Week 95 - Great to see the whole family

Sunday was great!! It was great to see the whole family! I am doing good, doing the best work in the world :)

I used my birthday money to buy something nice :) :)

I feel like what I write each week is super repetitive. People don't care what I write anyway, but I will try and do better next week.

Love Elder Roberts

Week 94 - Short & Sweet

We will call you Saturday evening for details for Mother's Day :)

This is me and my friend Yordan.  He is awesome!! He is a returned missionary who served in the California Anaheim mission and has such a powerful testimony of the gospel which has really helped us with teaching the families we are teaching! He knows Grandma and Grandpa Call.

From the Mission Leadership Council on April 14:

Week 93 - Des Moines East, The Beast!

Whelp this week was really interesting....

 

Monday- We taught a beautiful family (C, E, and M) with Y. We taught them about the Restoration and they loved it!

 

Tuesday- We did a lot of finding and found many new trailer parks!!! Some of which we probably won't go to when the sun goes down :)

 

Wednesday- We had interviews as a zone with President and Sister Jensen! It is always such a blessing to talk with them and feel the love they have for us! After interviews I was out for the day with the flu or food poisoning. I had not been sick like that before on my mission and would appreciate if it never happened again! We had appointments that still needed to be kept so Elder Petersen went on exchanges with Elder Guymon serving in  West Des Moines so we could still make them.

 

Thursday- Went on exchanges with Elder Cox in the Easter Lake ward and we had a great day working there.

 

Saturday- We met G who referred herself, because she has been going through a really hard time and saw an add for Mormon.org on Facebook and clicked on it!!! Super cool miracle! We have a lesson with her this upcoming week!

 

Sunday- We taught C and her family and they are excited to prepare themselves to be baptized on June 6th!! They are such a humble and open family who really want to strengthen their relationship with God and follow Christ's example. We love them! :)

 

Thanks for all of the love and support

 

-Elder Roberts

 

With President Jensen:

 

 
Sick:

 

Week 92 - Great start to another transfer!

This week was packed full of meetings, interesting lessons, and to wrap it up a HUGE miracle!

On Tuesday- We woke up at 5 am to head to Iowa City for MLC (missionary leadership council)! We were trained by President and Sister Jensen and the Assistants to the President. We received a lot of revelation on how we could help our zone be even more successful missionaries! We got back in Des Moines around 8pm.

Wednesday- We prepared trainings patterned after the trainings given at MLC that we would be giving to the missionaries in our zone on Thursday. We also had a great lesson with O. He has a great desire to be baptized and wants to come to church, but work is standing in the way right now. We are planning on fasting with him, because we know that if it is God's will, he will be able to get work off, come to church, and enter the waters of baptism.

Thursday- We had our ZTM (Zone Training Meeting) where we relayed the message from MLC. It was so much fun to have the whole zone together and to grow in our testimonies and devotion to the work together.

After ZTM we had a great lesson with A who is now a new investigator, and then we had a lesson with J and his primo.

Friday- We meet J while walking through a trailer park, and invited him to learn about the restored gospel. He accepted the invitation and we taught him and he is now a new investigator as well

Sunday- MIRACLE: As we walked into gospel principles which is the 1st hour of church we go to, in walked two beautiful Hispanic families!!! Elder Petersen and I smiled and looked at the Hermanas serving in our branch. The spirit for the next hour radiated throughout the room as member after member testified of truth. What a powerful 3 hours of church it was! These two families were simply invited by a family in la rama, and came. We then taught them in the Valencia's home later one that evening. The really loved the message and we are excited to continue to teach them!!

I am continually reminded that I am simply an instrument. This work is truly in the Lord's hands. He lives. He guides this work. He knows his children. I know this gospel blesses families as an essential unit in His plan for us.

Thank you for your prayers, love, and support.

-Elder Roberts

Week 91 - Only 2 transfers left, ahhhhhhhh

This week was definitely a different week than normal for us here in DSM!! This week we had lessons with many people whose eyes are blind and hearts are hard. We also had many of our investigators no longer want to meet with us. But...... the Lord's work must not slow down!!! So with this upcoming week we are super excited to find more people to teach. With the many meetings we have this week we are very aware we are going to have to rely on the Lord. We know he will bless us with miraculous miracles!!

Love

Elder Roberts


Elder Cleverley and I ;( he is now home

 My birthday gift from Sister Petersen

The West Des Moines district

Easter treats from Elder Petersen's family

Week 90 - Conference, Easter and Thinking of Zach

1. My birthday was great thank you so much for the money and the pictures.  I took pictures this week but forgot my camera. We just worked the whole day, nothing to special, except the Whitlows came and said hi.

2. Conference weekend, we watched conference at the stake center. On Sunday in between sessions we went to President and Sister Jensen's home and had a wonderful lunch! And after the second session we went to dinner at President and Sister Jesperson's home which was amazing as well! President Jesperson is the branch president here and they were really sad they were not able to meet you when you came here recently so they are looking forward to you next trip out here.

3. My favorite talk was Elder Brent H Nielson.

4. I am staying in Des Moines this transfer.

5.  I hope all the boys are doing alright and they know that Zach is in a better place.  Please post this for me:

Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection, all of God’s children will be raised unto life eternal. He gave us His Beloved Son as our Savior to make that possible. The Savior in Gethsemane and on Golgotha paid the price of our sins so that we could be cleansed. That purifying can come to those who have faith in Jesus Christ.

The darkness of death is dispelled by the light of revealed truth. “I am the resurrection, and the life,” spoke the Master. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25).

The assurance of life beyond the grave provides the peace promised by the Savior when He said to His disciples: 

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

Thomas S. Monson
Henry B. Eyring
Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Love,

Elder Roberts

Week 89 - 20???

Well it's going to be really weird being 20 years old on Wednesday. I remember when I started my mission and I was like wow I am going to finish my mission when I am 20 and thinking it was so far away and now POOF.

So I don't have time to e-mail you too much this week! Which is really sad because it seems the weeks that are packed full of goodness can't be relayed over e-mail. But good thing I keep a journal :)

We had many powerful and life changing lessons this week!! Every night Elder Petersen and I would come into the apartment and just say wow, and couldn't stop saying it! We also had super funny experiences!  We were used as the Lord's instrument and he made it known to us this week!  I'll share one of the powerful experiences and one of the hilarious ones.

POWERFUL- One night some of our appointments fell through, which is normal, so we decided to look at a list of members and less active members that we have. As we were looking over the names, we noticed that neither Elder Petersen or I knew one of the families, the S family. So we just said "hey lets go try them." As we knocked, a shocked man opened the door and let us in. He told us to take a seat and he went to the other room. We got to know him and he let told us that he had only been in the USA for 4 days. He then began to tell us that he had just finished studying his scriptures and asked the Lord in prayer that he might feel an increase of the Spirit, and as soon as he said amen there was a knock on the door and there were two missionaries standing at the door. He said look at my hands. As we looked we saw his hands shaking as his prayer had just been answered instantly. We had a great lesson with him, and felt the love the Lord has for him.

ok...

FUNNY - This one was pretty good :) I wish that I had taken a picture, but hopefully my poor descriptions will suffice. We had a lesson with someone people named C, E and K. We had set a baptismal date with them for May 2nd, and since then they haven't been responding to any contact we decided to stop by one last time last night. We arrive at their apartment, the door was closed but the keys were in the deadbolt just hanging!! So it was obvious that someone was home. We heard talking inside, then we knocked, and it got silent. Nothing too unusual. We knocked again, then a third time. We then see the keys rotating from our side of the door because they were locking the door from the other side. We then began to laugh uncontrollably. Once they finished locking the door, I said, "sus llaves estan en la puerta!!!" (For you gringos: your keys are in the door!) We then continued to knock three more times while dying laughing at the situation. So we waited out side for a while because we wanted to do everything possible for them to use their agency correctly. But they didn't respond... Oh what people do to avoid the missionaries.

This is 1/100 of what happened this week, but I must compile my record.

Love,

Elder Roberts