All We Need To Do Is Believe

Que La Fuerza le a Acompane

Hellllllooooooooooooo all!

This week was crazy fast, but crazy slow. I pretty much live P-day to P-day. My new favorite phrase in Spanish is Que la fuerza le a acompane - "may the Force be with you".  My teachers are all way into Star Wars and super funny and fun, so it makes class a little more enjoyable. I feel really strong in the language right now, but I know that I still have soooo much to learn. A lot of it they leave up to us to learn it in the field, and that kinda bugs me. But oh well, the Lord provides for His servants. I'm not too worried.

One of the things that I am amazed with about every day is the knowledge of the Gospel of everyone here. I thought I knew a thing or two about it, but I was humbled by about hour three my first day here. The MTC Presidency knows sooooo much, same with my branch presidents. 

On Sunday, my district had the assignment to bless and pass the Sacrament. And my District Leader chose me to bless, so that was fun. I felt super weird because I haven't blessed or prepared La Santa Cena in a longgg long time. I also was chosen to speak in Sacrament meeting as well, in Spanish. Luckily, it was about repentance, and I had prepared my talk. All the members of the congregation told me how well I did and especially the Esposa de Presidante tambien. She loved it. 

Elder Barlow was the elder who let me borrow his suit. He broke his wrist a while back and had a cast and all that fun stuff.  He is a goofball. He always refers to his cast as his "castidad" - which is chastity in English. Last night he knocked on our door and asked for my leatherman and I was like yeah sure whatever. He came back like 20 minutes later and he had cut his castidad off with my leatherman.  Crazy stuff! 

I am really growing to appreciate soccer. I've played like every day this past week. It's a beautiful game honestly. I'm terrible at it, and the latinos take me to school every day, but it's quite fun. Speaking of which, we got into a pretty heated arguement about soccer and baseball, and I kinda maybe lost my cool. It's insane how strong the power of Satan is and how quick the Spirit can leave as well. Our district leader, at the start of class, read 3 Nephi 29:11 - about contention being bad. 

I've found that I can sure wake up on P-day and Tuesday, but when I know we have classes all day, I struggle to get up. Tuesdays are fun because we have an hour of language, lunch, more language, physical activity study and then a devotional. So Tuesdays and Wednesdays are awesome! 

Last Saturday, we had a prosyleting activity with some missionaries of Lima East. Needless to say it was quite interesting. I gave out a bunch of folletos, and a Libro de Mormon. We set up a bunch of appointments, and my companion kept calling me a professional and I just laughed. 

Today during the temple we had a hermana who had family names, and I was lucky enough to help her out with that. That's what the picture of the big group is. The other is my district. 

The worker is Percy, and that man is my idol. He is here all day every day working his tail off, and never have I seen him without a smile on his face.  

I spilled lunch all over myself the other day, so that was fun. 

The other day I was buying crap from the vending machine, and one of the latinos acted like he was gonna take it, and my natural instinct from messing with my teacher was to belt out "quiere morir!!!"  - which translates to do you want to die,  so every time I see them they all say "quiere morirrrrr!!!" pretty fun. They're good guys. The Latinos have a big group of elders going to Iquitos, so that made me feel a little better!!

We were waiting for our lesson the other day outside, and I was feelin down and homesick and stuff and sure enough, a big ol YELLOWWWW BUTTERFLY came flyin by and hung out around us for a minute. And I was like well if that wasnt Gramma Sandra written all over it, I dont know what was. So, she is everywhere. Crazy how life works sometimes. 

Life is good here, I leave for the field Tuesday I think. So if you don't hear from me for a bit that's why! I miss you all and hope you're doing alright!

Chow, 

Elder Roper

Whats Up Familia y Amigos

What's up familia y amigos

Lots happened this week. They dropped google drive  - so I can't send pics anymore that well, so that sucks. Sad to hear the Utes got whupped on, but oh well. There's more important things lol. 

The newest batch of Elders has an Elder Lyon, and his uncle is Brandon Lyon. There were also 2 elders from the Phillipines, they said that they flew a whopping grand total of 26 hours to get here lol. Tuesday when the last group left we had a grand total of 31 missionaries here.  It was quite nice, very quiet.

One of the maestros I've grown to really be friends with calls me Elder Ropero, which means Elder Closet - so that's fun. Another one told me that I looked a lot skinnier that I did when I got here so thats weird and good I guess?? I got a haircut also. I love having super short hair for once. In the pics Im wearing a suit, my boy Elder Barlow hooked it up and let me borrow it for the temple trip today,  I thought I looked quite nice. He's from Midway. 

We had hot dogs for dinner the other night, with rice - awful to say the least. I miss grilling steaks and dogs. My new favorite word is NAST.  Elder Simkins from Enterprise uses that a lot. We room together, he played short for Enterprise in High School and they took state a while back, so its always good to talk baseball with him a bit.

If you thought teaching the law of chastity was fun in English, try teaching it in Spanish hahahahahah. The joys of being a missionary.  I honestly find it amazing how much Spanish I have learned and how much I can understand and speak as well. 

The sunsets here are amazing.

Entonces, I only have about 2 weeks left in the MTC, and I think that is absolutely crazy. Peru soccer team is playing today in Lima, so we shouldn't get any sleep tonight hahaha. Also, the Peruano Maestros here are masters of ping pong and soccer.  Blows my mind. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!!!!

Happy Birthday to the newest Metallica album this week as well, definitely thought I'd be able to listen to it a year later, but here we ar . . . 

That's all ya'll-

Elder Roper

Week 3 is in The Books

Hello my family and friends lol!

Week 3 is in the books, and we are officially ananzados (veterans).  I cannot believe how fast 3 weeks have gone by. The Spanish has really picked up for me as well. I was able to ask a lady at the temple today to take a picture of me and my comp and she understood so that's dope. 

Are the Utes still strugglin? lol We had a kid have to speak spanish for 2 whole days to find out who won the World Series, so I'm pretty sure the Astros won? He's from Houston. 

Sunday we had a lesson on how the Lord prepared the world for the restoration. Pretty cool stuff. 1 Nephi 13 has all sorts of prophecies such as the revolutionary war and the pilgrims and stuff that I completely forgot about. Sunday I felt like I was drinking from a fire hydrant.  Hermana Moore taught us about the different kingdoms and the resurrection and real deep doctrine so I got mega confused about that. 

Sundays here are hard, especially Fast Sunday.  I find that I get the most homesick on Sundays lol. But Mondays are always good to get back to work and stuff.  P-day is Tuesday this week because it helps the cleaning crew get the building all clean and ready for the new group of elders and hermanas to come in. Next week P day should be Wednesday.  Josh Sandberg if you're reading this, there is a native here who has only one eye and I most definitely thought of you hahahah. 

Hmmmmm what else. We got to go to the temple today, and it was very nice to be able to understand it all hahahah.  I miss my glasses lol.  Everyone here thinks that is awesome and amazing that I worked for Oakley -  so my name was Elder Oakley for a bit lol. 

I feel confident in my teaching and speaking ability in the language. The gift of tongues is definitely real. 

I think that's about all for this week. I send my love and prayers to you all, and I miss you all dearly. 

Elder Roper

Hey Guys!

Hey guys! So Week 2 . . .

So many things have happened this week. We've had a bunch of little baby earthquakes so thats lit.  How are my Utes doing??????  Sunday we had an amazing lesson from Hermana Moore, the MTC president's wife on Christ like attributes. We watched a ton of the Bible videos about the life of Christ. It honestly felt as if the Savior Himself was in the room with us. The Hymn Master the Temptest is Raging has been stuck in my head ever since. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it - "Peace be still".

Sunday we sang a bunch of missionary medley songs. It was honestly one of the most powerful choir sessions I have ever heard, or had the privilege to be a part of.  "I Hope They Call Me On A Mission" and "The Armies of Helaman" songs have never seemed so powerful to me. It makes me feel as if I could convert all of Peru. We have had a bunch of devotionals lately, from Elder Holland, Elder Bednar, and last but not least Elder Stevenson.  Elder Holland gets me fired up man! 

Everyone and their dog drives stick shift here and its honestly pretty cool. The people are all so so nice here and it is so different but so similar to life in America. Today we had a service project where we cleaned a chapel across the street from the CCM. Here are some pictures of me in front of it. 

The food is here is flippin' good!  I weighed in at 74 KG the other day, Lunes I think. If someone could convert that to pounds for me that would be nice hahah. All my pants fit still, and I've just barely ran out of ties so I've had to start wearing them over again. Hush puppy shoes are awesome, but Jack I'm sorry, but CTR socks suckkkkkkkkkkkk. 

I've found that I just need to trust myself.  In our lessons my companion doesn't really talk because he doesn't get the language as quick as I do. I find that I'm afraid to let him talk, but the Gift of Tongues is real my friends.  He has been able to pray and bear very strong testimony of our lessons.  Granted, it isn't perfect, but he is getting a lot better. 

We have a ping pong table here!!!  It is one of my favorite things to do during physical activity time. We usually do that or we will throw a football.  There are even gloves here to throw baseballs! Volleyball is growing on me as well.

Sometimes I forget I'm in Peru, and it hits me that man, I'm in a different country, on a different continent.  It is very humbling.  Alma 26 talks a lot about Ammon being humble.  Anyways, I think that's it for this week.  

The second night we were here we had unpacked and the older missionaries were going around introducing themselves and most of them complimented me on how organized my closet was, so mom, be proud lol. 

The older missionaries got here 3 weeks before we did, so every 3 weeks a group goes out and a group comes in. I just barely missed Elder Thurman from T-ville! We took a branch and district picture and they required us to all wear a suit coat, but me and my companion don't have a suit so we literally asked the natives in broken spanish if we could borrow theirs.  Let's just say I felt like "Tommy Boy".  lolol

Elder Roper

People say we look like twins!