Week 20: Chile peppers and Skypeing the family for Mother´s Day

Happy Mother´s Day! Skypeing with my family

SO a lot happened this week with it being Mother´s Day and all. It was kind of a scramble to find a web cam for the call home and also do our work as servants of the lord. We waited until Saturday to find a webcam for the Sunday call. I was super stressed (you would think all the years in school would have taught me something) but we got one and it worked. It was so good to hear the voices of my family. I was forgetting what they sounded like. It was good to laugh with my mom and dad, and my sisters. We had a problem with the power going out on our end a couple of times because of a hurricane (Tropical Storm Adrian). We got to talk for ten minute intervals at first because the lights kept going out. The power was finally stable and I got to talk to them uninterrupted. 

To recap my week and some of the other things that happened to the Elder Roberts and not just the boy Christian... My companion lost his backpack in a bet with Marco Lozano Jr. We still visit them. Marco was acting like us as missionaries, and then bravely and to our surprise asked to challenge my companion for his backpack. My companion thought he would offer Marco an impossible challenge to eat a super hot chile pepper. I don´t know the name, but its a super bright red one and it made me cry it was so hot. The challenge was to eat the pepper without tearing up and no drinking water for a minute. Well, that pepper made my Mexican comp, and an 18 year old Gringo cry out in pain! But Marco dominated the challenge and scarfed the pepper down, chewed it, and waited the minute. He fought the pain with dignity. The nine year old Honduran didn´t cry, or shed a tear and gloriously won my companions bag. It was a couple of days before we could go buy a new bag.  We did that on Saturday while searching for the webcam.

I had a spiritual experience kneeling to my Heavenly Father in prayer on Tuesday night. On my mission I have found myself continually praying for charity for my savior Jesus Christ. I know he lives, I know he sacrificed his life for me and everyone on this Earth, and I know he loves us all perfectly. But do I love him the same? So I have been praying diligently to find this for myself while reading Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage, and I found it. He lives! I know it without a doubt, and I can say I love him more than anything. As my Savior he paid the price for my faults and I will forever be in his debt as his servant. After these two years I know the work will not end for Brother Roberts. He's there, he will always be there. He knows you and me perfectly through his sacrifice in Gethsemane and on the Cross. He walked more than a mile in each one of our shoes. When the times get tough and we think we are all alone, we aren´t. Our older brother knows all about us and our trials. And His perfect love is for everyone as well as his sacrifice, we just need to accept it. 

Love all of you and hope all is well... and like always Keep Truckin´ 

Fellowshipping Night with Hermano Fortunate, Hermana Raso, Hermana Mirna, a lot of kids, and the Branch President Mejia

my comp and I with Isis, one of our investigators

we made fried tortillas with guac and salsa´s

Cooking lunch with my comp

Chorizo and plantains

a chorizo, hotdog, plantain, avocado sandwich!

sandwich artists are we

mmmMmmm good!

me with Ruth the girl and Julia, one of our investigators

I´m the meat cooker. I bought some carne from Dioni´s
(just about the only safe place out here)

we made a potato steak sandwich

this here is a scarab beetle (The MUMMY!)
next to my camera case for size reference.

dinner at Dioni´ s (Valodetano is yawning)
Dioni owns a pulperia and we eat dinner there.
(A pulperia is a store with a house out back for cooking dinner and everything) 

My comp and I in our Paris Saint-German Jersey´s

he already had his, and I bought mine for 10$ (Ibrahimovic now plays for Manchester United, one of my favorite players)

the highlight of my week!