Week 49

O Canada!

Saddest thing! I kinda figured, but it's been said now, that we as missionaries cannot have playing cards... Dang it! I have decided just to put them in my luggage because hey, I'm not throwing those away cause those are memories and cool cards!

Monday was just a crazy day. Because there were a couple missionaries leaving, everyone wanted to hang out. We have a mission rule that no more than 3 companionships can be together at one time, so everyone was trying to kick us out of the group, or the ZLs. We ended up kicking the ZLs out because hey, they have a car and we are in bike. We played soccer, went to Yogurtland, everything. It sucked at the end of Pday because we were playing soccer and I tried to toe poke the ball quickly away from Elder W who was about to shoot the ball. I toe poked it a bit, but Elder W blasted my toe and it got super swollen (yes I probably should've taken a picture, it was gross). It's all good though, that's why you never toe poke in soccer kids... #whitepeoplesoccer

Tuesday I got my new companion! His name is Elder L and he is from Canada... Hehehe. He is a fireball! He is in his second transfer so I am finishing his training. He knows 4 languages! Spanish, French, German, and English. My Spanish is going to go through the roof! I can already tell that this transfer is gonna be a sick one! So because of my injured toe, I was hobbling all day. We went to the store to buy food and he is so Latino. He bought tortillas, beans, salsa and cheese. I bought cereal and milk haha. We went back to the apartment and then decided to head out. We talked to everyone that we saw and Elder L is so funny. We had a lesson with P and it was pretty dang good. We saw that one family that we found last Friday, the ones that were right about to have the baby, and the baby had already come! 10 minutes after we left they went to the hospital. Ingrid, the mom, told us how grateful she was for the blessing and how much of a spiritual experience it was for her. We then biked down to the A family to introduce Elder L to them. We ate dinner with the E and it was super good. We then biked down to H, but he wasn't home. The day wasn't as 'amazing' as other days in the mission, but we worked hard and had fun while doing it.

Wednesday we had an amazing opportunity to attend a worldwide missionary conference! Every missionary has now seen that broadcast! There are now around 75,000 missionaries in the world... It's gone down a bit, but hey I'm one of them! At the conference was 6 members of the quorum of the twelve: President Nelson, Oaks, Bednar, Stevenson, Redlund, Anderson. It was pretty cool. The conference was titled: Teach repentance and baptize converts. It was pretty intense. After that we went back to the apartment to do our studies then we left to go out and work. We talk to everyone I tell you. We had some amazing experiences. We started doing something called 'spirit contacting' which is when basically you have to think of an inspired question right after you start talking to the person. It is a little awkward, but it is incredibly spiritual. We had 3 amazing conversations this way. We even found 3 new investigators doing this! We saw a member with his buddies and we just went over to talk with him, we then talked to the friends;) we had a super spiritual lesson about the atonement and being cleansed from sin. It was amazing. We ate dinner with the R family and that was good, we then just talked to people for the rest of the night. Elder L is pretty legit, he is almost training me here! I am learning so much from him, and he is very teachable which is admirable considering how young he is in the mission.

Thursday was just a crazy day! I had a finishing trainer training in the morning so that stopped a couple of our studies, plus it was weekly planning so that takes 3 hours, and we had inspections on our apartment (again got 100, but no big deal right;) ) and by that time we were both itching to get to work. We had been inside for ever! We had some plans, but they all fell through. So we decided to go and see some of our recent converts and less active members because hey, that's what missionaries should do:) we stopped by the F home, but only the dad was there. While we were talking to him it was really cool because we were just chatting it up when we asked him a question and he turned to me and asked "how did you know I have a question?" We said we didn't know and he asked us a couple good questions, like 'why is the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ' and so on. Good questions. We then went to the top of our area to go visit a recent convert I have only visited 1 time. We had an awesome lesson with them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We set a day that we could have FHE with them. We then got a call from M F, the oldest daughter, saying that she wanted us to come see the family.... We already did? Turns out she wanted to see us before she left on a trip to Washington that she was really scared about flying there. We then biked all the way back (like a 25 minute bike ride) and talked with the whole F family. They seemed super solid about coming to church! We then biked all the way back home for the night (15 minute bike ride). So in total we had 3 lessons, biked for about an hour or more, and biked the length of our area about 4 times... Talk about a tiring day!

Friday I don't remember what happened, I'm sorry:)

Saturday was just crazy! We flipping killed it! We had a goal to set 3 baptismal dates with our investigators. We had ward Coorelation with the WML and again he brought pizzas and soda. After that we had so many lessons set! We had a lesson with P and the E family. During that lesson it was pretty cool, just how fast R is improving. We didn't have that lesson with the 3 teenagers because well, they are teenagers. We were really excited to teach them because the experience we had was so spiritual. We had a lesson with a nice lady named A. She opened up to us right away. She told us of her struggles and her problems, and we listened. We taught her simply about the Restored Gospel and the Book of Mormon. She accepted a baptismal invitation for the 21st of February! We were so happy. Next we called the M's to see if they could come with us to a lesson with J and W, because we didn't know if J would be there. Well he was there and we had and we had an amazing lesson! We taught simply and extended a baptismal invitation for the 7th of February which he accepted! We were so happy. 

Sunday was a little disappointing to the amazing week we had. We only had 1 investigator show up to church, G. She could only stay for the first hour, so that was nice, but ugh! We were so sad that nobody else showed up! The other Elders had a baptism so they all stuck around, but I woke up with a MASSIVE headache so we decided to take a break at the apartment. We visited the A family with almost the whole gang. It was a good lesson. We introduced Elder L to them and we talked about the Restoration and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Thanks for everything and have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Roberts