Week 36

Dear lovely family of mine,

I did get the Halloween package from you and the letter from Grampy and Grammy, they were wonderful. I actually might run through the candy before Halloween hahaha. 

To answer questions: Elder A will be leaving me tomorrow early in the morning. We have the party for him tonight, but the family didn't do what we asked!! I'll talk about that later in the letter.

This week was ridiculously crazy! So much experiences with having a companion leave. 

So we will go by day by day. Monday was pretty dull, as it most of the time is. I got a haircut for 10$ and it's not too shabby, I just forgot to call the guy that offers free haircuts too late, I'll learn next time. We went shopping and I have now figured out that I go through about 2 boxes of cereal a week and about 1 1/2 gallons of milk, crazy right? I'm buying the seasonings this week for the chicken, so we'll see how that turns out. We played basketball with the Zone Leaders, Elder J and Elder G, which was fun. Elder J played basketball for Herriman and he is super tall, so basically whoever was on his team won. Elder G is alright at basketball, he just thinks I foul... I know right? Me? No, never.... ;) at the end of Pday Elder A was craving some fried chicken cause, well, he's from Georgia, so we had KFC and that is always a waste of money, so that was ridiculous. We had some people ask us what we do as missionaries (we get that a lot) and as we are talking with them they will say something like "oh I thought it was like a nerd convention".... Fo real? Nerd convention that lasts forever lady! 

Tuesday was pretty interesting. Some Elders in our district had a training that hey had to be at early in the morning so we biked to their apartment in our 'normal' clothes at like 7 am... It was weird. I felt so exposed in my shorts and running shoes, it didn't feel right at all. It's starting to get cool here in the mornings, I might buy a cool sweater or something, who knows. I cannot eat spicy food, not even flaming hot Cheetos, they made my stomach hurt soooo bad it wasn't even funny. We had a lesson with R G again, and she isn't understanding what we are trying to teach her. We did, however, find 2 new investigators that are super nice! They were on our list of potential investigators and we had tried them before, but couldn't find them. The lesson was super good! They asked us a lot about Mormonism and what we believe, it's super similar to what they believe so they like us. They understood that if they want to know that our church is true, that they have to read the Book of Mormon. We have a lesson set up with them on Tuesday, so we will see if we can find them again! We ate dinner with the E family and it was super funny! The pictures of Elder A is at their house. Obispo E gave us some chilies if we wanted to eat them, and that's the big red thing on the plate, Elder A couldn't even finish the chili, so I didn't even want to try it. 

Wednesday I went on exchanges with one of my Zone Leaders Elder G in my area. We didn't have any set lessons for that day so we just visited a bunch of potentials all day long. We also stopped by Yogurtland, so that's that picture. It was a pretty interesting day, there are a lot of things that I need to work on as a missionary, but I'll slowly improve. 

Thursday was a long day Elder A had his interview with President Weidman so I was in my area with another missionary, Elder B. We went street contacting for a little bit before the inspectors came. We barely received their call that they were co I got. Not that our apartment is dirty or anything, but we ran back to the apartment to clean. It wasn't where I wanted it when they came knocking at our door and walked in. The couple that inspected our apartment where super lenient, they gave us a 99/100 on the apartment! What? I'm a little surprised, but not complaining here. 

Friday was even weirder. Elder A and W (B's companion) had their departing temple day so again, we were in my area for the day. District meeting was a little weird because our district leader went home on Tuesday, his name was Elder C, a Chinese Elder. One of the newer missionaries was district leader in the fact that he gave the training. It was actually a fun training, he made this really cool template on the iPads and it was pretty fun.

I got the package from you and the letter from Grammy and Grampy. Elder B on the other hand got like 4 packages that were so huge! It was ridiculous! We decided to go to the jungle to visit some potentials, but none of them were there. We talked to this lady, who is a baptist, and she was really weird. She had a European accent, so I could barely understand her. We asked her about the Book of Mormon and modern day prophets, she went nuts. She told us that there are only 5 ministries in Christ's church (Ephesians 4:4) and that there are multiple people who can receive revelation for the world... Lady that's called craziness and chaos, which does not come from God. She was really weird, needless to say. We taught W S again, to see if we were going to continue to teach him. During the lesson we went over the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. The spirit was super strong in the lesson. At the end of the lesson Elder B turned to me and said "it's sad that he felt the spirit testify to him, but that he won't change" it actually really drained both of us to hear that he doesn't want to change. We switched back and headed down to the Jungle again (3 times in 1 day) to stop by the F family. It was really sad. They had a loss in the family so it was a sad moment. We were really sad because we didn't know if we wanted to make sure that they were going to do temple baptisms on Saturday. 

Saturday rolls around and we were worried about the F family. We decided to text them and a miracle happened! The family member that passed away is alive! They were so happy. Elder A and I decided to kneel down and pray to know if we should invite them to go do temple baptisms that day. Of course the answer was yes so we invited them. Everything was going good. We were on our way riding our bikes when we get a call from the F saying that they can't go. We talked to them for about 40 minutes that they should go, but that they didn't have to if they didn't want to. They decided not to go. We were super mad and disappointed in ourselves. We had dinner with a less active family that are pretty cool. They are going to be super solid later on. Yesterday was pretty intense. We had Stake Conference, and Elder Z was there. It was a very cool and spiritual stake conference, I took a bunch of notes. I saw Grant Aman there, he is someone I went to school with and he is attending USC right now, it was really weird. The departing fireside was pretty cool. It was cool to see how everything worked with the missionaries that are leaving.

I saved this part for last. For this transfer I am...... Staying! Yay, knew that. Figured that one. But here's the catch........ I am TRAINING!!! I am getting a GREENIE tomorrow! We will see how this goes!

Charlie, Dad, any advice?

That's it for this week! (Unless I forget something)

Les amo mucho

Elder Roberts

Week 35

My Dear Family,

This week was hard. The more and more closer we get to the end of the transfer, the more and more Elder A says that 'he doesn't care, he's going home', ugh its frustrating.

Monday was a bit boring. we cleaned, shopped, and emailed, nothing too exciting happened. Nobody in the district likes to do activities on PDAY except for the zone leaders, but they play basketball with other zone leaders and the farsi elders. We had a lesson with this investigator named W S. He was born in Costa Rica, but raised his whole life in Panama until he moved to the states. He is a member of the... Anglican Church, that's a new one. His mom had him christened when he was a baby, but other than that he only goes to church on Christmas and nothing else. He watches a lot of religious shows on TV and he likes those pastors because they are 'lively' (oh by the way, he's part Jamaican because his parents were, but he speaks Spanish perfectly, and he's 82 years old and still kickin it). He told us that he doesn't plan on changing religions anytime soon because "he doesn't want to get involved in THAT type of stuff"... ok? We had dinner with the E family and it is always weird with them. They want us to eat in peace and quiet so they leave and we just sit in the kitchen. Its really awkward because Elder A and I are at a rough patch in the companionship and so we just eat without talking at all.

Tuesday, oh man did everything go downhill that day. It was the training for Elder A. It's called the Departing Missionary training, but we all call it 'trunky training' because every missionary after just thinks about home and school, and marriage.. etc. So that was bad. During that time I was on exchanges with Elder Z again, but this time in my area. It was really awkward because I talked to basically everyone (cause they're latinos) and he doesn't speak a lick of Spanish. At the end of everything he would say 'adios' and it was pretty funny. The lunch that we tried to make is that awful picture with the hot dog and avocados. The A family gave us that last Sunday and its called a 'mezcla' or mix. It was so good when they gave it to us that we wanted to try it! we thought we could make it the same, but we missed a lot of ingredients and it was probably one of the most nastiest things that I have tasted on my mission.

Wednesday was even more boring! (I'm making it sound worse than it really is, I just didn't write down any stories for the week, cause nothing really crazy happened) We wrote down a bunch of names to go and visit in our area, half of them weren't there, half of them were English, and the other half were actually people that wanted to talk to us. We saw a lot of cool looking churches on a street in our area though. There is a Polish Catholic church, and a Seventh Day Adventist/ Presbyterian Korean church right by it, I think I might go take pictures of them, cause they look pretty cool. We ate with the R family, and the mom thinks that I am malnourished because my companion is bigger than I am. She told me in Spanish 'Elder, I want you to get FAT on your mission'. Trust me mom, the food is amazing, we ate spaghetti, but I just couldn't eat more than 3 platefuls... I can't, no matter how much I love spaghetti.

Thursday, was kinda boring, Elder A is trunky, so its hard to motivate him to work. We had chicken alfredo with the L family (what is this Italy??:)))) ) anywho, the family is super chill, just the dad has a lot of personal problems that we are working on, but the mom is seeing a change in him, so that's good. She thought that 'being born in the covenant meant that your parents were baptized, not the temple thing. When we explained that the 'covenant' part talked about temples, she almost cried. We also met with the A family, some investigators, and while we were talking, there was a huge cockroach on the side of the apartment wall outside, it almost looked like a freaking dinosaur. The hermano went over to smack it with a stick and it flew at him, he jumped and squealed like a girl, then stomped on that sucker and boy did that cockroach SQUISH!  

Friday was fun, played some spoons with the F family and had a FHE which was fun, Saturday was ridiculous because there was a festival so we had to take a 30 minute bike ride detour to our appointment, which we were late for, so we missed it, super depressing. (sorry I'm running out of time on the computer and I will email the other part later) On Saturday we met again with Winston and asked him that if God told him that the Book of Mormon was true and that everything fell into place, that the priesthood was back on the earth, would he be baptized by the power of God? and he said "naw, I don't think I would change, because I am Anglican"... UGH!

Sunday was a bit interesting and frustrating at the same time. It rained in the morning, so that was nice, except for the bike ride to church haha, watch out for those puddles right? We arrived at church and none of our investigators were there. It was really sad. We saw a family of 3 show up that were our investigators halfway through the first class though! It was the A family! They stayed for the first two hours, but not for the last, which is sacrament meeting here. It was really frustrating. They were leaving right before sacrament and Elder A and I stopped them and asked them if they were leaving. They said yes because the daughter, who is 9 wanted to leave. We asked her why she wanted to leave and she said because she wanted to go swimming. Fo real? Ugh, she kept crying to her mom saying that she wanted to go swimming. The mom looked at us and said "if I don't take her, she's going to tell me all day and during the week 'you promised', so we have to go"... Oh man did that make us a little frustrated. Serious? You are skipping out on sacrament? Do you know what it represents? Do you know that you are now telling your daughter that swimming is more important than remembering the Savior on His holy day? So that was a little depressing. Something else that was depressing is only part of the F family showed up to church. The mom and the two oldest daughters didn't show up to church. It was really sad. Church was interesting. Gospel principles went off topic a lot and we, all 6 missionaries in that class, had to bring it back often. In priesthood the lesson was weird too. Sacrament meeting was really good though, the two speakers talked about The Restoration. I guess some of the members are getting some stuff mixed up, but the talks were super good, they laid down the law!! We decided to stop by a less active family and talk to them, the family N and they are super cool. We are eating with them in Saturday! That's what I love about serving in Spanish, the members love to feed the missionaries, except on Sunday's hahaha... :( we also stopped by the F family to see why they didn't come to church. We talked for a bit and committed them to read 1 Nephi 1-18 by next Sunday AND to go do baptisms for the dead on Saturday and if they do that, we will have a FHE party/ farewell for Elder A on Monday next week, so that seems to be good. 

Every week before I go to bed, I listen to one of the conference talks, this last week was "It Works Wonderfully" by Pres Uchtdorf. This week I am going to read Elder Ballard's talk about staying on the ship, the second talk of conference Saturday morning. Will you read it with me??

Well, hopefully this week wasn't too crazy for you, it sure was a little dull for me, but this week to come should be pretty fun.

Les quiero más que puedan pensar 

Brazos y besos,

Elder Roberts

This is what they made but left out a couple of ingredients.

Week 34

Hello wonderful family! 

This week was a little less exciting than last week, but hopefully you all like it. I did try the Elote, the mayo and corn thing. You could probably look it up online how to make it, it's super easy and pretty good. I should start taking more pictures, it's just a habit I haven't learned yet. 

So on Pday Elder Aguilar had to have an interview with President Weidman to renew his temple recommend. It was a little awkward because while he had his interview, a bunch of other missionaries came in. They all new each other and I'm just sitting there, awkwardly, just trying to mind my own business, but it was ridiculous. I don't think I could ever work in an office, just cause I like to do my own thing. It was a little crazy because I had to drive to the mission office (cause biking would take too long, and Elder Aguilar doesn't have privileges because he crashed on his mission). Elder Aguilar is the worst back seat driver. You know how I already hate driving? Try having a comp tell you everything you are already doing , play by play, and then repeatedly say "I hate it when other people drive".... I was so stressful. What ,add it even worse is that on the freeway, the car directly behind us got rear-ended and so they almost hit us, good thing they didn't cause that would've sucked! Well when we got back to the area, we took advantage of the fact we had the car and got our groceries, instead of having to bike with them later. That turned out to be really good because Elder Aguilar had to fill out some tuition thing for BYUI for the next semester which took us basically to the end of Pday. It actually started to rain!!! We pulled out our coats and biked with them on! Too bad it didn't rain though, so we just ended up going to the F family's house super sweaty. The F family are recent converts who were actually baptized by Elder Colman (from our stake) and we have a goal for them to do baptisms for the dead this month, cause they have never done it yet. Well only Hermano F was there, so we talked for a bit, then left.

On Tuesday we were contacting and visiting e potentials that we have in our area and this guy stopped me and asked me who I was and what we do, after telling him, he drove off, then came back. Elder Aguilar and I were confused and then the guy tried to sell us stuff like a phone line, or free wifi or something like that. We told him that as missionaries, we don't worry about that stuff, and then he got mad, and then drove off... It was weird. We had a lesson with this lady R G. She is 18 years old and has a kid... So sad. We talked about the Restoration and it just didn't click with her. We talked our ears off about the priesthood and prophets and the authority of God, but she just wouldn't understand. It almost go to the point that I said "lady, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true church on the earth" but no matter how hard we tried to explain it, she just wouldn't get it. We had to get our Flu shots this week, because we have to in the mission. The Missionary Medical card paid for everything, so that was nice. I didn't know before hand though, that my companion is scared, more like petrified, of needles... Hahaha! We go in there and they are having troubles finding the insurance stuff, my companion the entire time was like "oh well, let's go" but no. When he got the shot he looked away and stared right at me, of course I was the amazing companion and made fun of him the entire time, not too much though. The shot was taken and boom, done. 

Wednesday was a little interesting. I woke up a little sick, like a stuffy nose and we both thought that it was because of the Flu shot, turns out that it was just for that day so SWEET! We had a lesson with a part member family, the As. The grandma, A, always gets of topic. She is not a member but always says that she is because she use to go to church. She always asks about the most obscure things. It's ridiculous. She also was trying to tell Elder Aguilar at she knows a cute girl in the area that after the mission he could date, but turns out she is 30 years old and Elder Aguilar called her out on it... Priceless! We have a family that feeds us every Wednesday and the family is soooo funny. They always have something funny to say. The daughter goes to BYUI and she says that there she just hangs out with the Latinas because there are so many white people, you wouldn't know who was who, especially with all the snow! We have an investigator named K and he is a little slower than others, but he is still willing to work. He really likes skating and he asked us if we thought that if he read the Book of Mormon every day and prayed about it, then tried to go and do a kick flip, that he would land it. We said, if you do your part, than yes. Up to the this point he hasn't read in the Book of Mormon and he also hasn't landed his kick flip yet, which is sad.

Thursday was pretty exciting because that is the year anniversary of when I entered the MTC! We decided to get donuts for me and Elder Aguilar to celebrate and also I bought another bike tube because we thought that one of mine was popped by a sticker, but it wasn't. So I have an extra tube that only cost 5$! We had another lesson with K and read with him a little in the Book of Mormon. The problem with K is that his stepmom won't let him get a ride to go to church because she needs to trust who he is going with (K has some special needs) so we are trying to get her more involved in the lessons. She gets along really well with Elder Aguilar, they are always chatting it up. We thought that we could maybe bring a member over, but everyone has been canceling on us... Ugh! While walking down a street we saw 2 huge spiders in a tree. We thought that they were maybe Halloween decorations, but then we saw them move. When we walked by the area again, the smaller one wasn't there. Either it moved, was eaten by the bigger one, or we just couldn't see it, but these suckers were huge!

Friday we had Zone training meeting. It was really good. Throughout the day we had so many set lessons that we were super pumped! Almost all of them canceled though.:( we had a lesson with R, but when we showed up to her house, her dad and mom said that she didn't live there, and that she moved.... For real? We just talked to her 2 or 3 days ago and she moved? Ugh it made me a little upset that they would lie to my face, tried not to take that one personally but it was hard. We had a lesson with the As family, well the 3 little girls that they have. Two are wanting to be baptized so we are really working hard with this family. The girls are J, A, and G. J and G are sisters and are the daughters of W A, the only member in the family. A is the daughter of A A, who is W's mom. A and J are 9 and 10 so they can both be baptized. We tried to explain the restoration, but it was just so difficult cause G, the youngest one, kept going off on tangents. You could tell how much J wanted to learn more though. Elder Aguilar is also sick because of the Flu shot that we got. It's kinda hard to get him motivated to work because he only has a couple weeks left, plus he's sick, and it's hot, ugh, it's a struggle some days. 

Saturday nothing really happened except Elder Aguilar was sick and it was 100 degrees here, so you could say that it feels like fall here.

Sunday was weird. I think what bugs me the most about church is that there is no music. I wish I had learned to play the piano when I was younger because sacrament meeting is just not the same when everyone sings A Capella. The chorister lady is just flailing her arm too. I hope that I remember how to sing the hymns after the mission, because it is super difficult to sing the melody when everyone is just off. We had the final new member lesson with the F family, but it was probably one of the most awkward lessons ever. The members that we brought over talked about random things. We would be talking and then all of a sudden they talked about tattoos, I didn't know how they got onto that topic, and neither did Elder Aguilar! Our goal was to have them do baptisms for the dead this week, or at least before the 22nd of October. We had another lesson with the A family, but just with A (the grandma) and her "husband". She is not married to him because she is not divorced from her husband in Guatemala, so that's why she isn't baptized yet, has to get the divorce papers. We talked about the Mormon Message video "your potential, your privilege" and talked about coming to church. It was really sad because the husband would want to be baptized, but he can't if she's still married. She told us that it is impossible for her to get divorced, so that lesson was just a little downer.

So that's what happened this week, not too exciting, just going through the average day of a missionary. It's super hot here in Cali, I'm getting s pretty good tan line. I am losing weight because of being on bike, so I just try and eat more and more haha. We always say that if you don't gain weight on your mission, you didn't enjoy it... Awkward. I love the mission though, I seriously couldn't imagine a day not doing missionary work. 

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 33

Hello lovely family!

First to answer questions: Stomach, there is a story for that this week. No we didn't get ice cream after conference, we only got a little rain, but I think we are getting ice cream this week. 

Can I just say how crazy this week was?? On Pday my neck killed and it was leaning to the right for all day on Monday and then for most of Tuesday. It was really weird to bike but I got use to it, I just probably won't be trying to pop my neck anytime soon. I got really bad ingrown toenails this week. I think it's just because I cut them too far down, like always. We have a mission nurse and all will be taken care of, just the fact that I am going to feel SO much pain sucks, but in the end it will feel better. Biking has gotten easier and we started to work out a bit harder in the mornings. I am so sore, after conference my legs and butt were so sore, I just want to stand the whole time.

Oh I found out that I live right down the street from some of the dorms on the USC campus, how oblivious am I? Gosh I felt ridiculous when I found that out, so ya, that's where I am at.

I finally finished he Book of Mormon is Spanish! It was really cool. As I have been reading, I marked every direct reference to the Godhead. The hard bound copy is almost an accordion now. The only problem is that I did not follow President Gordon B. Hinckley's promise and look up all the words that I didn't know, so I'll have to read it again if I want to become fluent in Spanish. Elder Aguilar treated me out to Subway that day too, and because we both have been wanting Subway this whole week. 

I had the opportunity to go on splits with another missionary this week!! His name is Elder Zabriskie and he is from Idaho Falls. It was really weird because this was the first time that I had ever gone to an area that wasn't Spanish... Ugh. Well because their area is so big, and they don't have bikes or a car, we used the bus. Missionaries are given a "tap card" to use to get around the metros. As we were trying to get to the area, basically before the exchange even started, we were talking to this guy who just wanted to bash. He tried to do the whole "I have a law degree and a business... I speak 5 languages... I've studied religion..... Blah blah blah." Well during the whole thing he tried to say that the Bible was false because Jesus was originally suppose to be called Emmanuel. Well sir, if an angel tells you to name your baby something, you name it that!! But he wouldn't listen so we just invited him to read the Book of Mormon and left. The area that I went to was in Korea Town!! It is so huge, it covers Korea Town and Downton LA, like Downtown Downtown LA. It was pretty fun. We started of with a small dinner, because English Elders never have dinners, poor guys. Well Elder Zabriskie wanted Elote, which is just corn on the cob with mayo, cheese, and chili powder, it's actually pretty good. Well it was funny cause we were standing in line and the guy at the stand ran out of cheese, and he was going to give Elder Zabriskie just corn on the cob with mayo... Yuck. Me and this less- active member (that happened to be there) were talking about conference and church in Spanish when we both noticed that he was going to give the Elote to Elder Zabriskie without cheese. We both told him to put cheese on it, well the guy panicked and then ran across the street and called some people to get the cheese. All this happened without Elder Zabriskie knowing what was going on. We then took the bus downtown and that was fun, new experience to say the least. We arrived there and started to visit a bunch of potentials that he had written down to visit. While trying to find a certain street, we got lost. Getting lost in LA is not something I would recommend. We ended up going casi on Skid Road, where there are just homeless people living in tents. It was super sketchy, but we both got super nervous and turned towards the lights of the city and started to walk a little faster. I tried this weird Korean food called Kimchi, it's basically cabbage with a bunch of spices fermented. Apparently Elder Zabriskie likes it a lot, so I tried it, oh man was it nasty, but I finished it like a good boy would do.

On Tuesday we set a baptismal date with a lady named Y. It was super cool. We talked for a while and at the beginning she didn't think that God would call another prophet nowadays. We explained to her that it is because of God's love for us that he sends his servants, the prophets, to reveal important things for us, and to hold the priesthood so that we can do ordinances, like baptism. By the end of the lesson, she was super excited. The only problem is that we haven't met with her again since! Yikes! We've seen her, but she is always busy. We also found a family!! There are 3 daughters and 2 of them are old enough to be baptized! We also set a baptismal date with 3/4 members that can be baptized, one of the daughters came in late to the lesson. Miracles are happening, it's almost addictive.  

There is this part member family that we are working really hard on right now. The husband, daughter, and granddaughter of the mom all want to be baptized, but we haven't been able to really have a lesson to invite them to be baptized and set a date. We did however, do some service for them this week! We helped them paint their fence and front steps. The fence is now this awful orange color, but hey, it's their house. It was nice to finally be in regular clothes... felt weird though. The mom is a member, and the grandma is not. They are the ones that we normally talk to, outside of course. The grandma is always getting off topic. The reason why she can't be baptized is because she is not divorced from a previous marriage and there are other complications within that. Everyone else in the family really wants to be baptized, we even talked to the husband and he is super humble and loves his family= Restored Gospel coming up!!

We had Zone Conference this week and that was super cool. I see so many people that I know here in the LA mission, like Jaxon Low, Faith Weaver, Charity Vincent, Elder Colman from our stake, Sharlene Nauta, bunch of people from High school and everything, so weird. Anyways this zone conference was basically President Weidman telling us to have more Charity for others. This past month the focus for the mission has been to get investigators to come to church. There has been a lot of trainings on the importance of the sacrament and the revelation that we can receive personally when we go to church. It was a really good zone conference. I have started to use a study journal so that I can write down all the cool meetings, conferences, everything that happens from now on in my mission, I don't know why I didn't start sooner.

General Conference was probably the coolest thing ever. Worst part about it, I tried to listen in Spanish to the first part of the Sunday afternoon session, ya I didn't get ANYTHING! It was so bad, but I got the second part. 3 NEW APOSTLES!!! I think they are going to be amazing! I loved their testimonies!! Mom, I didn't even fall asleep this time in conference! Conference went by so fast it was insane. It would be the halfway point and all of us would look at each other and then at our watches. Personally, I think conference was a lot about families and personal conversion. Last conference was about temples and covenants, and marriage, this time they talked about families. I LOVED Elder Holland's talk about motherhood, and the love that a mother has. It basically made all of us missionaries cry when he was speaking. Haha I almost thought of just saying at the beginning of my leader " Double what Holland said", and then end my letter, but then I thought twice;) I really liked Bednar's talk as well. He is always so sharp and precise, almost never tells a joke... It's kinda funny in a way. It was amazing to hear the Prophet, President Thomas S. Monsoon talk to us. During Priesthood session he started of with something to the fact of, "I'm going to be upfront, keep the commandments" bam. It was also amazing to hear from him on Sunday. We all were worried and almost cried as we slowly saw him go down and down during the last part of his talk on Sunday Morning. It was sad. Conference as a missionary is super different. We were talking and there are a couple reasons as to why, at least the reasons that we thought of. The first is that we were called by the Prophet to serve our missions. There is a special bond just knowing the fact that President Thomas S. Monsoon called me to serve as a missionary. The second reason that we thought of is because the calling of an apostle and a missionary are very similar, yet completely different. Both are set apart, and called to preach the gospel to all the world. It's just a weird and special feeling, it's cool though.

Love,

Elder Roberts