A Trial Of Our Faith

Oh mi familiaaaaa :)

Sounds like everyone had a great week. Ty... I hate to admit it, but you have MUSCLES! Maybe it was just the picture though... And Haidyn, You are GORGEOUS! And mom and dad... Why don’t you ever send pictures of you two?!? Miss your faces! Speaking of faces... Only 6 more days till I get to see you all! You could say I’m a little excited, but nervous I wont be able to speak in English. We had interviews this week with President Rowley and Hermana Rowley and I honestly struggled talking in English lol. I don’t have a language anymore! But I’m excited :)

One thing I’ve gotta say this week is I don’t think I can take any more breakups lol. D&G broke up with us. :( It was awful. They didn’t show up yesterday to church. Gabriel called the bishop though and told him that they had some problems with some things they’ve read. So after church we raced over to their house with the bishop and talked with them. Pretty much the last visit I, being crazy or something, gave Diana a mormon.org card so she could read more. Well, instead of typing it in at the top, she typed it in Google. You can only imagine the things she read. AWFUL. They found awful things about Joseph Smith and were questioning about polygamy and garments, and their biggest doubt was, “If Joseph Smith was a prophet, why didn’t God protect him? Why did he die so young?” SO frustrating! They weren’t ready to listen to anything at this point. So we just told them, "You believe in the Bible right?" and Diana was like, "My religion is Jesus. I will believe in the Bible until I die." Then we asked her, "In the Bible it’s a commandment to get married, right?" and she agreed. Then we basically told her that she can’t expect to get an answer if she doesn’t act on her faith, and that if she had faith, she would do something about it. So we all testified and left, thinking that would be the last visit. Well, guess who called this morning? Diana. Without even making any sort of conversation she says, "Hermanas. Can I get all my paperwork ready and get married on the 27th?" Whaaaat?!? We were both shocked! Like, what just happened? Is this a dream? Haha. So we made arrangements, and turns out we missed the deadline for the 27th. If they wanted to get married the 27th we´d need papers today, but we’re doing all their paperwork tomorrow and they’re getting married on the 2nd. If I get transferred on the 30^th, I’m going to bawl. I can’t miss their wedding! But for real. How amazing is God’s plan?? I love D&G!! Even if they broke my heart yesterday... 

Other than that this week has been pretty normal. We´re planning a Christmas activity for the 21st that’s gonna be so good! We´re in charge of a live nativity. It’s gonna be so amazing. We also had the ward primary program yesterday, which was cute :) Guess who played piano? Yep. This girl. Who am I becoming? What happened to the girl who was terrified to play piano in front of people?? Haha 

As for other investigators, Edwin is great. His wife... Not so much. She’s a little hard to teach. Reeeeal stubborn. Edward actually came to church this week on his own! We didn’t even have to remind him! Guess what that means? It means he didn’t leave with his friend for the weekend because he actually woke up! He’s getting baptized the 28th as well. We also have the Cruz Family that most likely we´ll be givin to other missionaries because they’re not in our area :( Richard is a new one though, that’s great. And Olinda is great too. Not too much about them yet. Met Olinda yesterday at church. 

Ready for my embarrassment? It’s a good one. Well, either I ate something bad, or this heat is really gettin to me because we´re in this lesson with a less active and I threw up lol. SO embarrassing! And if this isn’t enough, after we go to buy a drink at this little shack of another less active and she’s talkin about how she doesn’t feel good too. Hermana Escalante says, "Oh my companion doesn’t feel good either. She just threw up." And genius Hermana Roper says, "Yeah, we were in the house of a less active... Ya know, Hermana Jenny?" Foot in the mouth. You don’t say less active in front of another LESS ACTIVE. Good one, Hermana Roper. Good one. And then if it wasn’t bad enough, I said her name! Greeeeat. 

It was a good week though. One thing I’ve learned this week is that I ask, "Why?" too much. I’ve been asking why way too much lately. Why do things happen? Why do people lose their babies? Why don’t people listen? Why is it so hard? Why doesn’t God answer prayers how and when we want? Why can’t we be happy all the time? Why are there hard days? WHY? WHY? WHY? The truth is, I don’t know why. But something I do know is that God knows why. He knows what we need. He lets us struggle so we can turn to Him. So we can learn something about ourselves. We aren’t going to understand everything. We´re just not. But if we understand that God loves us, we´re gonna make it through. If we realize that His ways are better than our ways, we´re going to submit to His will, not our own. We´re always going to have doubts and fears, but we need to always remember these feelings are NOT from God. Pray for help. This doesn’t mean all of our problems are going to magically disappear, but it means we´ll have the strength to keep going just a little bit more. God´s never going to give us a trial we can’t overcome. Keep going. :) It will work out. All we can do is have faith. Why? Because that’s what this life is. A trial of our faith. One day we´ll be able to see the big picture, but for now we´re here walking by faith. Just one step at a time, and before we know it, we´ll be where we want to be. :) 

I hope everyone has a great week. I’m so thankful for every single one of you. 9 days and I’ll see you allllll :) LOVE YOU!

Love,

Hermana Roper