Elder Hayden Roper: Feliz Navidad

HELLO!

Feliz Navidad ya'll! It sure does not feel like Christmas here! Yesterday we had just had Sacrament Meeting and a little Christmas devotional they did. One of the things I love about this area is that the members are so devoted to the Gospel. They love their missionaries as well. They have a tradition here around Christmas time that the people all eat it is called Pannetone, and the members and natives here love it, but I absolutley hate it. It's just fruit cake and it is AWFUL hahah!

We also had some nasty hot chocolate too. I just have to tell myself that "this is good, this is good" when I eat it so I don't hurt their feelings haha. They asked us and the Hermanas to sing in their devotional with like 40 seconds notice so that was interesting haha. One of the hermanas in my area is from Kansas and her family has season tickets to the Royals, so I'm really jealous of that.

This week we found a man by the name of Ivan. And he is interesting to say the least. He was a contact straight up, and he was asking all about God and I didn't understand anything he said. We spent like 45 minutes with this guy, and he passed us un the street the other day when we were walking and he yelled "ay! los mormones! bendiciones!!!" bwahahah he's a good guy. We taught him the Restoration and the first half - we teach it with just the Bible, so he was lovin it, until we got to the First Vision . . . surprisingly, he loved it! But, he had his buddy with him, and they started going off. I didn't understand much of the dialouge here, but my companion explained to me that they were asking each other questions that pretty much answered themselves within the lesson of the restoration. But yeah, I don't think we'll pursue this guy anymore. He loves God, but he doesn't want the truth.

We got our first and second baptism date this week! One of them is a 73 year old woman, she has no teeth, and I understand absolutley nothing that she says. I just kinda go off my companion and hope that it makes sense what I say haha, It was kind of scary. We had our ward mission leader with us - my comp invited her, and she didn't really answer it. Our ward mission leader was like look hermana, the missionaries asked you a question. ANSWER IT, And my comp and I looked at each other like, "Oh boy! Here we go!" haha. Sure enough she said yes. January 13 we will have a baptism if everything falls our way. We're also teaching a 15 year old girl named Leslie, who I think is gonna get baptized, we just need her mom to follow the example of the daughter. It was crazy in our last lesson. We taught Lesson 3, the Gospel of Christ. Normally we have the mom and the daughter, and the Gramma sits in and listens, but doesn't really say much. She is an Adventista. I have no clue what they believe. BUT, we got to the third priciple of the gospel, Baptism. and the gramma outta the blue said "What do I need to do to be Baptized in this church?" very firmly, and my comp looked at me and proceeded to explain. The Spirit was super strong, I was scared to move lol it was one of those moments. The daughter accepted, but the mom not yet. So, this is our lead investigator right now. I'm really hoping everything goes our way with this family. They need it!

Everyone has told me my Spanish is improving, and that makes me feel good. Granted I can't understand a whole ton right now, but that'll just come I guess. All you gotta do is study, study, study and speak, speak, speak.

This week I went on another EXCHANGE and they were literally in the middle of the jungle! No buildings . . . nothing! Just the little huts! They told me if we went any further we would find the Indians haha. So that was fun. I wish I had my camera when I was with them!

But to sum up, I am super tan and covered in bug bites.