Christmas time in Argentina

HOLA!!!!  That's crazy news about Andrew. I hope he goes back soon.This week was pretty good. We had zone conference and it was awesome! President Ayre talked to us a lot about doing everything through the members. The actives, less active and recent converts. Our mission has a goal of 2000 baptisms this year and we are close, so President Ayre is really pushing us to have more faith and expect miracles. We visited an active family this week and their niece  just moved in to live with them. She is from Paraguay and she is 16 yrs old. She went to church and she liked it. Her name is Milagros and she is awesome! She is a little timid but she is loosening up. Please pray for her. I am still playing tennis at least once a week. The last time we played he beat me 6-4. It was a long set. Its been so fun playing. It doesn't feel much like Christmas here. Its mainly because of the heat. In the stores there are a lot of Christmas decorations and all that, but it is just different without some cold. We do have Christmas music though so that's good. But I am still loving it!!! Mom I have not got the package yet. I hope it gets here. About calling, I am not exactly sure at what time I will be doing it but I will probably be doing it between 4-6 Argentina time. What do you guys think about that? Mom I love the pictures! Thanks for everything! Love you guys!

German Pancakes

HOLA!! How was thanksgiving?? Thats awesome that you guys played a family football game! I would of loved that! For thanksgiving me and my companions didnt have lunch so we made german pancakes! It was super good!!! Other than that thanksgiving was just a normal day here in argentina. Everything is going really well with my new companion. He is working really hard with the language so i am loving that. He is constantly studying spanish! I speak almost all spanish to him. This week we found a lot of new investigators but not a lot progressed. Saturday two teenagers came up and talked to us in the street and we invited them to go to church and they came! I think they are more interested in us being from the states but we are going to work with them so keep them in your prayers. There names are jason and darien. I played tennis again this week but didnt play too good. I lost 6-3 but the set took like one hour. We had some awesome games. My backhand is just horrible. Thats about it for this week! Thanks for all the prayers and everything else. Love ya!

Elder Roberts

The Baptism of Alejandra, Gloria, and Tito

Hola familia! How's it going? This week went pretty good. First off my companion is Elder Brady from Holladay Utah. He is from the same ward as President Ayre, His Spanish is alright. I am trying to find ways to include him more in the lessons. He is awesome and super funny! He loves our area La villa! Yesterday Alejandra and Gloria got baptized!! It was an awesome experience! I have loved teaching them. They have both changed so much! I know that your prayers helped them out a ton so thanks for that.  Right now we really need to find more people to teach. We are finding quite a bit of people then dropping them right away.  Tito was also baptized. He is an awesome kid. I want him to serve a mission in a year! The sad thing about him is he is moving to Bolivia this week so we have one more week with him. His baptism was awesome also!

That's about it for this week. Sorry it is so short. Have a happy thanksgiving! Love you guys!!!!

Elder Roberts 

pictures

1. Alejandra and Gloria's Baptism

2. Tito's Baptism

3. Elder fernandez and the villa

A visit from Elder Christofferson

Hey!! hows it all going! Welp today is transfers and I am staying in Los Piletones and I will be training. I will find out who it will be in a few hours but I am super excited. I will get a taste of how Sam's mission has been. I feel like he has trained his whole mission. I am really going to miss Elder Fernandez. He was an awesome companion. He was always super fun to be with. This week went super well. First off Saturday, Elder Christofferson came and talked to our mission!!!!! It was so good! He is awesome! They talked a lot about the Atonement. One thing he said that caught my attention is that for the second coming to happen, a lot of times we think we still need more wickedness in the world. But what we really need is people more prepared to receive Christ. Then Sunday I had stake conference and Elder Christensen of the presidency of the Seventy talked there! It was also super good. After the conference Tito got baptized!!!!! It was super awesome! He has changed a ton and he was really excited to get baptized. Alejandra and Gloria are preparing to be baptized right now so please pray for them. Thanks for all the prayers! I love you all so much! 

A note from Elder Knapp

Greetings from Argentina-

My wife and I coordinate the Open Chapel program for the 4 countries in the South America South Area.  Recently we visited the Parque Avellaneda Ward in Buenos Aires and had the privilege and opportunity to work with your son.

He is a great missionary!  For 3 hours we worked together and his love and testimony were instrumental in helping more than 100 visitors enter the little chapel to learn more about Jesus Christ.

I have included a couple of pictures of him at work so that you can get a feel for what he is doing.

Please accept a personal thanks for the sacrifices that you are making so that he can be such a powerful influence for good here among our Lamanite brothers and sisters.

Sincerely,

Elder y Hermana Knapp

Trick or treating in the Villa

11/3

Hows it going?? Halloween was super good. In the villa they actually trick-or-treated. It was so fun to walk in the villa with a ton of kids dressed up! Welp, last Tuesday I had my tennis match and it was so fun! We played one set and I was up 4-1. Then I totally choked and lost 6-4. But its all good it was so fun. I have their number and I am going to start playing him every week. Last week was so hot and this week it rained a ton. It was the hardest I have ever seen it rain. A part of the villa got flooded pretty bad and me and my companion went over to check it out and there were houses just totally flooded. We helped one family clear out their house and after like an hour and a half of scooping water, we taught them a short lesson and they came to church! It was awesome! Yesterday Erika Balderrama got baptized. She is super awesome! Her two brothers both passed their baptism interviews but have a few doubts about being baptized, so please pray for them. They are super awesome! Alejandra came to church with her family and also her mom and she is doing really good. Please pray for her. She could get baptized this Sunday but we need to work a ton with her. We also found Titto and he is awesome. We found him and he invited us in and he had a book of Mormon and gospel principles on his desk. He has friends that are members so he has been to church 3 times in Bolivia and other wards in Buenos Aries. This ward is super awesome! Our mission leader is incredible! He works so much with us. He has a ton of awesome goals and plans. Welp that's it for this week. Love you guys!

Elder Roberts

11/10

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!! Hope you have a great day!!! This week was pretty good! First off I had another tennis match and it went a lot better. I lost the first set 6-4 but I won the second set 7-5! It was so fun. I am playing with him again tomorrow morning at 6 in the morning!!!! This week Alejandra, Gloria and Titto went to church. They all loved it! Titto is good to get baptized this Sunday but he is moving to Bolivia November 30 so it depends on what President says. Gloria and Alejandra are doing super good but they really need your prayers. They are ready to be baptized they just have a few doubts. This Saturday an apostle is coming to talk to our mission!!! They haven't told us who it is but I think its between Elder Christofferson or Elder Nielsen!!! I'm super excited! That's about it for this week. I want to hear how the football games went! Mom have an awesome day! Love you guys!

Photo: Here in Argentina there are big tanks of water above all the houses or apartments and it holds all the water that we use. We went to pay our rent and they asked us if we fixed the tanks lid that broke off several months ago and we had no idea what they were talking about. So we up top to check out our water and this is the water we have been using for several months. Drinking, showering and everything. I about died when I saw it. 

I love tennis!

Como Andan??? That's so crazy Austin is now home. Time goes by so fast!!! The pictures were awesome! This morning I ran to a park for my exercise time and a guy was playing tennis alone just hitting balls so I asked if he had an extra racket and he did so we played a bit. He is pretty dang good and I am pretty rusty. We only played 3 games and he won 3-0. The good news is we are going to meet up tomorrow at 6 in the morning to play a match!!!! I am super excited! It was so fun playing this morning! I will let you guys know how it goes next week. Last Saturday my ward did a church open house. It was like a mini temple square inside our church. We had four sisters from other wards that came and gave tours of our church and taught about the restoration. My assignment was to be outside in the street with 3 other elders and like 10 other members inviting every person that walked by to take a small tour of the church. It was super fun and a ton of people took the tours. The only bummer thing was my ward got like 100 referrals from this activity and not a single one was in my area. But it is all good. This week went really well. The familia Balderrama are doing pretty good. We are working really hard with them so they get baptized this Sunday, so please pray for them. Also we found una hermana named Alejandra and she is super awesome! About a week ago she said a prayer asking God to guide her in the right way and we showed up and she is super interested. She went to church and really liked it. Also Pedro and Juan could use some prayers. Hey both came to church and they are looking for the true church. Thanks for the letters and the photos. Dad I also want to see some pictures of the hunt! Love you guys! Happy Birthday Dillon and Happy Halloween!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hola!!! Happy birthday Tyler!!! How old is Tyler?? 22 or 23? That's so crazy!  Its all good about the pictures mom. It really surprised me to see 52 messages.Yesterday was Mother's Day here in Argentina so Happy Mother's Day mom! I think this is like the only country with mothers day not in May but it was fun. It was just like a normal mothers day in Utah. This morning I got to watch the priesthood session of general conference. It was too late for us to watch it a few weeks ago so this morning they let us watch it. It was really good. I loved Elder Uchtdorf and elder Eyring's talks. This week we had interviews with President Ayre! It went really well. I love meeting with president ayre. He talked to us a lot about our goals for after the mission and for five years after the mission, ten yrs after the mission and twenty years after the mission. He said he thinks what keeps away from fulfilling goals is fear. I really liked that! This week for exercise I went to the church and we played basketball on the outdoor court! Its been so fun. One of the days, two of our investigators Sergio and Richard woke up at 630 and came and played with us! It was awesome. In church Richard, Sergio and Erika all came. They are the kids of the Balderrama family. The parents don't have a lot of interest but the kids are all doing well. Richard is the oldest he is 19 yrs old and he is progressing really well, so please pray for them. That's so crazy Austin is coming home this week. Time flies by way too fast. Thanks for everything and I love you all!!!

I totally shanked it!

Elder Necosiup!

Elder Necosiup

HOLA!!!! This week was really good! I love my new area! Its super small but I love it. It is pure villa! It is like a little man-made town full of people from Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Especially people from Bolivia! My ward is awesome also. It is the biggest ward that I have had in the mission! Yesterday 174 people came to church! It was so full. This week we found an awesome family from Bolivia! La familia Valderrama. Its a family of 6 and they all came to church yesterday. They are awesome, but please pray for them. For the first time in Argentina I live in an apartment with 4 missionaries! One of the other missionaries was in Tyler's district in the mtc for about two months ago! He is a cool kid! In my ward we have 8 elders! Elder florez my companion from Colombia is also here in this ward so its been super fun to be with him again! Today we are going to go to an amusement park thing so I will let you know how that goes next week! Thanks for everything and I love you all

There are mushrooms growing in my bathroom

General Conference was awesome!

Hola! I have to be really quick because I have absolutely no time! The Explorer died! NO!!!!!!!! I cant believe it! Fix it up! 

This week was really good. Conference was awesome. It was raining super hard so the signal wasn't the best, so we didn't get to see President Monson's talk. But other than that it was good. Sunday we had investigators in the second session but they had to leave right before Elder Bednar's talk. It was the worst. Today was transfers and I am leaving Pablo Nogues. I am in an area that's called Los Peletones. I haven't been to the area but I hear that it is the smallest area ever. A missionary told me to walk from one end to the other it takes 7 minutes!! Its pure villa so that will be crazy but I am super excited. My companion is Elder Fernandez from Peru! He is awesome! I have only had like one hour with him and he is super cool. He got baptized like 2 years ago! I will give you more information next week. Thanks for everything and I love you all!

Elder Roberts

PS I have pictures to send but I will get them to you guys next week. Hey I met an elder in my zone Sunday and he knows Lloyd's family. The Zapata family. I think they might live in California right now but they lived in Lloyd's neighborhood. We started talking and he asked me if I knew chad Roberts!  Ask Lloyd if he remembers them.

Zone Conference

That's crazy max and Ryan will be 14! I cant believe it! What are the plans for the birthday??? That's awesome about the football games! Bummer loss for max and Ryan buts its all good. This week went pretty well. We had zone conference and it was super good! It was all about the Book of Mormon! I loved It! Today is p-day but only until lunch because Friday we are going to the temple!!! I'm super excited! Yesterday I gave a talk in church and it went pretty well. Bishop asked me Friday to give a talk so I only had 2 days of preparation but I was happy because last week he sent us a message right before church asking my companion to give a talk so he had no time to prepare. Its starting to warm up a lot here. We hear summer this year will be miserably hot. I am super excited for conference! I cant wait! That's so awesome about Ignacio's baptism! Tell him I say hi. That's so cool!!!!!

This is how they make toilets here. They dig these huge man made holes. They are the biggest holes I have ever seen. It is kind of scary to think I'm sitting above a 30 foot hole!

A cool flower here in Argentina

1,000 missionaries in Buenos Aires!

HOLA!!!! 

Great game Jaxson!!! That's awesome dude! Picking peaches looked super awesome! Those are the best! I loved the story of grandma sharing the gospel!!!! This week was good. We received a letter from the Area President of an 18 year old girl from Bolivia, member of the church, who is lost here in Buenos Aires. She was promised a job here in Buenos Aires and came here and disappeared. Every missionary in our mission and I am sure in the other missions of Buenos Aires have a picture of her and information of her. The good news is there are like 1000 missionaries that are walking in every street of Buenos Aires everyday looking for her so I hope she gets found. Yesterday was the first day of spring here! Everyone in the streets were selling flowers. Yesterday two investigators went to church for the second time but they are not married and they work the whole entire week so we can't teach them but they really like church so I hope they keep coming! They are awesome! We dropped a few investigators because they were not progressing. Yesterday we found two families that look super good so please pray for them. This week I bought a tennis racket!!! It is pretty nice. I bought it for two ties and 5 bucks. A member also gave me a tennis ball so my apartment is like our tennis room. Every free moment I have I am playing tennis. Also for exercise one morning I found a wall out side and played tennis for a bit. It was awesome! I am eating a little more but not gaining weight at all. When i don't have lunch with the members me and my companion have started going to a restaurant from Peru. It is so good! I will send you pictures of the food. Thanks for everything!! Love you guys!!

Milanesa with the Bishop every Sunday

Hola! That's awesome about Jaxson and Dillon in their races! Jaxson is crazy! This week went really well. We didn't teach as much as we would have liked but we found a lot of new investigators! We really needed this. We found a kid that is 18 years old named Andy. He is from Peru and is awesome! My companion is so happy we are teaching a Peruvian. Andy liked church and is really progressing. Grandma and Grandpa are going to the city where my companion lives Chilclayo! My companion was super excited to hear that. Saturday me and my companion met a lady in the street and we invited her to go to church and then we left. She is not married so we usually don't work with people that aren't married because it takes at least 3 months to get married here, but she and her family all showed up to church! This doesn't usually happen but it was awesome! They also invited us to have dinner with them this week! The ward is progressing a lot. The bishop here is hilarious. We have lunch with him every Sunday and I laugh the whole time. He is always making jokes about the members or investigators that came to church. We eat milanesa every Sunday with them. Milanesa is the most popular food here. It is just fried breaded chicken or fried breaded meat. It's pretty good. Thanks for everything. It would be nice to add to the prayer list Andy, la familia Quinteros, y la familia de Estafania. Love ya!

"A pocket with the hole in the bottom"

Hows it going.  That's a horrible story about Max Hall. I loved hearing about Jaxson's game! It sounds so fun to watch. Not a lot happened this week. We are finding people but then we drop them pretty soon. The ward is changing a lot! Yesterday the Bishop said this ward was like a pocket with a hole in the bottom. People get baptized and never came again. He said starting today we were going to seal the pocket and do our part with recent converts and less actives! We have like 10 different members every week that come out to work with us. It helps us so much! This week I was walking past a gate and a dog stuck it's head out and bit me right on the arm. I wanted to kill it. Luckily I had my coat on so it didn't hurt much. Thanks for the pictures. I would love to see some videos of Jaxson playing football. I love you all!  

Baptism of Aldo and Yolando

The Baptism of Aldo and Yolanda

8-26

This week was pretty good. Every year at the end of august here they have a huge storm. They call it Santa Rosa. This whole week was super hot. It went from winter temperatures to summer temperatures immediately. Then Sunday and yesterday the storm came. It only rained super hard during church so that was nice but it was raining hard. The chapel was vibrating. People said it was hailing some parts. And yesterday it was super windy and rained a mist. It was the coldest wind I have ever felt. Welp, I am staying here in Pablo Nogues with Elder Neciosup! I love my area so I am excited.  Yolanda and Aldo are doing pretty good. Yolanda is like 70 yrs old and Aldo is her grandson and he is 10 yrs old but we have to teach them separate because Aldo is progressing more than his grandma. He is awesome. We leave him a different chapter in the Book of Mormon to read everyday and the next day he can explain to us perfectly what happened in the chapter. It is hilarious. They can both be baptized this Sunday but we need to do a lot of work with Yolanda. She is so nice to us! I love teaching her! Please pray for them! This week im pretty sure I lost weight. We only had lunch once with the members. I was starving. A member in my ward works in the temple every Friday and he said he knows the Eberhards. Every member I meet here that works in the temple regularly know them! That's about its for this week! I loved the video of jaxson playing football! Love you!

9-1

Hows it going? This week was good! Yolanda and Aldo got baptized yesterday! It was awesome! The son of Yolanda and the uncle of Aldo came from Paraguay to baptize them! It was a really cool experience! The daughter in law of Yolanda gave a talk in the baptism about the Holy Ghost and talked about how the spirit is always guiding us. She said her and her husband came to Argentina for the weekend and wanted to go to church so they looked up the church closest to the house of Yolanda but the only direction they found was a church like 20 minutes away. So they went to this church and it was Stake Conference so if they went to any other church it would have been empty. In stake conference they found us and told us about their family. They had an awesome experience. Other than this, not a lot happened this week. BYU won? Are they supposed to be good this year? Who is quarterback? sorry its short today. Thanks for everything. Love ya!

The water pump for the house

Helping to build a house

The Chapel in Pablo Nogues

French fries and railroad tracks

A month worth of letters

8-18 Como Andan??? How's the last bit of summer? Here it warming up a lot. This week went pretty well. Yesterday was a huge blessing for us. Saturday me and my companion fasted to find the elect in our area and we had a few people committed to come to church and they all backed out. We had stake conference and we were pretty bummed that no one came but after stake conference a missionary in my stake told he found a family that's looking for me and my companion. A family from Paraguay that are members came here to Buenos Aires for the weekend to visit family and they decided to go to church and they brought there nephew to church with them and they live in our area! We were so excited! After church we went to there house and taught the mom of the member from Paraguay. The rest of the family were not there Sunday but this week we have an appointment with them! They are awesome and please pray for them. The mom of the member is Yolanda and the nephew is aldo and they accepted to be baptized so please keep them in your prayers. The stake conference went really well. Elder Gonzalez of the seventy came and gave a really good talk. I think this was my third or fourth time in my mission listening to elder Gonzalez. Our stake president passed away a few weeks ago and they reorganized the whole stake presidency. They are all super young. One of the counselors is from china! That's about it for this week. Thanks for everything! Love you guys!

8-11 Hows it going? Sounds like an awesome summer? This week went pretty good. We are still struggling a bit to find investigators but we are finding more. The ward here is doing good. We had 59 people in church yesterday and we were super happy about that. We usually have about 40. We have a few members that give us a ton of referrals so we are working a lot with them. We found an hermano this week named Walter. He is awesome. He was a referral from a member and we contacted him and a long time back his friend took him to our church a few times but he never talked with the missionaries. He accepted a baptismal date but we have a lot of work to do with him. We are still working a lot with Natalia, la hermana that is going to Sam's mission but we are trying to work with more of the members but she helps us out a ton. This week I had lunch with a man that has 101 years old! It was kind of crazy. My ward is full of old people. In the young men's we have one active member and in the young women's there is like 5 active members. But i love working with the older people. Its super fun and they are all super funny! Pray for the people in my area. We really need to find. 

8-4 Lake Powell looks awesome! Who all went? How many days did you go? This week was good. We are working a lot with the members here. We have members working with us everyday for the whole entire day. It has been helping us out a ton. We still work almost everyday with the hermana that is going to Sam's mission. This week we found a few more people to teach. We are really excited about Patricia. She was a referral from a less active member. She loved the first message we shared with her. She is having a few problems in her family and she needs the gospel.  We are doing a lot better in this area but we are still striving to find more and more people. The weather here this week was really good. It was overcast and really cool. It was perfect. My companion is so funny. I love being with him. That's about it for this week. Sorry my details are horrible. Love and miss you guys!

Hows it going? That's awesome about grand daddy lakes. That's place is the best. Dad to answer your question about pday my mission is completely flat. There aren't even hills where I'm at. We have the city and then provincia. In some parts of provincia there are huge fields of cows or things like that but there are not mountains or lakes or rivers. There is the ocean and so a lot of people go there to fish so that's one thing i will do sooner or later. The provincia is like Anabella with out cove mountain. If the people are going to leave the house to get away or do something fun they usually go to the city to do something. But I will find some fun things to do here. This week we had interviews with president Ayre. It went really well. President Ayre is the best. He talked to us again about how there is no other thing like the mission. He said we just need to take advantage of this time and enjoy every minute of it. This week we found a few really awesome families but none of them came to church. We were a little bummed but its all good. Thanks for everything! I love and miss you guys.

Elder Neciosup is hilarious!

Hows it going? Dad how was your b-day? Not much happened this week. My new companion Elder Neciosup is hilarious. He is always making me laugh. He laughs at everything. I am really enjoying my time with him. We are working a lot more with our ward and it is helping a ton. We got more referrals this week and it helped us out a ton! We do everything we can to get referrals from the members. There are not a lot of members here, but the members we have are awesome! This week the weather was super good. It's been really hot but the nights get pretty cold. Earlier this week one of the dogs in our yard ran out of the gate and then came back like 5 minutes later and fell down and died. I am pretty sure it got hit by a car because I have seen it run around in the streets before, but the owners think it had a heart attack. They left it in the yard for a few days but yesterday we helped them dig a grave. My back is so sore.  That's awesome you guys are in a tennis tournament! I want to hear how it goes? And I took out 500 pesos from my credit card and it worked! I took it out of my savings but I haven't tried to use it as a credit card. Thanks for the pictures! Love you guys a ton!

Argentina made it to the World Cup!

Argentina made it to the finals of the World Cup!

Happy Birthday dad! How old are you? I think your almost at 50 and that's so weird for me to think. Have a great day! Welp today was transfers and I am staying in Pablo Nogues but Elder Damitz left. My new companion is Elder Neciosup from Chiclayo - La Victoria, Peru! He is awesome. He is a super funny kid. I will send you pictures of him next week. This week was pretty good. The bummer thing is that Argentina lost in the finals of the World Cup. I got to watch the semifinal game against Holland with members. It was awesome. Argentina won in a shoot out! Everyone was going nuts after the game. I have never seen anything like it. It was so crazy! Since they lost the finals everyone is a little depressed. In the city I heard everyone was going crazy and it was super dangerous. Sunday we had to be in our apartment from 4 until the rest of the night. The work here is going alright. We dropped a ton of our investigators so we are focusing a ton in finding. We are still working with Estela and Mariano. They are doing pretty good but are searching for an answer about the church. It is starting to rain a lot here and I love it! The only problem is it is so humid so my shoes and clothes don't dry. It is horrible. That's awesome about grandma and grandpa's mission call!!! I am super excited about that. Keep going to cove! Keep playing tennis! I want to hear how the tennis camp went? Thanks for everything! I love you guys so much! Remember Elder Ballard's conference talk- it's the least we can do as members of the church is invite at least 4 people to talk with the missionaries every year. Pray for opportunities to share the gospel. 

The countryside

This dog reminds me of JR - he is so skinny and his ribs are sticking out!