Week 22: Posadas, Argentina

 Hola everyone!!!! I heard it's pretty cold up there, hopefully everyone is staying warm. But this week was pretty good for us. We found some cool people to teach, ate some good food and had some cool experiences. It seems like ever since I got here to Argentina, it's been really crazy, like we are always doing something different, always changing companions for a day and working with other people, leaving and coming back to my area, traveling to make sure other missionaries are okay when they don't answer their cell phones because it rained really hard and their phone broke or coming home and having to do a bunch of stuff in the dark because our street lost electricity. But it's been pretty fun; the more unordinary things that happen the more interesting the days are and usually they are more fun. But hopefully everyone is doing well and reading the Book of Mormon ;) Have a good week!!!!!

Love,

Elder Ben Roberts

                                         

Week 21: Posadas

(From a letter to Elder Roberts' parents)

The family we baptized changed a lot as well; I wasn't really there for a lot of it, but they apparently changed a lot. 

And ahh 1 dollar burrito night at Cafe Rio sounds like I'm missing out. I'll have to go every day when i come back to make up for it. And the food here is actually pretty good. And we still eat at 1230, we have to, and we usually eat like civilized people in the house at a set table with the whole family which is really nice. I don't think I've had anything here that I really didn't like. 

And there's members that work for the police, work for construction, teach at schools, just the regular stuff.  I don't think there is anything out of the ordinary. And there are people that speak Guarani, but pretty much everyone speaks Spanish. There are a lot of Paraguayos because my area touches the border, the river. 

We are reactivating, well I hope, a Paraguayan lady and her daughter who may or may not get baptized. And my comp's family is very active. His dad has been the branch president for a longggg time and his brother is going to serve a mission in 1 or 2 years. They live in Yucatan, the southern part, and his dad speaks Maya and stuff so its pretty cool. But they are moving really close to Texas when he finishes his mission in June. But yeah I mean it's pretty safe here for the most part except for the part that all of investigators live in. The area is divided into little secciones called chakras which are like little neighborhoods but really divided well kinda like in Utah where everything is a square and the roads run parallel.  We are working a lot in the poorest one with the humblest people but also some dangerous people. So we usually try to leave by 700 or 730 to avoid getting attacked haha but its pretty safe for the most part. But yeah everything is going well, just trying to keep on working and helping the zone out with lots of stuff. like randomly getting called from the elders that live two blocks away that their kitchen is on fire and sprinting over there super fast and helping the put it out. So just fun stuff like that. But all is well haha. Have a good week!!! Tell Grandmom and Grandad I said hello!!! 

Love you,

Ben

Week 20: Posadas, Argentina

(From a letter to Mom and Dad) 
I heard it's pretty cold up there right now. but ahh thats weird with all the health problems.  But church in Posadas is pretty nice, air conditiong, there's a piano player and I don't have to teach the gospel principles class haha so it's nice. The ward isn't too big, like 90 people. Two other elders in the ward were sleeping in our apartment with us for a week but they bought air conditiong and now we don't see them as much. But we do divicciones(exchanges/divisions?) every week so I'll be able to see them more. And two of the secretaries to the president are in the district so that's cool to have them help us. Inside guys on the office haha get books of Mormon easily and stuff like that. And ahh there's so much stuff to do, I haven't slept a lot this past week haha. 

 But we ate and went shopping and did some stuff with the nubmers in the computer and went and got our clothes and all that good stuff for pday. But yeah elder Ake is super cool. I like him, really nice and he helps me a lot with what I should be doing. So it's good and we actaully take a lot of colectivos here, not sure at the end of the month when we run out of money haha but we take colectivos like every other day or sometimes every day to go to different parts of the area. And the people here are a little more receptive I think but it's just a little harder to find the really receptive people. But it's going pretty well. I hope everything is going well up there! love and miss you!!!

Elder Ben

Week 19: Posadas, Argentina

HOlaaaaaaaaaaa everyone!!!

I'll just make this quick, but I'm in Argentina! It's really cool. I like it a lot. The area I'm in is pretty nice and we have air conditioning where we sleep. so I can't complain. But it really has been cool, got to spend New Year's with some of the members and eat some good food and meet some new people. It's been fun. My new companion is Elder Ake who is super awesome and funny and we get along really well. Anyways I hope everyone had a fantastic New Year's and that all is well! Talk to ya next week!!

Elder Roberts

From a letter to Elder Roberts' parents:

Hola!! So this past week has been pretty crazy, fun, tiring, crazy and interesting. I left Ciudad del Este at 11:30 to go to the terminal, and left at 1:30 to go to Encarnacion. I stood up the whole night on the bus because there weren't any seats and got there at like 7:00 a.m. I got to sleep for the 30 minutes curled up in a little ball on the floor on the bus, so that was a fun experience. I got to Encarnacion early and waited there for a longgg time to get to go cross the border to go to Posadas, but I got to see a lot of people from the mission and I'm starting to make a lot more friends from other places in the mission now that I'm seeing them more so it was pretty cool. Then I crossed the border and went to the terminal at Posadas to meet my companion, and then we went back to the apartment dropped my stuff off and left to go work haha. My comapnion is Elder Ake, from southern Mexico, Yucatan, and he's super cool, super funny, super crazy, super animated and super awesome haha. We get along really well and he works like a monkey. so basically I almost died from being tired this week, but it was good. Working hard is good. I was just super tired from the bus ride and then ate a tonnnn of food for New Years and didn't feel so hot, and then one day after we ran to a bunch of lessons my neck started to stiffen up and the next day I woke up and couldn't move it. I was kinda paralyzed for like 2 days but I'm feeling a lot better now. Posadas is super awesome also. I really like it here in the Tacuari ward. the people are super nice. I actually kinda feel like I'm in the States. My apartment is pretty nice, we have air conditioning and a shower curtain... no microwave or stove... but everything else is good.  The office of the mission is like 15 min away so get to see the president and the hermana and the asistentes to the president a lot and talk to them. 

But I like it a lot here; there is a super market in front of our house, well kinda, that is like a branch off of Walmart, it has great value stuff haha so I'm excited to go there. 

Week 18: Ciudad del Este

Holaaaa everyone!!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. It was pretty cool here. The people in Paraguay and most of South America celebrate the 24th more than the 25th. They all get together and make tons of food and eat it Christmas Eve and at midnight they all light off tons and tons of fireworks and it's actually pretty cool. It's like fourth of July but practically everyone gets fireworks and lights them off. We spent some time with some of the members and hung out with them, spent Christmas with them and it was actually pretty fun. I figured I was going to be homesick but it really wasn't too bad. I think im starting to realize that happiness really depends on us, ourselves. That if we are in a bad situation we can think that life sucks and that life is hard and yeah life is going to be hard. But if we take the bad situation and look at the postivies and look forward to other good things it really gets a lot better. 

I think I've said it before, but I'm not really sure if would ever like to live in Paraguay because it kinda smells bad and it's kinda dirty and super hot haha but it's cool; I like it. But I'm happy to be here because I can focus on the job I have to preach the gospel to people and if i just think about that and do that, everything else seems to go away and not matter and then I'm just happy haha. I can't explain why, that when I get home every night I'm exhausted and wet from sweat but somehow happy as can be. So it's been really cool to learn that and learn that really when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. 

But also, I'm headed to Argentina tomorrow!!! I got my visa, I guess, and I'll be heading to an area really close to Posadas. So that will be super cool. I'm excited to experience Argentina and I've heard good things about the people there. so it should be cool. Anyway, have a fantasic new year and good rest of winter break everyone. 

Love, 

Elder Ben 

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