Week 93

Barrio Sexto - USC

Monday was a good day. We got together with a couple missionaries that are super fun to hang with and we played some games with them. We also got a lot of stuff to eat for this next week. We had a packed day after the actual preparation day was over. We had a dinner with an investigator and his wife. His name is A F and her name is L V. They have been living together for the past 20 years and have been coming to church for the past 6 years. The only problem, they aren't married yet. They could seriously just get married one day and that following Sunday be baptized, they are just that cool. However, it appears that they have some relationship issues and so its really hard to try to help them out because we normally dont help people on their marriage problems, we can just let them know of things that will help them improve their love for each other, its a tough situation. Anyways, they treated us out to this burger place right by USC called Olympian Burger which is super good. Both Elder W and I got a smaller meal because we had to go and eat with ANOTHER family later on, like right after. So we ate with them and that was nice getting to know them, they are super cool. I remember when I was here in the ward before that everyone already thought that they were members because they come every week and they have amazing input on topics and questions and they keep all of their commitments, except for getting married. It is so frustrating sometimes you know!! After that dinner we went to go eat with the V family. They were baptized when I was here clear back in January (wow, that long ago... yikes) and I remember that this couple got baptized super quick, like in 3 weeks of the missionaries first visiting them, they got baptized. They are still solid in the gospel! We talked with them while we ate and they told us about how excited they are to be sealed as a family in the temple this coming January! I think they should totally be Ward missionaries, we are trying to help out our WML and the ward by searching for some cool members to be Ward missionaries cause the Bishop told the WML to look for some people, so we are helping him out with that. We then waited outside our apartment till the other elders came to give us our phone because we had left it with them.

Tuesday we went running in the morning around the USC Coliseum and that was cool, just cause we can do it every morning if we want to cause we live right by it. We then did service again at World Harvest because they were getting ready for Thanksgiving and oh my goodness is it a whole different world at a food bank when people are getting thanksgiving for their families. There was a group of cop cadets that are in training that were about our age who were also helping out and they were just super immature, they need to go on missions psshh. There were also some small name celebrities that came in to help out and the owner of World Harvest (G) was introducing them to "his Mormon friends" which meant us. He would then tell all of them what we do as missionaries and for how long we do it, everything. Basically you just smiled and acted polite because thats just the best thing to do when you dont know what to do. We had to sort out a lot of vegetables and sometimes it was really gross because there was a lot of nasty vegetables, but for the most part we just took them out of the boxes and put them out in crates and then gave the food to people. It was really fun because a lot of the missionaries from the zone came to help out, so lots of people saw mormons that day;) . After that we went to go and visit some PMF and some of them weren't home and with others we set up return appointments with them, so thats good I guess. We then went to eat dinner with the S family. They are a young couple that met in their home ward. They both had families before, but for whatever reason they now are together (divorce, death, idk). They are so cool. It was such a good meal and they are just amazing to be around. We then ended the night visiting with the C family. We taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a really good lesson. That family is super cool. The mom then asks us where should could get CTR rings for her kids. She told us that she was interested in getting them because a lot of missionaries wear CTR rings, I told her just to look online because that way you could find the really cool ones. Its little things like that that make you feel confident that the family is going to stay active, getting CTR rings, how many convert families actually get them within 6 months of being baptized?  

Wednesday we went walking for a really long time, its ok though! The Lord is preparing hearts and consecrating us! We talked to a lot of people and it was really fun. Would try to visit weren't home or we set up a return appointment with them, one or the other. We then visited with S who is a RC in the area and she is just so funny. Her mom on the other hand.... oh my goodness. I think what gets me the most frustrated is when some reads in the Book of Mormon and their comprehension level isn't where it should be and because they dont understand they confuse what it says and so then they ask a question that makes NO sense whatsoever. Thats the case with this mom. The sad part, is that half the time the daughter understands and she teaches her mom, which we totally support because S is a genius with a love of the Gospel. Its just sad because they don't end up coming to church very often:(. We then ate dinner with the G family. They are definitely becoming my favorites here. The hermana was making pupusas and we asked her if she could show us how to make them, to which she told us to "get ready then! Wash your hands!" So we did and we made pupusas. I took a video so that way you can see how to make a pupusa. Now, my companion made a better one, but I think thats just because he is really good at cooking and I am not up to par by no means, but mine tasted good, that counts right? It was a fun experience and we had fun doing it because our 2 investigators watched us make pupusas and laughed at us and it was just a good ol time. We then went to go and teach the family of 7 that we found. When we got there we told them that we are not the missionaries that teach the English classes, but that we can find out for them who are the missionaries that do. We then told them our purpose as missionaries and asked them if it would be ok if we taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 3 of the family members started to listen to the lesson. We put on a video and then 1 by 1 all the family members came into the lesson and were participating in it. We then invited them to come to church and to pray as a family.

Thursday was THANKSGIVING! In the morning we went to the Salvation Army to help them with their Thanksgiving day activity of handing out food to homeless people. One of the dudes there took us and it was just a funny experience because it's another church group so we aren't allowed to really preach to them, more just answer questions that they ask us. It was really cool giving out the meals to the homeless in the morning and we were with a good group of people. There were some funny experiences from that like

A dude that we gave food to asked me if I had a sister cause he told us that he needs a woman in his life.... 

a guy cracked the joke "guess what?... Chicken butt" to us, and he started to laugh so hard that he literally was on the floor.

We had a lot of good meaningful conversations while doing the service opportunity. We also got a good bike ride for the day, in total for the whole day we biked around 12 miles... yay. We then had weekly planning and during which Elder W made some homemade pumpkin pie, it was really good. We then had to bike super far to our dinner appointment and that was a story in and of itself:

We arrived to the dinner appointment with the G family. They have a lot of family members that are members of the church and some that aren't. The daughters also had some friends who aren't members over for the dinner. Well we were just starting to talk to them and get to know them when Hermano G says "aquí esta el pavo" and put in front of us a pig. It was on of those types of pigs that you dissect in biology class. One of the daughters then said "that reminds me too much of Charlottes Web" and then nobody knew how to cut the pig. It still had teeth in its mouth!!! Oh my goodness it was weird. It tasted super good though so whatever. We then start talking to them about the temple lights and the VC activities that are going on during the entire month of December. We then tried to plan a trip to go with all of them, but that kinda fell through.

Friday we had district meeting and that was pretty fun. We had a lot of good street conversations that day and we also had a lot of teaching opportunities. We taught Y, who is the sister of K, who was the most "golden" investigator in our area. K had to wait till she was 18 to be baptized cause her mom didnt let her. Well, Y is 15 and we dont want to have to have her wait 3 more years for her to be baptized. Y has always been in the lessons when the missionaries have gone over to visit with K, but she never understood and so she has never really progressed. The lesson was a super sick lesson and we taught about the importance of reading in the Book of Mormon. She really liked the lesson and we set goals with her in reading daily so that she can come to know for herself that the Book of Mormon is true. We then visited a lot of PMF and former investigators and showed them the new Christmas initiative and they really liked the video and we asked them if we cold stop by another time to share the video with their whole family and they all said yes. We also stopped by one of our investigators named A S who canceled a lesson on us this week. We stopped by for a quick minute and just shared with him the video, we didnt have more time so we had to leave pretty quickly. 

Saturday we went to go do service again at World Harvest caused they asked us to come back. We ended up sorting out all the food. We mainly just sorted grapes, tomatoes and mangos. It was so funny because the lady that was helping us sort was Indian and she just had so many funny quotes like

"Always choose brain second choice"

And she would cut open a bad mango to see if the inside was still "good" which it obviously wasn't and she would tell us "no! This one is good!" Cut it open and then be like, oh. We were able to grab some nice groceries from there because thats what you do when you do service there, they let you grab whatever you want basically. We then went back to our apartment and oh my goodness was the day just awful. First off, it was the USC v Norte Dame game and the streets were packed and everyone was yelling like crazy, and second, it was raining pretty bad. So we tried to go around and talk to people, but that just really didnt happen. We were stopped by this one family and they asked us where we were from and guess what... they are from Spanish Fork... woooo. It was pretty funny cause they asked us if we teach people on campus and we told them no, that we just work around the campus but that its still pretty fun to do. We then had dinner at Chik Fil A cause its super good. 

Sunday we had to be at the church super early for a meeting, then we had to go back to get all of the Tupperware containers for members, and then finally church started. Alberto came to church for the first time! The G came to church and that was really good. The only problem is that one of the members who was speaking talked about temples, and lets just say that they said some stuff that you just dont say. Hopefully we dont get any questions about it, but oh well. The classes were alright, our investigators had a lot of questions that we were able to help resolve. After church there was a baptism of the other elders, elders A and M. The people that were baptized are named C and M, and they are from Belize, and dont speak any spanish... it is weird. They really really like the ward (and their missionaries too much) and so they said that they were going to be baptized in this ward. They don't understand any spanish, its weird. Well, to make matters worse, they have a fear of water. The mom, C, was screaming as she was getting in the water and it took her like 5 minutes just to get in! And then she didnt have her nose plugged when she went down and so she started coughing and she was struggling as she was leaving the font. So when it was the turn for her daughter who is 10 to be baptized, the daughter is obviously going to be scared. It was so bad. M didnt want to go under the water and she was really scared. I think Elder A had to say the baptismal prayer about 10 times because she just wouldn't go down! It was a very different baptism that is for sure, but hey, they were baptized. We then went to go and visit Y after church and do an activity in PMG with her about patience, because thats what she wanted to do. We then went to go have dinner and we basically just ate junk food, I know, not the best. We had a lesson with the G family and it was a really good lesson. At one point the hermano got our two investigators confused that the Book of Mormon was the Bible, so we had to explain that it wasn't and that it compliments the Bible just like the Bible compliments the Book of Mormon. We then went to go and visit with the A family, but this time we stopped by to visit J and her family, so hopefully we will be able to start visiting them again. 

Sorry that it was so late! Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 92

USC area - Barrio Sexto - Week 1

Monday was just a day in itself. Elder B was also leaving and so the other elders helped us do our laundry. We went to go eat Yogurtland while our laundry was washing and Elder L and I were just talking the whole time. We then made plans to go a swampeet so that way I could buy some sweet shoes called huaraches, they are so sick. A member of one of the wards here in LA owns a shop and gives missionaries a little bit of a bargain for the shoes and so we went to her store, and I got some shoes:)) I wanted to get another pair, but we will see for in the future. We met up with Elder H and H and they are really cool missionaries too. We then went to go and get something to eat from this shopping center so that way all of us could get something to eat. We then went back to the church to do our emailing and play some basketball with the other elders. It was really fun when we were playing 2 on 2 with Elder H and Elder H (I was with Elder L because our companions didnt want to play at all) and that was really fun. Then it ended up being Elder L and me playing basketball and I was trying to teach him some basics of ball handling because he had never played basketball before in his life before the mission. Our companions didnt want to play with us so they were on the other side of the court shooting on their own. We ate dinner with the A family and that was super yummy too. The Hermana is just one of the sweetest ladies that you could ever meet. I then packed up my things when we got back to the apartment for the night.

Tuesday morning I made sure that I hadn't forgotten anything. I made sure to take the jam (I forgot the bread in the last apartment on accident) and I was just waiting to leave. Hermano B came to pick me up and he has a huge van/truck thing. It was super cool. Everything that I have really does fit into my suitcases which is super cool because that means that I still have space to get more memories from my mission! We drove up to the apartment about at the same time that my new companion Elder W did. He is super cool. He has this super cool hat that has flowers on it and he loves wearing it. We are working in the LA 6th ward in the 2nd area. That means that we now cover the rest of the ward that i didnt cover before, and we are on bike whereas the elders before were all on car. It is a big area, and we cover the whole USC campus, but i think that this transfer is just going to be a blast. I am so excited to be back in Barrio 6to even though they have more problems now than before, I am just really excited to be back and that I get to spend another Christmas here! It's like I never left. We got unpacked and oh my goodness do we have food!!! I love apartments with food! And better yet, my companion knows how to cook!! I am definitely going to have him teach me how to make some good food, hopefully there is time for all of that;) We then went to the church to sync our ipads and get the information for the people that live in the ZL area, well it wasn't there yet, so we didnt find anything. We texted the APs and they told us that they would fix it for us. We then went to go and see S who is just one of the most funniest little girls ever. She was baptized about a month ago and she is just so happy! We decided to teach her about the articles of faith. We told her about the first article of faith and she was like "I already KNOW that!" And then we told her that there was 13 that she would be able to learn and she looked SUPER DUPER excited to learn all 13. Afterwards we had a couple lessons cancel on us and a couple lessons that we didnt know we had! I had asked Elder W if we had a dinner appointment and he told me that we didnt, so i called up that E family because you know, they always fed us on Tuesdays, and so we set up the dinner appointment and they fed us:) They are so nice. We then went to go and see the A family!!!!!!!! A, A, W, all of them! I am not in my old area, but they way that they redid the boundaries now has that finally in OUR area:) I am so happy. We stopped by and we talked to them and that was really nice. We then went to go help Elder B, who was the senior missionary in charge of all housing stuff and he was just so freaking amazing, take out some of the stuff from the old apartment that the elders were staying in. They combined 2 areas together for me and Elder W so they closed down one of the apartments. We then got a text from the APs saying that they fixed everything and that we should be able to get the information for the area if we were to sync again, so we did at the church and then we went home.

Wednesday we did service at this place called World Harvest. Now it is super cool to do service here. For one, we do 4 hours of service and so that means that when we are done that we can take whatever we want as groceries, so we totally have the most legit hookup here! The owner of this food bank is named G. Now G is not the typical guy. He is buddhist and likes worldly things. He is very different and is very rich. He is very bold in the language that he uses and he doesn't really care what other people think about him and it is always super funny to be around him. He also gives us as much free food as we want, even these super good cupcakes from Sprinkles... so good! Anywho, our DL and his comp are teaching him and so we just go with them to do some service and we like talking to the workers there and having a good time, because they are just some of the nicest people that you are ever going to meet. We came back to the apartment and organized the kitchen a lot because it was in terrible condition and I like things to be clean, and my companion knows how to cook so he knows where he wants stuff to be put. After that we went to go and visit with A S who is reading in the Book of Mormon and is a very nice guy. He has a lot of desire, but sometimes he may just lack the action. We had a really good lesson with him and invited him to church. We had a dinner appointment with the G family and they are super cool. The daughter and two grandkids of hers recently came from El Salvador to the US and they are super nice! The hermana told us that she wants them to learn about the church because they aren't members, so we got to know the daughter G a little bit more. We then found A FAMILY! Now this finally is a 7 person family and the youngest person that lives there is 16 years old. They really want to learn english, and we really want to teach them about Jesus Christ. It was an interesting lesson because we mainly talked to one of the sons who seemed super chill with us, so that was cool. We then had ward coorelation at the church and you will never guess who is the new WML in Barrio sexto...... HERMANO F F!!! We knew that was going to happen, he is just super cool. It was awesome to see him again and the input that he gives for our investigators and for the people that we visit is super good advice, I love that man.

Thursday we had a special ZTM to show that the LA zones are "united". It is crazy because we have 30 missionaries in the zone, thats a lot. We then had DM and that was good. We got back to the apartment and cooked up some food that was really good and then we set out to our area to go find some potential investigators. We knocked on a lot of doors and contacted a lot. We talked to this one guy that was just..... UGH! He was wanting to subtly bible bash with us! He just had a hardened heart and so we testified to him that Christ is wanting him to draw closer to Him, and that whenever he wants to experience the blessings that the Lord has in store for him, to go and find the missionaries. We then decided to park our bikes around the area of the family that we were eating dinner with. While doing that we met this wonderfully nice lady named A. She was really nice and we had a quick lesson with her. We then found out that the address that we had for the family that we were going to have dinner was wrong. SO basically we had to go to the completely other side of the area to go have dinner with them. We then had a lesson with Y M who is super cool. The only reason why she isn't a member is because her mom hasnt given her permission to be baptized yet. He sister K went through the same thing, but she already turned 18 so she is baptized and is preparing to go on a mission. We biked a total of over 8 miles that day, it was ridiculous.

Friday was a good day. My companion is teaching me how to cook, so hopefully I will be able to cook something by the end of this. We had weekly planning at the church and my companion practiced playing the piano which was really cool. We then talked to people as we contacted around the USC campus and that was pretty fun. We then went to go and visit this guy named K. He is pretty cool, but he hasnt really had an upbringing with a belief in God, so it is really hard to teach him. We then picked up dinner from a member and the traffic was super crazy and i almost died. We then went to actually have the legit dinner with the C family and that was good.  There was a lot of crazy things that happened that night and there was a lot of cops outside, even outside our apartment complex, but we are ok... just fun memories from  the mission.

Saturday we saw this super crazy teen named J. She is a member of a church that has bizarre beliefs. We tried to teach her about gospel truths, but her beliefs are just so weird that it is hard for her to believe anything else. We then ended the night visiting with the C family. They are a recent convert family that are just super awesome! They love the gospel and they have the fire to continue doing what they are doing! I am going to love visiting them.

Sunday we had church and that was good, we had a lot of people show up to church. It also rained so that was... not fun, but memorable:) we visited a lot of people including the G family and the A family. We had some ups and downs in both lessons, but for the most part everything worked out for the best.

Sorry the last two days dont have as much, I forgot the details, but im so stoked for this week!

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 91 - Transferrs...again!?!

Monday did our normal Pday stuff of shopping and laundry. We actually went to a thrift store!! It was SO cool. It is called Greenspan and it was awesome. You walk in and you feel like you are in this awful old antique store, but then you see a bunch of ties and everything is made right, and then they tell you that they only cost about 5$ each so then you are even more happy. I found some ties that I think are pretty legit, so now I am at a total of 38 ties... so close to the 42 that I want to have for my last transfer!! I told Elder D that we are going to be buying our food separately now because I always spend too much and that I never even eat the food. We hung out with Elder T, R, H, and R. We went to Blaze pizza with them which was super fun. Blaze pizza is basically a Subway, but for pizzas, and it costs like 9$ so thats super good.  We then went back to the church to go play basketball and that was really fun. It was crazy because at one point my companion just started to bust out laughing hysterically (I now KNOW what that means) and we all were just kinda like... what is going on... it was funny though. We ate dinner with the O family and they made pozole for us, which was super good. We actually got a referral from Presidente O for one of his family members! It was super cool, we are definitely going to try and stop by soon. At the end of the day we went on exchanges with the other elders, and I went with Elder L. Lets just say that the exchange was pretty epic and I had a blast:)

Tuesday I went on an epic exchange with my DL Elder L. He is such a cool missionary. We were so excited that we finally were able to go on exchanges, we had been waiting for it!! We had a really good day. I love that area, and that apartment. I love the fact that the Samoan members give food to the missionaries, especially all the different kinds of food!! I loved all the cereal and the food that they had there, oh it was like heaven. We then went out to work. Almost all the appointments that we wanted to have happened! The first one was with the P family. They are a family of recent converts who moved here from Torrence (inside the mission) and they are super new in the church. They moved a month after being baptized. We talked with the mom of the family and she is super cool. She is still reading in the book of mormon and she really wants her kids to start having a habit of reading too. The only concern they have is that they dont know anyone in the Branch. We asked where they were from and she said that she was from Sinaloa Mexico, which is perfect because half of the members are from there!!! It was pretty cool. Their house also has a lot of fruit trees, like oranges, lemons, papayas, mango, peaches, chiles, apples, its amazing!! Definitely hoping that she gives us some, but probably not because of the time of the year. Anywho, she said that they probably wouldn't be able to come this week because her sister is coming to town and she hasnt seen her sister in over a year, so obviously she wants to spend the most amount of time with her sister. We then went to go and see this guy named A. He was just a potential that told the elders when they could stop back by and so we decided to do a little HTBT with him. It was super cool because to get the conversation starting and to get him a little comfortable, we got him talking about soccer cause I guess the USA and Mexico men's teams played this Friday? Well we talked to him a little about it and he told us that it is really nice to see such young men involved in such good things, such as spreading the word of god, and soccer.... ya, you know us young guys, those two are key;) we then went to go and see the F family, or S and her folks. S is one of the Samoan girls that Elder S and I taught but then she was baptized after i had left by Elder S. It was really cool cause Elder L had never met them so I was the one introducing and it was just really fun. We decided that we should teach S the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but because she is just so awesome, she basically taught us the lesson, it was super cool. We then went to go and see this one family that they have been teaching, but along the way there was a terrible accident. We pulled of to the side of the road to help with the situation. We ended up being translators for the two because one was a latina and the other guy didnt speak spanish. Well, neither of them blamed the other one, they both blamed the sun. We told the latina what she needed to do with the insurance and everything, and then just a hoard of cop cars and ambulances came. We decided that that was our cue to leave, so we told them that we are missionaries and did a quick convo and left. (We left when the cop cars came cause we pulled off and were parked in red.. hehehe). We then went to go and see this family, well, they weren't home, only the daughter was home. She is a very science driven person, but also a very opinionated 15 year old. It was so rough when we started to talk about "God" to her because immediately she closed off from us and wouldn't even be engaged in the conversation. After that tough time, we had a really nice dinner with the R family and ate pupusas with them... oh how I love pupusas. We then switched back to be with our normal companions.

Wednesday a lot happened, but thats for another day.

Un edited version

We woke up in the morning to go for our normal run. I was running for the most part and Elder D was struggling behind me for a really long time. He walked for about 15 minutes of the whole thing, which was really hard for me because I wanted to be done. We got back to the apartment and he just flopped right on his bed like a dead man. I got in the shower and did all of my stuff. We had our personal studies and then for companion study I decided that I was just going to speak in Spanish to my companion. It was going ok, a little rocky, and then... the incident happened. I told him that we would be doing a role play about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that I would be an investigator and he would teach me it in a simple way. He then became overwhelmed immediately. He panicked and looked over the lesson points of what it is and then it just got worse from there. He was acting like a meltdown was about to happen. He blasted through the Gospel of Jesus Christ in such a perfect description of train wreck. He was panicking and frightened. He wouldn't keep eye contact, and he was really upset at himself. He would keep saying "shoot" and he was really stressing out. When he was done he said and great big "shoot" and smacked himself in the face. With his face in his hands and not talking or moving, his hands digging into his face and his feet digging into the carpet, all you could do was just feel for him. I tried to cheer him up with some scriptures, but he just glared at me and told me that nothing was helping and that I shouldn't help. I then asked him to look at the stress book for missionaries and asked him "what color are you?" He told me "pretty red". I then asked him if he wanted to call President Haynie or if he would want me to, which he said he didnt want at all. I then told him that I was going to send a text to the DL, ZLs and to President telling them that he was in red. I did this because I really wanted to help my companion, but i feel like he doesn't want the help from me. He then went into the bathroom and didnt come out. We had a bunch of stuff set up afterwards. The ZLs asked if we wanted to go on a day exchange, but then President called to set up an appointment for later that day around 4:30. We then used public transportation to get up to Santa Monica, which took about 2 hours. This entire time my companion hasnt said a word to me. We get up there and he is told to go into a room to fill out some paperwork. Missionaries are asking why we are up there, and I brush off the question. To be frank, my companion is stressing about everything in the stress handbook, basically. The worst thing is that he is really homesick. President Haynie set up a time for him to go meet with someone about it for Friday morning.

Thursday was a rough day too. We had apartment inspections and maybe my companion wasn't feeling up to it, but I ended up cleaning for a really long time and he didnt help, I dont know what's up... I dont. We ended up getting a 95% on the apartment, which i am completely fine with knowing that we got docked on things that we have no control over, and things that he didnt even explain to us... ugh. (I am just struggling right now). We then had weekly planning and oh my goodness was that just awful. We didnt even plan for the next week! I really wanted to help out my companion and help him be a little more open, but nothing happened so it was a complete waste. We had couple lessons, but that was about it for the day. We did meet with the Q family and watched On The Lord's Errand with them, which was super good.

Friday was a really rough day. In the morning we had to go to the meeting for Elder D up in Santa Monica. We had to take the metro train to meet up with Elder Bangerter, and my companion still wont talk to me. We meet up with Elder B and we get lost because all of the GPS systems will tell us to take the freeway, but the freeway in the morning is just horrendous. We get to the building and Elder D goes in for about an hour and a half to meet with this one lady. I sat outside and just really did nothing, I think i took a nap at one point. Elder B then dropped us off at the metro and we rode that back. We had some latinos come onto the train and it was a really funny story. The grandma was telling the kids (there were 4) that she wanted them to be like us when they grow up. She said that she wanted them to go to school like us. Well, she then asked me "thats right huh?" In spanish, so I responded back in spanish, she was then amazed! She told the kids "look! And they speak spanish too!!" She then starts talking to them and then asks us how to pronounce "elder". Which then always leads into the fact that we are missionaries. But I am getting ahead of the story here. For one reason or another, the kids were doing weird things with their hands, so I started to join in and it was pretty fun. We actually got a big group of people on the train to do the hand stuff that we were doing, it was pretty cool. THEN she asked us what "elder" meant. We told her that we were missionaries and she was even more impressed! She told the kids that she REALLY wants them to be like us when they are older (and we do too;). We then got off the train and the other elders picked us up. We went back to their apartment because in about 30 minutes we were going to leave for District Meeting. Elder L is SO funny. On exchanges we played chess, and I showed him the 4-move checkmate, so naturally he just whips it out on his companion... and he then he just went to bed (drop the mic). We went to DM and that was alright, my companion still doesn't talk to me, so thats really rough. We got back to the apartment and I just took a power nap on my bed before we went to S's house cause I am just stressed out right now. Its like I am just carrying my companion around, its really rough. We then went to teach S and a random member stopped us on the street and we talked with him for a bit. His name is J and he is from Peru!!! He also is a RM from there too! It was super cool. We then went to meet with S and we just chatted for a bit, then read in Doctrine and Covenants with him. We then went to go and meet with the T family, but it was just S that was there. She learns at a very slow pace. We had to go point by point, and we only taught a little bit to her. We then taught her about prayer and how prayer can help bless her in her life. She then asked us if prayer could help her get over her depression, to which we replied it will. We set up a return appointment with her. We then went to have dinner with the M family. They are so cool. It is so awesome that they signed up on the dinner list!! It was a fun time because I was wearing a USA tie and the game between USA and Mexico was on... too bad USA lost. We then talked with the M family about what is next for them. They told us how some of their family members are interested in learning more about the gospel now! They especially told us about the sister of M who has been reading in the Book of Mormon, and remembers what she reads!! It was really cool. We told her that we could start meeting with her to help her understand a little more about the Book of Mormon and to answer the questions that she has, and she seemed like she really wanted that, so we are SUPER pumped for that.

Saturday was an interesting day. We had a VC trip planned with M and P and they also invited us to have breakfast with them in the morning. We went over and the breakfast was really good. It was fun spending time with them and laughing with them, it was cool. We then went to the VC, but we got there SUPER early. We then decided to take them to the family history center and show them about family history. It was super cool because after we explained it, M was like "im ready, lets go!" And so she got her own account and started to enter in things. We then went to the VC and did a huge Restoration themed tour. We watched a movie about the prophet Joseph Smith and they really liked it. It was super cool because both of them cried during it and told us that it makes so much more sense now. They then wanted to treat us out to chinese food and so we went and ate that with them. They are so nice and super cool, they just need to get baptized already!!! The rest of the day was a little rough cause we had some companionship problems.

Sunday was an ok day generally speaking. This week was just super rough altogether. At church I and L both got the Aaronic priesthood which was super cool, and R came to church again which was super nice. We ate dinner with O C and she is so sweet, I am going to miss her so much! We then saw the M family and had a good time with them, I showed I how to tie a tie:))))))

We then were called at 10:50 for our transfer calls, we were the last ones.... ugh.

Love,

Elder Roberts