August 22, 2016
Transfer news:
I am leaving
Elder D is staying
My new area is in HP called HP2
My new companion is Elder H (I'll spell it right next week
for sure) and I am his trainer.
I am in a CAR area, but I hear that the apartment has roaches...
So hopefully all goes well.
To answer questions:
E hasn't come to church for a while
C finished the BOM and we committed him to do this 4 month
reading which is something we did as a mission last year and he will finish
before Christmas if he reads about 2 chapters a day.
We haven't had any baptismal dates really cause they all keep
falling, but others are baptizing so that's good.
I think my favorite cook is the D L family cause they make
white food, that or they buy KFC hahaha, oh how I have missed white food so
much.
This last week I actually finished reading the New Testament as a
missionary. So now I can say that as a missionary I have read it ALL! I also
used the institute manual on gospel library to help me understand revelations a
little better. So now I have new goals with the Book of Mormon and preach my
gospel for the last 4th of my mission. It's gonna be good cause I have a newbie
(I am finishing training, not greenie training) so it'll be nice. Elder H is my 3rd stepson with Elder L (who is a ZL now for 2 transfers... Holy
cow) and Elder S.
Korea Town Episode III (Blasted Heat) Scene 6
Monday we had a little bit of excitement at the beginning of the
day. We found out that the Wilshere elders were going to the mission office to
go and do a driving test so that Elder S could be certified to drive in
the mission. Well, my companion talked to Sister Haynie about college and she
told him to get in touch with Sister E, who is basically in charge of helping missionaries get that sort of thing taken care of. So they were nice enough to
take us to the mission office and Elder P and I just emailed, talked with
other elders, I moved some pictures onto my USB.. Stuff like that. Elder
D got his college stuff taken care of, but the driving test took super
long. Now before, when I got my driving test done, it was with Elder Hunsaker
Sr. , and we just basically drove around the block and parallel parked, and
that was it. But now that Elder Roe (another senior missionary) has replaced
Elder Hunsaker sr. , the driving test is super long compared to before. We were
waiting at the family history library for about 2 hours... It was ridiculous.
Afterwards we decided to go and make the shirts. The idea came from Elder
DS and Elder P and we took a video about a week ago that has us
walking in a "cool" way, and then we just went through the video to
look at a shot that we wanted as the picture. So we went to the mall back in
one of my old areas to this random kiosk and the guy makes shirts! He is from
the Middle East and his accent was super cool. Elder P and I were talking
to him and he was asking us a lot of questions about the US, the differences
from where we are from, missionary work... It was pretty cool. The shirts were
made and Elder S, P, and I all got shirts (Elder D didn't want
to pay for his shirt cause it was too expensive) but I think that the shirts
are sick! We ended pday going visit the DL family and they fed us, which
was really nice. I really hope that the de Leon family realize just how
important the message of the gospel is for their lives and for their happiness
because they always are saying things about how amazing the gospel is and how
important God is in their lives, but then they never DO anything about it! I
feel a come to Jesus moment coming up soon...
Tuesday I had my 3rd quarter training at one of the worst times in
the day, the early afternoon. We borrowed the zone leaders car and traffic was
so horrible that we actually ended up arriving 7 minutes late to the training.
The training was good. It is super sad because the "group" that you
go home with are the elders that are in your trainings (sisters are in
different trainings so you never know). It is sad because the ONLY other elder
that has been in the trainings is Elder H, a Chinese elder. Because he is
Chinese, all the Chinese elders go home about a week early than transfers,
because that is when they come in... So I guess I am a loner elder. "I
came into this world (the mission) by myself, and I will leave it in the same
way". The training was good and there were a lot of good notes that I
wrote down. We then got back to our apartment in just enough time to switch out
of our suits and then bike to the church to eat dinner (a member of the are
brought the dinner there because she lives outside of our area). It was a good
meal, but I tell you, these members just think that I can eat a horse or
something, cause it is a LOT of food. We ate the dinner at the church and then
had to bike back to our area in enough time to go and see the A family
and read with them at night.
Wednesday we were contacting and Elder D asked the ZLs if he
could go and get some new shoes at Payless because his sister put money on his
card (his shoes were REALLY bad). So we went in to buy him shoes and he is a
much better shoe shopper than I am, he got down to 2 different pair of shoes
and then picked his super fast, he decided to go with a more classy style than
what he had had before. On the way to the checkout the lady told us to look at
the socks because they were 50% off, well, then socks were legit. I will send
you a pic of the socks that we got. We contacted back to the apartment so Elder
D could switch his shoes that were really bad and that way we could also
get our bikes to go to dinner at Hermana G's house. We ate there and it
was really interesting what happened during the lesson. We invited her to take
her visiting teaching families to the VC (she is the 1st counselor in the RS
FYI) and she all of a sudden got super depressed. She told us that the families
that she is assigned to go and visit are LA and that she doesn't feel like they
would ever want to come back to church. We bore our testimonies of the
importance of visiting teaching and asked her when was the last time that she
visited them... Let's just say that home and visiting teaching are established
in the church for a reason, so that all members can be watched over a fed
spiritually. We went to go and read in the Book of Mormon with the DL family (investigators) and they liked it. We read a couple chapters with them
super quick and then had to leave to go to the B home to watch the movie
The Prophet of The Restoration. We watched the movie and it was going to go
over 9:00, which is fine for us missionaries just because it had the ending
part left and we could still be home on time. What we didn't know though is
that J (the son with special needs) has a lock on his computer that it shuts
down at 9:00 so that way he doesn't spend too much time on the computer. Well
this happened during the movie, right at the climax of the martyrdom of Joseph
Smith, so unfortunately we were unable to see the coolest part (and avoid the
tears that come when the play the hymn Praise to the Man). At the end M B was helping J say the prayer and it was such a funny moment when (I
know this is bad because it was during the prayer) but Juan forgot what he
wanted to say at one point and blurted out "Bubbling Boilers!!" (Like
from Thomas and Friends) Hahaha oh it was soooo funny! At the end of the
prayer, Juan was all smiling so that was nice to see.
Thursday we had district meeting and so we had some alright plans
for the day. Well we get this text from the ZLs that they want to come on
exchanges with us (we thought it was going to be on Friday so we had planned a
lot of fun stuff for Friday) but hey, when they say exchanges, you do
exchanges. So we went to district meeting and I am such an awful person because
of sass invests and sarcasm. I have been trying really hard lately to not be so
sarcastic, but some others missionaries I think have acquired the sarcasm that
I am trying to lose. The district meeting had some interesting moments we'll
just say. Afterwards we went back to the apartment to wait for the zone leaders
to come and start the exchange. Elder N is super cool, and I have always
wanted to serve around him, just cause of how cool he is. He is from Colorado,
pretty close to GJ. We had a lot of fun on the exchange, that's for sure. We
contacted along the street and it was really interesting because Elder N is an English elder... Meaning that he doesn't understand anything of what is
going on in a street convo... But that's ok. We pick up dinner from Hermana
Z and she gave us: rice, chicken, tortillas, and some guacamole which was
really nice. We biked some more to try and go and visit some other people, but
they weren't home which was sad. We then went to go and visit the A family and read with them, and Elder N actually read in Spanish! It was
awful, but he did it:) I then told him that we were going to go try and visit
E, but that the apartment complex would probably be locked so we would need
to do some ninja stuff to get into the apartment. We locked up our bikes, and
the opportunity came to get into the apartment and bam, we got in. It TOTALLY
paid off cause E was home and we were able to sit down and talk with her
for a little bit. We got back to the apartment and after planning we just
talked and talked and talked, it was cool and Elder N is a cool guy.
Friday morning Elder N and I went to Yogurtland because there
is a new flavor out, so we contacted along the way. There was this lady that
walked across the intersection to be in front of us and she started to talk
with us. She explained that she was from SLC and that she had been married in
the temple, but based on how she looked and who she was with, I don't think the
whole covenant - keeping mindset is still going on. She quickly said bye and it
was super awkward because you just think about all the joy that comes from the
gospel, especially from the blessings of the temple, and to look at how she is
living her life right now... Wow. We got back to the apartment and talked some
more before our companions came to switch. We had weekly planning, and then
decided to head out for the day. We had a good day planned, but unfortunately
the investigators weren't home, and the member didn't come out with us. The day
ended pretty good visiting with the D L family. I really like them and they
wrote in my journal because I brought it in case that I was leaving, so they
signed it and that was nice. When we finished they told us that they could give
us a ride back to our apartment, but as S shut the door, he realized that
he forgot the car keys, and accidentally locked the apartment keys in the
apartment, so we were locked out with no way of getting in. They got us an Uber
driver, which I guess is cool, but before the guy came, we tried to basically
go to the back part of the apartment and break into their house by getting
through a window, which didn't happen, but it was still pretty funny.
Saturday was a crazy busy day. We started the day early at 10 for
a ward picnic. We biked to the B home and locked up our bikes there, they
then gave us a ride to the picnic. NOBODY was there at 10 in the morning,
because the picnic part didn't start until 12... We didn't know that. Well it
was still fun to be outdoors and to throw around a football with a bunch of
Latinos haha, so that was cool. Elder D was invited back to PV (the
farthest place south of the mission) to go back and baptize an investigator/now
convert. So we borrowed the ZLs car and started on the long hour - 1 1/2 hour
drive down to the chapel in PV. It was a wedding and a baptism! I'll give y'all
the run down. Basically the guy (J) was the one that started the whole
thing. He started to go to church and was slowly changing bad habits relating
to the word of wisdom. His mom started to see the changes in him and decided to
go to church and listen to the missionaries as well. Then his girlfriend
started to do the same. Well, J got married to his girlfriend who is now his
wife, and his mom and J were baptized! The wife doesn't feel ready yet, but
hey, after Juan gets the priesthood HE could baptize her:) it was super cool
because some members STILL remembered me, it was that area I was only there for
5 days and they still remember me... Holy smokes. It was fun. We then drove all
the way back to give the ZLs their car back and because they had their pday
partially on Saturday (they are ZLs and they on Monday have to be with the
newbie missionaries) they were doing some pday stuff before we got back to
them. We got home and changed to go out and actually work in area. At night we
were able to visit with E again and she promised to come to church... But
she didn't, sadly.
Sunday was a pretty interesting day. We didn't have the meeting
with the bishop because he was out of town so we were able to take a good while
getting ready in the morning for church. Church started and nobody was there.
It was really sad. Luckily Hermano B showed up and so did the D L (investigator). Family.... All 4 of them! It was so weird to see
them there because they haven't EVER come since I have been in the ward. It was
also nice to see that a LA invited her husband who is not a member to church
and he was really nice. A sister missionary in the ward (Hermana C) is
finishing her mission so ALL the members were giving her a farewell
basically. After church there was the baptism of E and it was really
good. Hermano B stayed for that so we were also able to attend. It was good
and Hermano B really liked it, so hopefully sometime soon he will get
baptized. After church we went to go and visit with the P family, then
the Bs, then the A family. All the lessons were good, and I took
pictures with most of them. The Bs gave me a tie! I actually really liked
the lesson with Hermano B because there was this moment when we told him
that he can pray to God to know when he needs to be baptized, because we felt
like he is waiting for this miraculous event to happen to help him know that he
needs to get baptized. After we told him that he could pray to know about
baptism, there was a moment when he really thought about it, so that was cool.
Hope y'all have a good week
Love,
Elder
Roberts
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