Week 103 - His Final Letter!

There aren't any words that can accurately describe how someone feels after they have served the Lord for 2 years. Let me tell you about this week

USC FINAL WEEK!!!

Monday was all over the place. Now that Pday starts at 8 we have so much more time to do stuff, and plus the lavanderías aren't as busy at 8:00 in the morning. So we got all of our chores done early and then we got picked up by Elder L and E and they dropped us off at the Alley while they went to go get a haircut. We got some sick stuff, let me tell you, and it was all pretty cheap too! Elder A and Jones picked us up and we met the other elders at a Peruvian restaurant called Inti, and it was so good! I had lomo soltado and it was dang good. We also tried a marisco soup there and I tried squid and oyster for the first time... crazy huh? Afterwards we went to go on this hike. On this hike was a man made cave that they have shot a couple movies in, but its a really small cave so its nothing to hoot or holler about ya know. We hiked up this really steep hill and at one point all of us were bear crawling up the hill, it was pretty cool... we also took some sick pics up there too. On the way down, is a whole different story. One of the elders just flew down the hill like a walk in the park. 3 other elders were going at a steady pace. Then there were 2 who were straggling behind cause one (cough) wasn't really good going downhill. At one point I wanted to follow Elder L example and run down this one part... bad idea. I started to run and I leaned a little to the left, kept running, then to the right, kept running, then as I turned a corner I completely lost my balance and flipped off the trail into a huge group of bushes (ugh). Well because your with elders, and it really didnt hurt that bad, we all are laughing. I got a couple scratches here and there, but nothing bad at all, it was just pretty funny the whole thing. Well after that adventure we went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame to look at the stars. You cannot go only once and expect to get a lot of cool stuff. I recognized SO many names, mom and dad would just love the walk of fame... you have no idea. We got some pics of the stars but like I said, you have to have a lot of time on your hands to get some really good pics because that street is just so crowded! We hurried back to the church to change into our missionary clothes to get to our dinner appointment with the O family. We finally met the husband R!!! We shared a mormon message with them and everything went well in the lesson. To finish off the night we had a FHE with the V family and the G family. The V family have a set up in this room to basically have a karaoke night, so its really good also to watch church movies like The Prophet of the Restoration:) it was really good and G and K had some questions that were answered by the movie.

Tuesday was quite an interesting day. We went to the USC track to run in the morning and while we were there we saw these boxes that people use to do box jumps, or to jump on top of them. There were 3 different sizes and Elder W jumped on all 3. I went to the first one and landed really good. Elder W then told me that I could totally do the 2nd one. As I crouched down to jump and to swing my arms, when I swung my arms my hand smacked against the box and I jammed my thumb, index finger, and middle finger on my right hand. Elder W was like "why didnt you jump all the way?" And I'm like "Elder! My hand hurts!" It was so painful. We then ran while we were still there, so here I am running like a weirdo cause my hand hurts and it is swelling up just so bad. During the day we had a ridiculous lesson with this lady named A. We stopped by cause we had set an appointment with her. She came up to the door and asked what we wanted, we told her that we were there for our appointment, to which she was like, I guess. So we sat down outside and she just started bashing with us. It was a really bad start. Her beliefs are very confusing. She believes in God, but not in a Heaven. She believes that God dwells in Heaven, but that nobody can get to heaven. She also believes that there is no life after death... but she believes in God... ya it was weird. We had a referral that lives around the USC campus and close to the Mt. St. Mary's campus in LA so we headed over there and let me tell you.... colleges b crazy hurrr. My hand kept hurting so we decided that it would be better if I iced it for a little bit. On the way back to the apartment, Elder W crashed on his bike but he wasn't injured at all, the fall just looked super bad. Let me tell you, this day was just super crazy. After I iced my hand for a bit and the swelling had visibly gone down, we went to go visit with H and his family. We didnt have too much time to meet with them, but we set up another time to go back and talk with them later on in the week. We finished off the night with dinner at the Es. My last dinner with one of the most amazing families ever. They made this really good carne asada which tasted like beef jerky, it was delicious! They made cupcakes and we watched a church video with them, it was a good time. 

Wednesday we tried to contact some less actives in the ward and contact some referrals. We came across this one family that has a lot of people living in their house. We were outside the house and one of the sons stopped to talk to us. He was like "elders! You want something to drink?" And we were like nah we are ok, but then he went to the local store to get us something and told us to wait there for him. He comes back and gives us some vitamin water with Doritos and a pan dulce. He then starts to tell us what is going wrong in his life, his struggles and why he really wants us to come and visit with his family! It was a cool moment just to think that we were in the right place at the right time. We set a return appointment for the next day to come back by and visit with the family. After that we head to another part of our area and started to tract for a little bit. This area has a lot of crazies outside, let me tell you. One of the ladies that we found on the street has a very specific purpose in life: to feed all the homeless cats.... (hahaha ok... have a nice day now --- walk away, walk away) she was really weird. We went by this one house and a little girl who was about 6 yelled out! "Do you want to be my boyfriend? No not the one in glasses, the other one! Will you marry me? Marry me!!!" So basically Elder W just missed his chance on his future wife hahaha, oh funny times. Dinner was with the G family cause it was Wednesday, but the only person that we ended up talking to was the grandma. She is really weird. She made us pasta and acted like we had never eaten pasta before, acting like it was the best thing ever. Lets just say that it was a very awkward dinner. We swung by H and I because we thought we were going to have a church tour with them. They weren't home and were not answering their phones, so we thought that they maybe would have already gone to the church and were waiting for us there. We biked to the church and they weren't there... it was sad. BUT! We had a former investigator call us and ask us if he could come to the activity at the church! He showed up and we introduced him to a couple members of the bishopric and other members of the ward and youth. I brought some ties to give to some of the YM and they liked the ties that I gave them, so that was cool. 

Thursday was a super packed day! We woke up and went to do service at Glens again. There was a lot of flour that we moved, so that was a little interesting with my jammed fingers, but it was fun. I grabbed some little candies for y'all so hopefully they make it, some are expired, but its all good it'll taste the same haha. After that we had our weekly planning and I had to move all of my pictures onto my USB and there are some that I had to take out cause there wasn't enough space on the USB. I also had to print off a lot of papers for leaving and all the jazz. We then went to Yogurtland because thats what we have always done on Thursday's since we have been companions. We saw the O family and they are doing ok but slowly falling off because they aren't keeping any of their commitments, then a less active and part member family, then we had dinner, and then we finished off visiting with Y.

Friday was a very weird day. I had my departing missionary stuff and so did Elder H. He is a chinese elder. Elder W and I walked to their ZTM so that Elder W could be with someone and then I would drive both Elder H and I to all of our stuff for that day. Well he doesn't speak a lot of english because he is directly from China, called to serve chinese, so why would he need to speak english right? Our conversations were a little different than most, but he is a super nice guy and he loves to laugh so that was nice. We got to the mission office and we waited for the sisters that are leaving with us. There are 2 spanish, 2 chinese, and 1 English missionary going home this transfer. 2 elders and 3 sisters. One of the sisters, Sister W, is super cool and she went to WJ also so there might be another family at the airport, but don't worry, I will be the last one down for sure. We waited for them to get to the mission office and then afterwards headed over with Sister Haynie who treated us out to a lunch in the temple cafeteria. She told us to grab whatever we wanted. So of course you have the sisters who grabbed a tiny soup, another a small salad, and the other who grabbed the main course. Elder H got a small amount of food as well. Then there is me who is use to huge latino portions and I grabbed a salad, the main course, yogurt, and a Gatorade.... nice lunch right? President Haynie caught up to us because he had a meeting but he got there and ate lunch with us, it was nice. We then had our temple session and it was really good, this was a very small session and it was nice. After the temple session we had interviews with President Haynie where he gave us all the papers that have ever been sent home to you guys. He then gave me life advice and he told me to keep in touch with him and let him know how things are going every once in a while, I love the Haynies so much. My companion and Elder H's companion met us at the mission office by taking the train and then walking. My interview got finished around 4:45 and we had a VC tour for 6:30 so there was definitely not enough time to go back to our area and then back to the VC, so we decided to take our dinner hour. The C family had invited a lot of family members to come to the VC with them, but a lot canceled. However, about 4 family members came so that was really cool. It was also cool cause the kids loosened up and the mom was really nice. We watched the short Restoration video which is about 30 minutes long and we gave the mom, her name was Y, a copy of the Book of Mormon to read. After the tour we were going to head out because we needed to walk for a bit and then take the metro home. Luckily for us A was there! She said hi and told us that she was going to meet with the Sister missionaries and that S was coming too. We told her that would be perfect because then we could get a ride back with Hermano and Hermana E who dropped S off! We obviously took pictures with them there and it was super cool, they are such amazing people.

Saturday we had our ZTM around 11:00 in the morning. It was pretty funny cause when I got in there, all the other elders are like "Elder Roberts! You are going home!" I'm like, oh really? Gee I didnt know, weird huh? But it was all good. The ZTM was a little different just because a lot of companionships were switched up in the zone and some people were sick and so on. The trainings were different too. Before there was a certain way that we would do the trainings and the role plays, then they switched it because of what a GA told the mission, and then they were doing the stuff the same way as before, so it left a couple of us a little confused. At the end all of us missionaries that are leaving bore our testimonies and it was really good. We got back to the apartment and we forgot to turn our phone on vibrate instead of on silent like it was during ZTM so the C family, who were going to take us out to eat, were waiting for us to call them or text them! They picked us up and we went to this restaurant called La Parilla, it was really good. We tried this dish called molcajete it was really good. Then they ordered for us some deep fried ice cream! Oh my goodness, it was the first time i have ever tried it before and it was super good, different, but I liked it hahaha. They are such a cool family.

Sunday was cool, I could tell you about it another day cause I'm gonna....

See you Sunday!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 102!

USC part 2 Week 5

Monday was just a mess. We were thinking of cool places to go visit and so we decide on the Disney Concert Hall, thinking that it would be a good idea to go visit it. It was pretty cool, the architecture was nice, but there was nothing going on and we didnt get the actual tour so it wasn't like the coolest thing ever. Plus I think that when you go sight seeing, that you need to have the right group to go with, or else it just isn't fun, and we didnt have a good group that we went with. I think it would be super cool to come back and visit LA as a normal person so that I could actually visit all the places that I want to. We got back to the church and played soccer, and you can bet that these 2 Spanish missionaries killed it.... its because we are Spanish thats why;) jk Elder W played soccer so it was fun. We then went to go eat dinner with the C family and they are just super cool. We had them explain what their experience was like at the temple to their kids and it was a really cool moment. For dinner they gave us chapulines! I cannot believe that I actually was able to try them! For those that don't know, they are grasshoppers. They tasted super funky! We got pictures and a video so don't worry about that. We also were given probably one of the best dishes of mole that I have ever tried, it was so good. 

Tuesday we had a crazy day. We tried to contact a couple investigators and knocked a lot of doors, but nothing happened. Sometimes you just think if anyone is going to open. On the other hand, you have a lesson with someone like A who is just awesome and its all worth it. We asked A if she went to church and of course she did! She told us that she loves the sister missionaries and that she is just super excited for everything. The sisters didnt want us to teach her a missionary lesson and so we taught her about the Holy Ghost and personal revelation. We figured that it would be a good lesson to kick off her learning process. We had a really good discussion about how the Holy Ghost testifies to us and we used a couple mormon messages, it was nice. We then stopped by the C family and read with them in the Book of Mormon. R (the dad, who is not a member) read the whole thing out loud to all of us and it was good. We started in the beginning of the Book of Mormon and when they read the part that Laban told Laman that he was going to kill him, there was a "Ah!" From a couple people hahaha. Its funny because they have totally read the story before, they just might be heard it a different way today.

Wednesday was a crazy day!! We woke up early because we had a Worldwide Missionary broadcast that started at 9:00, but President wanted the whole mission to meet in the VC by 8:00 in the morning to go over some things. It was also temple day for the whole mission. That means that the whole mission went to one session!!! Yikes!!! President told us that we needed GA approval to be together as a whole mission and to also go to a temple session as a whole mission. So we got there and sat down in our spot, and I sat next to Elder Arguelles who is just the coolest missionary ever. The broadcast was super cool and I took a bunch of notes, but thats not the part that y'all want to hear about. You have to hear about this:

THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES!!! The Missionary Executive Committee made changes to the missionary schedule!! Before it looked something like this:

8:00 personal study

9:00 companion study

10:00 language study

11:00 lunch

12-9:00 proselytizing

9:00-9:30 daily planning

Now it something like this:

Every day needs to have-

Personal study for an hour

Companion study for 30 minutes

Lunch for 30 minutes

Planning for 30 minutes

Language study 30-60 minutes

Basically what they are saying is that as missionaries we are responsible enough to make our own plans. They said that there are many benefits to the new change. The new schedule will allow flexibility in the schedule of the missionaries to accommodate each mission and each area individually, it will be more productive because instead of leaving around 12 we leave around 10 each morning.

AND!!!! PDAY CHANGED!!! The change is that instead of starting PDAY at 10, we start at 8!!!!! WOOOO! For 2 pdays I get 2 extra hours weeeeeeee! That is a HUGE change. You can guess that there aren't that many complaints about the new change. Elder A said "I bet there was a roar across the whole mission when the PDAY schedule changed" there totally was. Other interesting things is that instead of having about 9 key indicators, now it has been reduced to just 4 key indicators. So the only things we report on each week is now baptisms and confirmations, baptismal dates, people at church, and new investigators. They stressed that everything in PMG is still applicable and important, that we still need to have members out with us and to ask for referrals and everything like that, but that KEY indicators are just 4 now. (For all you RMs, this is super HUGE). What they also said is that because missionaries are able to choose when to have their studies, it will be an easier transition for returned missionaries to plan a time during the day to have their personal scripture study, its in these moments when you just know that the Lord is at the head of His church, so cool. After the broadcast President Haynie got up and had all of us ask questions and one of the questions was "when does the new schedule start?" President said "it is modern revelation that has been received, we start now." Boom! I love the Haynies. We also took a mission picture so that is totally on the ClamGram16 or whatever it is. We then had a session at the temple and it was amazing. Cool story: so one of the guys that I met at Mission Ready was working at the temple on a church service mission!! I was like M!!! And we talked a bit, he told me that I have lost weight and I was like, you saying I was chubby before?? Haha. The session was super cool and awesome. We were in front so that was super nice. I got a 100% during the session so that made me feel real good too, especially cause I was right by a member of the temple presidency and he was the one on my side. Like before, the Haynies were waiting in the celestial room and they are totally the mom and dad of the mission, I cannot express how much I love the Haynies. We then got back to our area around 5:45 cause of traffic, which is to be expected. OH! I also have gotten a couple letters from the ward, super nice! The youth and the primary have written me, that was a nice surprise. We ate dinner with the G family and we were super hungry cause we just got back from the temple, so it was a good meal. We then went to the church to have our planning time for the following day and we organized a couple things on our ipads and set goals for our investigators which was really nice.

Thursday was a crazy day. We started out with service at Gs and that was good as normal, I had G sign in my journal and I am glad that he didn't put anything bad in it cause boy that guy has a mouth! Anywho we went back to do our weekly planning at the church and then we quickly went to a lesson that we had with G and K. While talking with them we talked about baptism for about the 3rd time and we asked them if they had prayed about a baptismal date, but they told us that they don't feel like they know enough about the church to be baptized yet. Elder W and I thought about what we could do with them and we thought that this next week we are going to teach them about the commandments and watch the Restoration video because that will not only explain how the church came about, but what the culture of the religion is, which is probably the two questions that they have about the church. We will see where that goes. We had dinner with the Cs and that was nice. We stopped by the A family later in the night because Hermano just had an eye surgery and we wanted to check up on him and see how he was doing. 

Friday was Elder W birthday. We started out the day opening up his birthday package from his family and he was very happy about all of that. He was given some cake mix and some icing so he wanted to make his own cake and bring it to DM the next day. We had a good day with talking to people and visiting families. We got a couple return appointments and we contacted a referral early in the day which was really nice. We first stopped to see Sophia and she was just as spunky as ever. We challenged her to bear her testimony next fast Sunday. She said that she was nervous, but that she is super excited to bear her testimony! We asked her "how do you think God feels when we bear our testimonies?" And she said something like: He loves us even more than he does, which is impossible, but you feel that love so its nice. I think I am going to feel so warm in my heart that I will want to "ahhh!" (Angelic singing), like that. She is so funny. We then went to go visit with the O family, weird fact, its actually the O family, so the O family. We went there and waited for a bit for E and V to get home from school. We sat down at the table and V had 2 friends over and they also joined in on the lesson, so that was really nice. We read with them in 3 Nephi 11 and they all participated in reading which was cool. Then the discussion was good too, we talked about baptism and about the Savior and it was just amazing. Before we had thought about taking them to the VC so we invited them to come and we planned for February 5th is when we are going to go with them to the VC. We ended with a prayer and then had dinner. It was really good, they had a salad, rice, and BBQ ribs. After that, the fun part came:) they brought out a cake that had V's name and Elder W name on it too. Culturally, latinos like to shove peoples faces in their own cake, so you can expect that it happened. Elder W was perfectly fine getting his face shoved in and he knew that it was coming. We sand happy birthday to the both of them and they blew out a candle. They both went in for a bite (opposite sides of the cake no worries, all G rated here) and then boom, both faces in the cake, it was awesome. V got some cake up her nose so she was coughing a little bit and Elder W was all smiles about everything. It was really funny and a good experience. We then walked to the other side of the street for the actual dinner appointment with the V family. Now, if you remember, this is the family that Hermana came up to me and asked me why I eat so little all the time. Well, I tried my hardest to eat what I could and I finished #2 dinner of the day. The C family then showed up as a surprise with a cake that had fruit on it and we sang Happy Birthday to Elder W and instead of getting his face shoved in this one, he just grabbed the whole cake and took a bit sitting straight up. Afterwards we went to go and visit with Y. We followed up with how she has been doing with trying not to fight with her sisters and she actually has been doing really well (there was an opportunity for her to fight with a sister while we were there but she didnt so we were like ... niiiice). We then talked to her about getting her parental approval to be baptized. We asked her if she has ever fasted for the approval before and she said that she hasnt. After committing her to fast and pray for an opportunity and the ability to get the form signed, we bore testimony of the power of fasting and of prayer and it was a good lesson. 

Saturday was a crazy day. In the morning we had apartment inspections and Elder L came again. Ugh! He is just a ridiculous inspector because he doesn't believe that anything can be perfect. We cleaned really good, even better than last time, and we still got the same score. Its all good cause now the apartment is super duper clean. We had district meeting and Elder W made himself a cake to bring to DM and to share with the other elders. It was a good DM and my last one. I had to give the STEPP talk but thats all good, no worries. We ate the cake and it was super good, got some pictures of it so don't worry. We got back to the apartment and got organized, called some people to confirm appointments, the appointments fell through, so we ended up walking around for a little bit. A lady that we ended up talking to, named H, was really nice. She talked with us and told us all about her family. Her grandson, who was adopted into a Mormon family, is a missionary right now and so she had a couple questions for us. We talked to her about a couple things, the importance of families, how we are all members of God's family, and then we invited her to go and visit LDS.ORG for more info just in case she wanted to know anything else about the church. We are definitely going to try to refer her to the Adams elders so they can start teaching her. The EQ president and his wife had missed church for the past couple weeks, so we decided to pay them a visit. They have both been sick and were not feeling too good. We talked to them both about what was going on in the ward and how we can better help them with everything that they have to worry about. We shared a scripture with them. We ate dinner with the C family and it was super good. They gave us tortas which is basically a sand which with a bunch of stuff in it and it is super good. Mine had 3 different types of meat in it and one of them was a little spicy, but its all good, I survived. Before the lesson we had been talking about inviting them to bring their whole family to the VC so that way the family knew a little bit more about the church and didnt feel left out about anything. When we talked to them about it and about talking to their families about it, they were SO excited! We planned the trip for this upcoming Friday around 6. They said that they are going to try to invite as many people as possible to come! We then talked to P, their daughter. We invited her to bear her testimony this upcoming Fast Sunday because we felt like she would grow by sharing her testimony. She had a couple questions about some stuff about sharing a testimony and we talked to her about it a little bit. By the end of it she said that she would. She then said "my brother won't do it" so we asked the brother and he said that he would.. throw down a challenge! V then looked at his son and told him "remember, it has to be in Spanish", and then M was like .... ugh.... ok. It was a good ending to the day. Oh! We also got a text from our WML telling us that Bishop had asked us to give a talk in sacrament meeting the next day, oh my goodness, thank you for the warning!!!

Sunday we had ward council in the morning and that was just intense. Don't even get me started about what happened, it was ridiculous. They decided that day on the ward mission plan for the year and the goals that they wanted to achieve. The goal of convert baptisms was 45 and last year they achieved 24.... and only 12 are active.... yeah. I told them that the plan was a good plan, just that this year it would be super hard to achieve that goal, cause if you look at it right now, they would need to baptize every week to achieve that goal:(... but who cares, I wont have to deal with it anymore. We went to a room where Elder W practiced his piano and I wrote my talk for Sunday. We had a couple investigators show up to church and then we had to give our talks during sacrament meeting. Elder W went first and he talked for about 11 minutes. It is so funny cause normally his spanish is on point and he doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but during his talk it was just all over the place, very unusual, he was probably nervous though. Elder A went up after him and took about 10 minutes which meant that I only had about 5 minutes to give my talk (YES!) so it was nice and I didnt even look at notes, I just read a scripture or two and then I was done. We then had a lunch appointment with A and L F and that was just a wreck. A member of the ward who recently went through a divorce was there, as well as ANOTHER hermana who has been divorce for a long time. A and L just need to get married so that they can be baptized, but for some reason L doesn't want to get married to A even though they have lived together for the past 20 years and have gone to church faithfully for the past 6 years. We found out that L, in all the time that she has been investigating the church, has never read the Book of Mormon. I think that is something that would've been nice to know in the past because now its like we have to start at the beginning. We went to go see Y and how she was doing with her prayers and scripture reading and she was doing really good. We visited H and his family and set a return appointment for later this week. We visited with the C family and ate another cake, which makes that 6 cakes in total for this past week... wow.

Well, its crunch time! This last transfer just FLEW by! 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 101 and 2 more weeks...but who is counting!

USC part 2 week 4

Monday was a fun day. We got all of our laundry and shopping done early, and we went to this store that we finally found out that the produce is so much better and its cheaper too! Score! We then went to go hang with Elder H and Elder B in Westchester to play some paddleball. Now, I'm not the best at tennis, so I sucked miserably at it. I had some good moments but lets just say it was really bad. I had a lot of fun with those guys though, they were really nice. A member from the Westchester 1st ward came to play with us, his name is Brother M. He was really good (the paddles were his) so it was like having dad on your team for racquetball. He isn't like a pro or anything, but you just feel good when he is on your team. I sucked so bad that the only time he ever lost was when he was with me:(. We then got dropped off at our apartment with all of our clothes and laundry and Elder W couldn't find his keys. With his keys is his lock for his bike, one of the apartment keys, and a church key, so he was pretty stressed out. We then started to head to dinner. On the dinner calendar it said "N L". We had called N L before to confirm the appointment and she said 6:30. Well we headed to Hermano L's house and walked right on in. Now Hermana L looked at us in a kind way and basically said "I am not N L, I am J L"... freak! So we are calling the other elders to find out who N is, and so we decided to call the number back. We are talking to "N" and she tells us her address, well lucky for us she lives by this one family that is super cool called the C family, but then we realize that N L is Hermana C's maiden name.... STUPID! We tell her that we will be there as fast as we can and if they could just wait a little longer. We biked for a solid 23 minutes to get to their house. When we got there we all just laughed about the whole story and everything. Hermana C works at this restaurant that serves oaxaquena food and she served us this 'pizza' thing call tlayuda oaxaquenas. It was the BOMB! It was so good, you should definitely look it up cause that thing was so amazing. We then made plans for them to go to the temple this week and they also want to feed us more. They said that they want us to come over a lot so that way they can feed us all this new food before I leave:)

Tuesday was a fun day. We had a lunch appointment with the A family and she made flautas and that was really good. She had this guacamole sauce that we put over the flautas and they were delicious. We then went to met up with our DL because the night before Elder W had lost his keys to his bike lock, the apartment, and the church all with the DL so they gave us back the keys. We had an AMAZING lesson with a girl named A. A is the best friend of S E. Naturally we were invited to have dinner at the E home and when we finished we taught A. A is super chill. She is part belizean so she understands spanish but doesn't speak it. She also likes to dye her hair weird colors with S, so S has purple hair and A has pink hair. They both love to go to Disneyland and they go almost every other day, its crazy I know. Cool thing about A, she wants to be baptized super bad! She remembers a lot about the missionary discussions and she has read a good chunk of the Book of Mormon. The only problem is that last year when school started she fell out of meeting with the missionaries and going to church with S, so she has decided that this is her time to learn, get baptized, and start fresh before school starts. She is super funny too. The whole lesson all of us were smiling. It was a really fun lesson and S bore her testimony to A which was really nice. We then went to the C home because they are actually the ones that signed up on the dinner calendar for the week sooo, double dinners!! Wooo!!!! We ate with them and had some fun times telling jokes and riddles. At the end we shared a message about prayer and we invited them to say their personal prayers as well as family prayers. That family is just so cool... they are awesome.

Wednesday we started with service at Glen's again. Elder D was on exchanges with Elder W and so the time there was a little different than with Elder B. Elder D is the new missionary in the ward. His Spanish is very gringo, like how we all start, and its kinda funny. It was funny cause we would be putting stuff away or taking stuff out of boxes and he would come and get in "the bubble" and I would think, bro! That is my bubble! But its ok. I grabbed some of the chocolate candies that are there that wont expire till March at the earliest so that there is some for all of you to try:) we got back to the apartment and decided to have a little fun during our lunch time. We opened a coconut. Now that is really hard when all you have for cutting is a kitchen knife, but we managed to do it. We also but some lemon in the coconut (hehehe oh my goodness) and that was pretty funny. The coconut was good, but I wish we could've had more time to eat it or had something to help us cut out all of the coconut yumminess. The day started out with S. We went to the usual park that we meet her and her mom at and we got there a little earlier so we decided to walk around the area for a bit. It was getting close to when we were suppose to meet with S so we called her and her mom answered the phone to tell us that S was still in school... oh the struggles of working with 9 year olds. We rescheduled the appointment and went on our way to go see the O family. The RS president came out with us to teach them and introduced herself and talked to them for a bit. Unfortunately she couldn't stay because she had to go pick up B from school so she left in the middle of the lesson. We were talking to the O family about how they liked church and what they thought, questions they have, etc. P, the mom, just goes off on a bunch of random stuff that she didnt like about church. She didnt like the sacrament and how anyone can just take it, because you know, Christ only did it with his Disciples and not just anyone... (stupid). She then says how some people just wear makeup when they go to church or how some people wear pants and how "in the Bible it says" blah blah blah. V, her daughter, wore pants and makeup to church! She then says that the hymns were really weird. WHAT!? Did you even listen or read what they say? UGH! It frustrated me so much because that is TOTALLY not her real problem! She is just throwing up stuff to hide something else. She told us that she just isn't interested anymore. What? Her kids LOVE going to church. They really liked it, and the whole time we were talking with her, her kids were looking at her like, for real? They didnt say anything but they totally liked church. I was so frustrated! This is such an awesome family and it looks like they are starting to fall off. We have done so much on our part to help this family! It makes me sad. We then went to eat dinner at the G home and we ate pupusas. K was there and we were able to talk to him for a little bit. It was a bad scenario again cause C was there. C was trying to explain that Jesus was a communist and that C has an uncle who is a revolutionary man... in those moments you just have to look at your watch, then your companion, and say that you have to leave cause you know it just isn't going to end the way you want it too. At the church the C family came, the husband and the wife, so that they could get their temple recommends for the temple! This Saturday we are going to go to the temple with them! Totally going to take pictures and everything:) we then gave K a tour of the church cause he didnt know what some of the rooms were and where the bathroom and stuff were, you know, important things like that. It also rained pretty hard that day and so we were soaked. 

Thursday I'm pretty sure was the day we made the ninja bread cookies.. ya, that was fun. We had weekly planning at the church and right after we had a lesson with S. Ugh! So Sophia's mom is just a handful. Sophia is 9 years old and is super smart and just full of life and off the wall crazy. We will be talking about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and she will say things like "God wants us to go to church so we can be happy, and when we don't go to church, it makes him sad". Then the mom will be like "Is Nephi in the Book of Mormon the same person as Moses?" No, he isn't. We invited them to come to church because they haven't been coming, and they committed to come. We also went to go and visit with the G family. Funny story: we were sitting on the couch talking with K and G when the youngest son, A, runs through the front door straight to the bathroom (he is 6 years old) to find that the great grandma is washing her hands in the bathroom and that the door is locked. He looks at his mom in horror and I tell you, he has mastered the potty dance. He grabbed his butt and said "ya viene!" Which means, its coming!!! G went over to knock on the door to tell the grandma to get out and then we all laughed about it afterwards... oh funny A. We invited them to be baptized and they were really hesitant, and they didnt really say no, but they didnt say yes either. We think that the lesson went in a good direction at least because it is giving them that little push to help them progress in the gospel rather than just stay in the normal spot. We also stopped by the C family to check up on their reading, and they weren't reading. We gave them a challenge to read 2 chapters every day and that we would make questions for them, so hopefully they will be ready with the answers the next time we stop by!

Friday was an interesting day, and it was super long too. We had interviews with President and Sister Haynie at 9:00 in the morning. Its kinda annoying me that whenever I see other missionaries they remind me of how much time I have left. I first talked to Sister Haynie and she started out "well this isn't going to be like the long interview that you are going to have in a couple weeks when you go home"... and then she started. We talked about a couple things and she just reminded me that I always need to stay busy, no matter what. She says that the sooner I get a job, the better I will feel. We talked about my mission and what I have experienced, the hard things, the easy things, some things i have learned... etc. I love Sister Haynie so much, she is totally the Mom of the mission. I then talked to President Haynie and he said that the interview would be a short one. I asked him if he could give me the endorsement and he was like "it only takes me 5 minutes to do that" and then boom, done. We talked a little bit more about stuff and he said some nice things about me which made me feel really good. It was pouring rain. I put on that nice trench coat and we headed out to go talk to people and knock some doors. We found and taught a guy named E who is super cool. He has 3 kids and a wife and we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a good lesson and he committed to come to church this week with his wife, fingers crossed! We then headed towards our dinner appointment and started to find some potentials around there. We talked to this guy named J. J was a handful. He walked out the door and he started to "tell us what we believe". He told us that the last missionaries that came by were a little annoyed at him because he started to teach them about Jesus (oh really, they were annoyed huh?). He then starts to tell us what he believes about God, the way to baptize, everything. I zoned out a couple times, cause you can do that sometimes, but then he would ask me a question and I would have to answer. He said some crazy stuff like: we baptize in the name of Joseph Smith, no. Do we believe in the Godhead (its called la trinidad in Spanish or the trinity so its confusing at first) and we said that we do, to which he told us that he didnt. He was also trying to tell us that if we need to call The Son by His name, Jesus. That we cant call Him, the Son, because he has a name. The makes no sense. We listened to him and then told him that we had to go and visit someone else, he said that he liked us and to have a nice day. We were so glad that at least he has a good impression about missionaries:) We ate dinner with the A family. Hermano A use to be the YM president but got released last Sunday. He has some of the coolest kids, D and C. We talked to them for a bit and it was a good meal. After that we went back to our apartment to get our bikes and head to an appointment that we had the E family. Hermano  came out with us. We started to teach A, J and G. G is crazy and it is really hard for her to pay attention. A and J are super cool and they would totally help G learn more, if G wouldn't randomly say during the middle of the lesson "but my sister doesn't share with me" or ... whatever. It makes me wonder how terrible little siblings really are.. glad I'm the youngest;) Anywho, we committed them to come to church because they never come. When we committed G to read the Book of Mormon she said "but my sister never reads to me" and we just said "G, how old are you? You can read the Book of Mormon by yourself". It was an interesting lesson and I am slowly loosing my patience with that family!! Ugh! We then biked to go and see Y. She had just woken up and the house was so quiet it was amazing. We taught about the Plan of Salvation to see if she understood it all or had any questions about anything, and she didn't. She said that she doesn't have any questions about anything. Its nice to know that maybe she wont be baptized while I am here, but that one day she will be baptized, and thats comfort enough for me. They have a little dog named Lucky that is just crazy, but you just got to play with the dog for a bit and then set him down by your side like Dad does and he will fall asleep, its the best. That was the day.

Saturday was a crazy day. We started out the day going on a nice little run to the USC track in the morning and we ran on that for a little bit, so that was cool. We had a lesson around 1:00 with the O family and we called E and M V to come out with us. They live a block away from the O family and they helped out a lot during the lesson. During the lesson we talked about the Plan of Salvation and it was really good. V had a friend over and she also participated in the lesson too! She even said the closing prayer and committed to come to church this week! After the lesson we went back to our apartment to change into our suits to go to the temple with the C couple. It was such a cool experience. We went to the temple and who knew that around 4:30 on a Saturday there wouldn't be ANYONE in the baptistery. Elder W and I were asked to participate in the confirmations because there weren't any temple workers in the baptistery. The Cs were asked if they were doing family names and we told them that they would just do temple names cause they didnt bring any names. Fortunately a temple worker who had just walked down the stairs asked if they could do the names of her family. It was really cool. We got all dressed and waited for a bit cause a member of the Temple Presidency needed to come and do the cards for the baptisms cause there really wasn't ANYONE. V kept asking me questions about this or that about the temple and it was a really cool experience. The worker told us that he would baptize in english but, if we would like, we could confirm in Spanish. I did the confirmations for Hermana C and Elder W did them for V. It was an awesome experience, the first time for me to do confirmations in the temple and it was as a missionary with a recent convert family, so cool. V loved it and so did Hermana C. When they found out that they can just go whatever day (except Sundays and Mondays) to go to the temple, they were super stoked. They also asked "what is keeping us from entering the temple and being sealed as a family?" We told them that they just have to wait for a year to be members and receive temple prep classes, they were so happy. We then got back to their house and they gave us chipilins, which are basically tamales just made a different way and with cheese and a sauce, it was nice. Not too bad for a Saturday:)

Sunday we had excessive rain! Like it actually rained super duper hard! In the morning we had ward council and we talked about our investigators and then that was it for us in the meeting. We didn't have as many people show up to church this week, we had about 7 people show up which is still super good, but the O family didn't come which was a little disappointing. We sat by the C family during Gospel Principles and were having a fun time laughing with them about stuff, it was good. OH! The N family came to church today! Idk if y'all remember me telling you about them when I was in the Jungle area, but they came and I gave the Hermano a hug and we talked for a bit, it was nice to see them again. After church we gave the missionary moment for the baptism of the other elders. They have been teaching this lady named M and she is about 70 years old and is just the sweetest lady you can meet. After she was baptized and the RS gave her a welcome to the ward she asked if she could say a few words (of course you can). She got up and said thank you to everyone who was there. In her own words she said "Thank you all for being a part of the happiness that I feel in my heart" it was so cute, ah! We then got a ride back to the apartment cause it was raining really hard and the streets had quite a bit of flooding going on. A F swung by the apartment to give us some food cause he didn't want to have us walk all the way to his house to eat dinner. When we went to go meet him outside we accidentally locked ourselves out. Our keys and phone were inside and so I just started to undo the screen on the outside of the window. We popped that off and then reach through the window to unlock the door. Who knew missionaries are really good at breaking into things??;) we then received a message telling us that as a whole mission to stay in our apartments because of excessive flooding and rainstorms that were happening and that unless we had scheduled teaching appointments that we were to return to our apartments when it was dark, so that explains why this letter is so much longer than the usual ones, cause we had all this extra time:)

Today we are going to go to the Pixar place thats here in the mission, definitely going to get some souvenirs. These next couple weeks I will be probably spending a little more money from my home card on stuff so, para que sepan and all.

Love,

Elder Roberts