The Atonement Can Work Miracles

Hello there everyone :)

         Wowzers. What a crazy week! 2 intercambios, consejo de lideres, and a baptism (which always has its difficulties).

         The intercambios were great. I was with Hermana Garcia from Lima and Hermana Salamanca from Chile. Both really great :) 

         Consejo de Lideres was the BEST. Love it! President Rowley is just the best! He always knows how to help us. We talked a lot about the culture of the mission. Elder Ballard said the culture of the mission is what the missionaries are doing when the president isn’t there. So we talked about how to improve the culture of the mission (wow this keyboard is awful. sorry.) He was like, "I know how you all act when I’m there, but I want to know how you act when I’m not around. Now, we´re gonna put the skunk on the table." So that’s what we did :) We talked about allllll the bad things that are happening in the mission and how we can fix it. It was great. By the end we had a nice big skunk on the table, but then we found ways we can get rid of it. We all talked about how we can improve the mission and came away with a lot of great ideas. 

         I loved the whole skunk concept though :) It’s not something that’s just for missionaries. I think we can all put the skunk on the table. We can realize the things that we don’t do, that we should, and find a way to fix it :) Sometimes we don’t like to think about our weaknesses, but its necessary if we want to grow and progress. 

         Now for the baptism... Wow. One of the craziest yet. Really. It was incredible to see how Satan was working against us. He did eeeeeverything he possibly could! First of all, we were rushing to finish her lessons because this week she just happened to find a new job and is working from 8-8pm. Everytime we went to see her she wasn’t there. That also meant we couldn’t review her baptismal interview questions. We thought, "Oh it’s all good. She won’t have a problem...." Wrong. We went an hour before her interview with our district leader (oooops. our bad.....We know....) "and she ended up having a teeeeeny tiiiiiny issue.... An issue that had to be talked about with President Rowley..... Yeah.... Oooops. Our bad. So she looks at us with her big, brown, shrek kitty kind of eyes and is like, "Am I going to be able to be baptized still??...." She was in tears, but we just told her, "Uhhh... We´ll be right back." and we ran to a public phone to call President Rowley. President Rowley was in Sullana that morning with our zone at our zone meeting (Yes, he surprised us again) so we had hope maybe he was still in Sullana. Nope. He was in TUMBES! That’s like 6 hours away! But because President Rowley is amazing, he set up a way for the Stake President to interview her. So we´re waiting in the church till after 9 and she doesn’t show. We ended up havin to leave because of curfew, but guess what?! She finally showed! She showed up just as President Alborada was leaving for the night :) and she passed her interview! :) And the baptism was AMAZING. Her daughter was cute. She told me, "My mom was nervous, but I told her to just enjoy it like her bath!" :) It was such an amazing moment though. We all ended up soaking wet from hugging her so much afterwards haha but it was great.  

         Ready for the craziness?? I got peed on. Again. But this time it was a dog. Yep. The Familia Grande has cute puppies so they handed me one and I was playing with it and before I knew it my lap was full of pee :( It got all over everything! Even my scriptures! I have the best luck, I know. But to top it all off, I handed it to Hermana Rivera because I was freaking out and it got scared and peed on her too :) If I’m going down, she is too haha. Everyone found it quite funny. 

         Also, I’m SO excited to see you all, buuuuut after this week I’m a little scared. I was sitting in our room freeeeezing! I went and put on fuzzy socks and used a hoodie for the first time and was just freeezing. Then I look at the thermometer..... 75 degrees. Uhhh.... I’m not sure I’m ready to go home to snow in December haha. I seriously couldn’t believe it! You better be ready with like five coats. No joke.

         This week I’ve learned a lot though. I learned a lot about the Atonement. Hermana Sandra felt soooo broken and sad about what had happened before in her life and she just thought that forgiveness didn’t exist for her. But after she came out of the water she GLOWED. She just kept saying, "Amazing! Amazing! I feel so happy!" I got to see first hand how the Atonement can work miracles in the life of someone. We aren’t perfect. And we never will be in this life, but that doesn’t mean Christ and His Atonement can’t help us. We can reach to Him in ANY moment. Yes, we make mistakes, again and again, but He will be there again and again, to catch us when we fall. That’s a promise. 

         It was a great week though. Hope you all have a great week! I love you to the moon and back a million times! :)

Love,

Hermana Roper 

(This week a little kid told me he’s gonna call me Hermana Queso because I’m white haha.... Awesome. Just call me Sister Cheese.")