I love being on a mission!

Our car battery died this week, so anytime we have to go anywhere we have to flag somebody down and convince them to jump our car so we can drive to our next destination. I'm not sure what they think when this American flags them down but we have met some cool people. The Area office should be giving us a car to use while our car is sickly. It's Zone Conference this week.

I'm top row 3rd in from the right

Zone Conference was great! It was really powerful to hear from President Ostler and we all really love him. We are starting to work on setting higher goals as a mission, things are going really well but we are looking to stretch. It was fun to see my trainer and some of my old companions. 

Food break

Elder Monson is working at training Elder Webster as the new financial secretary, Elder Webster is from Brigham City, he is picking up his new calling super quick, he will do great!  He is to my left in the below pic.

We have 8 missionaries in the ward, they are all super cool! Our Bishop is the man, he has only been a member for 5 years, he is super solid, we had chicken curry and homemade cheese (they love that flavor here) and coconut icecream. Good times with the Makati 2nd! 

Ed came to church and is really settling into the choir. Things are going great! Our Elders quorum lesson was on the temple and Ed really enjoyed learning about that for the first time. We hadn't taught him too much about it yet so it was really nice to have it explained to him in a classroom for an hour.

This is Elder Whittle and Elder Beagley, 2 of the assistants to President. and then me of course. Zone Conference. 

We met the Paublo family this week! They are super cool. We didn't know if they were the real deal or not until we sat down to teach another lesson and we could tell that they had read the Book of Mormon, the spirit was really there. They have had a hard time feeling like they were children of God because of how poor they are, they didn't think Heavenly Father could be the Father of a situation like that. And as 2 Americans we just cannot say we know where they are coming from. But we promised them if they read the Book of Mormon, they would feel they are children of God, and their hardships would lessen, and they would be happy. They read, and they felt it. They will be coming to church this Sunday. There is like 12 of them. 

Sis. Tigno who served in my home ward in SLC, who is from the Philippines tracked me down at the cafeteria.

The new Elders in the apartment are super cool, Elder Tui and Elder Tanner. It's been super fun! It's been another powerful week and I love being on a mission. 

Love, Elder Roberts 

Go Ed Go!

This week has been another great week! Getting lots of things done and getting lots of good work!

    This week we got a new mission nurse, Sis. Turner.  She will be working with us in the office.  She is from SLC, and in fact lives in the cove.  My Mom knew her son when they were both at Skyline.  It's a very small world. 

Our area is pretty small so we are at the point where a lot of the time we will be walking down the street and lots of people just pick up their stool and whatever they are doing and take it inside until we pass, then they come back out again. We also have lots of good friends in the area who are really excited to see us but everyone is starting to look super familiar. 

A couple weeks ago I talked about the Muslim man we were wanting to teach. We were able to teach him and it was extremely spiritual... You could just feel the spirit surrounding us. He is such a humble man and so religious. He kept telling us about how he is just waiting and wanting for someone to teach him about Jesus Christ. We were able to testify to him about the Atonement and the Book of Mormon. He didn't have much time with us. But there is no denying that he felt the spirit. He leaves for Saudi Arabia this week and we won't have time to teach him again. But luckily, I just had happened to bring my English Book of Mormon in addition to the usual Tagalog Book of Mormon that I usually carry around with me. I was able to give him the Book of Mormon and he was just grateful, and he promised me that he would read it cover to cover and would give it back to me next time he saw me, and it would be read completely. 

Ed

Ed came to church again this week! And yes, he did join the ward choir! Haha he is so cool. He was introducing himself in Priesthood opening exercises and announced to everyone kinda in the form of a testimony about how he is no longer going to be Catholic but will be a Mormon. He then said pointing to us, thanks to my 2 friends, I know what church I need to join now. Then he sat down.  Everyone in priesthood just nodded with their eyebrows raised, thinking "that's what I'm talking about". The Elders Quorum has been great for him and hopefully he's getting some friends in choir. 

Elder Monson is transferring, so we will be in a threesome for three weeks until Elder Webster is done with his office training.  This was quite unexpected but change is good. 

Great week. Great time to be on the Lord's side. Time to gather the elect from all the ends of the earth. 

Elder Roberts   

When it rains, it pours

It's been a great week here in the area! We have been working really hard in the office to get out as early as we can so we can go and teach! And we have truly been blessed and have met many cool people this week. 

View from inside the van.  Just road flooding all the time

This week, along with the rain, the blessings have been pouring from heaven! It's been the most successful week we have had in our area. We were just able to find some cool people to teach and we taught Ed again, who came to church and seemed to really enjoy to it! He is extremely involved in the Catholic church with choir and their leadership stuff. But they announced a ward choir practice for after church so we thought that would be so cool for Ed as an investigator to join the choir! That would be a great way from him to get involved. But he is such a nice man and he actually gave Elder Monson and I a necktie when we went over to visit him. Then we both wore them on Sunday when he came to church! It was a fun moment! He is about 50 and lives with his Sister and Brother. Never married worked in Japan for a long way time. He is such cool investigator and just keeps getting cooler. He agreed to be baptized in July... But he still has a long road in front him. Pray for him!

We found a family this week with 7 kids!! They in live a skinny alleyway in a humble home. When we go over to teach all the kids gather around and just stare at us with big eyes. They are cool family! Hopefully we can get some cool members to work with us to help them get to church. It's a lot easier to teach people than it is to get them to go to church, but when they do go they always love it. 

We taught Ray this week who used to be a driver for an LDS family. He was extremely impressed by the way they lived and acted. For some reason what got him the most was how polite the kids were because of Primary. Which is pretty cool. This week we are just preparing for Zone Conference next week so it shouldn't too busy but random stuff always comes up. 

We see some really humble wonderful people!

We were visiting a less active in this pic.  Just to give you an idea of how small this "house" is, I'm at one end of the house. Elder Monson is at the other end. Then he has a little mattress to my left... That's it. We went over to teach him a lesson and he had a little dinner for us! Spicy dried squid rice and little noodles. 
Love Elder Roberts 

Pig's Blood is kind of chalky

This week was transfer week and everything went really well!! It's always fun to pick up the new missionaries from the MTC and talk to them on the way to the mission home. This is a really good batch of Missionaries. My companion was feeling a little under the weather this week so we didn't get out a ton but we did get to go out last night which was nice. The mission is really going by fast!! I might be in the office 1 or 2 more transfers then I'm out!! But we will see haha. 

Yesterday was our fast Sunday and we were really excited because we had a nice dinner appointment set up for later that night. This family had a son who had just left for a mission so they have been having us more lately probably because they miss him. But they are a part member/ less active family so it's nice to go over there and build a good relationship with them. So by the time we get to their house I'm quite hungry and excited to eat. We sit down in their home and the mom pulls out dishes for the night, and I go quite pale. They pull out a kinda famous dish here in the Philippines, pig blood. It's boiled pig blood  with chunks of intestines inside and an occasional ear... and then rice. Well that was a fun surprise. Luckily I see her pull out another dish, but when I asked what it was the dad laughed and said, don't worry it's pig, so I said well what part?? He chuckled and told me it was heart, liver and the rest of the innards of the pig... Spicy... So I shoved down the pig blood and innards and luckily they had some noodles and chicken as well which helped. The blood tastes super chalky. But the dishes are actually not too bad. Here is a short video that a nice lady took of us and sent it to our Mom's

Elder Monson and I are going to work on lots of finding this week. We just are choosing a specific spot in our area and are just going to talk to everyone there! Hopefully that will help us get some new contacts. Patrick is looking forward to another lesson this week so hopefully we can help him get off work on Sunday to come to church! 

Have a great week everyone!! Love you