Living In The Moment

Hola familia! 

         I’m having a hard time even remembering what things to tell you from this week haha. This week was good. We didn’t have any trips or anything, just a normal week here in La Cruz. 

         Hermana Maryuri is just great and all baptized and stuff :) Hermano Adolfo still doesn’t want too listen, but one day maybe. I have one new investigator that I love again! I still love Hermano Victor, but this one is Hermana Pilar. We visited her my first week here, but obviously I don’t remember anything from my first week lol but man, she’s great. She’s had all the lessons before from some other Elders, but isn’t married. This is ALWAYS the problem. And her "husband" isn’t planning on changing that anytime soon. But well get him :)

         Anyway, every time we had tried to visit her she wasn’t there and we had left a bunch of notes. Well she told us that she hadn’t gotten any of the notes and was wondering why we hadn’t visited her. She said she’d see us walking and wonder what she did to make us stop visiting. So we felt bad, but I really think this time was preparing her for this visit. We taught the plan of salvation and she had great questions! She wanted to know a lot about the temple. Apparently that’s one thing the Elders left out, and she loves the concept that she can have an eternal family. We plan on teaching her all about eternal families this week. One question she had was who created God? The crazy thing is that the same morning we visited her, Hermana Rios and I had the same exact question! We just had to share the scripture that says God is yesterday, today, and forever. It was a darn good question! Haha but she’s great. 

         A funny investigator story this week: Hermana Aurora. This lady loves our visits, but after the lesson this week I don’t think she wants to learn haha. We watched this Joseph Smith video with her and we get done and I ask her, "What was your favorite part?" She then proceeds to go off talking about how her favorite parts were when the people were working out in the fields and that she’s grateful for God because without God we wouldn’t have food. Uhhhhh. Yeah. Did she not notice that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father?! Haha not sure what to do with her. 

         We had a lot of service this week too. The pictures with the turtles are at a lady’s house in our ward. This is what all the houses are like and that’s how they cook. If you think cooking takes a lot of time in America, you would die here haha, it is an ALL day process here. We picked the leaves off of herbs for hourssss. But it was nice to help her out :) Oh! So she has this 18-year-old son, Yordi. He is autistic and we just love him to death. Well, we were at her house and he just starts going off on me about how the color of my hair signifies evil lol. It’s normal hair, people! I promise! Hermana Maryuri also asked me this week if she could just touch my hair for a second haha. 

         Okay and now for the craziness. I ate the gizzard of a chicken... EWW EWW EWW!!!! It tasted like dog food. Well, actually I wouldn’t know what dog food tastes like, but if I had to guess its gotta be close lol. It was all soft and purple and EWW. 

         I also had an awkward moment this week... When people pray here I cannot hear them! They just mumble and it takes all I have to even hear amen haha. So we were with Hermana Vicki and I obviously didn’t hear amen because I’m just chillin there when I get a kick to the shin from Hermana Rios and she gives me "the look" and was like "Hermana! Amen..." and I was so flustered I just said, "Oh sorry, my bad" in English... And they all just stared... Aca-awkward! 

         Also.. Funniest thing to hear natives try to say in English: sheet and crab haha! I tried teaching Hermana Maryuri a little English and these were two things she wanted to know how to say, but it definitely didn’t come out as sheet and crab lol.  A for effort though ;)

         One thing I can definitely testify of this week is that all missionaries are protected. The area where Hermana Pilar lives is really dangerous at night, but we couldn’t just leave in the middle of the lesson with her because it was so great! So there we were just walking, scared out of our minds, and this moto drives up to us. Yep, we were even more scared haha, but it turned out that this guy has seen us walking before and offered to drive us to our next appointment free of charge :) It was definitely a blessing! I know that I need to be careful here, but I also know God watches over every single missionary. 

         Another thing I learned this week was from the Liahona. We taught a few recent converts this lesson. It was about living in the moment. A lot of times people either live in the past or in the future. This is a bad habit of mine. It’s either "before my mission" or "after my mission" and I forget to enjoy the time I have today. If I keep doing this I’m going to look back after my mission and regret the time I wasted. We also need to spend as much time in the present with those we love. One thing I’ve learned is how important family is. I knew I had the greatest family before my mission, but now I KNOW I have the greatest family. It’s crazy what we take for granted :) So yep. That’s my goal. Live in the present :) I can change the past, but my decisions now will change the future. 

         I love you all SOOOO much and miss you every day, but I know we have all been blessed so much. Thank you for EVERYTHING! Have a great week :) 

Love,

Hermana Roper