There Is Good In Every Day :)

Hola Familia! 

         Best part of the week: Hermano Juan. GOLDEN. One of our members here introduced him to us and we had our first lesson with him on Thursday. He is SO prepared! He told us he had a dream.... In this dream God told him he needed to join a church, but didn’t tell him which church. When he told us this, I wanted to just scream, "I know which church!! Pick me! PICK ME!" but we calmly said... "Well, we’re here to help" haha. Anyway, we taught him Thursday and last night he accepted a baptism date of September 28th! He is so ready and prepared. Members are KEY! 

         This week was good though. We had interviews with President Rowley and wow! What an inspired man! I needed his help. One thing he taught us is how key the Book of Mormon is. He had us tell him all the problems we have with our areas such as, no member help or contention in our wards, and then he told us that the Book of Mormon is the solution to every single problem. If members are reading the Book of Mormon, they will want to do all they can to help. If members are reading the Book of Mormon, they won’t want to have contention with others because they want to be like Christ. He is SO right. All of the problems we have can be fixed with the Book of Mormon. No doubt about it! 

         My interview was also much needed. It’s crazy how much difference just 15 minutes can make!  At times I feel like I’m making no progress here, and some days I wonder how I’m supposed to do this, but he helped me realize how much progress I’ve made. He said he can see such a change in my confidence in what I can do with the Lord. It’s always hard to see changes in ourselves, so having him tell me that he can see progress in me helped so much. Also, seeing the new missionaries arriving in the mission makes me feel better too ;) haha... But really. It does. Little by little :)

         So after interviews President Rowley says, "Hermanas, is it okay if Hermana Rowley and I accompany you tonight to your lessons?" UHHHH. Wait. Is this a joke? The President never goes out with the Hermanas! You could say we were a bit freaked out.... So we raced back to La Cruz and started tracking down all our investigators and confirming appointments haha. They were all there! It was a miracle... For real.

         First we went and taught Hermano Victor, the one with the fear of the Book of Mormon. I know President Rowley was inspired to come and teach with us because it helped Victor SO much! Pretty much President Rowley flat out said, "We have trials with or without the Book of Mormon. That’s life. I have trials and I read it every single day. The question is how are you going to prepare for those trials?" YES. Thank you President Rowley! We have told him this a million times, but he finally agreed to read! MIRACLE! 

         After Victor, he talked with Hermano Adolfo as well and we thought everything was just dandy... Until last night. He’s drinking again. We had set daily goals with him so that little by little he could quit and then went to teach him last night and Maryuri said he has been out drinking for the past two days. Aweeesome. I do feel bad for him. It’s an awful addiction, but he needs to put forth some effort too. We can have all the desires in the world to change, but until we do something about it, we’re never going to change. 

         Another family that I just love with all of my heart is the Romero family! I just feel such a closeness to them! They are so great. They couldn’t attend church this week, but have such desires to learn. We plan on challenging them to baptism this week :) 

         Little Carla and her sister Nuri also have my heart. I think I’m gonna take Nuri home with me. Cutest thing ever! We also have a goal of getting them to accept baptism this week. It’s not really a question of them accepting, but their parents. Their mom’s a member, but we’re not sure with the dad. We’ll have to see this week :) 

         This Sunday we also had a Stake Conference thing. BEST THING EVER! It was in a real church, with a microphone, and people were QUIET. Say whaaaaat?! Miracle again! It was a broadcast and we had Sister Reeves, David A. Bednar, and Richard G. Scott talk to us. Don’t ask me exactly what they said cause it was all in Spanish haha. Richard G. Scott is quite the Spanish speaker! Elder Bednar just spoke English with a translator. BUT! I understood a little bit! Improvement right?! I’m excited for General Conference here in a few weeks. Crazy to think that a year ago a mission was the last thing on my mind eh? Haha now I’m here preachin my little heart out in Peru! Life is pure craziness.

         I don’t even have that many crazy stories this week. How sad! Or maybe I’m just getting used to the embarrassing moments? One thing that’s totally a bugger here is that I swear everyone thinks I’m dumb lol. We’re eating with a member and his wife and he asks me how many people live in Utah and I was just like, “I’m not really sure.” Then his wife, Zoila, says to everyone, "Oh she can’t count either!" Umm... I’m actually kinda smart in English. I promise! Lol! Oh man it’s so frustrating to have all these thoughts in my head and not be able to talk! It’s times like those when I just want to give up and say, "Welp. I almost learned Spanish." But I cant! I’m going to speak Spanish one day so take that Hermana Zoila! Haha 

         As for the language, I actually understand quite a lot. The problem is that I can’t get my words out. I understand what’s going on, have things to say, but just cant. So frustrating! But I’d rather be like this then not be able to understand either haha. Little by little :) 

         Oh! Story time. We’re having Noche de Hermanamiento (I have no idea what this is in English) and we decide to play a game at the end. So the game is that one person has a glass of water and names a room or place. Then everyone in the circle has to say one thing in that room.  If you can’t, then water gets dumped on you. Well he’s going around to each person and I’m just panicking more and more because I don’t know Spanish haha. He gets to me and of course I had no words in my head. I didn’t even know what was happening! He then goes on to straight up dump the glass of water on my head! At this point I was so confused haha. Like why did I just get a glass of water dumped on my head?! (probably cause I’m a gringa huh?) But yep I had no idea what was happening and didn’t know what happened until after we left and Hermana Rios explained everything. That’s usually how things work.... I just nod my head and smile and then when we leave she explains it to me lol. Oh boy. Espanol. 

         It was a great week though :) I feel so much closer every day to being where I want to be. There’s so much I need to improve on, but there’s also so much I’ve learned too. That’s my goal is to always remember how far I’ve come and not to focus on how far I have to go. Sometimes it’s hard to see the good when I’m getting water dumped on my head and everyone’s laughing at me, or when I can’t understand a single word, but there is good in EVERY day. The good moments definitely outweigh the bad and I am SO blessed :) It might just be learning one new word, or being able to find a scripture that helps one person, but there is good in every day. We just have to find it :) 

         I hope you have a grrrrrreat week! Love you SO much! Tell that stinker of a brother Happy Birthday for me Thursday! Can’t believe he’ll be 17! He’s lucked out this year... I can’t put up any embarrassing baby pictures on facebook. Que triste :( Pero, Ill be thinking of him :) Love you all so much! Thank you for everything! :)

Love,

Hermana Roper 

"Make It Look Like A Pillow"

Familia!

         Week number 8 done here in Peru :) It’s so crazy to think I only have 4 more weeks of my training left. I don’t feel trained at all! Haha I still understand hardly anything, but I understand more than the first day so that’s all that matters right? 

         Okay so this week did NOT go as planned... At alllll. But I guess that’s the fun. The only constant thing in life is change ;) No. But really. This couldn’t be more true this week. Remember how I told you I’d be going to Lima for my visa this week? Yep. Didn’t go haha. That was the plan Monday, but who sticks to plans nowadays? My companion went to Lima Monday afternoon with another Hermana and I stayed in Puyango with her other companion.... That has been here the same amount of time as me.... And doesn’t have Spanish.... And is from Utah too.... And we had to teach.... Real people.... Did I mention neither of us know Spanish?!?!?   And we’re both blonde? Also, the District and Zone leaders for both of us were in Piura, which is 6 hours away. That left two blonde Americans in the middle of Peru with nobody haha. Talk about stress! The original plan though was that we’d just teach Monday night and then we would go to the airport and I’d fly to Lima. The plan was for me to go by myself... No Elders or anything! So I was freakin out lol. But as we were about to leave to the airport, an Elder called and said our companions wouldn’t be back til Wednesday. I’m not sure what is worse... Traveling to Lima alone or having two blonde Americans try to preach the gospel haha. But we did it! We survived! I have no idea how.... We probably made no sense at all. Thank goodness for member help!

         I learned so much in Puyango though. Hermana Hood gave me a copy of “The 4th Missionary”... READ IT! So good. It has really changed my perspective of the type of missionary I want to be. Yes, I want to serve my entire mission, be obedient, and bring others to Christ, but I also want to be changed by my mission. I don’t want to serve and look back and realize that I have gotten nothing out of it. The only thing we can give the Lord that he hasn’t already given us is ourselves. I want to give myself to this work! 

         I also have a new motto for my mission... "Make it look like a pillow." Pretty much we’re walking in Puyango and I totally biff it. HARD. I wish I had it on video. So many people around and there’s the dumb greenga laying on the ground lol. That’s when Hermana Hood says, "Wow, you made that curb look like a pillow!" So yep. That’s our motto. When times get hard, just make it look like a pillow ;)

         Okay okay most embarrassing story of the week tops my nice fall though... I GOT KISSED. By a MAN.... It was awful.... I’m still embarrassed.... Don’t worry though, just on the cheek haha! But still! He just came around and snuck up on me! Kissing around here is totally normal. That’s just what everyone does. Every time we greet women it’s always kisses, and for people around here it’s the same with men.... But it’s not okay for missionaries! Haha so yep. I was kissed. And all my companion could do was watch because it happened so fast! I don’t think my face has ever been more red... 

         This week we have the cutest new investigator! Her name is Carla and she’s 10. She also has a little sister that’s 8 and loves being taught! Her mom’s a member so were hoping to teach the entire family because that’s what it’s about. Completing families. Satan is working so hard with families! I can see this so much more now that I’m here. He is tearing families apart. I’m so grateful for my family and the strength we have! 

         Oh... But during a lesson with Carla I tried papaya for the first time. That should NOT even be considered a fruit! I just had to bite and hurry and swallow it whole. So gross! And the kids ate it like it was the best thing ever! Oh and speaking of kids... TEN kids came to church with Carla Sunday haha. Remember the kid that stuck gum in my hair and his grandma chased him with a shoe? Yep, he’s one of em, and then there’s nine more just as evil! Haha! Talk about a crazy sacrament meeting!

         We also had a great day of service with Hermana Maryuri. We cleaned her lil house and I will honestly never forget the smell of her fridge, as much as I want to. All she feeds her family is fish and she had never cleaned her fridge. It was YEARS of fish juice! Oh man it was so hard to just smile and clean it. I am honestly so humbled just after 8 weeks here. We had such a great talk with Hermana Maryuri. She has so much embarrassment of her house and we just talked about how the important things in life aren’t things. This is so true! I know that to be truly happy, we need more than this world can give us. 

         Also...We received the best excuse ever this week. We went to teach an investigator and a little boy answered the door. So we ask him to go get his mom and he runs away and comes back and says, "My mom said she’s not here right now." Oh did she? Well that’s just great haha.  We’ll try another day ;) 

         The talk in La Cruz right now though is the boy who hung himself this week. He was only 19. Every lesson we taught there was some talk about it. It’s like Emery County! Everyone knows everything about everyone haha. But this boy didn’t leave a note, nothing. We watched all the funeral procession people walk past our window again and it was so sad. I can’t imagine being that unhappy. Life is so so precious! It’s been quite the sad week here in La Cruz for a lot of people though because of it. 

         One more thing I learned this week was a quote from Elder Holland that Hermana Hood gave me. SO great. It’s kinda long, but so I’ll write some of it. "Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it get better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head.  How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? In turn, how could we possibly bear any moving, lasting testimony of the Atonement if we have never known or felt anything of such an experience? As missionaries we are proud to say we are Disciples of Christ, and we are, but mark my word. That means you must be prepared to walk something of the path He walked, to feel something of the pain He felt, and at least occasionally, sometime during your mission, shed one of the tears of sorrow that He shed." I don’t have time to write the rest, but so so good!  It’s from a seminar for new mission presidents 2008 if you can find it. You need to read it :)

         Thank you so much for the support from everyone! I’m amazed at how blessed I am! Have the best week :) LOVE YOU ALL!!

Love,

Hermana Roper

Living In The Moment

Hola familia! 

         I’m having a hard time even remembering what things to tell you from this week haha. This week was good. We didn’t have any trips or anything, just a normal week here in La Cruz. 

         Hermana Maryuri is just great and all baptized and stuff :) Hermano Adolfo still doesn’t want too listen, but one day maybe. I have one new investigator that I love again! I still love Hermano Victor, but this one is Hermana Pilar. We visited her my first week here, but obviously I don’t remember anything from my first week lol but man, she’s great. She’s had all the lessons before from some other Elders, but isn’t married. This is ALWAYS the problem. And her "husband" isn’t planning on changing that anytime soon. But well get him :)

         Anyway, every time we had tried to visit her she wasn’t there and we had left a bunch of notes. Well she told us that she hadn’t gotten any of the notes and was wondering why we hadn’t visited her. She said she’d see us walking and wonder what she did to make us stop visiting. So we felt bad, but I really think this time was preparing her for this visit. We taught the plan of salvation and she had great questions! She wanted to know a lot about the temple. Apparently that’s one thing the Elders left out, and she loves the concept that she can have an eternal family. We plan on teaching her all about eternal families this week. One question she had was who created God? The crazy thing is that the same morning we visited her, Hermana Rios and I had the same exact question! We just had to share the scripture that says God is yesterday, today, and forever. It was a darn good question! Haha but she’s great. 

         A funny investigator story this week: Hermana Aurora. This lady loves our visits, but after the lesson this week I don’t think she wants to learn haha. We watched this Joseph Smith video with her and we get done and I ask her, "What was your favorite part?" She then proceeds to go off talking about how her favorite parts were when the people were working out in the fields and that she’s grateful for God because without God we wouldn’t have food. Uhhhhh. Yeah. Did she not notice that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father?! Haha not sure what to do with her. 

         We had a lot of service this week too. The pictures with the turtles are at a lady’s house in our ward. This is what all the houses are like and that’s how they cook. If you think cooking takes a lot of time in America, you would die here haha, it is an ALL day process here. We picked the leaves off of herbs for hourssss. But it was nice to help her out :) Oh! So she has this 18-year-old son, Yordi. He is autistic and we just love him to death. Well, we were at her house and he just starts going off on me about how the color of my hair signifies evil lol. It’s normal hair, people! I promise! Hermana Maryuri also asked me this week if she could just touch my hair for a second haha. 

         Okay and now for the craziness. I ate the gizzard of a chicken... EWW EWW EWW!!!! It tasted like dog food. Well, actually I wouldn’t know what dog food tastes like, but if I had to guess its gotta be close lol. It was all soft and purple and EWW. 

         I also had an awkward moment this week... When people pray here I cannot hear them! They just mumble and it takes all I have to even hear amen haha. So we were with Hermana Vicki and I obviously didn’t hear amen because I’m just chillin there when I get a kick to the shin from Hermana Rios and she gives me "the look" and was like "Hermana! Amen..." and I was so flustered I just said, "Oh sorry, my bad" in English... And they all just stared... Aca-awkward! 

         Also.. Funniest thing to hear natives try to say in English: sheet and crab haha! I tried teaching Hermana Maryuri a little English and these were two things she wanted to know how to say, but it definitely didn’t come out as sheet and crab lol.  A for effort though ;)

         One thing I can definitely testify of this week is that all missionaries are protected. The area where Hermana Pilar lives is really dangerous at night, but we couldn’t just leave in the middle of the lesson with her because it was so great! So there we were just walking, scared out of our minds, and this moto drives up to us. Yep, we were even more scared haha, but it turned out that this guy has seen us walking before and offered to drive us to our next appointment free of charge :) It was definitely a blessing! I know that I need to be careful here, but I also know God watches over every single missionary. 

         Another thing I learned this week was from the Liahona. We taught a few recent converts this lesson. It was about living in the moment. A lot of times people either live in the past or in the future. This is a bad habit of mine. It’s either "before my mission" or "after my mission" and I forget to enjoy the time I have today. If I keep doing this I’m going to look back after my mission and regret the time I wasted. We also need to spend as much time in the present with those we love. One thing I’ve learned is how important family is. I knew I had the greatest family before my mission, but now I KNOW I have the greatest family. It’s crazy what we take for granted :) So yep. That’s my goal. Live in the present :) I can change the past, but my decisions now will change the future. 

         I love you all SOOOO much and miss you every day, but I know we have all been blessed so much. Thank you for EVERYTHING! Have a great week :) 

Love,

Hermana Roper