Elder Luke Roberts

Elder Luke  Roberts

Monday, November 28, 2016

Crocodile Sausage, Things that make you go hmmmmm

We had lots of time to proselyte this week which was amazing! We got to go to a place in our area where there reportedly are lots of less active families. We searched and asked around but with no luck. We didn't find one of the 9 families on the list. But, we got a few new investigators out of it and made friends with all the people in the area, (Golden Valley area). 
These are the missionaries in the Santa Branch.

Sacrament attendance was great.  We had the primary program this week, lots of part members and less active members came to watch their kids. The kids did a great job!! It's never a dull moment with the primary up there. The investigators enjoyed the program as well. 

This week we went to follow up with a man we had met tracting. He quickly let us in again and introduced us to his family, and then quickly ran to get one of his sons. One of sons, has been in the hospital for 4 weeks with an intestinal problem. He immediately wanted us to give his son a blessing. The Catholics have something similar to a blessing, it's where they put there hands over them and call it a pray over. So they assumed we did something similar and asked for this "prayer over". We knew what he meant and were so grateful for their faith and the opportunity to bless their really sickly son. We get to go back next week and so we will see how he is doing and how the family is. They really seemed to enjoy the restoration. They are a really well off family too. They own the Almonte farms here. Should be great to see how it goes. 

We went to the crocodile farm last p-day. It was awesome!! We got to hold them and it's crazy how big those things get...



We will have our nativity program for the mission Christmas party next week. I'll be Caesar of course. Apparently they film it so I'll send the video when they give them out haha. 
We had a returned missionary come back to the island with his parents.  It was great to meet the Thompson family.  They said they loved it here, but who wouldn't.  


It's been a week of lots of good work, laying the foundation. I learn new things everyday and really am giving it my all. The Lord has His timing in all things, that's a principle that I'm seeing over and over again here on the mission. I love it here

Love,
Elder Roberts

Monday, November 21, 2016

Paperwork in to make Puerto a stake

We are doing lots of preparations to help get Puerto into a stake! We make a lot of reports and have been working with the district presidency. The papers are now to the first presidency to see if we get to be a stake! So they will pray about it and we will see. 
This is short this week but he had an investigator who had a dream after the first time we had visited him, it was really a powerful experience. He told us had never had a dream like that before. Long story short, he woke and just could not stop crying and didn't know why he felt like that. He loves the Book Mormon. It was the member referral from last week. He came to church and had and really enjoyed it, he agreed to be baptized on Christmas Eve.  I heard it snowed in SLC!  I'm not going to lie, the snow actaully does sound really nice right now.  It's been a great week, Elder Cooper was sick for some of it, but we still got to work a lot.  Isn't that neat that Elder Monson got called here.  We saw him when he came off the plane.  You should have seen his face!  He is down south of Palawan, where there are many muslims, but a very cool area.  We will be going to the mainland again next week, which will be awesome.  
Life is good. 
Love,
Elder Roberts 

Monday, November 14, 2016

Christmas time starts really early. . .

We were not able to work as much as we would have hoped for this week. Elder Cooper got sick (nothing serious). But we couldn't work five days this week. But we still we able to get out some nights and a few days. 

I switched missions!!  Just kidding, we found a Christmas tree while on exchanges with Elder Bermudez...  



We had a very spiritual experience with a less active family we have been working with. We taught them about the temple and brought them a picture of the temple to put into their home. They are all members but not yet sealed and have not been to the temple as a family yet. The mom has been reactivated with the kids, but the dad has really been working on things and has been wanting to go to church. When I first got here, he would just hide from us and we could hear him telling his kids to tell us that he wasn't home. But now he's smiling and said they will go to the temple in May!! He's come a long way. He's ready to have family night and family prayer and family scripture study. He wants to go to church with them now. It's been years since he's come to church. It's been a miracle and he's doing great. 

On a different note. The nurses we have been teaching unexpectedly dropped us last night. We got a text from the husband saying they aren't looking for a different church at this time. We felt sad for them and felt the wife was actually really interested but the husband doesn't seem to feel it's the right time. Hopefully the missionaries will find them again someday. 

This awesome family in the pic below, moved to Palawan after the Super typhoon destroyed their home.  All their worldly possessions we swept out to sea. All they had was their family... It's a miracle they all survived... 


The kids love the Elders and the dad wanted to take a picture...

 
Incredible family!
We had a great member referral last night. It was really out of the blue. We were going to an appointment and the student we were visiting was busy so we just kinda stood there waiting for who knows what, just kinda thinking what we should do but then a member came up to us and said "come in and teach my brother!" We didn't even know the member she was just a boarder, but we were able go in and teach the brother and lots of the cousins who were there. 

We have connected with some great members this week.  We had a good appointment with a less active family we have been visiting. They stopped going because their son punches all the auxiliary leaders in the face and gives them bloody noses. He's 3 but he is wild. We went to their house and had breakfast with them, we ate bananas. But they aren't the bananas you at home are used to, they're cooking bananas and they are really thick. But we have been building a good relationship with them and even got a referral from them!! 

Christmas season is really heating up here. It's never too early here... 


Love Elder Roberts 

Monday, November 7, 2016

Great Birthday!



It was a fun birthday in the field. The members are cool and it was fun to be with my good missionary friends.
It was a very fun birthday. The senior couple (the Addurus) took me and Elder Cooper to the Mc Donalds here.
Which is like a very very high class thing to do here haha. It's quite expensive here if you can believe it. The rain 
has let up a bit this week and it's felt nice! Everyone here is really gearing up for Christmas (they have been 
since September haha). We had Saints day this week, which is November 1st. So Elder Cooper and I walked 
around for a while but it was just pretty eerie. Nobody was out, it was just dark and kinda foggy. 
We could just see the dim glow from the candles at every house. That's their tradition,  they leave out candles
to invite their deceased ancestors in (it's comes from the Catholic Chruch). But we were able to make our way
to members house who gave us a little rice treat before we went home. We had one kid come to our house for
trick-or-treat, and that's it. Halloween isn't too big here, but everyone did go to the cemetery.  I have about
4 kids around my back reading this right now. They love to huddle around my back to see what the white guy
is doing on the computer.

We had lots of our less actives come to church yesterday!! It was really rewarding for sure. Their progression is
 often very slow and definitely at their own pace. But they had a great showing yesterday and we really love 
them!!  We've got to get these people to the temple!! 

We have a recent convert temple trip coming up so we have been getting people ready for that as well. 

Love,
Elder Roberts