One Decision

Hello there family :) 

         It was a great week here. It had its share of craziness, but we made it through haha. To answer your questions, yep I made it to Lima :) It was a fun time. I always love my gringa time with the Sisters. We have the best Sisters here. And I’m finally legal!! Only took over a year to receive my passport... haha. But whatever :) 

         Funny story about the whole Lima trip... If it weren’t against the rules to touch an Elder we would have beaten up Elder Cook by now. Now that I think about it though, if we beat him with a Book of Mormon it wouldn’t actually be touching him right?... Right. Anyway... So he calls Sunday and tells us we need to be at the airport at 7 in the morning and that we need to be at the bus station at 5:30. So at this point Hermana Rivera freaks out and screams, "Seriously?! 5:30? In the MORNING?!" and sarcastically Elder Cook goes, "No Hermana... In the afternoon" and starts laughing. So we showed up Tuesday at 5:30 in the morning. We’re waitin there till almost six and finally decide to call Elder Cook.

         "Elder Cook! Where are you guys??"

         "Sleeping...."

         "Wait. Aren’t we going to Lima?..."

         "Yeah Hermanas... Tonight at 7."

         Yep. He’s going down. So we went back and slept until personal study haha sheesh. 

         Let me tell ya though... The bus station in Peru at 5:30 in the morning is interesting to say the least. So we’re sitting there waiting when we see this crazy guy pretending his broom is a rifle. He’s like aiming it at people pretending to shoot everyone and then starts walking over to us. Then he starts yelling stuff at us and points his broom at me and looks at my companion and is like, "Do I kill her?! Or no??" We just busted up laughing lol. Oh man. At this point we were like where are the Elders at?? There’s some crazy dude here trying to kill people with his broom lol. Wow. I love Peru. Love it. But yep. It was a crazy morning... 

         As for the week with our investigators. We have no idea where Andres is! He’s not the type to lie and trick us so its weird. (Lots of people lie to us around here...) But we’ll see what happens this week. 

         We have two AWESOME new investigators though. One is Mariel. She’s our mission leaders daughter-in-law. She has come to church a lot. Why we never talked to her, I have no idea. But finally our mission leader said she wanted to know more. We’ve been visiting her a lot this week. She wants to be baptized. I’m sure it will be soon. She loves everything about the church and knowing about eternal families. She even does her homework! I have no idea how to say what I want to say in English... Okay in Spanish it’s "Ella cumple con sus compromisos." But it basically means she does her homework... She’s great. Lets just leave it at that :)

         We also have Milagros. And wow she has problems. She’s married (yay!!!) but her husband has another chica. And Hermana Milagros knows. And her husband knows that she knows. And his other chica also has a husband and family. And she knows that her family and husband know. I’m probably confusing you all... Basically it’s just a big hot mess. But she needs so much help. We challenged her to baptism and she is suuuper catholic. But we have family home evening tonight so we’re ready to set up a baptismal date. Take two! Pray for her though. She has two adorable little kids too. 

         Then we have Darwin. He’s one of those guys that acts all tough but he really wants to change his life. He told us this week, "It’s not like I was a bad person, but I just want to be better. I want to change my life." The thing with him though is he says he wants to change his life little by little, and isn’t really willing to take that leap of faith and be baptized. We’ll see though. 

         Then we have Hermana Luz :) I still just love her. I can’t get myself to drop her completely. She finally realized that her husband isn’t going to change anytime soon and that if she wants to get baptized she has to do it without him. She said last night she was going to pray about a date and let us know. I know she can do it. She’s just scared. She said she first wants to learn how to forgive. What she really needs to learn though is how to forgive herself and just move forward. Her husband makes things so hard though. 

         Oh! Sandra kicked Joel out!!! Do you know how great that is?!?! He’s living with his mom and dad now. She finally did it! I’m so excited for her. We’re gonna see if it lasts though. But she can get baptized! :) I’m proud of her. 

         We also have Vanessa and Aracely that are great and accepted to be baptized the first lesson. They’re Teodoro’s daughters if you don’t remember. LOVE them. They didn’t come to church though so we’ll see what happens this week.

         Those are our main investigators at the moment though. Love them all. This area is really starting to progress, and I love seeing the change in people.

         We did have intercambios this week though. I was with Hermana Johnson. I LOVE that girl. She’s one of my favorites. So funny, but so inspirational. At this point she’s having a hard time. She’s going home soon, and on top of that she’s having trouble in her area and with her companion. But she said something I loved. She said that instead of try and change her circumstances, she’s going to apply the Atonement to herself first. We can’t change the world, but we can change ourselves. If we apply the Atonement, we at least change our own lives. We will never ever ever understand the Atonement, but little by little we can understand more and more and let Christ change us. 

         Today we also had a neat experience. A member from Hermana Riveras’ old area came to visit and she is great. Hermana Rivera opened a new area and after two transfers they closed the area. This is super weird in the mission, and nobody knew why. Today though Analy came to have lunch and now Hermana Rivera knows why. Analy told us, "Hermanas, I know there wasn’t baptisms in that area, but you helped ME. You helped me know that God loves me. I now know He loves me like He loves you. He changed me." And then she was like, "What would have happened if Hermana Rivera decided not to go on a mission?? I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be going on a mission either." Then I just thought, "What would have happened if I decided not to go on a mission?" It’s a scary thought! One decision changes eeeeeverything. Sometimes we think we don’t matter, or that God loves other people more than us, but it’s not true. Analy said so many great things that I don’t even have time to write, but it really made me think today. Love the mission.

         Anyway... That’s all I’ve got for now. Hope you all have the best week! LOVE YOU!!

Love,

Hermana Roper

P.S. I almost forgot. This week someone asked if I had pets. I said we have a cat and they freeeaked out. They started telling me about people that die because they find cat hairs in their brains lol. They told me one lady had so many cats she found a hairball in her stomach ha! Wow. They seriously believe thee craaaziest things. I love Peru. Love it.