (if not more) who are ready and waiting to hear about Christ. 6 baptisms in the next transfer is definitely doable if we just put in the time. Durango is HUMONGOUS and there are a lot of members, the sad thing is 7 out of every ten members here are less active. 7 out of 10.... So apart from hitting our goals for baptism we have a ton of work to do in finding and bringing literally hundreds of people in our area back to the church. Less actives are some of the hardest investigators too, because they think they already know everything about the church. But we´ve got this.

We also had stake conference with a seventy this weekend. Elder Mendoza came and talked to everyone about the responsibility that every member of the church has in supporting the missionary effort in the area. There were five sessions in this conference and in literally every one he grilled us on 'every member a missionary´. So were expecting some good results and a lot more help from our ward for at least the next couple weeks. To finish it off he had us all stand up and sing called to serve, there were about 350 members and 25ish missionaries in the building, so it was pretty intense. 

And yeah that's about it for this week. Support the mission effort in your ward!

How to be happy serving the Lord

Haha its funny how the mission is. This last week me and Elder A went crazy, we walked miles and miles and miles contacting every person we could find, asked for references from everyone, prayed and fasted and taught to the best of our ability, and because of it we got ten new progressing investigators and 4 with a baptismal date. We have two families that are really interested in hearing our message and the parents make sure that all the kids sit down and listen as we teach. We did so much good this week, Santiago started opening up, it was awesome!...and so naturally I got transferred....

hahahahhahahhahaha. So yeah I'm now in Durango and my new companions name is Elder A, from Nicaragua.

I learned so much in Santiago though. I learned really how to work to get what you need in the mission. In Gomez, the people were pretty open to listening about Christ and taking steps of faith, in Santiago it was either put everything on the table or you weren't gonna get a single lesson. In Gomez it was all about what lesson were we supposed to teach next to get these people baptized, in Santiago we had to really put in an effort for each investigator personally and think about what these people needed to get them even a little interested. I learned so much about people and that for the most part people really are just doing the best they can. We had one investigator named O who has had a lot of problems with the word of wisdom in his life and has been reading from the Bible a lot to try to figure out what God wants from him. We taught him about the gospel and he couldn't get enough, he had so many good questions and is reading the Book of Mormon and all I could think about after we taught him was Doctrine and Covenants 123:12. The minute this guy found the truth he started taking it in like crazy. Another really good lesson was with Hmo A and his family. They all have baptismal dates and he has started the process to quit smoking. They all showed up to church this Sunday and are reading the Book of Mormon together as a family. The chapel was full of investigators and less actives that haven't been to church in a long time. The Lord decided to reward our hard work for my last Sunday in Santiago.  

Another cool story this week was we were heading to Durango in a bus today and I was seated next to an old Mexican gentleman. He asked if I was a preacher, I explained I was a missionary, and we ended up talking for an hour and a half about our lives and religion. I chitchatted for an hour and a  half in Spanish. I was blown away. I ended up sharing L1 (The Restoration) with him and gave him a pamphlet. As I walked off the bus I realized how much the Lord has given me to be able to fulfill my purpose, and I'm so grateful for that. 

The biggest lesson I learned in this past transfer though was how to love my mission. After lessons with people that "are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it" - you love your mission. When you see people opening up, and deciding to finally make steps towards God - you love your mission. When you find people that are just doing the best they can with what they have been given and you can help them along - you love your mission. When you speak in Spanish for an hour and a half like its no big deal - you love your mission. When you learn how to really teach the gospel in a way that is personal and is the only way to bring them to Christ - you love your mission. When you put everything, EVERYTHING you can the Lord makes up the rest - and you love your mission.

I'm so glad I had the past transfer in an area that was, for the most part, closed off to the restored gospel. It helped me to dig in and find out how to be a better instrument every day in my Savior's hands.  

Ripples of missionary work

We had a zone meeting first thing this week and Elder S. is in my same Zone here in Durango. He came running over to me with a huge grin and I thought he was gonna do something dumb, nope he starts talking super fast in Spanish about how HMO L BAPTIZED HIS DAUGHTER! It was soooo freaking awesome!

I can't really express how happy I was when I saw this picture. This is Fam. C from my past area, definitely one of the highlights of my mission. I got the privilege to baptize this man and now he has the privilege to have the priesthood and baptize his own daughter! C. is 19 and says she is preparing to go on a mission. 

It's moments like these that you really get to enjoy mission work. I am 100000X happier that Hmo C got to baptize his daughter than if I had gotten the opportunity, it shows how the gospel really does strengthen and bless the family. It also shows just how far the effects of one pair of missionaries (one that struggled his way through the language in every lesson) can touch so many other lives. I'll never know the people that C. and the rest of her family will help to find the gospel, but because the Lord blessed me enough to be their missionary my efforts will be felt in her mission as well. This family is a perfect example of why we serve missions.

Another thing I want to talk about is the gift of tongues. About 6 weeks ago, after another hard day with the language I broke down and begged God to help me with Spanish. I hated the language, hated it. I hated that I knew answers to questions and doubts people had and the majority of the time couldn't express myself well enough to help them. It all came down to this one night when I just begged God to help me. Since that day, I kid you not, since that day I have not had a hard day in lessons with the language. I still have some difficulty outside of lessons but when it comes to teaching about the gospel I can say whatever I want. Its amazing. Its a miracle. Gifts are real. I know it. God has given me exactly what I needed to be a missionary for the true church

Haha as far as the area I'm in now, not a lot has changed. We knock doors, we contact in the streets, we do service, and it just isn't the time for the majority of these people. Sure we have a couple people that listen to us, but they really aren't making the changes they need to progress toward baptism at this time. For the upside we have a branch talent show coming up, and I'm gonna play the guitar in it, so that should be fun. Things are going well.

Pray for success and patience

Hahaha well this week was another toughie, we had such a good week last week that I guess the Lord wanted to test our patience. We contacted a lot this week and literally almost nobody wanted to hear it, nobody. It also rained crazy hard every day, there was one day when it started out as little drips and I kid you not within thirty seconds it was a hurricane. The sky was almost black, the wind was crazy strong, and it was like buckets of water were being poured down on us. In the middle of Mexico, nowhere near an ocean and like 1200 miles from the equator, so who knows, all I know is we are lucky that there are tons of abandoned buildings here to hide in when it gets a little crazy.

We have three investigators right now that we are focusing on. One is named J, he's a super laid back guy that was born catholic but doesn't really believe it nor go to church (90% of the population here) and has read parts in the Book of Mormon and understands it all really well, the drawback is he works Sundays and he's uncomfortable with praying, but he likes to learn what were teaching and accepts it all pretty easily. 

A second one is Hmo A, he loves to hear us teach and told us he knows that ours is the true church, the thing that is stopping him (and killing us) is that he wont stop smoking and he won't commit to getting married to the woman that he has had 4 kids with. Every time we go over he'll listen, and comment, and drink it all in but when we ask how its going with his goals for baptism he tells us nothings changed. We might have to drop him for a bit. 

The last one is Hma M R and her family. She is a little tough, she says she wants to learn really bad but every time we go over she does not focus worth crap and every time we ask her questions about what we taught she always answers with either "prayer" or "Jesus"..... haha so yeah. But her son and daughter love to listen to us and understand really well. They were really interested in the fact that there is a prophet on the earth today and we invited them to read some conference talks and to pray about them. 

Overall things here a progressing a little slower than we had hoped but hey can't win em all.

Testimony of family

Nothing really strengthens an appreciation for the gospel in families like being in a community where there is no such influence present. Growing up in the middle of Utah I took it all for granted, parents and responsible adults have jobs and for the most part are married and happy, kids are fed and taken care of, we are safe and have laws that protect us, and for the most part everyone has the gospel and does their best to live it. When I stepped off the plane, I barely had a
testimony of the gospel in families, I knew that my parents were happily married and we have a happy enough family, so what. I started teaching people about what "I Knew" and they would always give me this look (when they even understood what I said haha) like this dumb white
kid doesn’t know anything, he’s never had the problems to face we do.

Problems like men with a couple girlfriends and a couple kids, wives without
husbands, kids without parents, alcohol and drugs are everywhere, so accessible that 10 year old kids we are teaching are getting high and just an overall attitude of “who cares? Well I guess that’s where the testimony has to start, it has to be torn up to see if you’ll really say what you gotta say to support it. Is what I’m saying really gonna help people? Am I just wasting my time?

It’s in these times when you don’t have mom and dad whispering the answers in your ear that you gotta finally think about it for yourself. So I did. What has the gospel really done for the family? I started with asking my companions what the gospel had done for their families, I’m with these guys 24-7 might as well put them to use. What they told me amazed me. They were
here on the mission because their parents were abusive, alcoholic, or barely present in their lives, and they told me as they and their families learned the gospel together something changed. The Word of Wisdom ensured that the bad habits that were destroying their lives and relationships were cut out, the law of chastity strengthened the family relationship and made it so these kids could count on mom and dad to stay together, and above all the principles of repentance and
forgiveness started to make the lasting changes not just in their actions but in who they were as people. Once the parents of these missionaries really started to understand Christ’s teachings and
Sacrifice for them they decided that maybe the burden of the gospel really was better than the burden of the world. As I have taught families I have seen the relationships within the family strengthen. I have seen that change not just in action but in character as people start taking steps toward God and realizing that maybe they are worth something, that maybe there is something better.

The highlight of my mission was baptizing a man and his family. In other baptisms I have had they have had the support of the ward and the missionaries to help them as they made their first covenant with God, but when it’s a family the feeling of support and love is a million times stronger. I have seen for myself how the laws of God and the teachings of the gospel really do change individuals and families as a whole. The more I teach it, the more I understand it’s the whole point of the gospel, I have only been told this for 20 freaking years and it took 6 months in
Mexico to really realize it.

Now I get that local laws and whatnot help protect us a lot. I realize that social stability is a huge factor in our happy safe lives as well. But what is every great nation founded on? The same principle that Christ taught, the principles that keep the peace and social stability are the same ones Christ went about sharing. I have seen changes in the lives of my investigators, I have seen changes in the lives of my companions, I have seen changes in the lives of my family, and mostly I have felt and seen the changes in myself. To have that stability really permanent and eternal, it has to be on the same permanent and eternal principles that Christ lived and taught. Families are forever, but only if we want them to be and do what is required to make it so.

Elder Paul H Roberts July 21, 2014