Week 102: the best END

So the end has come, the time is far spent. I am very excited to see all of you guys again and to share experiences with all of you! 

This week we had the baptism of Orlin! I am very thankful I could end these amazing 2 years with a baptism. It was the best end honestly.

I love all of you guys and as it says in 3 John 12-14 I will be seeing you guys soon. 

love you guys! 

Orlin's baptism was great! It was probably one of the smoothest baptisms I have had on my mission.  There are normally some complications, but with Orlin it was calm... really calm.

Crazy thing to come upon or to find in your yard. When we got there they had killed it with a bunch of rocks. They think it ate a cat. What?!  

I got to visit a couple of families in the Nueva and say goodbye before I leave. I can't believe I taught and baptized a number of them 7 months in to my mission.  It has been too long and I am afraid will be a long time before I see any of them ever again. A mission is an amazing experience one will never forget.  I love these Honduran people!! 

This is Valery and Mercedes. They are both baptisms I had while serving in the Nueva Capitale.
Valery just had a baby! 

This is another one of the families I am going to miss. Angelica (Christhian's sister), Neymar, Nataly, Marcela, Nora, and Julissa and Glenda.  Christhian, and Rueben weren't home for me to say goodbye. 

Week 101: Ilumindo El Mundo

Ilumindo El Mundo
Light the World this Christmas 2018

So this week finished with a multi zone conference that went really well. We were visited by Elder Zeballos, he shared a really good message. He spoke of teaching repentance which is something I think we need to refocus on. 

Then on Saturday we had a service activity for the Light the World initiative. We cleaned the streets in Comayagüela and we then cleaned a couple of parks. It was honestly a lot of fun!  7 out of 10 of the zones in our mission were with us as we went about working and I saw a lot of familiar faces.

Other than that I’m very excited to see all of you guys in just over a week. I don’t have a whole lot to write. I do have a lot of thoughts in my journal as everyday is more and more spiritual as I realize and complete the experience of a two year  mission. I know I have to keep working hard, I cant take a day off. I want to finish strong knowing I gave it my best.

Well, I love you guys and will be seeing you next week!!!

Love, Elder Christian Joshua Roberts

We worked from about 9 to 12. Our mission swept 14 streets, our zone was in charge of 4 of them.
We then made our way to park and finished with the service project there.

Elder Caal and Elder Ozoria 

Elder Beus from Soda Springs Idaho with Elder Caal. 

Elder Chinchilla from Guatemala.

Elder Lopez from Utah, with Elder Chinchilla

The park where we all met up after we had all finished sweeping our assigned streets. 7 out of 10 of the mission zones were able to participate in the service. It was a good time. 

Me with Elder Beus and Elder Madsen. Madsen is the Assistant to the President right now, and Beus is new to the mission. Both are in my zone just in the other district.

Caal, Ozoria, Maughan, Roberts, and Tun. We are from the Loarque Zone. 

Elder Arzac with the missions medical assistant, Elder Caballero who is on the phone. He is probably verifying a visit to the hospital.

Arzac and I with Elder Pearmain, He goes home next change too.  He is really funny and from Sandy, Utah.

It's Elder Sullivan. He is from my last area. He has about 16 months. He is from St. George.

Making sure he gets it all!

Elder Briggs

Elder Passoni and Elder Cordova (I don't know the other guy) 

Light the World ideas at LDS.org

Week 100: the work continues

a restaurant in Sabana Grande that was pretty good.
too bad they didn't sell comic books on the side! cha ching!

This past week was a normal one with some very unexpected blessings. Our baptism scheduled for December 8th is progressing well. He is reading the Book of Mormon on his own and loves it. We also received a reference of a little girl named Sahory, she is really timid, but wants to be baptized.

One of the things I´ve been focusing on these last weeks is leaving the area better than I found it for whoever comes after me. The Lord is blessing the area as I seek not for my glory but that His work may continue. I´ve seen His hand this week in Orlin (our fecha), and Sahory, the two of them will be great members as time goes by. 

This next week is going to go by really fast as we are full of meetings all week long. As busy as it is I hope that I can enjoy it. 

Other than that not a whole lot has been going on. I am excited for the meetings and the opportunity to continue serving!

I love all of you!

Love, Elder Roberts

the Elders Christmas Tree!
(someone's getting toothpaste for christmas lol)

Elder Arzac took this on our way out. I still don't have my converter.
I will get on later today and send you my pictures next week, I promise. 

This is Navarro and I and some others. We were joking around right before our Christmas activity. It is a fun group!

Week 99: Angy's Strength

This week was good! On Friday we had a multi zone meeting, my second to last one, my last one will be either the 29th or the 30th. It's crazy that it is so close but president has been having the missionaries who go home share their testimonies, and the only thing about the one coming up is that that I will be doing it in front of a seventy that will be visiting, Elder Zeballos of the area presidency will be coming to see our meetings. So that will definitely make me feel a little bit more nervous. 

Then this week we focused a lot on the Light the World initiative the church holds every December for Christmas. When missionaries work with the members instead doing the tasks individually that is when we find the most success. It'll be interesting to do before I go home, because it focuses on serving globally the first week and then serving your community the second week, and your family the third week just when I arrive home. 

The true highlight of the week was a little girl we met yesterday, she is a living breathing miracle! Angy of ten years had an incident about a month ago, she accidentally hit an electrical wire that hit her with about 700 volts of electricity so they say. The fact of the matter is, she hit a similar wire two men hit earlier and the two died on contact. She on the other hand not only survived the contact but the 45 minute drive to the hospital with burns all over her body. She would later lose her right arm at the elbow. What is amazing to me is that we went over to visit and the little girl who hurts to only move around wanted to get up and shake our hands! She showed great strength as she arose determined to shake the hands of two young men who she had only known a couple of minutes who introduced themselves as messengers of Jesus Christ. We then talked of her experience, the shock did some damage to her memory, but she remembers most of the information. Later after she fell asleep we sang the hymn ¨I need thee every hour¨. We then comforted her parents with a message of Jesus Christ and his Atonement he made for each of us. They took comfort that He knew exactly what Angy and they individually were going through.

This was an experience that I believe will change my view on those we think are weak and how the Lord strengthens them. 

I love you all. I know the Lord strengthens and watches over us. 

Love you!

Love, Elder Roberts

no fotos this week

my converter no longer works, I am buying another one today. Sorry no pics today

Arzac sent me this pic: This is our zone pday in Ojojona. We had a lot of fun playing frisbee and soccer.

Week 98: a wonderful weekend!

This week we had the baptisms of Margarita, Angelo and Margarita. They are now members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The baptism went very well. 

We are teaching Orlin, who is nineteen. He really understands the things we are teaching. We taught the restoration and it went really well. When he asks questions he really wants to know the answers. Honestly he is one of the best investigators I have had. 

Elder Arzac turned 20 on Friday. We celebrated as a district. He had fun and was very surprised.

The zone is getting a lot better now. We are having more and more success.

I am enjoying my time reading the Book of Mormon. I got to really read and study Jacob 5 and the allegory of the vineyard. I was able to do a chart and think of the time periods which helped me understand a lot of what was happening. I got a lot out of it and I loved the Lord of the vineyards cry of "what more could I have done more for my vineyard". It let me see a lot of what God does for each of us and what he says when we don't accept him. He has done so much for us and will always seek to help us in our trials. 

I love my God and love this time in my life that I have to be an instrument in this work. 

Love all of you guys! 

Read the Book of Mormon!

Love,

Elder Roberts 

I baptized little Margarita, then Angelo, and then Margarita. The Bishop and the secretary of the ward helped with the confirmations yesterday. It was a wonderful weekend!

Elder Arzac turns 20! We surprised him and celebrated after district meeting. 

The Elder's in Ojojona decorated, the Hermana's were in charge of the cake, and I bought all the gift bags.  I had to buy a lot of candy and the bags without Arzac knowing. It was way harder than I thought it was going to be.
Left to right: Taminez (Peru), Quiej (Guatemala), Arzac, Roberts, Chinchilla (Guatemala), and Cordova (Peru).

This guy is awesome! He is really humble and he is always trying to do what the Lord wants done.
AND he is always coming up with fun things to do, and he is talented in weird ways... who can balance an axe and hammer on their chin?

a view of the building on Residential San Sebastian that we meet in.
The Manantial Ward and Germania Ward meet in this building as well

Week 97: machete vs mower

So this week was an exciting one. Elder Arzac and I have a new district that we go to and my ld district of Germania now has 4 companionships-- 5 would be a bit much, so we now go to Ojojona every Tuesday for our district meetings. We also had a leadership meeting this past Friday. (it was my second to last one, I’m not baggy or anything!) It was a really good meeting, President was full of the spirit that day. I swear, everything he said was really impacting the desire he has for this work. It was is so-o uplifting. He is really pushing me to the last minute here in the work.  The leaders left that meeting very enlightened, and I feel that the others who are going home with me are going to be working really hard these last weeks. 

Margarita and all them will be baptized this Friday. They are really excited and ready. They went to church this last Sunday and they get along really well with the members. It helps that Margarita's daughter is already a member! We are also still working with that family I told you about last week, the only problem is that they didn't go to church on Sunday so there is a lot to make up but the dad is still very animated and can't wait to come. We are going to be focused way more on bringing them to church! Honestly that is where the people really start liking the church is the moment they step inside. Just the spirit the meeting house holds is enough to show people the church is so very different than others. Something I've really seen is the moment the people step inside the church whether in meeting or in a showing they love it. 

I'm still going strong, working hard everyday, I'm trying my best to not leave anything behind. Oh and we did service this week. We helped a member cut his grass with some machetes. It was really fun! I'm definitely going to be sticking to a lawn mower back home though! 

love you guys!

Thinking about my area and all the cool places that I have seen and the cool view I have in this area.

same spot, just from the other direction.

We helped Erith. He is the Young Mens president here in the ward.  Here in the Reynel he has a restaurant and sells some really good chicken. He is going to open one in the Santa Rosa soon. 

Fun hacking with a machete, but also why I'll be sticking to a lawn mower back home. It's hard work! 

Arzac getting to work.

This is the "before" picture. The grass grows super long and the people just start throwing trash into the grass,
so it is good to cut it often.

This is our finished foto.

Beautiful Honduran Sunset
They don't have daylight savings time here. It always gets dark at 6 (and we don't use flashlights)

Week 96: thrust in our sickles

Josiel (9) and Milton (14) are brothers. All these kids are all cousins. The girls are Yensi (10), and Lesly (12). Lesly is going to live in Amapala. She will be a good convert out there.  Milton is the one that Elder Owen and I just baptized in September. He has been a good example for his cousins and his little brother.

Soo- this week was really good! We had some good results. Margarita, Margarita and Angelo are really excited to be baptized. Lyssi, Katherine, and Emily our other investigators are still progressing, we are still working with them, they are still interested and I think we can still help them a lot.  We will see what happens. 

Changes are tomorrow and I am officially going to be staying in Tizatillo to finish my mission. It will be my last 6 weeks. I had already expected it, but now it is actually happening. I'm also going to be staying with Elder Arzac he is now officially “my murderer” (my last companion, the last one I have when I leave the mission). 

The zone is also going to be receiving more missionaries. Pretty cool! Yeah, it means more work, but it also means our zone is going to be getting more contacts made and more missionary work done at the same time. I am really looking forward to this next change. 

Everything seems to be going for the better out here in Loarque, we just have to put in some more effort - we have to “thrust in our sickles” with all our might. It's what I'm looking to do in my home stretch! 

Looking forward to this next change and what may come. I hope all is going well back home with all of you guys as well as with our fechas. There are a lot of new people that we will be able to teach. We have a new family we have been teaching I hope they keep progressing. They told us they were going to try and come to church this next week. I hope they do! 

I love you guys! 

Im taking some pictures on our way to Ojonona.

The Wind Turbines are a energy source for the people here, they are really kind of a landmark now 

This is one of the bigger shops here in Ojojona.  It is kind of expensive. Ojojona is a quiet town but a tourist stop
and everything is hand made in other places throughout the country and then brought here to sell

This is a picture from yesterday. Me with Elder Tun from Vera Cruz Mexico. He is currently serving in Manatial. He is the companion of Elder Maughan. We had a meeting together.

Check out this GIANT MOTH! It was BIGGER than my hand! Remember MothMan!
We found him while teaching a lesson. He was interested.