~Week 51~

Dear Family,

This transfer is going by way too fast. 

Monday was up and down the whole day. We went to Food4Less which is where we always shop and I think my companion doesn't realize that we are on bike. He will buy crazy amounts of food and I'll just look at him and think 'we have to bike with all of that for like 2 miles bro' and then he will freak out because not all of his stuff fits in a backpack.... So stressful. We then went to the church and emailed, played sports, everything. We played some ultimate in the gym (I bought a frisbee) and it felt so good. Elder H, and English elder, is really good at throwing, so naturally I try to guard him. One time while I was blocking, I blocked his throw with my foot! I felt so cool, it was awesome. We played some basketball and a missionary twisted his ankle (that's why you don't go hard in sports as a missionary) and so he had to sit out the rest of the day. We went to Yogurtland (part of my New Years Resolutions) and that was good too. We ended the day with a dinner appointment with a less active lady and her two sons. She is less active because her husband is Catholic and she does whatever he says. The sons have a lot of potential and I hope we could start edging our way in there. She fed us this lasagna type dish that was a little spicy, hijo le. 

Tuesday was pretty good, little crazy though. We had some lessons planned and the day looked like it was going to be an epic one. But, then my companion's bike had to have problems. His back brakes were rubbing against the tire, so he literally couldn't go anywhere. He was freaking out and didn't know how to fix them. I tried to loosen the brake so that it would stop touching, but for some reason it just wouldn't work. He was freaking out at me and then I told him just to use another missionary's bike for the day and we would take his bike in tomorrow. Well the other bike had tires that were completely deflated so I spent about 15 minutes straight just pumping them up, so tiring. We then taught J C (last name is R) and he really likes to talk. I think we, the missionaries, only spoke for about 5 minutes, maybe 10. He accepted a baptismal invitation though! His date is for the 28th of this month and we are super excited! We had him pray at the end of the lesson and wow, I love sincere prayers. He was crying and tears were started to come as he told us "that felt good". It was a really cool experience. We stopped by the N family so that way we could tell the parents to help the son and us with his friends J and E who both have baptismal dates.  It was a good lesson and the dad (he was the only one that we talked to) seemed incredibly excited for his son, almost like he didn't even know about the situation. We ate dinner with the Es like always and told them about some families, members and investigators, that they could help us with. They are so motivated to do missionary work! 

Wednesday was just crazy busy and tiring. We went to the bike shop to fix Elder Ls' bike, turns out the bearings on his back wheel were off. We went and talk to people outside while the guy fixed the bike. It cost 15$ to get the bearings fixed...?!?! That is way too much. We went back to the apartment and sister M, the apartment manager, was there. Elder L introduced himself and we ended up talking to her for quite a bit. She was trying to give us all these health tips... Ha! Ain't nobody got time for dat! When we left the apartment we went to go and see P and R. We had a quick short lesson with them and they are just swamped with blessings right now! P is working a lot, and R is getting better, very quickly. We then had a lesson with the Elders Quorum President and our baptismal date J R or "Charlie chanclas". It was a lesson to help J feel better about coming to church so that way he would have a friend besides the missionaries. We also taught a member named C, she is the mom of H. Her friend C and C's son E, were there. We got to know them a little bit and we set up a return appointment for Thursday! So excited for them! We ate dinner with the M's and they made THE BEST carne asada. Oh my goodness, fresh off the grill and straight to the plate, that was sooo good! We swung by and taught A (recent convert) and her mom A. We threw down on A! She is always asking so many questions and we answered all of her questions with the Book Of Mormon! She told us "well, it looks like I need to read the Book of Mormon again" it sure does! A said something really cool. She was telling us that her family (none of them are members except her older sister and niece, J who is the same age as her) was saying that A is now an official Christian because she was baptized. A then replied "I'm not a Christian! I'm a Mormon!" Her older sister (the one that is also a member/ LA) told her not to say that and to say that she is Christian, but A just said "No, I am a Mormon!" I was so proud of her. Granted all Mormons are Christians, but not all Christians are Mormons. 

Thursday was weekly planning and Elder L and I decided to make it a tradition to go to Subway on Thursdays cause hey, we have to leave the apartment anyway, might as well get Subway. So that was nice. We talked to some not very receptive people on the streets about the gospel, but hey, the work moves on. We had a lesson set with a family around 5 and so we contacted around where they lived. We actually got 2 return appointments from some of their neighbors around the corner! It was pretty cool. The lesson was with the M family. The mom, C, and her son, C, are members. Her other son, H, is the one that I was talking about in December who had all those police problems. C's neighbor, C, and her son, E (10) are not members. We had a good lesson with them about our purpose as missionaries and talked to C about having us give the lessons to E, she said she would like that. Basically the only reason she is not a member is because E's dad, who is a member of the church, is married to another woman and goes to our wars #familyfeud. After that we went and had dinner with the P family. They are from Peru and they made us Papa a la huancaina. We talked for a really long time and they gave us some fruits to take home.

Friday we had Zone Training Meeting (ZTM) and it was pretty good. Lots of cool things said, notes written down, ya. After that we had to hurry home and change so that way we could go to a lesson with this lady named L... Hehe. She has a lot of health problems. She is in her late 20s maybe early 30s I really can't tell. She told us that she thinks that the Mormons and the JW are the most correct people for this reason and that, basically she is a JW. We set up a return appointment with her because we really didn't have an opportunity to actually say something cause she talked a lot. We then tried to see a couple of investigators, and they weren't home. We went to the Jungle to try and stop by some referrals that we received and none of them were home, but we called and with a couple of them we set return appointments. We ate dinner with the F family. They gave us a soup with roast, potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables. We talked to them about the little things that they could start doing to get back into the habit of 'church mojo' you could say. For example: one week start the habit of family prayers, next week, family scripture study, next week, FHE and so on. They are just the most awesome family and I hope that they get sealed in the temple.

Saturday was just crazy. We get a call from our DL and he tells us that President Weidman wants us to set a goal of how many baptismal dates we are going to set in the next week. He says that our area is ready to harvest, and that all we need to do is go and find. We now have a goal of setting 8 baptismal dates in 1 week. We had coordination with Bishop because our Ward mission leader is out of town and it was really cool because then the bishop came out with us right after for a lesson with P and R. We then had a lesson with the second counselor in the bishopric with an investigator named A. She has a lot of health problems and she is feeling really down about them right now. We then tried to stop by and see if J R was outside working on his car, but the ONE time his car is there, he isn't there! It was so sad because we had a bishopric member with us. We took a power break at the apartment and just started calling everyone before another lesson that we had. The lesson we had was with J and W. We talked to W outside her door until at the very end J came home from work. W told us about a lot of stuff that is going on in their lives right now. We boldly told her to repent by doing the basics again: reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and going to church. It is SO apparent as a missionary to see who reads their scriptures on a daily basis and who isn't reading at all. 

Sunday was just a rollercoaster day. We decided to wake up early and ride our bikes to our investigators houses and wake them up! Well that would have been a good idea had they been there or answered the door! So basically we did a lap around our area before going to church, getting super sweaty and everything... Gross. We had our eternigators at church so that was nice, but none of our legit investigators, so that was really sad. After church was just really stressful, trying to find everybody so that we could get dinners for the week, everything. We went home and broke our fast with some ramen. We went to go and visit L. She has a lot of health problems, which she hasn't told us exactly what it is, I personally think her kidneys are failing because she does dialysis daily and has a transplant on Thursday and Friday. We taught her the Restoration and she accepted a baptismal date for the 13th of March! She seems like the type of person who would have real intent to find out about the Book of Mormon, but let's see if it happens! We then went to go and visit a part member family. The mom is named C and she has two sons: A (6) and E (10). We talked to her earlier about giving E the missionary lessons and she is in full support of it. We tried to have her be in on the lesson, but she left to go and cook (oh man!) E also has a baptismal date, but for the 6th of March! We are getting him a children's Book of Mormon stories so that he can read his scriptures haha. We then went to go and see the P family and E E. They are just a bunch of goof balls. Try thinking about the fastest Spanish speakers who talk a lot of slang, do you think I understand them? Nope. And because I don't understand them, they make fun of me... Not cool bro. My companion loved it though! He says that they are super cool and hilarious! I'm glad that I have a companion that actually knows Spanish , like legit Spanish, so that way I am not completely lost. We ended the day with a conversation with a guy who was high and he thinks that after this life we just go into the cosmos as energy.

The work is true. I love it, it's amazing.

Love,

Elder Roberts