Weeks 16 & 17: Ciudad del Este

Holaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa everyone!!! 

Feliz Navidad!!

Hopefully everyone is enjoying this awesome time of year. It's a little different here in the heat and the culture is just a little bit different. The people here are all pretty excited; there are a lot of fireworks and Christmas lights and stuff, but for me it doesn't really feel like Christmas haha! It's just different in the heat. But it's all good; I'm having a pretty enjoyable time.  

There are ups and downs. I've been eating rice and chicken and some rice and some more chicken and some burnt rice and some burnt chicken and then some rice and sometimes pasta, but this week I'm hoping to eat well haha with Christmas coming. But it's continuing to be a really cool experience for me, really humbling and eye opening. It's tough to see little kids hop on the bus I'm riding with no shoes and dirty clothes, and they are selling a big basket of apples or little candies, and this is so that they can live. Kids that are 10 or 11, and it's tough to see. 

But this will be my first Christmas away from home, and I don't think it'll be as bad as I thought it would be haha. It's cool to be here in the mission because basically all we do is teach people about our church, about Jesus Christ, and since Christmas is all about Christ, I think I'm kinda in the right mindset to be able to really experience what Christmas is about:  being like Jesus, serving other people and I really think that's what can make us happy. I didn't really think about it too much till this past Sunday when I was in church and not too many people showed up because they were traveling and the bishop came up to me and said, Elder.... can you give a talk today? haha I was like uhhhhh....hm..... I'll try, haha.  How long? Oh just like 15minutes... Oooo was I scared. But I just got up and started talking in Spanish and talkig and talking...and for 20  minutes I went on about Christmas,and Jesus and I think I learned more while I was up there talking than all the people who were listening did haha. It was pretty cool. 

But really I invite any one who is reading this to think about Jesus this Wednesday, whathe did for us andhow that hasaffectedour lives. And I think we will enjoy Christmas more. But also, enjoythe break,time with your familesand especially the food!!!!! Sorryif alot ofthe wordshere are attatched together but the keyboard im using isnt the greatest. anyway,have a fantastic christmas everyone!!!!!!!

Elder Ben Roberts

Week 15: Ciudad del Este

(Portions of a letter from Elder Roberts to his family) 

And I think we are going to have a Christmas party this 19th of this month. And yeah on Christmas, I thihnk we are going to be a ble to Skype. There are cameras and my comp and I are going to test them out; I think it will work. And can you figure out if there is a time difference. I'm not sure if there is and all the other missionares are from Utah or other countries and aren't in our time zone. So I'm not really sure how much it is.

…and today, we went shopping  I bought some ties and a little stereo where I can put a little pen drive memory in and it sounds a lot better than our portable dvd player we use. So I can put all the music on the pen drive from the cds and then practice the song we are going to sing with our district for a Christmas devotional thing we are going to have with the president. I didn't get to see the church's Christmas devotional however. 

...and my companion is good. He's a really good teacher, and we are finding people to teach. The people here are probably a lot easier to talk to, like we find people on the street really easily and people let us into their houses really easy but they mostly just want to talk, not really fulfill commitments. Tell the missionaries in Hagerstown that they can bring a little stool in downtown Hagerstown and stand on it and preach to people! hahaha! I'm sure they will find a bunch of people. But it's hard here because there are no addresses, so when we contact someone in the street and they tell us, yeah I live 3 blocks down to the right under the mango tree, it's kinda hard to find their house. But it works, and we have a few good investigadroes but it's constantly teacfhing 3 or 4 lessons and then dropping them because they never do anything and finding new ones. 

My memory stick in my camera has a virus I think and right now I can't send anything, but I'm going to try again. I can see all the pictures on my camera but can't load them on the computer. So I'll use the other memory I have and send some next week. But if you can, can you send a letter or something with some more pictures of the family, and one of me when I had really long hair haha?

But thanks for everything!! Love and miss the fam. 

Ben 

Week 14: Ciudad del Este

Hola everyone! 

     This week was pretty good. Definitely missed out on Thanksgiving, but it's all good; there are many Thanksgivings in the future that I´ll be able to participate in. But lots of heat, and lots of rain here in Ciudad del Este. I did have the oppurtunity to go the Zoo here and then Pizza Hut, which was a great experience and Pizza Hut today was somewhat of a replacement for missing out on the Thanksgiving meal haha. But yeah lots and lots of rain; we got stuck in a storm last night and the streets were basically rivers so we were kinda were walking through a flowing river in the streets and our shoes and pants and basically all of us got completely soaked. But it felt good, a lot better than 105 degree weather. 

     But also, my companion got pretty sick this week and we had to stay in the house for about 2 days, but that gave me the oppurtunity to read the Book of Mormon a lot in those two days. And that was actually a good experience for me. Before my mission I read it but I didn't really actually read it. I read it but never got a lot out of it. And thus far on my mission I've been able to read a majority of it and really take a lot out of it and learn a lot as well as help other people learn about it and how it can help them. So it's been a cool experience for me. Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! 

Talk to you soon

Elder Ben

Week 13: Ciudad del Este

Hola everyone!

This week was pretty good for me. I got a new companion, Elder Aguilar, from Argentina who is really cool, but he's pretty new to the mission like me. But we are doing really well actually. I've been eating some more wild meat and some other interesting stuff and also been meeting some interesting people. 

We are teaching a lady that has schizophrenia... and she's really nice but really interesting. The last time we visited her, she came and gave me a giant bear hug and kissed me on both my cheeks...so I really enjoyed my first hug from a female in 5 months being from a 300 pound schizophrenic lady.. super fun! Haha! But we had a conference with a mission president yesterday which was fantastic, a really really awesome guy our president. But anyway, I don't have too much time, but hopefully everyone is doing well!

Love, Elder Ben

Week 12: Ciudad del Este

Helloooo everyone!! 

Hope everyone is doing well! This past week was pretty good for us. It's getting pretty hot, but it's not terrible. 

We had a lady get baptized on Saturday which was pretty cool. Anddd my 12-week training period ends this Wednesday, so I'll just be a regular missionary. So I'm kind of scared but not really. I feel pretty comfortable now, and I can communicate with people in Spanish haha, so yeah everything is going well. 

Well except for that we don't have a light in or bathroom at the moment; it burned out, so we have been showering in the dark and going to the bathroom in the dark... but it's not too bad haha. It's…interesting! 

But I also had the awesome privelege to eat cow heart this past week which was...not terrible but I don't really want to have it again haha! And some lady offered her daughter to me and asked if I wanted to marry her.. which was kind of awkward.... hahaha, but pretty funny. I declined...just for the record though. 

But yeah, other than that, nothing too exciting is happening. Hope everything in the States is going well!!! Miss everyone!

Elder Ben 

Weeks 10 & 11: Ciudad del Este

November 4, 2013

Hola everyone,

This week wasn't all that exciting, more rain, more sun and more teaching. Halloween wasn't all that exciting because the people of Paraguay don't really celebrate it; it's more of a superstitous thing here and they call it the day of the witch. And a lot of people think it's kind of evil. But all I did to celebrate was eat cake and drink fanta for breakfast which was pretty awesome. But anyway, I really don't have too much to say this week. Hopefully next week will be more exciting. Aside from the food, I've also been receiving some very tasty drinks like lots of carrott juice with lots of carrott pulp, tomato juice, and some other weird stuff that I honestly don't even know what it is. There was one that was green and smelled like grass and kind of tasted like grass... But it's always nice when we have something gross to eat and get to wash it down with some thick carrott juice. Haha! Fun times. Anyway, talk to you all next week!

Elder Ben Roberts

November 11, 2013

Holaaa everyone!

Hope everyone is doing well! This week was pretty good for us. I'm having a good time and starting to enjoy everything more. It kinda hit me that I'm in the mission. I mean I always knew I was, but now it's more real. Don't really know how to explain it haha but it's cool. And I'm also starting to enjoy it more because my Spanish is getting better and I feel pretty comfortable talking to people. I'm not where near perfect and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to perfect my Spanish, but it's coming a lot. 

I also had a good week because I found a Burger King last Monday and had a strawberry milkshake. Which was awesome. And also received a package from my wonderful parents and grandparents with some candy and such in it, so it was nice to taste some stuff from America. But yeah, it's really hot here. Really hot. I bought a sombrero which helps and we basically sit in front of a fan any time we are in our house in the morning and when we come home at night. But no weird foods this week, well possibly because a lot of times I don't really know what I'm eating, but everything tasted pretty good so I can't complain. And I'm still alive so I can't complain. 

But we have a lady that is going to get baptized this coming weekend and we are really excited for her. It's cool to see the progress people make and how they change for the better after we have taught them all of our lessons and they read the Book of Mormon and stuff. It's been really cool to see her progress and how happy she is to be able to get baptized and become a member of the church. 

And I also gave my first talk in church in Spanish in front of everyone, which was... interesting haha! I think everyone understood what I was saying. Well I can only hope. But yeah, also something that I always took for granted was not having to get our water from a well every time we needed it... totally take that for granted and seeing people do it is pretty humbling. And when we come to their house and ask us if we want water and then run to their well and scoop some out I feel bad, but it's really been pretty humbling. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well and hope everyone has a great week this week.

Elder Ben Roberts

Week 9: Ciudad del Este

Hollaa Everyone,

     This past week has been pretty good. It rained a lot. We got caught outside twice while it was pouring and got totally soaked. But it was fun haha. The weather in Paraguay is so weird though; we wake up and it's hot and cloudless and then 6 hours later we are walking around and this huge storm rolls in and the temperature drops 30 degrees and it pours and there's some crazyy lightning and thunder. We were teaching a lesson on Friday and there was just lightning flashing all around us like every 3 seconds. Cool stuff. 

     But I was lucky enough to eat some wild meat this week. Not really sure what they mean by wild meat, but I guess it's just meat from different wild animals? haha I just don't want to eat it again, that's for sure. We had it once and it wasn't bad, and then I found out what it was after my companion threw it up... and from then on I wasn't too fond of it. So I wasn't really excited when we had it again this past week. But hey, I'm still alive. 

     And on Saturday we were coming home, and there was a guy whose van got stuck in the mud. So we ran over and helped him and were pushing it from the back and the tires starting spinning, and I just got attacked by a tonnn of mud. Haha,  it was pretty funny. Just a hugeeeee streak of mud up both sides of my pant legs. Came home super dirty, but it was fun! Anyway, hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Roberts