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