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

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 

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 

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 

Best church attendance excuse "It's too muddy"

It's been a rainy week and it's been lots of work. We were able to teach the nurses 2 more times this week and they have continued to read the Book of Mormon. They have told us though their concern is the ripple that would come from them joining the church, their family is all very catholic. We will bring some cool members to work with us this week that can help them with that. 

Mud and more Mud

Just an example of some of the people we run into here. We were trying to talk to this older lady who was just standing outside her house, and we asked if we could come in and teach, she waiting for a few awkward moments and then said, "it's too muddy".  Haha we don't know if she couldn't come up with anything better but we took the hint and just said bye. 

We are teaching some cool people but we are still really working hard to find new people, a lot of the people we are teaching right now are having a hard time coming to church, mostly just because they don't want to. Too many excuses. So we are always working hard to find. 

Elder Cooper wondering how to pass the mud

My awesome comp.

We also have this new investigator who drew this painting of El Nido, a town here in Palawan. 

In one of our areas this week these kids thought it would be fun to follow us around, the kids pretty soon picked up on what we were doing and tried to do it for us with their own twist on it. They would go up to a door before we got there and say "Tao po" (People), it's like the equivalent of knocking at a door, then all 3 kids would say, "Mormons" haha. It was so funny, then we would walk up and take over from there. But the kids here are actually really helpful in finding people the Elders used to teach, or they will warn us if there are crazy dogs at a house or just things like that haha. The kids are like 5ish and 6. But they love being our "helpers" 

This week we had a birthday dinner with President Mosquera, the district president, walked through ankle deep mud for days. and loved it all.  Thanks for all your love and support!

Elder Roberts 

Everything is SO GREEN

It's a good thing our eyes do the best with the color green. Things are very green here! Everyone in your emails have shown concern for the recent tyhpoons.  We are especially lucky here in Palawan, the typhoons come in from the other side and not this way so that really helps for sure.

We went up to Roxas this week for exchanges and a district coordination.  That's where we meet with the district president, like the stake president, and we report the status of each of the branches. And we had a zone meeting so things are very busy.  In Roxas, it is so muddy up there, but that makes it fun, it's lots of tracking up there and lots of good hard work. Here's a pic of us trying to take a shortcut. . . I don't think so.

We haven't had a ton of time to work in our area this week with how busy everything has been. In addition, to all the usual things, we have a Sister who just got Dengie Fever, the only Sister who is always with her can of bug spray. Oh Dear!   But we have a good hospital here so she will be fine after a few weeks. 

We were coming from a lesson with a less active and starting walking a way we usually don't walk. We decided to track at these nicer homes. We were able to get in and teach a younger couple, they are both nurses and really enjoyed our message. They are married as well!! That's something we often struggle with peoples marriage papers or something like that, birth certificates and stuff. But they invited us back, and we have a return appointment for dinner and to learn more about our message! We are very excited for them and hope they have read from the Book of Mormon. 

We went back to a man named Raymond this week, he lives very humbly and is shy about his bamboo home and was a little hesitant to let us in. But he let us now and we have taught his family 3 times. They are baptist but are really starting to understand and like the idea and importance of the Priesthood Authority and he has been reading in the Book of Mormon by himself, and to his son. It was a great feeling and he has such a good spirit to him! 

Cute little guy

We also were walking to a part member family when we saw these little kids carrying these huge bags of bananas, the boy was maybe 8 and the girl 11 or 12. We told them we would carry the bags but I really was surprised at how heavy they actually were! So we carried them down this mud hill and to their house where they would help their mom boil them and then sell them the next day. When we got their house to talk to the mom, we found out the moms parents are members in the mountains down south of where we live, way south, but they don't go to the branch down there because it's too far. But it was a good connection to talk to that mom and we will stop by there more often. 

The Book of Mormon is drawing people closer to Christ everyday, including me. I love the Book of Mormon, I love reading it, I love sharing it. I know it's true

Elder Roberts 

Holy Typhoon

We had a good typhoon come through this week. But luckily we could still travel back to Puerto. It just rained . . .  a lot.

I love seeing all the faithful saints across Palawan... The branch up there is doing really well now. It was just recently a group but is making great progress. People up there have had their religion for generations so it's hard for our church to really take root. We are getting there, slowly but surely. We met an old grandma while

we were there who just told us I know your church is true but I plan on going into the next life Catholic... It's a very religious place up there and it's also got lots of rice farmers.

I also got to work in the mainland this week. In Baclaran. That place is the like the city in Hercules, I think it was called the city of thieves? That's what it reminded me of. We were swimming through people going through the market, everyone is yelling and trying to sell you things. We had a great lesson later that night to a boarder from the province. Heavenly Father is always preparing people, it's rarely ever an accident to run into somebody. It was a very powerful lesson, I don't think he was expecting it to be so powerful but the message really hit him hard and he is very thankful for the Book for Mormon. 

The work in our area is going all right... We have lots of part members in our area and lots of less actives. We are working really hard to get people motivated to become active so that they can be sealed to their families. 

This was from our exchanges from up in Tatay... This is a newly formed branch ... It's really... Jungle there haha. It was an incredible time up there. We almost didn't come back yesterday due to the typhoon but we still made the 5 hour journey back over the mountains, but President was watching the weather for us and said we could go for it. It rained really hard but we made it back safely. The picture of the house looking thing is their chapel. The work is on fire up there! 

They just rented out an internet cafe yesterday to do family history and families are being found for baptism.


I love you all, Elder Roberts