Hola familia!
It's hard to
believe another week has already passed here at the MTC. That means I only have
less than THREE weeks to learn Spanish!! Not good haha. I am almost positive I
will get reassigned so I might actually be here an extra week. Lots of
missionaries are being reassigned lately.
Well….Let's see. I
never know where to start. All the days jumble together. I'll start with how
awesome the missionary broadcast was! It was awesome, right? And yes, mom, I'm
famous ;) haha it really was so incredible to be in the presence of such
amazing people. The whole Marriott center was packed! Okay, I can tell I'm
already weird. I saw a couple holding hands and my first reaction was "Oh.
My. Gosh. You can't do that!!" I tend to forget there are people outside
of the MTC... It was weird to see people without nametags lol. Anyway, I don't
even know how to pick what my favorite part was! It was all so amazing. It
makes me regret not being a better member missionary. Sometimes we think
there's nothing we can do, but as members we can do SO much!
I also loved the
repeating message of love. Our actions should be motivated by love. As a
missionary, I know if I can forget myself and love, then I will be just fine. I also love love
love Elder Packer! He is so powerful. I love that he talked about us needing to
go away from the script. We shouldn't live our lives according to the script. I
know if we trust the spirit, it will be there. I love that he said, "It
comes when you start." How can we expect to get anywhere if we don't
start? LOVED it. I also loved when he said, "I don't know how much longer
I'll be learning here, but after I will go to another realm and attend a new
school" (or something like that). We should always be learning, even after
this life.
The biggest thing
I took out of Sunday didn't even come from the broadcast though. It came from
Relief Society. Sister Agostini (R.S. General Board) spoke. She talked about
her son being in the army. She said each time she talked to him on the phone or
skype, she always prepared herself for it to be the last time. I can't even
imagine. But she related it back to Heavenly Father sending us into enemy's
territory. He sent us here knowing it could be the last time he sees us, but He
still did it. He did it so we could grow. The amazing thing about our Father in
Heaven is that he has given us the weapons to win this battle. He wouldn't send
us to battle without giving us a way to win. We need to not only face the
world, but change the world. We need to live life on the offensive. Heavenly
Father doesn't need us to do this work; He could do it by himself. It's a
privilege to be doing His work. It was such an amazing talk!
This week also had
the best Tuesday devotional EVER. Janice Kapp Perry spoke! Yeah.. The one who
wrote all those amazing Primary songs. No big deal or anything. ;) She had us
sing a medley of Primary songs and ahhhhh SO great! In the song we sang A
Child's Prayer, I Love to See the Temple, I Belong to the Church
(of Jesus Christ... I don't know the title haha), I'm Trying to be Like
Jesus, To Bring the World His Truth, (The Army of Helaman), and Love
is Spoken Here. I wanted to keep singing them all night!
Okay so the best
part of the devotional=her husband's fist pump at the pulpit. It was a full on
“Pitch Perfect/Breakfast Club” fist pump. She was talking about how they first
met. She said one night before a clarinet recital he came up to her and said,
"I can think of better things you could do with those lips than play the
clarinet!" At this point her husband gets up, walks over to her, and
plants one on her! Ya know on “She's the Man” when she's like, "You kiss
her! Kiss the crap out of her!" He did just that. Full on, grabbed her
face and kissed her lol. He then fist pumps to all of us missionaries, and
of course we all stand up and clap so he does it again and bam! DOUBLE fist
pump. How awesome does he sound? I am determined to marry someone like him
haha. So after this, she finished her talk and we ended with singing the new As
Sisters in Zion, and Helaman's Army. One Elder stood up, and we all
followed and it was AMAZING. I don't think I've felt the spirit that strong
before. I don’t even think there was a dry eye in the room.
Later that night,
as a District, we were talking about the one Elder who stood up. It only took
one Elder to get all of us 4,000 missionaries to stand. We related that to our
mission. It could only take us to change so many lives! It was an amazing
night. I've been singing Primary songs all week! :) One last thing Sister Perry
said was, "We know this work will go on with or without any of us,
but what would become of us?" She's so right. I know that this work could
easily go on without me. I could go home and no matter what, the Lord would
fulfill his promises, but where would that leave me? Why not make something of
myself in the process? :)
Let's see.. What
else happened this week.. Oh I can explain one picture. We had the challenge of
"The Golden Disney Investigator." We do things like this every
Sunday. Rapunzel won :) Because seriously.. Can you think of a more receptive
Disney character than her? She needs the Atonement! Haha we seriously argued
(Uhh... I mean discusssed) this for hours! Some of the characters were Simba,
Tarzan, Marvin the Fish, the old man from Up, Bambi, and the Beast. There were
a lot! It was fun though lol.
One kinda cool
thing happend this week with Ian, our investigator aka Hermano Haug. We went in
planning on talking about families and all of a sudden he whips this question
out of his butt, "How are prophets called? Like, do you vote like in
politics?" We both just looked at each other like, "Umm do you know how to answer in
Spanish?" Lol. So Hermana Petersen starts trying to explain and our lesson
was going downhill FAST. We couldn't think of any Spanish words! So as she's at
least trying, I sit there. All of a sudden Articles of Faith five and six pop
into my head and I hurry and find them and have him read them. I know it was
the spirit! So he read them and had no more questions :) He was like oooh I get
it. So now we have a great lesson planned for introducing him to the Priesthood
and then to the ordinances, which means baptism! We'll see how it goes :)
Carlos on the other hand... If he says “no se” one more time I'm gonna freak
lol. That's his answer for everything, which means, “I don't know.” He kinda
freaked out on us this week and was like "I don't believe in prayer!"
and we were just kinda like well... That's a bummer lol. It's hard to figure
out how to teach someone who doesn't want to try! We'll get him though, don't
you worry ;)
So mom, you would
LOVE my companion. I know I do! She pulls dog jokes on me now... Hermana
McChesney goes "Oh I'm just pullin your tail" and I was like
"That's not even the saying? It's 'I'm just pulling your leg'" and
Hermana Petersen says, "Well for you, it's tail since you're a dog."
Not. Funny. She's pickin up your slack! I do love her so much though. Yesterday
was bad, but she listened to me and was there for me and I love her for that :)
Companionships are definitely meant to be! Yesterday was her birthday and I
love birthdays and made a big deal out of hers :) Made her wear a birthday girl
tag and everything haha. I even got a whole Chinese district to sing happy birthday
to her in Chinese! It was fun :)
So of course you
know there's an embarrassing story of the week... Yep, you're right. I forgot
to take my towel to the shower. Who does that?! I think I'm having bad luck
with the bathrooms here or something lol. By the way.. Cleaning the
showers=best thing ever! Who would've thought I'd love cleaning?? Anyway.. Yep.
There I stood without a towel in the shower. I decided to speak up and was like
"Umm hello? I forgot my towel." Thankfully a sister had two lol.
Sheesh. I am so awkward.
I think that's my
only awkward story for the week though, so I'm improving right? Haha right! I'm
so grateful to be here serving the Lord. This week has given me a new
perspective on everything :) I'm so grateful for the support! I still get made
fun of for getting packages almost every other day and letters every day and I
LOVE it :) I have the best friends and family out there! No battle, can't top
it :) I hope everyone has a great week!
Love,
Hermana Roper :)
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