Week 39: Eldorado, Argentina

Wow, does sound like a tough summer for Liam, ha ha. The pool life seems to still be the thing, but that's cool that they have upgraded everything. And only like 2 more weeks till school's out! wow, that went by pretty fast, I bet you are excited. And ooooooh no, I still cant beleive Liam is going to take drivers ed........and date night to Wal Mart- sounds like a Will and Anna Roberts kinda date! But that's great that the ward is growing a little bit and having some baptisms! 

Here it's a little bit too cold for mosquitos. It started to rain and it got super, super cold. Well not super cold like 40 degrees maybe, but there really aren't any places to get warm.  Being inside someones house, or our house, doesn't really help cause it's about the same temperature inside as it is outside. I can see my breath in our house haha. But at least we can bundle up. I tried using the Under Armor, but it's pretty small and tight. But if it's really cold i'll have to use it. 

And hahahaha realllllly, Mr. Heller pulled up my blog in Emma's class?? that's funny. 

But the area is good, the zone is good. We are finding some cool people. Found a family of 5, well a mom and 4 kids that might start progressing and their neighbors as well. One of the neighbors came to church and liked it and we are hoping to bring all of them next week, and there is also the couple that is just waiting to get divorced and then they are going to get baptized, and then another couple that are neighbors of a member that we have been meeting with. The lady didn't really believe in God when we first started visiting her, but now she prays really well and she's reading the Book of Mormon and she and her husband say that they feel like what we are sharing is true and they are just waiting a little to get a spiritual confirmation that they need to be baptized, so we shall see how that goes. And also a lady we found that went to church as a little girl with her friend in Buenos Aires and then moved here. She has been studying with the Jehovas Witnesses for 2 and half years, but hasn't felt like she needs to get baptized, but we visited with her and she said she felt like what we taught her was true and she is reading the Book of Mormon as well. She was the first one at church Sunday. 

But Sunday was pretty fun, we showed up and there was no one.... it was raining and super cold and it was a holiday in Argentina I think - Veterans Day, so we waited a little and I taught the priesthood class, and my comp and I gave talks and one of the other elders directed sacrament meeting because our branch president got released and is now the first counselor in the district. He still presides over the branch, but he had to go to another branch so he wasn't there... so it was interesting; I think there were 25 people that went. But 2 investigators were there, so not terrible. 

But I think we will be able to have a baptism, or a few in June, but we shall see. There was a big problem here with baptizing people that weren't ready and now there are like 600 members and 50 are pretty active. I think that there wasn't so good of a leadership before, lots of people got offended and stopped coming to church and it was pretty disorganized. But there's lots of potential here and I think the branch can start to grow a little bit more. The members just need to work a little.... but it's all good. I like it here. 

Hopefully everything is going well up there and everyone enjoys their last few weeks of school! Love and miss everyone! 

Love, ben 

Week 38: Eldorado, Argentina

Oh wow, so the BYU semester already ended?? 

But wow, that's awesome dad that you got to meet with Elder Ballard!! He's super missionary work focused it seems, but that sounds like a great experience. 

But I also reallly like being a zone leader here in the mission, but there are definitely some tough parts, like right now as I'm trying to tell an elder to get off of Youtube that seems to want to stay on.... but it's been interesting trying to apply and practice applying Doctrine and Covenants 121: 41-43 (I think) that talks about reprimanding in the moment and that the priesthood can only be used with righteousness, or something like that. 

But thanks for the encouragement!! thanks for always teaching me good things when I was growing up and being patient with me. I realized here on the mission looking back how patient you and mom were with me and all the good things you and mom did to be able to raise me right, so thanks! But hope you have a good week and can finish the school year strong and keep fulfilling the calling as a bishop dad!! Love you!!

Ben 

Week 37: Eldorado, Argentina

I hope I can get a little bit of a latino accent and yeah my companion is 26 haha. He's a little bit older than I am. And there isn't too much technology here.. it's kinda a poor town; none of the members have cars. My time got super cut this week because we had to travel to another part of the city because there was no Internet in the other cyber. But I'll send some pictures.. cause pictures are worth like 1000 words or something like that, right??
Elder Ben Roberts

Week 36: Posadas, Argentina

There really aren't people that challenge us on beleifs too much, just the pastors that we meet and the Jehovahs Witnesses. There are lots of people that think weird stuff about us like that we come and we have tons of money and that every person we baptize will get like 1000 dollars, and there is some polygamy stuff, but not too much. And lots of people think I'm a spy... haha. But that's good dad had fun on his vacation. I'm getting transfered to Elderado, which is little bit more up north, still in Argentina, but im excited. My companion will be Elder Hom from Guatamala, and he's really cool I've met him before. My zone is a little smaller, I'm still going to be zone leader and senior companion, but my zone is a little bit smaller so less stress haha. And the people in my zone are cool. My trainer is in my zone as well.  But i think we could do skype at like 500 my time??  you can prepare a bunch of questions for me haha. And my companion is good, and this past week was good, lots of rain but we had a baptism which was nice, it was a lady that is really awesome and really funny. But it was a nice baptismal service we had and it went really well. And Eder Leiva and I, the one that went home, just traded ties, his name is Lehi. But sacarament meeting was actually really good, Elder Leiva that went home came because he baptized like 25 people in the area I'm serving in now and some of them got up and bore their testimonies and thanked him for waht he did for sharing the gospel with them, so that was pretty nice. And I'm excited for Josh's mission call.

But thanks for everything!!! I got the package Thursday with the white board and candy and stuff. Thanks…I might have eaten all the candy already, obviously shared some with my comp. And we watched one of the movies grand mom sent, Ephraims Rescue, it was pretty good. But thanks for everything!!!! I guess we will be talking this Sunday!! I'll try to get on 5:00 my time, if not I'll let you know if anything changes. thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Ben