Hola! 

Not a ton happened this week. It is a lot different here that in Concepcion. The people are a lot nicer and we get into more houses. It is crazy how small it is here and how everyone knows each other. We found a lot of people last week so I'm feeling good about this week, but we only have one progressing investigator right now. His name is Juan and he`s a cave man. He lives by himself and he's the nicest and happiest guy ever but he can't remember a thing. We spent two lessons on teaching him how to pray. He finally got it at the end of the second lesson and I've never seen anyone so happy. We do a lot of tracting here. Its hard to get referrals because there are not very many members here and they are no help at all. Everyone is super lazy here and they never keep commitments. We even have two return missionaries here that are both inactive so we are gonna be doing a lot of reactivating this week. We take a ton of buses. We have to take an hour and a half bus ride just to get to our district meeting. We have church in a town called Collemue every other week and that's about 40 minutes away. It also takes a lot of money too because we have to pay for our investigators. It is a fun adventure though and I love it here. Its starting to warm up so that's super nice. It is still freezing at night. I sleep with 4 blankets. I haven't had any fleas here so that's been super nice.

Tell max and Ryan HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I'm still working on that package that I said I would send in the MTC. But seriously- I'm going to soon. I'm so sad about Grandma Bliss! I've been dreading that email for the last 4 weeks. Tell her to just hold on for just a little under two years. I'm seriously dying. Tell her I love her and I wish I could be there more than anything. I'm praying for her every day. I think about her all the time and I wish I could just call her and talk to her one more time on the phone. Tell her I love her! love all you guys!

Crazy week this week!!! So this week was a huge holiday called Dieziocho. It is like as big as Christmas here. It was really hard to make appointments this week because its an all week party so we did a lot of knocking doors and ate a ton of empenandas. On Wednesday I went on a mini cambio with Elder Hamton. We are both new and don't know spanish very well so I was a little nervous. It was diezioche so we didn´t get into very many houses but we were able to give a few lessons and it went awesome. 

I finished my first Cambio and that morning I was told that I am leaving to Quirihue!!! I was super surprised because thats a really short time to be in an area. I was a little disapointed beause me and Elder Jorge were having the greatest time. He was an awesome companion, so that was a sad day. So I traveled about an hour and a half to Quirihue. Quirihue is literally in the middle of nowhere! Its completly different than Concepcion. There are chickens and cows everywhere and of course a million dogs. Its super quiet, I dont think anything ever goes on here but it is awesome for missionary work because missionaries have only been here for a couple months now. Most of these people haven't seen missionaries. We have church at our house. We had about 20 members there on sunday. The missionaries here do everything. We teach seminary, gospel principles, priestood, and speak almost every Sunday. Its crazy, I definitely need to get better at spanish. My companion is Elder Ronco. He's 22 and he´s from the United States but he's Mexican and already knew spanish. He's an awesome missionary and is really good at teaching me spanish. There are four missionaries living in the house. Elder Gonzales only speaks spanish and his companion Elder Dabell just came from the Mexico MTC and knows no spanish. 

My laundry gets done in one day now so I don't know if I need all those garments but if you already sent them its fine. Have you guys seen Parker yet!? Why is it taking so long? Have a great week!

It's getting warmer!

This week started out with a ton of rain! I put on all my new rain gear and then I found out that the big Mr. Mac coat is like a sponge! And my other windbreaker jacket got destroyed and I was drenched! It is a good thing that was probably the last of the rain this year but I definitely need some new stuff for next winter. It`s getting a lot warmer now and I'm super excited for the nice weather. We had a zone conference on Thursday and it was awesome! I do see Hermana Heslop sometimes. She's super nice and just got here a little before me. She is great!  In the meeting we talked a lot about the power of the Book of Mormon. So this week we started using the Book of Mormon  a lot more and it was amazing how powerful the Book of Mormon is! We found so many people because of it. I was able to give 3 blessings this week. I almost wet my pants every time because it is so hard to do in spanish. But they all went great. I think my spanish has improved a lot this week. For the first time I understood almost all of the talks in church on Sunday. It was great but if were talking about anything else but the gospel,  I am still pretty lost. Thank you for sending me a package!!! I might need some stuff though. We give our laundry to a member in our ward and she takes a whole week to do it. I have to wear all of my stuff 2 or 3 times every week so maybe some more garments and socks would be nice. The first week I didn't know how long it took for her to do my laundry so I gave her all of my clothes and I was stuck with the same clothes for 4 days. I smelled horrible! Sorry I haven`t sent you pictures of my apartment, I'll make sure to do that next week. It's not bad at all. I think it is one of the nicer apartments in the mission. There's one big room where we all sleep and then two study rooms. It is pretty cold all of the time. We have a tiny electric heater that works pretty well I guess. We don't have a working stove which is kind of a bummer so I just make oatmeal and cereal for breakfast and ramen for once. They don't have dinner here they just call it once, and its just a little meal. My hamstring is doing awesome. I've been doing the band stretches pretty consistently. It still hurts a little when I sit down for a long time but it is doing great. This morning we played soccer with our stake. I've never felt so uncoordinated in my life. They're all amazing and I got destroyed. It wasn't fun at all. They're also super good at ping pong. Well thats about it this week. I saw in Parker's letter something about the BYU game! Let me know what happened! Love you guys! Tell Grandma Bliss that I am praying for her. She looks great! Tell her I love her and miss her like crazy!!!

It's been a month in Chile!

Familia!!! I can't believe it's already been a month! Time is flying by. My companion is hilarious. It's funny how my companions just get weirder and weirder after a few weeks. We worked really hard this week and I'm so tired! I fall asleep if I sit down for more than 3 minutes but I feel great when I'm moving around. This week went really good. We've been teaching a family of 4 since I've been here. Their mom is a recent convert and the father and two daughters aren't members. The Dad, Omar thinks he's being rushed into things so we've been focusing on his daughter who is 21. She's been to church three times and were hoping she wants to get baptized this month. This week at church was a little disappointing. On Saturday night we had five people committed to go to church and nobody came! Everyone is super lazy here. My spanish is still horrible and sometimes I feel like its even getting worse. But it is getting better. Yesterday I met a family that speaks english for the first time. It was awesome to actually be able to talk to someone. Thanks for the tips on the fleas! I kind of just gave up on trying to get rid of them. Everyone says you just get used to it but im definitely going to try that oil trick so I'll let you know how it goes. Sorry you only got one of my pictures, I sent you like 5 so I don't know what happened. I feel horrible about Grandma Bliss! Tell her I love her and miss her like crazy. Love you guys!

I have fleas!

8-25-13

Hola!!! I made it through my second week! I seriously love it here. My zone is awesome. There are 2 other kids from Alta in my zone. One of them is Ryan Jensen, who I ran track with, so that is pretty cool. And I just talked to Danny Ainge's son who's also in my district. I've learned a ton from my companion and I'm starting to be able to understand a little bit of whats going on. We had a two day missionary training this week. It was awesome! I got to see my MTC district again. It was super weird seeing all of them again. I heard you talked to Elder Watson's mom. He's doing awesome. We did a lot of teaching this week. It is so hard teaching in spanish and I get lost a lot during the lessons because they talk so fast. I'm learning a ton though and I can understand a lot more. The dogs here are crazy. I was scared for my life a couple times this week. A few days ago we were walking home at night and 5 dogs started running at us. I´ve never seen dogs so angry before. Me and my companion just started throwing rocks like crazy and that scared them away. I went two weeks without getting flees and I woke up this morning and I think I got bit like 30 times. Its horrible! They're definitely worse than mosquitoes. The food here is actually pretty normal and it's super good for the most part. Yesterday for lunch a member gave us plain slices of tomatoes covered in mayo. My two least favorite things in the world. I almost threw up but I managed to scarf it down. I don't know if you've sent me any mail but I guess it takes a super long time to get here. The post office is on strike right now so we have no idea when we can get our mail. Still send me stuff though because I`ll get it eventually! I'm super jealous of your park city vacation. That sounds like heaven. Let me know how your scavenger hunt for Parker goes! Thats hilarious. I love you guys!!!!

Elder Roberts

9-1-13

Beach Day today!!! I just got back from playing football on the beach! I didn't think I would be able to go to the beach so I was super exited. It was awesome and I have some cool pictures! I realized I didn't give you guys very much information on where I am and what it is like here so I'll try and answer all of your questions. The weather here is usually really nice during the day and super cold at night. I used my down sleeping bag for a little bit but it was too hot so I'm just using the comforter and I sleep great. I'm literally being eaten alive by fleas! I've only seen one flee but somehow I have a million bites. 

they're like mosquitos but 100 times worse and the don't go away. I spray my bed like crazy every night with bug spray but it doesn't seem to do any thing so if anyone has some tips that would be great! Other than the fleas, it's awesome here! I seriously love every second of it. Its getting super frustrating not being able to understand very much but I can definitely notice the improvement every week. Right now I am in Concepcion, Leguna Redonda and thats all I know. I can get the address for you if you want. This week we have two people committed to baptism! Daniela- who's mom is a member but nobody else in her family. We've been working a lot with their family. Their dad Omar is a little stubborn but I think he`ll get baptized eventually. We found another girl this week named Korina. She accepted baptism the first visit and was super exited to come to church! It was awesome! My companion says that almost never happens. Max and Ryan sound like they're doing awesome! Tell jaxson not to worry about the plays too much and just do his best. When I was his age I had no idea what was going on all the time and I don't think I figured out how the plays worked until after gremlins. The mail isn't on strike anymore so all the mail will be coming soon if you sent any! Love you guys!!!

Elder Roberts