Peter, the Rock

This week has been a powerful week.

I have heard great news from the other missionaries when I saw them at a special meeting we had with Elder Bednar. Fred, the recent convert from Makati 3rd ward, defender of the faith, was walking down the street and saw a street rally for people who didn't believe in God and he stood in front of them all and bore his testimony of God, and then the Book of Mormon, and then rallied others to do the same. Apparently he ran quickly and got lots of people to come and gather! 

Also the Elders in Santa Monica told me that Charlyna, got baptized. I was so proud of her and glad to see that she was baptized.

In our area, Peter, the rock, has been doing great and is doing very well to live the word of wisdom. His wife is still hiding from us and his kids are VERY shy. But Peter has now felt that he can commit to a baptismal date! We are sad that the rest of his family is not quite on board yet, but this is the best way to start, with the head of the household first. We will watch the Restoration video with him tonight and we know it will be powerful, we will try and get his wife to join us again... 

We are also working with brother Ferrer... He is wanting to be baptized and at this point is just working on the Word of Wisdom, he is down to one stick a day... and he really really wants stop. We are doing what we can for him and we bought him lots of Mentos so that while he rides his Tricycle around he will eat those and not smoke!! 

This is from our picnic after our temple trip last week... 

We found some nice shade, got some food from the patron house and 

enjoyed spirit of the Temple grounds. 

I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I know Elder Bednar is an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. The Savior lives and atoned for us. We need to use our agency well. 

Go to the temple as often as you can, they need us, and we need them.

Love,

Elder Roberts 

Shortest Email thus far. . . (Mom titled this one)

Got a new companion. We were really shocked! 

I'm with Elder Bolnick for his last transfer...

Peter came to church yesterday and loved it!! 

We are trying to do daily finding... Life is good

Love,

Elder Roberts 

last zone conference

New approach to finding investigators

This week I got to work with Elder Adawag again! This missionary I trained in Makati. He's doing great! I was in Tondo 1st ward. We got to go to smokey mountain where they are teaching some cool Born Agains. While on exchanges we ran into some people on the street who were very excited to see us, the missionaries, and then invited us into their home and then tried to teach US a lesson... We weren't interested but they planted a seed I guess....

Here's some pics from Smokey Mountain.  This used to be a dump site in the middle of Tondo, it now has lots of trees and grass! The people are even growing vegetables there... While on exchanges here we taught some humble people who live there.

  

It's been an amazing week. We had a part member brother we have been working with come to church again this week!! As happy as we were (and we were thrilled) it was a fulfilling experience to see the face of his wife who kept looking at us and giving us a big smile. She was baptized last year. He just needs a little more of a push with the Word of Wisdom, but he's doing great and had great participation in Gospel Principles class. 

We also taught Peter again, who was just someone we found by door knocking. Peter is amazing. He reads all of our reading assignments and has great questions! Whenever we are there the spirit is so strong, even though we teach other people who are also keeping commitments I always feel the spirit so strong when we teach him. I don't know what the difference is but I love it. We left him 3 Nephi 27 as a reading assignment, that's the first time I have left that assignment to somebody in a beginning lesson. We went back and asked him what he liked. He responded, "I like when Jesus tells us to repent, and be baptized, that we may be sanctified by the Holy Ghost." Well, we nodded and said we like that too. 

Elder Fiesta and I have been doing this new finding idea. We map out which members are going to church. Then we talk to everyone around one of those members houses until we find someone who wants to hear our message. Then we take them to the members house and teach. They are always a little surprised but they actually love the opportunity. Then at the end of the lesson we say, what a great lesson, these members would love to go to church with you this week, what time should they come by? It's been crazy how many people we are teaching and are progressing. 

It's lots of hard work, but all the hours are worth it just even to find someone like Peter who really wants to know if what we are telling him is true. Things are going well and I love you all!! 

Love,

Elder Roberts