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!!!