Transfer Week = Super busy

Last P-day was super fun! Yes, we learned so much about the Philippines.  It is hot yes... you wake up in the morning with just a wet forehead and just damp skin, that's with my little fan too haha. It's just always super hot now. The rainy season is kinda coming but not too far. I love the rainy season, it's lots of floods and typhoons but the rain is super fun. 

Well the transfer day went really well, my position is pretty much in charge of the entire day. Like we sit in a meeting with President, the assistants, office Elders, and senior couples, and they all listen and I tell them what we all need to do for about an hour. Then they do it on transfer day. It's our transfer planning meeting! It's so cool. But ya we had little sleep and crazy stuff, but it went very smooth. Another transfer day, many more to go haha. 

This week has been awesome. Even though it was transfer week and we were super busy, we were still able to get out and teach a lot! The lady who's birthday party we went to, had us over to teach her a lesson. It was great!! When we went back for a return appointment, she wasn't there (because of confusion on the time of the appointment). But her sister and her sister's husband were there so we taught them instead. And they REALLY enjoyed the message. The spirit was super strong. They are both Catholic, but the apostasy really did make sense to them when we explained it. (Catholics often don't like hearing about the apostasy). It made sense to them and they really saw the need for a restoration. 

Nothing too crazy happened for transfers, we didn't forget any of the leaving missionaries luggage, and we got everyone where they needed to be. It worked out great! 

Next week will be a longer message, sorry, I have a ton to do today.
Here are a few more pics from last P-day at the Palace.

Is this close enough Mom?

2 answers to your last week's questions.  The trait I admire most about my mission President is his wisdom.  The trait I admire most about my companion is that he's so very easy to get along with and peaceful.  Love you all! 

-Elder Roberts 

Malacanang Palace for P-day

This week was really fun, the Mission Presidents Wife asked us to go to Malacanang Palace (Like the White House) to see if it would be a good place for missionaries to have district activities. So we got to stake it out and see how everything went and if it would work for the other missionaries. It was so fun! It has tons of history. It was a nice tour and fun time. If I ever come back here in Manila I would definitely do it again.  We got to go with the AP's as well.

The oval office thus the presidential face

Serving in the office has made us weird

This week we met some more cool people, we are doing our best to be able to find people who want to change, not just feel the spirit during "bible study". Because we aren't here to have Bible study. We tell them that but they still treat it like Bible study, which is common here. We are inviting people to come unto Christ. We are still looking for some families to teach, but we have lots of people that we will follow up with. In fact, we met a less active last night and his wife and kids aren't yet members. That's pretty common, to have people get baptized in their province, then move here to Manila, then just become lost sheep. So if people say hey Elder! We go straight to them. So this guy we met last night was baptized when he was younger and remembered the Elders and quite a bit about the church. So that will be fun to teach them tonight, we will see how that goes! 

Patrick read all the assignments in the Book of Mormon we gave him and actually requested that we would assign him all of Ether. So if that's his request. No worries haha. We will meet with him again this week and that should be awesome. We have transfers this week so things will be super super busy. We wake up at 4am and drive to pick up the new missionaries and we haul luggage around to the airport for missionaries going home, we just do all sorts of crazy stuff.

So the weather. . . People keep dying here because of the heat this year, I guess the El Nino is really bad. It's what they call a weather system. The heat is so bad here, they have declared it a "state of Calamity" because of how many people are dying because of the heat. They get super bad heat strokes and just all sorts of stuff from the heat, also all the farms are having a really hard time. It's the hot, on the temperature scale it ranges, but with the humidity, they say you add like 15 degrees haha. It's bad haha. But luckily we are in the office for the hottest part of the day, we just feel it when we go to the bank or run errands or stuff like that.

The other day we were looking for the house of this guy we met a few days before. We asked a man for directions and he sent us down this little alley way where he thought they lived. We ventured down to go look for him and we met these two ladies, they actually were super nice and friendly and invited us back for her birthday on Saturday. Then the guy we had asked for directions shouted down the alley, "hey, he actually lives over there!" pointing to another alley. But we would never have gotten down to that alley if we hadn't have been misled on accident to go down there!  We actually went back to the ladies house for dinner and they are super cool!! We got to talk to lots of people at her birthday, but didn't stay long. But she loves us, and gave us lots of fish and some rice cakes and set up a return appointment for us to have a lesson! So that was big blessing for us. Here's some more pics from our adventure,  I love you all!

We didn't get to see the President, just the head

what's weird is that I had a speech prepared

Elder Roberts 

The Drunks and Crazies have our backs

This week was awesome! We met lots of cool people. This week we worked really hard to try and get everything done in the office so we could get out and teach more. Which worked well! A lot of the time we have random things we need to do. For example, people are flying in from Palawan and we have to drive around removing mattresses from apartments and taking them to the right apartment where the missionaries are staying. So Elder Monson and I just drive around with our little map book and try find where we are. 

Our apartment

This week we met with Romy. His wife has really had her heart softened. Romy told us that she admitted to him that ever  since we have been teaching Romy, that miracles have been happening in their family. So she is really excited to see us, she is not interested yet in listening but she is now talking to us and bringing us food for our lessons with Romy. So she is slowing getting more and more used to us. She loves when we come and visit! 

It was an amazing session of conference! It was really cool to see the Buendia chapel filled to the back to hear the living prophet. That was really powerful! Conference was really special. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir really stood out this time, they were super powerful. 

360 view from our roof of our apartment.  We are actually super close to the ocean

We met the coolest guy this week! Patrick. He is so funny. We met him just sitting outside. People always do that here, it's way too hot to be inside so everyone is just kinda chilling out side where at least there is a little breeze. We went over to talk to him and he said wait, you believe that God was once a man don't you, and that we have a Heavenly Mother. We said yes, those are things that we believe. He said I know your Book! Then he recounted the story of Nephi to us. We were shocked. We went over to his house the next day and taught a great lesson and have another lesson set up for Wednesday. He works in a small internet Cafe so he just sits and researches our church all day. He asked us why we had so many negative websites against us, he pretty much reads all of the anti-mormon that you could possibly find. But that just made him curious, he thinks it's so "mysterious" that our church would have so much opposition and negativity surrounding a church of such nice people. He didn't even talk about the negative stuff he read online but just wanted to learn our doctrine, when we had come back he had read our whole pamphlet and only had one question, it was a really deep  question about the Plan of Salvation. So we did the best we could to use the scriptures and help him out. We also left him with some good websites to look at to learn more about our beliefs. He really loves our church, he also recited the history of Joseph Smith, even about the using of the special glasses for translating. He just kept saying, wow, mysterious, he is really curious and loves our doctrine of the plan of salvation. So he will be really fun to teach. 

I'm getting really pale working in the office.  This is me and Elder Sacay.  He just went home, I'll miss him

People love that we speak Tagalog to them. It really tickles them. People always tell us we need to join this game show where foreigners sing Tagalog songs in front of Judges, they LOVE that show here haha. People are super nice. We are doing our best to become friends with everyone in our area even if they aren't interested in the message. Every lady who is always washing clothes, or everyone at the fruit stands, bakeries, police, security guards, drunkards, kids, just everyone. Even if they aren't interested we make sure we be their friend for when they are ready. It's awesome to be walking down the street and random people just hold up their fist and yell Elders! They know we are on their team. Haha all the crazy people and drunk people will always tell us to let them know if anyone messes with us and they will come help us. It's super funny to have the crazy people tell us to be careful and watch out for the crazy people. We always just nod, and say okay. Because all the people we would need to even watch out for, are already watching out for us, it's a great system. 

The other office elders think this is really funny to keep making this my screen saver.  haha  good one

It's a great time to be a missionary and it's a great time to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know that this church, is the restored church of Jesus Christ himself, and he restored it through the Prophet Joseph Smith. That Priesthood is also back on the Earth. 

I love being on a mission! This is the best country and people ever. 

-Elder Roberts 

It's meat we're eating. I think.

We got super busy this week in the office but it's been a good week. We had another lesson with Angello, the Bible baptist. He is really into the Bible. We talked to him and he loves to ask us questions to try and argue and stuff. His church sends him as the representative to debate for their church. For example, last lesson. Elders, I'm a good man, but you think that I will be saved if I stay in my church with my Christ? He just loves to try and get us to say something or to see our answers to questions. We can get him! He told us he will come to general conference this weekend "100% I will go" is what he told us. He will look forward to that. 

This week at the Gavino's house, we knocked and they just all went to the kitchen to start preparing food for us, no matter what we tell them they just get food ready for us. Elder Monson and I were just eating we had no idea what the dish was... We said what is this? He just kept saying pig. But both of us knew it wasn't really meat though.. the texture was a piece of bread that been dipped once in a glass of milk. We were just trying not to laugh because we knew we were eating something quite different. We decided to wait until we finished eating until we asked him what part of the pig it was. After we were done, we asked and he told us. But we didn't really understand what the word meant. Then we finally figured out the word, it was bone. It was boiled bone... The texture was just like slightly wet bread. It was pretty good though! 

This week we are just trying to talk to as many people as we can! We are looking to get a new teaching pool, working on constantly finding and teaching. Everything is great down here! The work is moving forward and I'm so excited for conference. I know that President Thomas S. Monson is called of God as a Prophet. I know that the Book of Mormon is a powerful source of the word of God, and that it is a true and sacred Book. 

Here's our church building.  It's nice huh?? It's weird, the chapel is on the top floor. Makati 2nd ward is awesome! It's about a 15 minute walk from the Buendia chapel where we met before we became office elders.

The weather is of course really hot and wet, I sweat all the time just by being outside.  Yes,  kids do spider fights still, but even more in Palawan, here they love to play this game called Trumpo, look it up, ALL the kids play it haha, they also try and teach us how to play. The kids here can be super crazy, sometimes at night there will be like 20 kids in the street just messing around, and then they will see us going to the car, then they run and attack us. Haha like last night they tried to all get in the car with us, and we get in and shut the door and quickly as possible, they always think it's so funny to try and climb in haha. 

Chow time at the Zone Conference

I'm excited for conference which is rebroadcast here April 9and10th.  I love you all,

Elder Roberts

Holy Week

This week was Holy Week. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced. People crowded the streets with the these kinda of like floats in a Parade, on the floats were Saints, and also statues of Jesus. Also in the streets in our area lots of areas were set up with Saints and the Cross where people would gather and read scriptures I think I'm not sure. Also everything shut down... All the malls, stores, even all the banks, everything shut down for the Holy Weekend. People have really strong faith. 

     Surprisingly, it wasn't harder to proselyte than any other time. We still just went around trying to share the restoration of the gospel and Priesthood. When we walk around people will pull us over and challenge "how are you saved??". That's kind of everyone's question here. How do we make it back home... With all the different religions here... People are often really curious to see how we are saved in our church. Elder Monson and I have decided to start using the Articles of Faith a lot more. It's simple and really great! Lots of people are just lost to what they should do, and how they should know. Everyone is always contending with each other too. 

   Things are going well! We got a referral this week for this man. We went to go look for him and our member said it was his neighbor, and he told us not to go there haha. He said that he is really contentious with religion and doesn't let the missionaries talk (I guess they had tried a couple years ago). We told the member we should still try because we need to go, you never know.   We got there and the man wasn't really excited to see us... But when he let us in, he was actually pretty nice to us. We talked and he ended up telling us his Daughter had died since the last visit of the missionaries to his house. He is a Bible Baptist and really knows the Bible. He is actually quite wealthy and has 6 daughters. He was respectful to us even though we are a lot younger than him. Where the story gets interesting is when he tried to belittle or speak condescendingly to our religion. He started off saying kinda rudely,  oh I know your church... You believe that Joseph Smith found some kinda gold plates in a hill or something and talked with God. We smiled and Yes we do. Then he said oh and in your church you believe that no just any random person can baptize you, like a pastor or a leader of church, they need the right authority. We smiled and said yes. Then he quickly looked to the side as if, after years of knowing that we believed that, finally realizing how logical our church was. He kept going trying to get us but every time he would say something he would realize how silly it was that it would be any other way. Then when he was finally done with his questioning... He told us he wanted us to come back. Elder Monson and I know that we don't know everything, but we do know that our message is true. Next time Elder Monson and I decided to start with the Plan of Salvation this week when we go to teach him.

This week was super busy, we had to help with Zone conference and stuff like that. We do a lot of errands so sometimes we don't always get to work in our area as much as we would like. But we work hard to get everything done fast so we can go and work. Yeah the weather is always the same here... Always the same here...... Even the days and the nights are always the same length... No seasons... Weird huh? 

 Yeah the U.S. presidential election sounds really dumb. They really follow US politics here in the Philippines. I never realized how much it affects them as well who we vote in haha. I do feel all your support and love... Thanks so much! My testimony grows everyday and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord.
Elder Roberts 

Palm Sunday

Elder Monson and I got to have a temple day this week which was really nice. It was cool to look around and see all the different people... Because there aren't that many temples over here, there were people from India in our session, and Singapore. I guess their branches had a temple day, but it was fun that Elder Monson and I could be in there with them! They really sacrifice a lot for the  blessing of the temple, lots of them were there for the  first time. 

Yesterday the Gavino family went to church! (the catholic church)...... Noooooo. They said because it was Palm Sunday they would go to the Catholic church, but next week they will attend ours. This week is huge here. Yesterday was Palm Sunday and EVERYONE has palms. The Catholic church is really big here. But there are lots and lots and churches here even though our area is pretty small.

Even just walking down the street, you will see a Catholic church, Jesus is Lord, and Jehovah's Whitness, you take a right then you see a Born again Church, and international church of Christ. That's just within a couple minutes walk. If you keep going you could see a Baptist church too. We actually run into missionaries of other churches all the time, we are always super friendly but they are never very excited to see us. We have several people who we bump into sometimes who try and contend with me and Elder Monson.

Both hands on the wheel, fully concentrating on my shuttling duties

This week we had lots of members working with us. They are great! There are 4 men in the ward that are always texting us to work with us. One of them is a convert of 2 years, and is now in the Bishopric, he is so awesome!! He is even visiting our investigators without us just to say hi. Then there is Bro. Cabarloc, who is only 1 year in the church and overcame smoking and drinking and loves to come with us. He is super nice to have with us, he relates to everyone and is just so strong in the church. The ward here is just full of these men who are always asking us to come and work with us, their faith is incredible and contagious. 

See how fun working in the office can be?

My favorite part of working in the office is just that I guess it feels good that I am helping out the mission, without the office Elders, the mission could not run, at all.  We are just the people behind everything, but nobody knows. . . But that's the way I like it.  Oh man, we love those Conference talks you loaded on my ipod. . . So cool!  We listen to the songs and the talks everyday!  Romy agreed to baptism and is growing in faith every visit.  The members are really working hard to fellowhsip him.  We ran into this lady who came up to us this week and said "Hey, Mormons, how's it going?"  She said "I used to be Mormon."  She was speaking to us in English as well.  She had just moved back from Vegas.  I guess she was a member a long time ago.  We got an appointment to go and teach her so we will bring her back to the church for sure.  It was really unexpected to see her, but that kind of stuff happens sometimes.  We will just run into somebody who was baptized in their province, then moved to the city, and just got "lost" from the church.

My toes and Elder Monson, here's our view on the roof of our apartment

It's been a busy week but we have lots of people we are trying to follow up with. It's been a hot season, but I'd rather be hot than cold. It is really hot, but it's great. The heat feels different here. You feel like you're inside the heat haha. I get out of the shower and I get dressed and then there are already beads of sweat down my face.  So the food I have been eating lately is fish and vegetables, weird cereal and powdered milk. 

I'm just so grateful for the gospel, I've seen it's real affects on people. I know that the Lord lives again. He is our now our advocate with the Father, and He is inviting all to come to Him.

Elder Roberts

Laundry chit chat creates strong bonds

So this week has been good. We have been talking to lots and lots of people. Our area is quite small but it is just full of people. We have been teaching the Gavino family, they are super cool. They have 3 young boys. The youngest 2 love to play trumpo, it's a top type game they play here, you wind the string around the top and then yank the string. Then you can do cool tricks with it -like balance the top on the string or flick it so it spins on your hand. Anyways their family is really nice. The mom has been having doubts and isn't really open to us. But last time we went there,  Elder Monson and I could see she was washing clothes and we joked that we came to help her. We told her how we hand wash our clothes as well and she laughed and we just got her to open up a little to us. Then in the lesson when we invited her to be baptized again, she said of course! Which was a shock to us, we have been teaching them forever! So we look forward to seeing them at church this Sunday. 

Fried yams on a stick, Yum

Throwback to when we went bowling with the sisters and Elder Adawag

 Another man we are teaching is Romi, he a retired police and is now a body guard for political people. He doesn't drink or smoke which is extremely rare here. He really wants to know where truth can be found. He is 60. He's nervous about the direction the world is heading and just wants to know what's right. I feel that he will soon become a member of our church.

The one the only, Elder Monson

    It's the hot season here right now. And yes it is. I can't even describe the heat in human words.  Banjo who I have mentioned before hasn't been home much but his wife loves to give us food when we stop by to see if he is home. The Filipinos are really friendly and nice. Their culture is so cool. Especially when it comes to food. The Gavino family actually made us a huge meal to eat before our last appointment there. They had home made Shanghai and Sinogang and LOTS of rice. The ward always thinks it's funny to try and make the missionaries fat too. I'm really happy here and I'm doing great!! Things feel settled now. It's weird, on missions, you just get thrown into new situations all the time, new transfers, new areas, new callings, new food, just everything is new and then you get used to it and it changes again haha. But I feel like I've grown so much. 

The scheduled cleaning of the Angel Moroni

Love Elder Roberts