Hola everyone,

We had a tough week this week. Were not finding very much but were still working with the family opazo. The wife Blanca is doing great but Mauricio not so much. We taught the word of wisdom on saturday night and he commited to live it but he ended up drinking that night so were not going to leave him and just focus on his wife that really does want to change and get baptized. Blanca went stopped drinking tee and coffee, went to church and is doing awesome. She would be getting baptized next week but i think she's going out of town for christmas so we'll see what happens but she definatly needs your prayers. 

Carlos who just got baptized recieved the preistood this week! He's doing awesome and the branch is envolving them in everything. Carlos even left with us to work yesterday afternoon and said he wants to start preparing for the mission. He was pretty nervous but he has a strong testimony and did awesome. Its probably the coolest thing ever to see people progress liike this in the gospel. The gospel has changed their lives like night and day.

Sounds like we missed out on the family party. Also skiing sounds like heaven! send me some pics on the slopes! Love you guys!

Hello family,

Sounds like your enjoying the nice ski weather. I dream of that every day here, it is ridiculously hot. From about 4 to 6pm every day, we just toast in the sun. The nights are really nice though, so after the sun goes down it is nice and cool. It still feels weird being Christmastime and it is hot outside, it just doesn't feel the same. But we put up a tree and we are bringing the Christmas spirit. I also received the package! Am I allowed to open it or do I have to wait till Christmas?

We had an amazing week! Estrella, Carlos, Maxi, and Matias all got baptized! Thank you for your prayers- it was seriously a miracle that they progressed so fast and were ready to be baptized. They had an awesome experience and loved every second of it. They already have friends in the ward and are talking about going on a mission. Well I love you guys. Have an awesome week!

Hello everyone and Happy thanksgiving!

I hope you enjoyed your giant meal and judiths. Looks like everybody was there and im definatly jealous of the family football game. Also i hope you enjoyed the little package and hopfully you learned how to use the little tops. I tried for a long time and i couldn't learn until a chilean taught me how its done so good luck. 

We had a great week this week in the work of the Lord. Both of the families that were working with went to church this week! We are super exited for them because they are all progressing very good. Estrella, Carlos, Matias, and mazamiliano have all been to church 3 times and are ready to be baptized on saturday. They are the coolest familly and so ready. They already have friends in the branch,  they come and play soccer with us every week, and this week at church they came ready in a white shirt and a tie. Also Matias like i told you a few weeks ago was living with his girlfriend but two days after we taught the law of chastity she was gone and out of the house. It was such an answer to our prayers and we've seen so many blessings and changes in this family. We also found out that Maximiliano thats 11 years old has read half of the book of mormon already. He's been reading every day so gave him a challenge to read the whole thing before his baptism and im going to give him one of my favorite ties.

Mauricio, daniela, and sebastian came to church. Blanca had her baby on wednesday so she couldn't make it. They actually invited us to the hospital the very next day and we went and saw the baby. It was a little weird but we have gained a lot of confidence with them and their doing awesome. Pray for all of them and i will send you pictures next week. Love you guys!!!

Hola! Sorry, I literally have no time but we had a great week this week. Carlos, Maximiliano, Matias, and Estrella went to church again and are doing awesome. They understand everything so good and I love teaching them. We are also starting to work with their parents who are also really interested, but work a lot, so they'll take a little more time to work with. Also Mauricio, Blanca, Daniella, and Sebastian are doing good. We're really sad because family came to stay with them Saturday night and they didn't go to church, but they really do want to be baptized and are going to church for sure the next week. Mauricio went from drinking every single day to drinking just a little bit on one single occasion the entire week, so thank you for your prayers! They still need a lot of prayers because things are really hard for them right now and they will be having a baby this week.

I went fishing again today and it was the third unsuccessful fishing trip in the mission! I'll send you some pictures next week!

Love you guys!

Hello Everyone,

Another amazing week here in Parral full of blessings! We are seriously having the best time here and I found out today that I will be staying here with Elder Alder another 6 weeks so I'm pretty happy about that. This week there is some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that Mauricio and Blanca and their family didn't make it to church. They had a baby shower the night before and Mauricio started drinking again. This family needs a lot of Prayers! They are such great and normal people but Mauricio just can't stop drinking. They were separated for about 6 months and just got back together because Blanca is having a baby and all they want is unity in the family and for Mauricio to stop drinking or they're probably going to get separated again. We visited them last night and we had an amazing lesson and they have so much desire to follow the gospel and get baptized. We gave him a blessing and I have a lot of faith that they will be baptized this month.

Me and my companion saw a miracle this week. We did a tour of the church and a member brought two of his friends. We invited them to be baptized and they accepted right away and also invited us to teach the rest of their family. We went and taught the family and the kids are all really cool and want to be baptized so bad. The kids names are Carlos, Matias, Maxamiliano, the mom Joseline and the grandma Estrella. Everyone went to church except for the mom but she cant get baptized yet anyways because she's living with her boyfriend. The four are planning on being baptized on the 6th of December. It was really cool to find them because we've been praying to find a family of 7 for the last few weeks. We found them and counted 6 but then the second visit we realized the mom was pregnant and it will be a family of 7 in a few weeks! I'm really exited to work with them and if you can please keep them in your prayers. 

This week they cut the Internet time for us to an hour instead of and hour and a half so I'm sorry if my letters get even shorter.

Les queiro!!!

11/3

Hello family!

We're still having a great time here in Parral! This week got really cold, you never know how the weather is going to be here. I realized I was a getting a little lazy in the mornings so I've started doing track stretches again every morning and I feel amazing. I'm definitely out of shape and not flexible at all so I'm going to try and keep that going. We do get a lot of exercise on our bikes though so that's been good. My bike is getting really beat up. The other day I was on a little dirt trail and I saw a little jump and I just got so excited to hit it as fast as I could. I got some pretty good air but landed on a very flat landing and completely bent the bike. I don't think it will last very much longer. Halloween this week was a little disappointing. I thought I would get more candy but we ended up being in houses all day and I forgot it was even Halloween.

We are still struggling to find investigators. We are really trying to work through the members to get references and with some patience were starting to get some references. We are working a lot with a recent convert named Gabriel, who is like a machine of references. Every time we go to his house he has a different friend that he's hanging out with and he immediately invites us in and starts sharing the gospel with them. If every member was like that, the church would grow ten times faster! I hope you guys are doing your best to share the gospel with you non member friends! Love you guys!

11/10

Hello family and friends,

First off I want to give a happy birthday to the greatest Mom in the world!!! I love you mom and I hope you have an awesome day and that they treat you well! Also Happy birthday to my Broski Dillon!! That blows my mind how big the kid is!

We had an amazing week this week here in Parral! This whole week was seriously full of blessings. First off like I told you last week were working with a recent convert named Gabriel that is like a machine of references and we are now working with 4 of his friends that are really interested.  We are working with a guy named Christian that we just started talking to one day in Gabriel's house and he was not doing good at all. He said he wanted to change his life, so we shared a little bit about baptism and gave him a Book of Mormon and set up an appointment for another day. The next visit we had he looked like a completely different person with a hair cut, shaved, and with his Book of Mormon open on the table. He said he had received and answer and he wants to get baptized. It was amazing to see how he changed so fast. But the only problem is that he lives with his girlfriend and he's not married so we'll have to see how that goes this week.

We received an awesome reference from a less active that we are working with. She invited a family of 4 to church this Sunday and they all came except for the husband. They loved church and we went and visited them that afternoon and they all accepted to be baptized within five minutes. They are definitely the most chosen investigators that I have found in my mission and I'm super exited to work with them. It would be great if you could pray for them. Their names are Blanca (the mom), Sebastian that's about 12 years old, and I forgot the name of the dad and the daughter but I'll get that to you next week. Les amo y que tengan una buena semana!

We worked hard this week in the baking hot sun. The temperature changed from cold and wearing jackets to a thousand degrees in about one day and this week was so hot. We've been hearing that this summer is going to be one of the hottest in the history so I'm not too excited about that. 

Its been tough lately to find new investigators but this week we found a guy named Carlos that just got out of jail about a month ago. He actually found us on the street and brought us to his house and told us he wanted to get baptized. He's really funny because he can't read and doesn't understand very much but when we ask him questions he just says baptism is a cool thing to do. He doesn't have a job and lives in a house barely big enough to fit one person and basically has nothing. I'm excited to see how he progresses this week.

We had our mission conference this week. They talked a lot about fasting and praying. They talked about the importance of fasting and how some of us are capable of fasting more than once a month and even once a week. That really made me think of the importance of the fast and its something I want to do more often even though I'm still the skinniest man alive and I feel like I get even skinnier every time. That's about it this week. Keep choosing the right!

Feliz Cumpleanos Tyler

First off I want to give Tyler a Feliz cumpleaños! That's crazy he's 23 - that is pretty dang old.

This week went by really fast but we are having good time. Elder Alder is speaking a lot better and he's improving everyday. He's a really nice and quiet kid and we get along really good. This week was really hard to find new investigators. We dropped a lot last week that weren't progressing so some prayers to help us find new people would be great. The mission is putting a really big focus on the less actives and recent converts so we worked a ton with them and we had a lot of people in church this week.

I finally found out what was wrong with my mouth. I have had this sore for about two months that has just killed me to death. The first time I went to the dentist he said he couldn't see anything and that it was my tooth brush rubbing on my mouth. I knew it wasn't that and then I woke up on Wednesday morning and the sore had broken out and was completely visible on the top of my mouth. I went again to the dentist and he found out what it was. I have no idea what its called but he gave me some medicine and its finally starting to get a lot better.

My package got here! Thanks for everything and I can finally send pictures because I now have a camera. Love you guys!

Hello family,

This week was very busy and I got very little sleep. On Tuesday I went down to pick up my new companion! His name is Elder Alder and he is from Salt lake City. He speaks almost no Spanish but he is learning really fast and he's a really nice kid. He's a little bit shy especially because I decided that I'm not going to speak any English to him but he's talking more and more every day and I think he's learning really fast. On Thursday, we had a leader conference in Concepcion so we had to take the 3 hour bus trip again and stayed the night in the assistants' house. The conference was really good and there is going to be some changes in the mission. We are changing a lot of key indicators to work with the recent converts and less actives more. I also saw a ton of my buddies from the mission there and I found out that Filipe and Barbara, our investigators from Chillan should be getting baptized on the 25th so I was really excited to hear that. 

After Conce we went straight to a little town called Retiro to do a baptism interview for some missionaries in my district. We went to do it that night because they were getting baptized the next day, but when we got there they told us they weren't going to make it home in time from work and that we would have to do it in the morning. We ended up doing the interview at 7 30 in the morning and then we took a 15 passenger van and drove about 30 minutes to a river in the middle of nowhere and they got baptized. It was really funny because it was freezing cold and there was also a group of fisherman fishing right next to the baptism. That's about it this week! Love you guys,

I have a lot of pictures to send when I get my new camera battery

Hello everyone! We had some changes again. Every six weeks seriously flies by like nothing. Elder Kemner will be leaving and I will be getting a new companion. This morning I learned that God really wants me to learn the principle of patience when I found out I will be training another gringito! To be honest, I wasn't too excited at first because it really does take a lot of patience and you are on your own for the first few weeks but I do love training and the new kids always have so much animo to work so I'm pretty excited. I will be traveling to Concepcion tomorrow to pick him up and I'll let you know next week who it is.

We don't have very many investigators right now but we are working with a man named Fernando. He's the father of a less active and has cancer. They sent him home from the hospital telling him he had a few months to live and now it has been almost a year and he said the only thing that will stop him from getting baptized is if he dies. He says he's not feeling too good right now so were praying for him that he can live to be baptized. We are also hoping that he really has the desire to go to church because he wasn't able to go this week.

Conference was amazing! I felt like this year they were just so powerful especially President Monson and you could really tell that they are Prophets and Apostles of God. I really liked the talk by Richard G. Scott and the four things that we need to be doing. Prayer, scripture study, Family home evening, and going to the temple. I really liked what he said about family home evening and how nothing is more important on Monday night. Its not just something short but the whole evening and not even school work is more important.

That killed me to hear about the end of the explorer. I felt a special bond with that car -almost like it was my brother. Hopefully I can see him again. Love everyone!

Hello familia! Sounds like you guys have had a great football season and I love hearing about it! Sorry about the cold weather that is coming your way and for the hot weather that is coming very quickly to Chile. It gets warmer every day and I'm loving it. I received some good news from Elder Stallings in Chillan that Tina got baptized! She actually got baptized the week I left and she's doing great and going to church every week so that was awesome to hear. Some bad news, our investigator Moises said he doesn't want to be baptized and we had to leave him. It was a bummer but we worked hard this week and found a ton of new investigators. 

I bought a basketball this week. I got really bored of the push ups and sit ups in the morning so I decided to go play basketball in the mornings at a court that's really close to our house. Me and Elder Mitton challenged a few Chilenos to a game the other day. I don't know if you remember Elder mitton, we came on the mission together and he also lives really close to our house in Pine View. Anyways we played some Chilenos and after a year without playing we were pretty rusty but we still kicked some butt. I also played a kid in one on one and committed him to church if I won and I won but sadly he didn't end up coming to church. It didn't work that time but I think we are going to keep using  that for a finding activity. 

Max and Ryan HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I remember your birthday last year like it was yesterday that went by way to fast. Love you guys!

Hola Familia, Another good week here in Parral. This week was a little tough because it was the biggest holiday in Chile 18 de Septiembre. Everybody was out of town or they just had all of their family over and we didn't get into very many houses this week. We had a big branch activity on Thursday and had another big barbecue again. It was actually really good and I didn't eat too much and get sick this time. 

We are still working with our investigator Moises but its been really hard to get ahold of him because his mom is sick and in the Hospital and he has to be there for hours every day. They same thing happened with Philipe and Barbara in Chillan. Right when we found them, their mom got sick and then they were so hard to find. Moises did go to church though and were hoping he can get baptized on the 4th of October.

The weather is getting really nice here and we are starting to pull out the short sleeve shirts. I'm loving it and I wont be seeing the winter for a whole year from now! Sorry I'm out of time. Love you all!

Hello family and friends,

We had a good and interesting week this week. We have some great investigators that were working with right now. Were still working with Angel the nine year old and he's doing great and excited to be baptized. We still need to do a little more work on reactivating his parents but other than that I don't see any problems with him. We also found a guy this week named Moises who is passing through a rough time right now. After being with his wife for 25 years he just got separated and lives alone. We got there a few days after and he just needed a friend and someone to talk to and he is ready for the gospel. They both went to church and had a great experience. I love the branch here, I have a lot of confidence that they are going to have a good experience at church and the members are going to do their job and be friends with them.

We saw a cool experience with some Recent Converts this week about the law of tithing that I wanted to share with you guys. A family of four got baptized the week before I got here. They have almost nothing and both of the parents are without work. They have a lot of faith and paid tithing for the fist time after putting it off the first couple weeks because they didn't feel like they could do it. The week after they paid tithing, one night they didn't have food for their kids and it was because of tithing. The husband got mad and they even got in a fight but Joseline said she never doubted. A few hours later a man came to their house and asked to keep a tractor in their yard and payed them on the spot for the month. He also noticed that they were without work and he offered the husband work for 3 months. It was a great testimony builder of tithing especially seeing this family that litterly has nothing.

Last Monday we had an activity as a zone. We had a huge barbecue with more meat than I've ever seen in my life. A few hours later I did not feel good at all but we decided to go work anyways. About ten minutes later I puked my guts out in the street. Also two nights ago our bed broke and Elder Mitton fell right on top of me just like in the movie RM. Sorry I don't have much time but I'll send more details later. Love you guys!

We had a descent week this week. We ended up leaving all of our investigators from last week and we just started over. They weren't progressing and we wanted to find all new people this week and we were able to find ten new investigators. We are really trying to focus on less actives and incomplete families and we were able to find a nine year old kid named Angel who is a son of a less active. He really wants to be baptized but first were working on reactivating the dad. He does have grandparents and uncles that are really active so he has a lot of support.

The sisters in my district had a baptism this week. I did her interview on Tuesday and it went really good and she has a really sad story. Her son was perfectly healthy until he was 2 and then his mom gave him a shot to prevent a sickness but he ended up being allergic and was left without hearing and talking. Its been really hard on her but the gospel  has changed her life and she is happier than ever. She chose me to baptize her and it was a really cool experience.

There was a really funny thing that happened with a family in our branch. It is a family of 5 or 6 and they have a daughter that is 17 years old. The other day out of nowhere the daughter Connie had a baby and not one person knew about it. After 8 months she hadn't gained enough weight- that not one person in her family noticed and it was a complete surprise. I thought that was crazy because I didn't think that was possible. Mom, I also wanted to let you know that there is a new blog for our mission. http://chileconcepcionmission.blogspot.com/ so if you want to look at that. I bought a new bike this week for about 30 dollars. It is not very nice but it gets me around pretty good. That's about all this week.

Love you all!

Yummy!

Leaving Chillan

After a long and awesome 6 months in Chillan I have been changed. I was a little sad to be leaving because Tina was supposed to get baptized yesterday and we had some other awesome investigators progressing but the missionaries there are going to let me know.  I am now in a little city called Parral that is a little bit smaller than Chillan. My companion is Elder Kemner from Blanding Utah and  he has 5 months in the mission. He's a great missionary and we are getting a lot of work done especially because we have bikes! We can get so much more done on a bike and I'm loving it, except that my bike is the most beat up bike I've ever seen. I'm the newest one here so I got the shaft on the bikes and now I'm doubting if its even worth it. My legs just get destroyed every time I ride that thing so I'm thinking about chucking it and buying a new one if I can get a good deal. 

Here in Parral its just a branch but its bigger and way stronger than my old ward. We have about 120 people in church every week and its probably one of the stronger branches in the mission. On Sunday we had one investigator in church named Estenban. He's 12 years old and he loves coming to church with his uncle that is recent convert. His parents aren't members so we still have to ask President to see if he can get baptized with just his uncle being a strong member of the church. That would be great if you could pray for him and also for us to find more investigators because we don't have very many right now.

Thanks for the football videos. I love seeing how they are going so let me know all about it!

Elder Roberts

We had a good and also very disappointing week this week. We're really focusing on taking care of the investigators that we have right now especially Tina who had  a baptism date for last Saturday. We worked with her everyday to get her ready and to finish all the teachings she passed the interview on Friday and was so excited to get baptized. We had everything all ready to go and as we were on our way to walking to the church Tina called me and said she wasn't going to be baptized. My heart dropped and it just about killed me. We still don't really know what happened but she still wants to go to church and keep preparing so were hoping we can do it this week or the next. It was a tough day but we kept working hard and it actually ended up being really good. We were at a members house trying to get them excited to share the gospel and we gave them a pamphlet to give to a friend. We gave them one week to do it but 20 minutes later we got a call from the hermano saying that they had already given the pamphlet to someone and she was waiting at there house to be taught. We went right away and had an awesome lesson and she accepted to be baptized right away. Her name is Scarlet so that would be great if you could pray for her.

We are still working with Filipe and Barbara. Its been really hard to teach them because of his mom with cancer but they really do want to be baptized. He said his mom is getting a lot better and might be in the house this week so they will have a lot more time and were hoping they can be baptized within a few weeks. 

I really want to send a lot of pictures but my camera battery is dead and i cannot find a place with camera batteries here so i don't really know what to do.

That's about it this week. Keep sharing the gospel and have fun in school!

8-11 This week I have some great news and some not so great news. The good news is that our investigator Tina is doing amazing and is all ready to be baptized this Saturday! The bad news is we haven't been able to see our other investigators and they weren't able to go to church. Carla had some complications with her surgery and will be in the hospital for probably another week. We were able to teach her son Benjamin that is 14 years old and he is now planning on being baptized with his mom in a few weeks so were hoping this week that we can get ahold of Carla again to figure out when they can be baptized.

Barbara and Felipe are just the greatest investigators but this whole week they were in the hospital with Felipe's mom who is really really sick and we couldn't teach them. I called him Sunday morning to see if he could go to church and he told me he had just found out a few hours before that him mom has cancer. Its been really hard for them and its definitely the perfect time to here the gospel. I think his mom entered the hospital the very day we found them so we were definitely led there by the spirit.

We had the greatest zone activity today. We went on a long drive this morning into the middle of nowhere to one of the biggest waterfalls I've ever seen. It was seriously incredible, and Dad you would have loved it. We walked down and under it and got completely soaked and then froze like ice sickles on the 3 hour ride home but it was all worth it. I'll send you some pictures next week because I don't have time right now even though I wasn't able to take very many because my camera battery is a goner. Last week it just died and it doesn't work at all and its always been a bad battery and died really fast so i don't know if you have some kind of warranty or something on that?

Love you guys and have a great last week of summer!

8-4 The last couple days we have gotten destroyed by rain. My water suit isn't holding up very good and I've bought three umbrellas and they all break within a few days. Were getting pretty wet but other than that this week went really good. We've been seeing a lot of blessings and we have found great new investigators. We're still working with Hugo and he has a baptismal date for the 16th of august. He's still not really sure about it but he's progressing really good and had a great experience in church. He's really hard to teach because he talks like crazy and never stops until you cut him off in mid sentence. Its been a little difficult trying to help him fully understand everything so i think that's why he's progressing a little bit slower. Carla is doing awesome and can be baptized whenever she wants. The only thing that is stopping her is her family is very catholic and they are not going to be happy if she gets baptized but she knows the church is true and said she's already made the decision. She's going into surgery this week so her baptism will have to be in a couple weeks. 

We had a new investigator come to church. Its a family of three that we found knocking doors. We don't know doors very much but i really felt the impression to knock in this door. Barbara the mom was able to come this week and Philippe the husband was really sick and couldn't come. They are doing awesome and i really feel like they are a chosen family that would be amazing members of the church. They're very interested but we'll see how it goes this week with them.

Hope everything is going good down there. Have an awesome trip in California! Wish I could go but I'll be there for sure next year.

Dad, Happy Birthday! I can't believe your so old, your pushing the big 50. Hope you had an awesome day. This was a great week and we are seeing so many blessings. Church on Sunday we were expecting three investigators. They were all able to make it and two more investigators that we invited on the street showed up! We had five investigators and three with a baptismal date. One of them is Carla that now has three asistences in church and can be baptized any time. She said she doesn't feel ready for this saturday so probably the next week. When we visited her Saturday night before church, she had already bought some Ecco and said she's going to stop drinking coffee before we even taught the Word of Wisdom. We also have  Maria Luisa who is doing  really good also. We found her doing contacts and she accepted Baptism the first visit. Her life is really hard right now. She lives alone with three kids and one is special needs so if you could pray for her that would be great. It was her first time at church and she loved it. She also went to our ward activity and is already making friends in the ward. Our investigator Hugo absolutely loves going to church. His only problem is he doesn't feel ready for baptism yet and I think his wife is holding him back a little bit also.

 That's about it for our investigators this week. Thanks for all your prayers. Hope you guys are having an awesome summer and are enjoying hanging out on the lake all day in the hot sun. Love you guys!

We had cambios today and our whole house will be staying as it is.
That means I will be leaving in 6 weeks almost for sure but I feel
like these six weeks are going to be amazing. My new district leader
is Danny Ainge's son and our zone is definitely the funnest zone I've
been in by far. We had a great week this week. We are really starting to
find and we finally have some great progressing investigators. I told
you guys about Hugo last week who couldn't make it to church. We've
been working with him and he was able to make it to the last hour of
church. We also found out that he has family members in our ward! This
is going to help us so much and the only thing that stops him is time.
He works a lot but he does own his store so I think we can work with
that. I think I also told you about Carla that got sick last week and
couldn't go to church. We finally found her again on Saturday night
and committed her to church and she went for all three hours. We made a
deal on Saturday that if she goes to our church we have to go to the
Catholic church this week. I think we're allowed to do that but I'll
have to make sure. She had a great experience at church and she really
wants to be baptized. That would be great if you could all pray for
both of them.
Sounds like you guys had an awesome time at tennis camp. I'm so jealous
of the docked boat. It kills me watching those videos but I love them.
Make sure to send me Taylor's email so I can tell him about the MTC in
Mexico! Les amo muchisimo!!!

I'm sorry my letter was so short last week, I'll try to give you a few more details. This week I passed my year mark in the mission. That went by way to fast and I'm officially an old guy in the mission. We didn't do much to celebrate. I forgot about it most of the day and then we made some brownies. For 4th of July we didn't do much either, we just talked and sang songs in English about America to make Elder Tafur from Paru angry.
We had a great week this week and found some really good investigators. We have an investigator named Ugo that was a reference. One day for some reason he wanted to give money to our church but the Bishop wouldn't let him. That really surprised him that we don't just take money like that so he wanted to know more. We taught him twice last week and he just loves everything and how organized the church is. He's really hard to teach though because he just talks like crazy and will not stop until you cut him off in mid sentence. Its really weird how Chileans talk like that but they have no problem when you cut them off. He wasn't able to come to church this week but he came right when it ended so we got to give him a tour of the church. He really has potential and we also found another really great investigator Carla and also her son Benjamin. They have been taught before and have been to church and I honestly don't know why they didn't get baptized. I guess we'll see this week when we invite them so that would be great if you could keep them in your prayers.

We decided to go fishing again today. We went to a new river that we were told actually had fish so we were determined to catch one but sadly again we didn't see a living thing the whole time. It was really fun though and I have some awesome pictures but I wasn't able to send them on this computer so you'll have to wait till next week.

That's so awesome Grandma and Grandpa are going to Peru! I really thought they were going to come join me here in Chile but Peru is close enough. Tell Taylor good luck! That would be awesome if you could send me his email so I can send him a letter. Happy fourth of July! Love you!

Today, June 16, & June 9

June 23

This week went by really slow and I feel like we got a lot of work done. We've been working really hard to work with the members and we were able to find ten new investigators. We found a family of three that is really interested. There names are   Adolfo, Carolina, and Rodrigo. The first time we talked to the Adolfo (the dad) was in the street and he told us that nothing in the entire world can change him of his beliefs in the Catholic church. Surprisingly he let us into his house but thinking that it would go nowhere. We started teaching him and he was a little closed but within ten minutes he opened up and really listened to our message. The spirit was definitely there and the family is committed to church next week. 

This week we'll be starting up English class again. We stopped for a while because nobody came but we found some investigators that have to learn English for work. They said they have a lot of Friends to invite so I think we are going to have a big class this Friday. I realized that English class is a lot harder than I thought. Last night I was teaching English and I felt so dumb because I couldn't answer half of the questions but eventually I figured it out and I'm learning a lot about English grammar.

Sounds like you guys are having a great time at the lake and enjoying the nice weather. Winter just started yesterday and it gets colder every day but I'm enjoying every second of it. Love everyone!

Elder Roberts

June 16

Hola! This week went really good. My companion is improving a lot and he is starting to talk a little more in the lessons. He's a little shy and still getting used to the missionary life but he's picking up on things really good.

We had a really cool experience with an investigator this week. Her name is Elizabeth and she was a reference from a member in our ward. We invited her to pray to see if she needs to be baptized. We found her in the street a few days later and she told us she had had a dream and received an answer! In her dream there was a lady that invited her to come to a church. She went and entered and it was our church and she new she had received an answer. It was awesome to hear that but sadly she wasn't able to come to church this week. We'll be working with her this week and we also have a few more referrals from the same member to work with.

The big Chile soccer game was last Thursday. Its huge and that's all they talk about here. We had to be in the house from 6 till the rest of the night and were going to have to do that every time they play. I don't think its that dangerous here but I guess we need to be extra safe.

Happy fathers day Dad!!! I liked that fishing poll case you got from Tyler. Hope you had an awesome day! Love you!

Elder Roberts

June 9

Tuesday morning I went to Concepcion to pick up my new companion. I was hoping to get a Latino to keep speaking Spanish 24/7 but turns out I will be training another Gringo! I'm actually really excited. The first few weeks are just hilarious because they look ridiculous trying to speak Spanish and they just make no sense. It is funny because that was me not that long ago but we are having an awesome time together. His name is Elder Stallings and he's from Idaho.

We found some awesome new investigators this week. We have a sister in our ward Hermana Carolina that really has the vision for missionary work. She sells bread to everyone in her neighborhood so she basically knows everybody and the other day she took us around door to door visiting her friends. We found two new families to work with one of them named Elizabeth accepted a Baptismal date. Her date fell through when there was a huge rain storm and she couldn't come to church but we are going to keep working with her and get her to church this coming week. 

It is absolutely freezing here. We got dumped on by rain this whole week and it is ice cold. If it wasn't for my water suit it would be impossible to work. If you haven't sent my package yet some rubber shoe covers would be awesome. I hear they're really cheap. 

Dad I love that picture that's hilarious! Tell them i say hi! have fun taking out the boat. be sure to send me some pictures. Love you guys!  

Sam

This week was a little bit tough. We weren't able to work very much with our progressing investigators. We are still working with Betcey Roberts but we found out she's a little weird. She started telling us about how she believes in reincarnation and how she was a white horse before this life. She still has some doubts about baptism also, so the baptism date was pushed back a little bit. She does still want to come to church and everything so we'll keep working with her. 

Our ward is starting to improve a lot. Were really starting to work with the Bishop and we also finally got a ward mission leader! I haven't had a ward mission leader my whole mission so its been really great.

My dream came true this morning. There is a big river about 20 minutes away from our house so we decided to get some fishing stuff from some members and go fishing this morning. All the members told us before we left that the water is contaminated and if we want to catch poop to go there but we went anyways. They were definitely right! We fished for about an hour and didn't see any sign of life but it was still a good time.

I died when I saw you guys boating! That's crazy everyone is out of school. By the way I figured out that I can watch the videos so keep sending me videos! Love you guys!

Elder Requena got a nice dog bite on his leg

This week things are starting to get a lot better. We've been able to find a lot more people and we have one investigator with a baptismal date. Her name is Betcey Roberts! We found her working in her front yard so we asked if we could help. She wasn't interested at all at first and did not want to talk to us. I then asked her what her name was and she said Roberts! I showed her my name tag and she couldn't believe it. She was the happiest lady alive and said that all of her grand kids look exactly like me and she then went off talking for about 30 minutes. She accepted to go to church right there on the street and she went. She even has some friends in the ward and she had an awesome experience. We put a baptismal date for the 31st but she still has a few doubts about baptism so we are going to clear that up this week. 

This morning we went to the professional soccer stadium in chillan! We went to take a tour but they would only let us walk around on the outside and in the bleacher area. As we were walking out the janitor stopped us and told us that we need to bring home some better memories so he gave us a tour and history lesson of the whole stadium inside and out.

Sorry the computer didn't work very good yesterday but it was awesome talking to everyone. Happy Mothers day again mom!! Love you and hope you had an awesome day yesterday. I tried to send some videos, let me know if they work!

Love everyone!

May 5

We got destroyed by rain again this week. I definitely was not prepared and got soaked for about two days. Today I went and bought an awesome water proof suit and some giant rubber rain boots so I think I'm ready for the next storm. Other than that this week went really good and we are starting find more people. Right now the mission is really focusing on contacting people in the street so we've been contacting like crazy. We are really starting to see the blessings from it. A few days ago we found a  family that we had contacted in their front yard a few weeks ago. We taught baptism and they accepted within ten minutes! When we got there they told us about how the other day they were talking about how they need to join a church and be baptized. We arrived just in time and we had an amazing lesson. Everything was perfect until they told us they might be moving to Panama in about two week! It was horrible news but were going to keep working with them anyways and see what happens. 

I'm really exited to skype on Sunday! I think the only time my companion can do it is at 8. I don't know what time Parker has planned but let me know so we can maybe try and change something. I also don't really know what the time difference is there so I'll let you guys figure that out. Love you guys!!!

April 14

This week was a little bit boring. Its starting to get so cold! We're like penguinos in the morning. We have little electric heaters to heat up our rooms but ours doesn't work very good at all. I heard it gets a lot colder and a lot wetter so I'm excited for that. I actually really like working in the cold. The food is also a lot better. We eat a ton of soup and a ton of sopipias or scones. The only bad thing is that they put catchup and mustard on the scones instead of honey butter. Its pretty gross but I'm getting used to it. I think I'm gaining some weight back. I weighed myself and I've gained 8 lbs back so I'm not the skinniest man alive any more.

This week we really focused on preparing Oscar for his baptism! I've never seen anyone so excited for their baptism. He was baptized on Saturday night by one of his good friends in the Ward. I've never seen so many people at a baptism before. We had about 50 people there and a lot of non members. I've never felt the spirit so strong in my like. We gave Oscar a surprise and had him share his testimony at the end. He gave a strong testimony and also his experience in the last few months. I'll tell you guys a little bit of what he said. He used to lie to his parents every week so that he could come to church. His mom eventually found out and wouldn't let him get baptized. He felt horrible about lying to his parents but but he loved going to church. I'm pretty sure his family is all against it but his mom finally let him make his own decision. He's now planning on serving a mission! It was an awesome experience. Also what I loved about it was the ward did everything! Just like President Hinckley said - the members find and the missionaries teach. I hope you guys are taking the challenge and inviting someone to church every three months! Love you guys!

April 21

Another cambio already flew by! They go by faster every time - it's crazy. I'll be staying here in Chillan again with my companion Elder Requena for another six weeks. I'm really excited to be staying here. Our ward is awesome and there is so much potential and I think we are going to see some awesome things this cambio.

Oscar, who we baptized two weeks ago just received the Priesthood and he's doing awesome! Also I think they're going to be giving him a calling soon. He's determined to serve a mission and he's doing everything he can to prepare. We also have a young investigator named Belen that has a lot of friends in the church. She's willing to listen and everything but the only problem is that she doesn't believe in God. We invited her to pray so we'll see how that goes this week. That was the good news of this week but there is also some bad news. The other Elders in my district have some really awesome investigators named Tita and joleni that were planning on getting baptized soon. They were a little hesitant on their decision to get baptized so as a District Leader I got to do an interview of support just to help them with any doubts they have. We had an awesome interview and I could tell she has a testimony of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. She was really excited to come to church the next day and also wanted to go to all the classes. She came to Sacrament meeting and loved it and then we went to the class. Usually there is a lot of people but not one person showed up. The teacher then showed up and said her husband is sick and she left. Tita thought that was really disrespectful and really unorganized so she got super angry, almost starting to yell at us and marched out the door. It all happened so fast and we had no idea what to do. We are going to try and save them this week so we'll see what happens. It would also be great if you could keep them in your prayers.

Dad I'm glad to hear that about my hamstring because I've been playing on it for a while now. Its definitely healed a lot and I don't really feel it anymore so I think it will be fine. We actually played soccer this morning and it felt great. We also ate scones with honey butter this morning for our zone activity and it was amazing.

Sounds like everything is pretty normal at home. I'm glad to hear that Ryan's knee is better. Max and Ryan you need to email me to tell me how baseball is going. Enjoy the warm weather its getting freezing here. Love everyone!!!

Conference!

This week went by really fast! Conference basically took up Friday and Saturday so it felt so short. I loved Conference!! My mind was just blown by all the amazing talks.I got to watch it in English so that was really nice. We had a room in the back with all the gringo missionaries and a ton of candy. That's awesome that Roberts grandpa talked, I didn't even put that together. 

Our Investigator Oscar is still doing awesome! He came with us to 3 sessions of Conference and he loved it! He's really excited for his baptism on Saturday. We still have to teach him the commandments but he is definitely ready. Last week we set a goal in our District to have six investigators in Conference and we were able to bring six! My district is doing awesome and we are seeing awesome progress in our sector. To answer your question Dad we do a lot of contacts! Elder Ballard made us a promise that if each missionary does 10 contacts in the street every day there will be a huge growth in baptisms in our mission. 10 doesn't sound like very much but they also made it a rule that knocking door contacts don't count anymore. I think they're trying to eliminate knocking doors from missionary work. We now talk to literally almost every single person that we walk past in the street.

I guess you guys heard about the earthquake. It was super far away but we heard a lot about it. We actually got a call on Friday night that we had to be in our house because the earthquake was going to hit us at 11! My companion is from Santiago and experienced the huge earthquake about 5 years ago. He is now terrified to death of earthquakes and it was hilarious to see his face. We waited until 11 and all the sudden, our power went out and everyone went crazy. Our power than came back on and it had nothing to do with the earthquake and nothing ever happened. 

Sorry I haven't sent pictures for a while. I don't have much time but I'll send a bunch next time. Love everyone!

March 31

Como estan!

This week went a little slow but it was really good. It started out nice and warm and then all the sudden we got destroyed with rain. It poured the entire day on Saturday. My big Mr. mac jacket was water proof for about an hour and then its a sponge. We got soaked but I actually love the rain. It's so much better than baking in the sun. Ever since the rain it has just been freezing cold and our house is just an ice box.

This week we found some awesome investigators! As we were sitting in church on Sunday, a lady from the other ward pulled me and my companion out of class and introduced us to a kid named Oscar. She told us he's ready to be baptized but he just needs to be taught. We set up a baptism date right there and then taught him later that afternoon. He's in our ward but he's been participating in the other ward for the last two months. It was so awesome because the members did all the work! They invited him to church, helped him make friends, and now he's more than ready to be baptized. He's 17 and wants to go on a mission so I'm super exited to teach him. I did a baptism interview with a little nine year old kid in our ward named Benjamin. He's just like Jaxson but ten times worse. You cant even imagine how horrible the interview was. He was jumping all over the place and literally screaming as loud as he could the whole time. It was horrible but I was really surprised how he understood everything and answered the questions while screaming so he passed. At his baptism he jumped in the font and started swimming before they opened the curtains. It was hilarious.

I finally got my package with my pants! It probably wasn't the best idea to put packets of peanut butter in there. They kind of broke and got all over my pants but it all came out so its alright. 

I hope you guys are preparing for conference! I'm seriously so excited. I'm glad I'll be able to understand it this time because I didn't get a word out of it last time. Love you guys!

March 24
We had a good week this week. Things are definitely getting better. We know the sector and the members really good now. We're getting a lot more help and References. We visited a Reference last night. Her name is Daisy, she lives alone and has a lot of family in the Church. She's a really good investigator and I think she's really going to progress. We had another really good investigator this week that accepted baptism and to go to church on Sunday! Turns our she didn't make it to church on Sunday. We called her after and she actually came, but never entered and walked home and then told us she doesn't want us to come anymore! I don't know what happened but it was probably the most disappointing thing in the world. I also gave a talk on Missionary work. It went really good. My Spanish has improved a lot with my Chilean companion. I'm also learning a lot of Chilean words and phrases. Some members actually got mad because of all the slang he uses. We had to tell him to stop so hopefully I don't use any of that stuff.

We had a zone activity today. We played soccer and volleyball. I'm now a master goalie. They don't really like my playing other positions. My leg feels alright. Still bugs me but its getting better. I also met one of Spencer and Taylor Dunn's friends. I just forgot his name but I guess he was in one of Spencer's classes so that was cool. I finally got one of my packages! I love the children book of Mormon its amazing. That's about it this week! Sorry its so short but love you guys!

My birthday!

Hello familia! This week went a lot better than last week. We're still getting to know the secor because it is huge and we still get lost sometimes. We had a hard time finding this week so we just decided to spend more time visiting members and trying to get references. It went really good. We're really gaining trust in the members and we got a bunch of References to visit this week. We found an interesting investigator this week. He's a young Professor the doesn't believe in God. I invited him to pray and ask if God exists and then he said he wants to make me a  deal. He'll pray and he wants us to teach him but only if we teach in English. He (or my companion)  doesn't speak any English so I don't know how good this is going to work. We'll see this week I guess?

My Birthday was awesome! We have soccer night every Wednesday so we got to play soccer for about two hours. Afterwards, I ordered pizza and my companion bought me cake so we had a thirty minute party. It was a pretty solid birthday. I didn't get any of my packages but we have interviews with the president on Wednesday so I'm hoping they're there!

Its starting to get cold! Every morning i wake up freezing. I think I'm going to need to buy a new jacket if that's alright because mine isn't really waterproof. That's about it for this week. Love you guys!!!

sorry the computer I have won't let me send pictures so you'll have to wait to see my birthday pictures next week. Also I don't know if i should buy a jacket. I was going to buy a decent wind breaker that would be really warm with a sweater under it for about 70 dollars? I was also thinking about my grey ski coat and wondering why I didn't bring that. Maybe that would be easier to send. Let me know what you think.

Elder Roberts

3-3
We had some crazy changes this week! We had an emergency cambio. I got a call on Thursday to pack my bags and to leave Quirihue the next morning. I was a little bummed because I didn't have very much time to say goodbye to everyone and I had to miss my birthday party that they had planned for me and Elder Dabell that would have been today. We just went and said bye to a few members and then had a family home evening with some of my favorite members. I am now working in a city called Chillan. Its like Concepcion but a little bit smaller. It's so crazy going from Quirihue to the City. We have a really strong ward with about 120 members that love to work with the missionaries. I haven't really been able to work with the members very much my whole mission so I'm super excited to work here. There is also Mcdonalds here, the only one in the whole mission so I'm super excited for that. My companion is Elder Raquena from Santiago Chile. He's a super funny kid and doesn't know any English at all. I love speaking Spanish all the time. I feel like I'm learning so much now. It was so hard to speak Spanish with Elder Judkins and with three gringos in our house. I'm also learning a lot of new Chilean words and phrases.  Hermano Gaillard -last thing I heard is he is doing better. Thank you for your prayers. That's about it this week. Love everyone!

3-10
Today I found out I'm staying in Chillan for another cambio with Elder Raquena! I'm super exited, I think this cambio is going to be awesome. Elder Madina whose family lives in Parker's ward is leaving and Elder Hoops from Draper who I ran track with is coming to take his place.

This week wasn't the greatest. Our sector is huge and both of us don't know it very well so we spent a lot of time just walking trying to find houses. I'm pretty sure we walked fifty miles so I think Bishop is going to get us bikes soon! ojala!

We have a conference this week with Elder Zaballos from the seventy. It was amazing. He talked a lot about the importance of learning English and how English is the language of the Restoration. All the Latinos are trying to learn English now. I saw my companion from the MTC Elder Watson at the Conference. Its insane how much he changed! In the MTC he weighed 142 and I weighed 165. Now I weigh 150 and he weighs 172! He's a giant and I'm the skinniest man alive.

I went to Mcdonalds today for the first time! I was really excited but the food was horrible and way more expensive. I definitely won't be going there again. 

Thanks everyone for the Birthday wishes!!! I feel old. I literally feel like my 18th birthday was three months ago. I'm hoping I'll get my package but I doubt it. All the packages go to Concepcion and nobody from Chillan ever goes to Concepcion so I might have to wait a bit. I'll get it eventually though. Thanks for everything! Love you guys!!!