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)

Sanctification through the atonement and choices

Well another week done. This week was a lot of walking and a lot of sun! Its about 95 degrees right now but for a white kid who is used to the colder weather of Utah right now it feels even hotter. We have two more baptisms coming up this week and a third one planned for next week.

The ones for this weeks names are Hma R and her daughter R. They are both really receptive and excited to be baptized. The one for next weeks name is M. she is 9 and is super shy but is super happy. Her mom is a catholic but is with her daughter in all the lessons and is learning a lot with her daughter and is considering baptism as well.

One thing that is really frustrating is when you and your investigator feel the spirit during a lesson and your both all psyched to come back and teacher more and when you come back they haven't changed at all and its like starting all over. Its really hard because you know they felt something during your previous lesson but Satan likes to play his little games so its difficult for them to see the point between lessons.

As far as Spanish goes I feel like this past week ive finally passed some kind of wall. I by no means am fluent but I understand a lot more than i feel like I did even a week ago! Its so nice to see help from The Lord and improvement.

One last thing. My companion and I have been studying sanctification in our personal study for the last 2 days and its really cool I found about 30 scriptures about the importance of, and the way to sanctification. Here are some of them. Study if you please. Helaman 3:35, D&C 88:67-69, Mosiah 3:19, Moroni 7:30, Hebrews 13:20, Moroni 10:33. The only thing that makes it possible for sanctification is the Atonement of course but if we make an effort to cast out the evil in our lives and improve then the Atonement and Christ are right there to sanctify us and make us better.

Elder Roberts

Family Prayer

This week went well. I had my first day of exchanges and I was the senior companion that knew the area, hahahaha so that was a little crazy. It took us a little time to find some of our appointments but overall it was a good day. I'm coming along in my Spanish, any spare moment I am studying and memorizing as much as I can. Not a lot of crazy stuff happened this week other than we have 6 people with a baptismal date, the downside is only one showed up to church this week.

The Lord has blessed me a lot with having help when I need it, one of the kids in the district speaks both English and Spanish fluently so whenever I cant figure out a phrase in Spanish we meet up with him for our lunch appointments and he helps me a ton.

In one of our lessons we stressed the importance of prayer in the family and if you would like look up 3 Nephi 18:19-21

Anyway, yeah not a lot this week. Hopefully more next. 

Elder Roberts

"Parents should teach their children to pray. The child learns both from what the parents do and what they say. The child who sees a mother or a father pass through the trials of life with fervent prayer to God and then hears a sincere testimony that God answered in kindness will remember what he or she saw and heard. When trials come, that individual will be prepared.”

That He May Write upon Our Hearts Henry B. Eyring

After all we can do.

Well week three is over here in Mexico. We had a baptism this Saturday that went really well, and Elder Christiansen of the presidency of the seventy came to talk to us.

- Talk to everyone, EVERYONE.

- You need to be able to say "today is the hardest I have ever worked, every day."

- If you use your prep hours in the morning to their full potential your lessons will reach their full potential as well.

He had lots more to say and I wrote it all in my notebook that I don't have with me right now so this is all I remember, haha my bad. 

I gotta say it freaking hard not being able to really talk to people here, a foriegn language barrier is harder than I ever thought it would be. Haha I talked to some of the other white elders here about it and they all said it took them anywhere from 4-6 months to really get it down. Every day they would go home discouraged those first couple months and just pray "why am I in Mexico Lord? I would be so much better if I could just speak english." I have felt that same way for three weeks and am now going to try and beat all their streaks. I'm going to try my hardest to be fluent in 3 months. Be able to teach every lesson and try to understand within 90 days. I have been praying for the gift of tongues a lot and looking up gifts and I came across this little revelation - 2 Ne. 25:23 - salvation is a gift to us, it is by grace we are save, AFTER ALL WE CAN DO. I have been trying to just focus on listening to people but not really studying or doing anywhere near all I can do. Ive been expecting the gift of tongues to just come little by little every day with me just listening to people. I'm sure if I do this it will eventually get the language but if I truly want the gift of tongues I need to be doing ALL I CAN. Every spiritual gift is something that we work toward and then God makes up the rest, this is the gift. So bottom line I'm going after spanish like there is no tomorrow and see how Heavenly Father can make up the difference for me. I know He will.

As far as our investigators we had several cool experiences this week. First was to two 13 year old kids, that are little punks. They got this gangster attitude but as soon as they see a white kid they drop it and immeadiately try to speak english and ask me all kinds of questions. Haha one of the perks of being in Mexico as a gringo is that your kind of a novelty so its easier to get people to listen to you. Anyway we started teaching these two kids about the plan of salvation and it was crazy, during the lesson their thug attitude left, and I can't explain it any other way than they became like little kids. Their eyes changed and you could tell they were really learning and trying to understand and just wanted to be good. I've never really believed that whole "the eyes are the windows to the soul" kind of thing until now. I saw something different in their eyes during the lesson. It was awesome! They said they wanted to be baptized, We said they can prepare for March 15 and we wanted to talk to their parents about this message too, so well be teaching both their families this week. It was awesome.

A second cool experience was we went a house that we street contacted last week. We knocked and someone inside yelled something in Spanish that I didnt catch. The door opened and this a guy with tattoos and a wife beater came to the door. He laughed and said we could come in, and I was thinking well shoot I guess were going to waste some time trying to teach this guy. I was dead wrong. We started by introducing ourselves and asked if we could start the lesson with a prayer....and this 35 year old thug started to cry...I was floored.... Hes been wanting to be good with the Lord for a long time, and you could tell he wanted to learn and was ready. We taught The Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and commited him and his son to baptism.You cant make judgements because honestly by looking at this guy I was expecting him to not believe in God, and just let us come in to make fun of us but nope, from the minute we asked if he wanted to pray he was humbled and ready to learn.

As I write these two stories I'm amazed with how much the Lord blessed us. We really didn't do anything all that miraculous but the Holy Ghost worked on these investigators and our message was enough to help them. I just remembered something else Elder Christiansen said during his talk "The Lord could do this work without us, He could send angels or signs or whatever He needed to, to show that this is the true gospel, He calls us for our benefit." I'm so grateful I had these experiences this week and hope to get it done this next week with both Spanish and more Investigators!

One last story about this week. We had a Jehovah's Witness come knocking on our door one morning and start talking about how our church was wrong. ¨Where is Joseph Smith prophesied about in the Bible?" she kept saying over and over. We tried to show her several points in the bible that prophesied about the restoration but she wasnt gonna listen. She kept talking over us and trying to argue. After about 5 minutes we just shook her hand and shut the door. This just kind of gives me a testimony of LDS missionary work. That lady was all about starting a religious fight with us that honestly would´ve gone no where and everyone would have left angry. I know that we as missionaries aren't perfect but we don't start yelling that your faith is wrong and try to tear down your prior beliefs, only to add to the faith you already have. It also gave me a reason to think about the restoration more, so I'm going to be studying that over the next couple of days.

Elder Roberts

Two talks about Grace and the gifts of God to His children.

Are You Saved by Grace or Works? 

Have You Been Saved?

 

Prayer is real

Well life here in Gomez is weird but good. Spanish is coming along okay but its pretty difficult. I can speak it alright its understanding others that's super difficult. They speak so freaking fast! One thing I find so funny here is when kids will yell Guierito (like gringo or whitie) and come up to try and speak a little English to me.

The people here are all so kind and give everything of themselves. There is such a strong support for the missionaries here within the ward and all the investigators recognize our sacrifice in being here. We invited two out of our like twenty investigators to be baptized and they both agreed but neither showed up to church so we will see what happens. 

We have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday, she is a little 13 year old girl who has been taking lessons from the missionaries through her older sister who is a member. She loves to laugh at my attempts to speak Spanish but hey what are ya gonna do. 

Its funny I wanted to leave the MTC so bad while I was there but now I realize how easy it was comparatively. Everything here is dirty and dusty and warm. Its probably 80 degrees right now and April and May are their hot months and it should get around 120...yikes. I played Futbal today with the Elders and some of the guys in the ward and let's just say...it was embarrassing.... hahaha I've never really played soccer before and they all have been playing since they could walk so, yeah. They all wanted me to participate the whole time though and loved it whenever I kicked the ball. 

There is a scripture I wanted to share in the Book of Mormon this week. Alma 7:11. We shared this with a less active member this week who has recently gone blind and is feeling pretty down about it. I shared this with him and testified that I knew that Christ knows him personally and suffered this trial for him so he could rely on the Lord to get him through it. I could feel the spirit and you could see this did help him.

I've prayed more this week than I have in my whole life and feel so much help from the Lord whenever I actually pray for the things that I need,  or that my investigators need instead of just going through the motions. Prayer is real.

Elder Roberts

Two talks on prayer

Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer 

The Privilege of Prayer