Something Good In Every Day

Hola Familia :)

         SO happy your week was boring. SO happy. Thank you for having a boring week, and I’m happy Ty is doing better :) 

         My week was good here. We´re working hard, that´s for sure. We´ve found 4 new investigators this week... 3 of which were references from members. Members are the key to missionary work! Especially in areas like this... We could knock on doors all day, and MAYBE one person would let us in, but when we work with members we can find the people who are truly ready. 

         Richard is doing great... Even after we taught the Word of Wisdom! Yay :) He was a little surprised at the whole coffee and tea thing, but he’s improving. We felt the spirit so strong in this lesson with him. He told us a lot about his past. There was a time in his life when he was so involved in drugs, he almost died. He was sick for over two years, and didn’t want to live anymore. He told us he feels like this is his second chance. His chance to turn his life around. He´s so great! His baptism will probably be January 31st along with another 10-year-old we´re teaching. He´s changed so much. 

         One of the other new investigators we found is named Julio. Pretty much Edward bailed on us, and so did our back up plan and we had a member with us so we knocked on Julio´s door. We had met him once before, but nothing much happened. He ended up being there though, but said that the people he lives with are really against hearing about other religions and Hermana Arce was in the middle of setting up another appointment with him when I was like, "Can we walk to a park and talk a little bit?" When it came out of my mouth I was surprised, too haha. So we all four walked to a park and had a lesson. SO great. He thought we worshipped the body of Joseph Smith in the United States and all sorts of crazy stuff, but when we explained a little more, he was really interested. The member that was with us, Mariana, is a convert and bore such a powerful testimony. Once again, we need members! Julio didn’t end up coming to church, but we´re hoping he can progress. 

         We also found another family... The “B” family. We were walking to another appointment, and people started shouting things in English at us, which always happens, but we just thought, "Oh geez... Not again..." but we ended up talking to them and turns out they´re all really good friends with a family in the ward. Their 18-year-old daughter is studying English so I went over to help her a little and we ended up setting up an appointment to have a family home evening this week :) Crazy to see who the Lord puts in our path. 

         As for D&G.... AHHHH. We just don’t know what to do with them! This week they were reading in the Book of Mormon about the Lamanites when God put the curse on them to have a skin of blackness and of course, they weren’t happy about that. Gabriel straight up said, "I don’t believe it. I don’t believe God would do that." And Hermana Arce and I were just like uhhhh... Okay. This is awkward. But seriously, I love them SO stinkin much, but lately it just seems like they just want us to come over as friends, but that’s not our purpose. If they’re not gonna act on their faith, I don’t know what we´re supposed to do. We´re gonna try to have a lesson with them and the bishop about marriage though this week. Diana is always saying how much she believes in the Bible, and in the Bible marriage is a commandment, so we don’t know what’s holding her back. AHHHH. Yeah. I don’t even know. I just don’t want to screw it up, because they´re such a special family.

         This week we also had multizone conferences with President Rowley and that was great. What I really got out of it is how important our attitudes are. Yes, a mission is hard, but if we look for all the bad things it’s gonna be even harder. We have to have a good attitude! We have to be like, "Yes, the water in this shower is FREEZING cold, but hey at least we have somewhere to live" or "Yes, these mosquitos are eating me alive, but at least they’re not cockroaches" :) There is something good in every day. 

         Embarrassment for the week? It was a "had to be there" moment. We´re all walking and Hermana Arce almost biffs it and I start laughing and making fun of her when I biffed it SOOOO hard. Like laying face flat on the ground hard. Karma. (I’m not sure if that’s how you spell that word... But my English is awful now.) It wasn’t one of my brightest moments. Even better that we just happened to be walking in front of Real Plaza where there’s a ton of people. Great. Even more attention for the blonde American freak! Welp. That’s my week. Don’t have more time :( LOVE YOU ALLLLL! Have a great (hopefully boring) week :) 

Love,

Hermana Roper