THANK YOU so much for all the Christmas emails!

THANK YOU so much for all the Christmas emails! It was so nice to see that so many people had written me for Christmas. You all are awesome, and I apologize that I don't get to reply to all of you individually today. Our internet is being super sketchy today so it will be a miracle if you even get to see this email.

I don't think there has been a better Christmas than the one I just experienced. It was beautiful. Christmas eve we went outside of the CTM and sung Christmas Hymn in Portuguese. In Brazil they set off fire works for Christmas eve. It was awesome because we had an incredible view from our apartment. The CTM President and his wife came to each one of our apartments and sung Christmas carols and gave us each little bags full of chocolates.

Christmas was so much fun. We were blessed to have a devotional given by the area president, We sang songs, watched movies, we went out into the streets of Sao Paulo for a little bit and cleaned the streets. SANTA CAME!!! or Papai Noel is what he is called here. He gave all of the Elders a new Tie and All the sisters got Necklaces. The Food wasn't super great. We had Nasty Brazil Pizza for dinner but it was fine because the whole day was focused on Christ and it was awesome :) And after dinner we got to watch the live broadcast of the Provo MTC devotional with Elder Bednar. IT WAS AWESOME. It was the best devotional I have ever watched. He started out the meeting by passing around 200 cell phones and all of the international MTC got a laptop and we got to email or txt questions to him and he answered them. It was so cool. He is definitely one of my favorite Apostles. I am so I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and I hope you all continue to keep the Spirit of Christ with you!

Love you all!

-Sister Roberts

Feliz Natal!!!

I love you all and I'm sorry that I cant email you all individually. A Miracle has happened in the MTC We have been out of Internet and Phone service for the past 6 days and we didn't think that we would be able to write our family today but some nice man spent the last 14 hours hooking up laptops for us to use today. Unfortunately we only get 10min to email today so I was unable to read every ones emails, and I am not sure that I will get to email again while I am here in the MTC. We were suppose to leave on December 31 but because its New Years we will be leaving on the 2nd of January. I am so excited and nervous to go out into the field. But If you don't get an email from in for a couple of weeks rest assure that I am safe and that I am doing well, I just don't have internet access.

 

I love you all so much. And I am having a wonderful Christmas. I love Christmas. What a wonderful time of year to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. I don't have a lot of time left but as my Christmas gift this year I want to share My Testimony with you.

 

I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I know that He is the Savior and Redeemer of the Word. I am so grateful for his Atoning Sacrifice. I cannot even imagine the pain he felt so that I can have eternal life. I know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us. and I know that he has a plan for each of us. Sometimes we may not always understand why we have to go through certain trials or live through certain experiences But Heavenly Father can see the big picture and he knows exactly what he is doing. I know that I am suppose to be on a mission. I know that Lord has called me to Brazil for a specific purpose. I am not sure what it yet but I know I am here for a reason. I know that my savior lives and that he is my very best friend.

 

I love you all Merry Christmas!!

 

Love Sister Roberts

This week was better

This week was so much better than last week.. well kinda. I got to go to the temple today. The Sao Paulo temple is BEAUTIFUL!! I feel so lucky and so blessed to be able to attend the temple. The weather here is beautiful! Its so nice outside. We get gym time everyday and I play volleyball with all the Elders. We get the same food every other day, so I'm already bored of it. but the good news is that we get to leave the CTM (yes, dad here its called the CTM not the MTC) and walk around the streets of Sao Paulo so we stock up on sweets and other foods to last us through out the week. There are only 54 missionaries here, and only 3 other American Sisters. I didn't realize how incredibly blessed I am to be here. Everyday I wonder "Why did I get my visa when there are so many others waiting for theirs?"

 

We got to watch the Provo MTC devotional from last week given by Elder Cook. It was kinda hard for me to watch because when the Provo MTC Choir sang the camera zoomed in on my old companion Sister Keeler. I miss her so much. I love my companion Sister, O'Brien but this week has been challenging. She came straight from home and was put in a three week district. She doesn't know any Portuguese and she gets discouraged often. Our lessons have been Challenging because I speak for most of them, which I guess is good for me because my language gets better and I have more confidence but its so hard because I see how frustrated she gets and how hard she tries. Unfortunatly starting tomorrow we won't be companions anymore because another American is coming from home so she will move to that district and Sister Thornton will be my new companion.

 

I can't believe that Christmas is in a Week. There isn't snow outside, There isn't a Christmas Tree with presents underneath it, and its 80 degrees outside. But the spirit of Christmas is always here. I love looking outside and seeing Christmas lights hung in aapartment windows ahh its beautiful.

I cannot express to you how beautiful it is here. I am so bummed that I don't get to send you pictures because Brazil is Beautiful! I look out my bedroom Window and I can see the colorful scity of Sao Paulo mixed in with a luscious green Jungle. There are hills and some random mountains in the distance. Ahh its beautiful.

 

Being a missionary is so hard. It is so hard to be with someone 24/7. Learning Portuguese is hard. Being away from the people I love is hard. But it is so worth it. I love going out in the streets and answering peoples questions about the church in my broken portuguese. I love sharing the gospel. I love being a missionary.

Love,

Sister Roberts

AAHHHHHHH!!!!! Im in Brazil!!

I love Brazil! the people here are so nice and so friendly and they are so patient with me. Sao Paulo is beautiful! Honestly I don't think Ive ever been to a place as beautiful as here. I have already fallen in love with this courty and with the people. the CTM is a lot different than the MTC. The teachers hardly speak English. So we Speak Portuguese basically the whole time. I'm a little behind but I'm cating up pretty fast. I can almost understand everything that my teachers tell me so that is exciting. We only get 45min to email instead of an hour, and we are only aloud to take picture on P-day and we can only take them in the CTM and we can't send them home. So You won't be getting any pictures from me for a while. The food here is different.. haha its good and sometimes weird but it doesn't make my stomach sick like the Provo MTC did. There are only about 120 missionaries here so the environment is lot more intimate than Provo. The President and His wife are Super nice! They come and talk to us all the time, I love them. My companion, Sister O'Brien just got here yesterday and she is from Leeds England!! She has the cutest accent. I love her but she is really struggling. She just came from home and doesn't know any Portuguese and she got put in a Four week class. The teachers don't understand here English at all so I have ended up translating for her kinda a lot. I love her, but I really miss my Provo companions.

 

I'm pretty sure that I have experienced every emotion known to man kind in the past three days!

Ive been Excited, Annoyed, frustrated, Happy, Sad, Depressed, Discouraged, Disgusted. Traveling was awful. Oh my gosh I wanted to kill the Elder that ended up traveling with me. He is fresh out of high school and he is the kind of person that acts like he knows everything and that he is always right.  Usually they don't have missionaries sit by each other on the plane, but I got the unfortunate opportunity to sit next to him in the very back row of the plane, flying from Atlanta to Sao Paulo! WORST 9 1\2 Hours of my life! My Portuguese isn't super great but I did have a lot of confidence in the words that I could speak, but every time I tried speaking to the nice Brazilian next to me he was like "Oh my gosh sister Roberts that's not how you say it. Don't you know anything?" I was already kinda stressed out about getting on a plane and flying to another country but he just put me over the top! I didn't sleep at all on the plane and so When I got the CTM I was super tired and I was trying to push all of my luggage up to my floor and some really nice Brazillan Sisters tried helping me but they didn't know English and I couldn't communicate with them I started crying, I cried all day. Wednesday was probably the hardest day of my life, I was stressed out about the language and the culture, and the Elder that I was traveling with was so degrading and I hadn't slept in 38 hours.  It was so hard and I was so discouraged. But its fine because I can do hard things. And being a missionary is the Hardest thing I have ever done. But after a nice hot shower, a good night sleep, and saying many many prayers the past couple of days have been awesome. I love the CTM I love everything about the Brazil. Its beautiful and I am so glad that I am here. I wish I could send you pictures because it is so beautiful. The view from my window is amazing. I love life, I love being a missionary, and I love all of you!

-Sister Roberts

I'm going to Brazil?! What!?!

Oh My GOSH!!!!! I'M GOING TO BRAZIL!!!!!!!  Woot  woot!

Saturday I had a very strong prompting that I needed to start to prepare myself for Brazil. I knew that I was going to get my visa this week. So it wasn't a surprise to me when my class was interrupted Wednesday morning by the nice lady over the intercom asking me to come down to the travel office. My Companion and I were freaking out!  We walked diligently  **cough cough ran** to the Travel office and the lady was like "Are you Sister Roberts? Your Visa has arrived and you will be flying to Brazil Next Tuesday. My companion and I looked at each other and we started jumping up and down and basically had a very un-missionary like moment.

I looked down at my Travel itinerary and at first I saw that I was the "Travel Leader" and I was like thats weird why wouldn't they have an Elder be a leader it must just be Sisters flying down...um no... I am flying BY MYSELF to a country I've never been too, speaking a language that I hardly know!

Basically I am pumped to go to Brazil. But I would be lying to you if I didn't tell you that I am absolutely terrified. I may or may not have had a slight emotional break down that night. At first I was so excited to leave, but then all these thoughts of "you suck at Portuguese" "your companion is going to hate you" "your new district isn't going to accept you" "Everyone else is going to be so much better than you" started coming in to my mind...Freaking Satan... Its all good because I know that Heavenly Father wouldn't have me do anything that I am not capable of.

But I am so sad to leave Provo. I love my district. They are awesome! I am so close to all of the Sisters and the Elders are practically my brothers. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!

We've had such a good time this week. The Portuguese is coming along.. slowly but is coming along. We have a new investigator this week and we committed him to baptism already so we are pretty pumped for that. 

One thing that I learned this week is that my companions and I are completely different people!! We are so different, we have different styles, we like different things, we want to go to different classes and do different things, but when it comes to teaching the gospel we are Always on the SAME page. Every time we prepare a lesson we all feel that we should be teaching the same thing. Its awesome. I love these girls so much! They're awesome missionaries and they have taught me so much in the short time that we have been together. I am going to miss them dearly.

You all are awesome thank you so much for all the Love and support. My Next email will be from Brazil!! 

TCHAU!!

♥ Sister Roberts

 Package from home

My daily schedule