Stop Sucking on Her Hair!

Hermana Roper will be arriving back in Utah on December 3rd.  She will be speaking in the Ferron Millsite Ward on Sunday, December 14th at 11:00 AM.  Thank you for all of the support these past 18 months! We appreciate it so much!

Hello there everyone :)

         This week.... Was fast. Super fast. But it was good :) It also had a lot of interesting moments... but it was good :)

         The bummer is that our investigators just stopped progressing. After we taught Gerardo the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity, things have gone down hill.... He still wants to change and get baptized, I just think he’s a little discouraged thinking it’s gonna be really hard. He thinks he can’t quit smoking, but I know he can. It will just take time. It’s so hard though because if he didn’t have these problems with the Word of  Wisdom, he could be baptized tomorrow. He’s the perfect investigator, but he needs some time to change :)

         Mary and Bill are progressing, but not as much as they were at first. So that’s a bummer, but they’ll come around :)

         This week we really just struggled finding new investigators. Guess how many we found?!...... Zero. But we contacted a lot of people that seemed great. We have appointments with lots of them this coming week :)

         We did have an experience that was kinda hard. My companion was SO bummed. I’m kinda used to this área and people just shutting us down, but my companion still takes it super hard. We were in a lesson with a less active girl, teaching about missionary work. Hermana Valencia says, "But you can do missionary work in your own family" and the little girl, Camila, says, "But everyone’s members!" Well, her aunt just happened to be in the room as well.... And her aunt haaaates the church. She never leaves us alone in the lessons because she loves making mean comments haha. But this time she stood up and was like, "I am NOT a member! And I never will be because this church is NOT true! And this church should NOT be telling kids they should go on missions!" I think Hermana Valencia wanted to cry. She just looked at me and whispered, "I don’t like her...." Yep... Me either. It was rough. But there’s people who will accept the Gospel and those that won’t. God’s promise though, is that all will get the opportunity to do so, but only if they WANT to. Obviously she does not want to... For now, anyway...

         We did have an awesome conference with Elder Evans though :) That was so needed! As a mission, we struggle a lot finding new people. We pretty much talked about how to find investigators and how to talk WITH people, not AT people. He helped us a lot. He corrected us, but with love :) haha. Conferences like this always strengthen my testimony. When a General Authority is here, you can FEEL the power he has.

         It was cool though because he told us all, "If everyone one of you ask every single person you talk to tonight for a referral, you WILL see results." Let’s be honest, I suck at asking for referrals. But we did it. And we did see results :) We were contacting on the street, and asked if they knew someone who could use our message? At first she gave us the usual answer.... No. But then she was , "There is a little old lady that’s sick that could use some help." She gave us the direction and we’re gonna go back tomorrow :) It was pretty great.

         Then yesterday we ate with the bishop and asked him for a referral and he said this Wednesday night if we come over, him and his wife will be ready with referrals :) It was so neat! When Elder Evans told us to ask for referrals, my first thought was, "They never give us referrals, but whatever. We can try..." haha but he was right :) We saw success.

         Okay the weird things that happened.... I ate cuy. Do you know what that is? Google it. And I didn’t really like it. It was kinda, actually, really gross. But we smiled and said it tasted great :) haha

         Also, I had a little girl sucking on my hair. I mean, I’m used to people constantly touching my hair because they think it’s so weird, but this time I was a little caught off guard when I thought the little girl was just touching it and her mom yells, "Hey! Stop sucking on her hair!" It’s like us gringas are from a different planet...

         Well, that’s my week! Talk to you next week :) And see you in TWO! Yay! Love you all soooo much! :) See you soooon :)

Love,

Hermana Roper