Week 89: Posadas, Argentina

Yeah............. my flight information came in....... pretty weird. My last pday in the office and the last transfer is coming up. I think I'll know soon where i am going, which is one of the advantages of the office haha, finding out early the transfers to be able to plan for everything. I´m hoping i get to go to Paraguay. 

This week was pretty good though, kinda crazy on Monday because all the zone leaders and sister training leaders came in and we have to account for the money they have to do divisions which is about a 10 hour project.  I actually didn't have my passport because it got too full and we sent it to Buenos Aires to get more pages added, so Elder Johnson crossed over and did everything in Paraguay, I think it was an interesting experience for him because he had never done it before.  I guess that is the best way to learn. Now it's time to go over everything and make sure he´s got it done before i head out. There are 15 missionaries leaving this change and 17 coming, so it should be a busy next week, I probably won´t be able to write.  I'll probably let you know where I'm going, but that's about it.  I'll have a regular pday next next Monday.

Yesterday there was no power in the office, so elder Worthington and I went and did divisions all day and it was actually pretty nice to get out all day and work. The night before was the Iguazu trip and we had finished cleaning up from the leadership council and everything at about 11:00.  At 11:30 i got out of the shower and realized we hadn't given anyone the money to travel or get in to the park in Iguazu.  So we went back to the office and ended up getting home at 2:30am.  So yesterday we were working all day and i may have fallen asleep during a lesson haha, but things went really well. We talked to one of our investigators who accepted the invitation to get baptized and there is a partial member family that we are working with as well who are really  cool.  Also, a few other investigators are doing well, so things are not going to badly. I think i learned it's important to work hard even if you are leaving.  President always tells us we aren't here to work for ourselves or to try to gain recognition, but to help God´s work. Even if we are leaving an area or have been there a long time and we don't see that there will be a baptism or something while we are still there, it doesn't matter because the only thing that matters is that we are working hard and trying to help the work continue. It was something that was tough for me earlier in the mission, but I've definitely learned the importance of that principle. 

Today, Brother Pereya, the taxi guy, had all 9 of us plus 2 other elders here over for lunch haha 11 of us because it's our last week.  Elder Magdaleno, Choez and I are all leaving the office.   The lunch was really nice. It´ll be weird leaving an area and ward that i have been in for so long, but i think change is good. 

I´ll have to think about the classes and the schedule and stuff that you sent me, but it looks okay.  I'll let you know, I'll see if i can get some time to look at the byu website. 

Thanks for everything and have a great weekend!!

Love, Elder Roberts

Week 88:Posadas, Argentina

My week was pretttty great. There isn´t too much that is new, just trying to get everything cleaned up and stuff Elder Johnson's head with all the financial knowledge he will need. I made a manual on the computer and tried to explain everything, but i feel like everyday i keep adding stuff because i always forget.. 

But that is so cool Ethan got his call to Washington State!!! But i missed him by two weeks... but that is pretty cool, and really soon-in about a month! But good for him. Is anyone else from the ward planning on going this year? 

That sounds pretty scary about the riots in Baltimore though. 

This is my second to last pday here in the office.  This weekend we have Mothers Day, then the zone leader conference Monday andTuesday, and all the people going home this month are heading to Iguazu Falls on Wednesday, then next weekend we are planning for transfers, and next Sunday is the Cordoba temple dedication. There aren't any church meetings in all of Argentina next Sunday, and the broadcast is going to be in all the stake centers.  Only people with temple recommends can attend. It should be pretty cool. Here in Posadas it's still not the closest temple, the people here still go to the Asuncion temple, but it is still exciting that there are now two temples in Argentina. 

After our drought of not finding very many people to teach we have found a lot of new ones. This week we were contacting and we found this less active guy that i had met right when i got here, but then never saw him again. He had super long hair and used to use drugs i think, but he told us he wanted to change, wanted to cut his hair and buy himself some clothes and go to church.  So the very next day we took the clippers and some clothes that a member had given away, and i cut his hair and we gave him a gray button up shirt and some jeans.  He was super excited and he showed up to the baptism that night and started talking to all the young single adults there and really enjoyed it.  He is pretty cool. 

Saturday night to Sunday morning at 11:00 there was a torrential downpour in all of the mission, in every single area, and the church attendance was pretty shaken.  There were three places where only the missionaries showed up to church, and a lot of places with less than 20. I think we had about 50, i think half of what we usually have, but the rain really drove people away. 

We also found a partial member family and a really,really cool family who let us in and we talked to them and showed them some videos on lds.org.  They said they would start reading the Book of Mormon.  We have found some really cool people just as i am getting ready to leave, but it's still nice to have met them and started helping them to learn more about the church. 

The classes for BYU we can talk about on sunday. 

Thanks for the letter and have a great weekend!!!

See you sunday!!

Elder Roberts

Week 87: Posadas, Argentina

Holllla.

This week has gone by pretty fast. Elder Johnson is doing really well learning everything, so far so good. He reminds me of me when i was in his spot haha but he is cool. With two of us we have been able to get out to work more, so that has been fun. This week has been really chill though, nothing crazy going on and we have been able to focus a lot of learning the responsibilities and the financial things. 

The conference with Elder Oaks was pretty cool though. It was interesting. I was expecting him to talk about missionary work and to get out and work hard and do a bunch of stuff to help the church grow, but it was more about the sabbath day and also about receiving revelation. Obviously it was tied into to missionary work, but it was a little different than what i was expecting. He said that they as the apostles and the prophet had prayed about what they needed to do, or what we could do as people to resist all the bad things happening in the world and the answer they got was keep the sabbath day holy. Interesting. I figured i was keeping the sabbath pretty holy, but i guess there are always better ways we could. It made me think a little. 

Anyway, i am excited to leave the office in two weeks and spend the last 6 weeks in the field. I would love to go to Paraguay, but we shall see. 

We had our activity for the ward on Saturday, i think it's the third one we have done and it didn't really go as well as the other ones haha. It was fun, but it could have been better. 

What was good about this week was that we found some pretty cool people. We kinda got lost last night, but ended up running into some people from Uruguay who were really cool. We were talking to them and gave them a pass a long card and then they said... so you people are Mormons right... there is that one book that that one guy from New York wrote when he had the dream about the Indian and the Indian led him to a hill where he found the book... haha it was funny, but after we explained to him the Book of Mormon and the concept of it, they were super interested and his wife said, "Oh man, I've always wanted to read that book! Can we have one…?" that was the first time anyone ever said that too me.... But it was pretty cool, unfortunately they don't live in our area, but hopefully they can progress. We also found some other cool people contacting and we´ve actually gotten a few references that we haven't been able to find, but we are still looking. Things are starting to pick up a little which is good. 

We´ve also been teaching the youth Sunday school class because there isn't a teacher and its been pretty fun to get to know the youth.  Also, we started inviting a few more to come back and the youth have been doing well, and there has been a big change. There are also new presidents of the Young Men and Woman, but we went from having about 3 or 4 in the class to 13 last Sunday. And 8 of them went with us and the seminary teacher to go visit some of the people that weren't coming to seminary or church and that went really well. 

Tomorrow is holiday here, the day of the worker... so no one has work haha, but the tradition is to make something called locro. Its like a big corn soup they cook in huge pot with corn, vegetables and meat, and they like to use weird meat like cow intestines and pig feet.... so I'm hoping they let us serve ourselves so we can avoid the weird stuff. They are making at the church tomorrow as a ward. 

Anyway, i keep doing and saying really weird stuff at night while I'm sleeping. The other night i was sleeping on the bottom bunk, the top bunk is supported by about 6 skinny wooden boards, and i think i had a dream that the top bunk was falling on me.  So while i was sleeping I kicked up really hard, probably trying to stop the bed that was supposedly falling on me, and i broke one of the boards and almost kicked my companion off the top bunk.  So we decided it was best i sleep on the floor because if i sleep on the top bunk I might fall off, as I've fallen off 3 times in my mission. 

Anyway, the time keeps going by pretty fast, i cant believe tomorrow is May. In Argentina the April showers bring may flowers thing doesn't really exist-it's more like April showers bring more may showers... and June showers. So I'm getting my raincoat and Underarmour out for these last two months. Thanks!!!

Have a great week!!!!

Love, elder Roberts

Week 86: Posadas, Argentina

Are you watching TED talks? I watched a few the summer before i left, i thought some of them were really interesting. I´m not sure if the spirit gives you the desire to learn, i think so, because i really like learning about random stuff now and i want to read books.... it's kind of weird, haha but maybe i just have a different mindset now. I think i like learning more than i did before. I talked to President a little about school in my interview and that was good, and then to Hermana LaPierre about what some of her kids and children in law do. President told me that i should find someone that studied economics or computer science and talk to them and see what they have to say on it. I feel like the more i think about it the harder it gets to decide. President also told me to try to take a little bit of everything my first semester so that i can really see what i like and maybe try to pick up on something. I´m not really even sure what classes are available, but that is good that the sign ups aren't until June. 

This week has gone pretty well. It's been kind of crazy because there was like a mini transfer with a few people having to go home early, two new secretaries coming in to be trained, and two problems with some legal work, so there are quite a few missionaries that have to be moved around starting tonight because tomorrow we have the the opportunity to listen to Elder Oaks!!! He is going to be in Resistencia, which is the next closest mission, and we are going to watch it live on a screen as it is broad casted from Resistencia. So i am pretty excited about that. Tomorrow should be a good day, but after that all the missionaries are moving around, so we are busy helping president organize all that. 

We did get to go out and teach this week and we did another activity with the young single adults where we left with them and visited some less actives. It went really well, like 13 young single adults showed up, so we split up into two big groups and went and visited some people and it went really well, hopefully we can keep doing it and helping them. We also found a lady that had left her church and she said she had been praying to try to see what she should do and we were the first people to show up at her door, so that was also a really cool experience. We haven't been able to visit her again, but we will be going today or tomorrow. Also, last night we taught a really cool family, we were kind of talking in the doorway of their little wooden house for 10 minutes and they finally decided to let us in and we taught the parents and their seven kids and it went really well and they were really interested. Unfortunately they are moving to the sisters area tomorrow, but hopefully we can see them in church sometime. 

Pday was really cool today as well, we went to the biggest hill/mountain here in the province of Misiones where there is a big cross that they built as a tourist attraction. It was really cool, kind of reminded me of High 

Rock, the view, but it was cool to see. The European immigrants really had a strong influence in Catholicism and seemed to plant the Catholic church really strongly here in Argentina. There is also a butterfly room, so it was fun  to go and see that. Then we came back and Hermana LaPierre taught us how to make apple pie and we ate it.... and it was really good. 

Anyway my new companion comes tonight at about 9:00.  His name is Elder Johnson and he is from Idaho.  He is pretty new in the mission, i think he has about 5 or 6 months, but he is really cool. I´ve talked to him a few times and he is a solid, nice, smart kid, so i am excited to be with him. I'll be here till the change, May 19th, and then i'll get to spend my last transfer somewhere in the field... hopefully Paraguay!! But anyway, i hope everyone is doing well. Have a great week!!!

Week 85: Posadas, Argentina

This week has been pretty busy as well. We had the zone leader/sister training leader conference, then cleaning up from everything, and also helping President plan interviews with everyone and talking about who is going to replace me… haha.  My new companion hasn't come yet. I´m thinking he may come next week. I hope so, because I'm kind of excited to start doing something new, training him.  And i think the time here in the office will go by faster. I can't believe April is already halfway over, but i guess that is the mission and life. 

Our Bishop is really cool here in our ward.  We stopped by last night and talked to him about some of the stuff we were doing in our area and a lot of the members that were on the list and that had moved or passed away. We are going to help him clean up the member list a little. He is really nice though, and supportive. I think he is just genuinely nice and ready to help, he kind of reminds me of dad. 

Anyway, i believe i only have 5 weeks left here in the office, I have to send my passport to Buenos Aires to get more pages added to it because mine is too full from crossing the border too many times to take out money and do other stuff. 

It is kind of scary to think that i need to start studying so that i can get a job that i could do for the rest of my life. But President Monson said that our future is as bright as our faith... so i guess i just gotta have faith that everything will work out

It was cool in the council meeting we had on Tuesday with President, he talked a little bit about an example of an airplane, kinda sounds like Uctdorf, though President was an airplane engineer. But he was talking about how there was a plane that had crashed and it was because on the motor, the metal hadn't gone under some kind of chemical inspection.  There was a tiny little air bubble.  But as time passed, the pressure made the air bubble bigger and bigger and after a few years the plane crashed on one of its flights and killed over 100 people. It really goes to show that the small simple things are sometimes the most important. President LaPierre is pretty cool, he is just really wise and can pretty much teach you anything at anytime in anyplace. The kind of guy that always has something to say that just sticks with you. The other day he was talking about being prepared and being on time and that in his career those two things helped him a lot, Sometimes he would get little projects to do and he would be busy so he would say, "In 10 days i'll have it done. And he would finish his stuff and kind of take his time and by the 10th day he would have it ready and sent, and the person would always been happy because he would always have it done by when he said he would. Anyway, there are a lot of little things like that that I've learned here that i think will help me a lot afterwards in school and working. 

Our area is going pretty well though, the members are helping, and the young single adults are really working as well.  They have a lot of activities and cool stuff going on and are trying to reactivate a lot of people. There are three young adults preparing for missions, and actually today there is a kid from Tacuari that is leaving on his mission that was reactivated not too long ago. When i was there the other elders were working with him a lot and helped him start coming back to church; now he´s headed off to Columbia. It's fun to see progression even though there isn't a whole ton of it, everything i think is growing little by little. We also went and sang at a retirement home last week which was nice, doing service is always a nice change, and something that is usually fun to do. 

Anyway, thanks for the update and i hope everyone has a great week!!

Love, Elder Roberts

Week 84: Posadas, Argentina

Work sounds interesting with kids that don´t speak English at all. People always think it´s funny when i tell them that both my parents do the exact same occupation. Well that is pretty cool that a lot of people have looked at my blog. I didn´t think i was that interesting, but they also could be views mostly from you checking it or reading it to make sure it went through haha.

This week was pretty crazy as always, lots of preparation and trying to follow through with all the plans, even though there are always things that don´t go as planned. We had ordered from this Mexican place for lunch for all the new missionaries and their trainers and they didn't come on time, so we drove over to see if they were there and it looked like the place was closed.  So then we ordered pizza really quickly from this big pizza place and then the quesadillas came at the same time the pizza did..... so we sent the missionaries with dinner as well while they left to go to their new area. There were lots of funny things that happened and lots of things that just didn't go so well... I accidentally ran over a cone at the airport and also in the bus terminal, i was walking around trying to send all the missionaries off to their areas and buy their tickets and the envelope i had all the money in opened and all my money fell out onto the floor, and one of my companions in the office decided it would be a good idea to put a piece of bread in the microwave and put 3 minutes instead of 30 seconds so after about 2 minutes the whole office was filled with smoke and it still kind of smells like smoke. Also we were up till like 12:00 that night and apparently we left everything kind of messy.  It just so happens that the inspection people from Buenos Aires came the very next morning.............. oops, but luckily they were pretty understanding.  It went by really fast and all in all it was fun but extremely tiring. There were a lot of new missionaries, so it was fun meeting them and talking to them, but it's over and now it's time to keep working. I think my new companion will be coming in about a week or two and I'm not really sure who it is going to be yet but I'm trying to clean everything up so that when he comes he has a clean slate. There are just a lot of things that i can only fix because i know what happened and if he were try to figure it out it would take a while. Sounds like Easter went well and that everyone is probably getting excited that it's spring and the nicer weather is coming. 

Conference was pretty awesome though. It was nice to sit down and listen and learn a little. I was pretty tired  even though i tried to a get a good nights sleep the night before; i still may have fallen asleep during a few of the talks... It is pretty tough with air conditioning and the lights off. It was great though, i really liked President Eyring and Elder Uchtdorf´s talks and a few of the Seventies gave really good ones as well. I took out from it that we need to be tolerant of people and love people and help others as much as we can. We aren´t here to be better than other people, but to help them progress as we progress as well. Also, keep doing the basic things and always strive to be better or do better than what we are doing now. It was interesting that there were a few people that didn´t sustain the prophet and apostles.  I guess I'm kind of out of the loop, i didn't hear why or who they were, but it was kinda weird how it happened. 

Thanks for the letter and i hope everyone has a great week!!

Love, Elder Roberts 

Week 83: Posadas, Argentina

The weeks do seem to go by pretty quickly. This week we are getting ready for transfers.  I´m not sure how or why there is so much stuff to do and remember but there is, and we are trying to get it all done today so that we can watch conference this weekend. I´m pretty excited for conference, it´s always fun, and this is my third one in Posadas and we get to watch it in English and there is air conditioning haha. So i can´t complain. There are pensions (apartments) and areas we need to open and to close which involves looking for new pensions, new phones, new furniture, moving furniture, cleaning old pensions, re painting old pensions, talking to land lords and then all the other fun stuff about transfers. People are going to Paraguay that need to change their money and then people traveling need money and it's kind of a stressful time, but i think in the office i have learned to manage stress a lot. To lighten things up we did do a few April fools jokes yesterday... we threw flour on one of the elders from the office while he was showering, and then i pretended that i broke my ankle because it got run over by the truck and Hermana LaPierre fell for it.  Then i went to my zone meeting on crutches and almost all of them fell for it. That was probably the only April fools joke that I've done that actually worked. But the Latin missionaries were kind of confused, apparently they celebrate in December.

That sounds fun though having the German exchange students. Probably pretty busy, but it's always fun. 

This week was interesting though, it's been pretty good.  We have actually gotten a lot done in the office and we are getting out every day to work in our area, though there still isn't too much going on... we have met some pretty interesting people, but there are a few less actives that we are having some success with. We talked to a guy yesterday that explained to us how Bush was behind the twin towers and that government and organized religion is all corrupt and that they hide everything from the public.  He also said that there are UFOs and aliens. Then he explained to us how Jesus, after he was resurrected, was beamed up into a UFO and that is how he left the earth and went to another world that they call heaven... yeah we have a bunch of weird people in our area. But we are trying to work in a new part that we are kind of sharing with the sisters that is a little nicer and there are more normal people. We´ve talked to a few cool people but most of them are pretty involved in their own religion or already have pretty strong beliefs. 

I got to go to Paraguay with Elder Magdaleno, who got to the mission the same time i did and is the assistant, because the other assistant sent his passport to Buenos Aires to get more pages added to it.  So we went and helped with an activity in Encarnacion, across the river, with the Becuasehelives video where the missionaries set up a TV in the plaza down town and invited everyone walking by to go watch it. We mostly helped with getting the tables and the TVs there and then handed out cards to people.  It was pretty fun.  It was a good idea and there were a few people that stopped to watch the video.  I think they are doing it again today and tomorrow so it would be nice to see some results from it. Anyway its a pretty cool video…. 

 http://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_FR_3-27-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_ 

Anyway thank you for writing me, i hope everyone has a great weekend. 

Love, Elder Roberts