Never Lose Your Faith

Hellloooo! :) 

         Love the pictures Haidyn! But just so you know, those are still MY high heels. NOT yours! And all of my other stuff better be right where I left it or you’re gonna be in trouble ;) haha

         Sounds like everything’s going great in good ole Ferron :) Things are great here too. It’s definitely gotten a lot hotter this week though! We can definitely tell summer is just around the corner :( But I'll be leavin just in time to miss it so whatever :)

         We had transfers today as well. My companion got transferred to Tumbes, which is like the area that’s really out in the middle of nowhere. She'll be 6 hours away :( But I’m here with Hermana Valencia from Lima. She’s 19. This is the first time in my whole mission that I’m the older companion! But it should be fun :) She just got out of her training with Hermana Stringham so I’m excited :) New missionaries always want to work more.

         This week though... Was just not our week. "Hay semanas buenas... Y hay semanas peores." The bed bugs came back with a bang! We spent half of the week cleaning and washing clothes. I have never hand washed so many clothes in my life! Okay wait... Let's be honest. I’ve never hand washed clothes in my life haha. That’s probably why I have blisters! But nobody has washers so we boiled water to wash our clothes. Mom.... I will never complain about having to hang up or wash clothes. And if I do you have permission to beat me. But anyway... This time, instead of us spraying raid all over the room, some guy came with his cool equipment and sprayed down the room. But we couldn’t go in for like 2 days so we were homeless again :( And it was sad because it just happened to be Hermana Ordoñez’s birthday lol. So she spent her birthday cleaning and washing clothes... But we did have fun too :) 

         Anyway, besides the bed bugs, it was still a bummer week. Nobody wanted us :( It was kinda discouraging. We would walk up to people to contact them and they would seriously just look at us with a look like, "What the heck do you want?" and walk away 
:( I mean, sometimes that happens. But this week it happened allllll week! And all of our appointments kept falling through and ahhhh! Frustrating. But we also have seen miracles, like always! :) 

         Jhenciano came to church again! :) And he loved it :) He’s mostly having problems with his family. They are all in a different church and they hate us. So they’re kinda discouraging him. But we're tryin to help him out. He even stayed all three hours Sunday! It was really a miracle. 

          We also started teaching Jhenciano’s nephew, Geraldo. He’s 30ish and is just the perfect investigator. Almost too good to be true! He was just like, "I want to change, but I just need some help." Hey hey hey! We can help! We can help! :) We'll see how it goes with him :) He’s single though so we won’t have any problems with him having to get married. That’s always a bonus :) 

         Ana is also another investigator that we have that’s really great. She had a baptismal date before, but then broke up with her boyfriend and was sad, so she disappeared for a while. But she’s good now and called us up and is ready to go :) She’s 20 and just great. Her mom also hates us though.... Moody moms. Gotta love em.

         There’s also a less active family we’re teaching (they’re the ones where that guy died in the lesson...They finally accepted us!) The Facundo Family. There’s 7 kids. And the mom and dad are separated. But Saturday we had the first lesson with everyone :) It was so great. The kids are the cutest kids ever! We sang "I am a child of God" and it was so cute to hear all of them just screaming at the top of their lungs, "Soy un hijo de Dios!!" :) It was the best. Tender mercies :)

         I was also reading this week in the Book of Mormon in Alma when him and Amulek are preaching to the people and are just rejected.  I know it wasn’t a coincidence that I just happened to be reading that part in the Book of Mormon this week. It helped me a lot. There are days (or weeks) where nobody wants us, but hey, at least I’m not getting beaten and starved for preaching the Gospel. Alma and Amulek gave up everything! And they never lost their faith. They kept going :) and they had success :) We can have success here, too. I just know it. We can’t get down. We've gotta keep going. If we are bummed, how are we supposed to tell people that our message is one of happiness?? We've just gotta stay positive and see the little miracles :)

         I’m excited for this transfer. Can’t believe it’s my last one, but I’m grateful that I get to stay here in Ignacio Merino :) We’re gonna have a great transfer. I just know it!

         Hope you all have a great week :) See you in 6 weeeeeeeeks! Love you all SO much!

Love,

Hermana Roper