December 1, 2014

Que tal mis queridos hermanos?


Hope everyone had a really good Thanksgiving! From the updates that Mom and Dad gave me, it sounds like everyone was well fed and had a good holiday. Did you guys survive Black Friday? Any good deals? Or are you all busy right now with Cyber Monday? Haha I am positive that everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and are now anxiously waiting for Christmas.


I will get the details about our Thanksgiving out of the way right now. We only ate 1 dinner because we were slow talking with members to go visit. We ate with one family, la familia Garcia, and it wasn't your typical Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of turkey, mash potatoes, and the whole nine yards, we ate ribs with rice and potato salad. It was super good and we ended up staying the rest of the night with them chilling and relaxing.


So that is what happened on our Thanksgiving. Here is what happened throughout the week. I will warn you all now, if you thought last week was a difficult week this week was worse. First off, on Monday I re-sprained my right ankle playing basketball. In fact, I sprained it so bad that I couldn't walk or put any pressure on my foot. I was super angry that I re-sprained it, but for a specific reason that I will explain later in my email. So because I could't walk at all, and we don't have a car, we have been doing exchanges with other missionaries to teach our investigators and I have been stuck inside the apartment all week recovering.


Then, oh yeah it gets better, on Friday both Elder Higley and I woke up feeling a little sick. Then during personal study both of us were throwing up. We are thinking we got food poisoning from our Thanksgiving dinner. So we were stuck in the apartment trying to feel better.


On Saturday I woke up with less feelings of sickness, but with a ginormous headache that was awful. But I didn't dare take any medicine because I hadn't eaten anything all day Friday and didn't want to screw up my stomach. So Saturday was full of sleeping trying to get rid of my headache. Finally that night, I ate a little bit of food so I could take some Tylenol and go to bed.


So that was our week in a nutshell. Oh yeah, we are starting a new transfer this week. Elder Higley is leaving the area to go to the first ward I served in, Bolsa Chica. Then I am getting a missionary named Elder Brown who is fairly new to the mission. So I am kinda worried about leading the area after being stuck inside the apartment for an entire week. So this week was pretty bad and right now I am pretty nervous for the new transfer and what the Lord has in plan for us and His work in our area.


But, even though we had all those bad experiences, we did have a couple good things happen. First off is with my ankle. About 2 weeks ago I started having the impressions to stop playing basketball during p-day so that I am healthy coming back to Utah State to run. Well I kept putting off those impressions saying that nothing will happen. Well later in the week, the impressions came back saying "Stop playing basketball, or you WILL re-sprain your ankle and might cause some problems in the future." But, again, I put off those impressions.


Well come Monday, I am playing on BAM I sprain my ankle. It was that exact moment I realized that the Spirit was talking to me and trying to warn me. So I was angry with myself that I completely ignored the Holy Ghost. But at the same time I learned an important lesson: 1) I learned for a surety that the Holy Ghost does talk to us, and does warn us so we are safe. 2) I learned how the Holy Ghost talks with us and how we can recognize his voice (See 1 Kings 19:11-13; Helaman 5:46; 3 Nephi 11:3).


I know that the Holy Ghost is a gift from God, and he does talk to us. I know that it isn't a loud, powerful voice that talks to us, but it is a soft, pressing voice that if we pay close attention to it, we can hear it talking to us. I know that as we heed the Holy Ghost with diligence and faith, we will be protected and guided in all things.


Ok so Mom knows about it, I am curious who else know. Who has heard of "He Is The Gift" or "El es la Dadiva?" If you have been tolds.org or mormon.org recently it is right on the front page. It is an amazing initiative that the Church is doing to help us remember about the true meaning of Christmas. There is a short video that is super, super powerful about the first gift of Christmas: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."- John 3:16.


So this is an awesome thing that Church is doing. In fact they are going all out with this. For example: On December 7th, the Church has bought out the front page of Youtube so everyone can see it. Then the Church has bought out the big boards in Time Square in New York for everyone to see. This is an awesome thing that is happening and we have the opportunity to help it progress. So there are two things you can do to share this video.


1) You can put the video on your Facebook, Twitter, or whatever accounts so other people can see this video.


2) In this months issue of the Ensign they included awesome cards about "He Is The Gift" that you can share with anyone.


So that is what is happening. Like the video says, this time isn't about the gifts, the money or anything worldly. It is about His births and the start of His mission to bring us happiness and eternal life. May we all remember Him and help other remember Him.


Love you all!


Elder Roberts