I Know the Lord Answers Prayers and He Sure Loves His Servants

Bueno, what a week! I can't tell you how many times I've had the thought that I AM GONNA DIE HERE.  IT IS SO HOT,I SWEAT SOOOOO MUCH.  But anyways, it's all good in the hood. I am the cliche missionary out here - white boy, can't speak the language, from Utah, blue eyes, blonde hair all that. I dunno. This has easily been the toughest week of my mission so far. Mark 9:23 is my go to right now,  "if you can believe, you can succeed". 

The area I am in is called Primavera 1. The city is Pulcappa. It is way far south from the city of Iquitos. We had an hour flight to our place. When we got here the humidty freakin' hit me like a truck. Absolutely brutal here. We had two huge rain storms yesterday, and luckily the APs forced me to take the boots that they had at the Mission Office. Always listen to the APs. I looked ridiculous in them but my feet stayed dry. What moreeeee.

My problem with spanish is that I can't understand it. I can talk and talk and talk and talk, but I can't understand anything lol. Luckily my comp speaks no english whatsoever, so I HAVE to learn spanish. His name is Elder Bothelo, and he is from Brazil.  He speaks Porteguese! Pretty cool. He is so patient with me ha! I can really only understand him. Our pensionistas are super nice but they all talk soooo flippin' fast lolololol. My favorite phrase to tell people is "estoy aprendiendo cada dia"  (I'm learning every day)

I about had a mental breakdown every day this week. During church yesterday I didn't understand anything at all. So that was rough!  My companion and I bore our testimonies in Sacrament Meeting. 

No one wears suit coats here, not even the bishopric. Pretty interesting. My comp and I opened a newish area, so we don't know squat. Where the members are . . . who they are  . . .who we can teach yadda yadda yaddaaaaa. So that's been tough. We met our bishop and he's way cool. They all make fun of me because I'm white and can't speak but it's good. I know the Lord answers prayers and He sure loves His servants. 

I got super homesick when we arrived, but it was weird. It was like I missed the CCM more than home.  But yesterday when we watched the Christmas Devotional, WOW! Those pics of Temple Square really hit me that I was 2000 miles from home. We didnt' have the devotional in english either, so I understood about 2 percent of it. We don't have hot showers in our house, and no A/C either, but we went 4 days without a fan and we finally got one yesterday, so that has been a MILAGRO.  This isn't third world country, but it might as well be . . .  dirt roads, dogs everywhere, freaking snakes too, we keep seeing mega huge frogs too so that's fun. 

One of the APs told us he had Dengue fever, LITTTT.  I dunno.  Life as a missionary. I  would much rather be here than going to school or like Idaho on my mission.  It's gonna be awesome to tell my  kids one day that I was in the JUNGLES of Peru.  It isnt really jungly, but its close. Our address- if you can find it - is puerto carrero polleria cocoliso. That's what we tell the drivers of the Motokarros. Those are way fun! Just a little motorcycle with a caboose pretty much.  I'll get a pic of one soon.

Thats all for this week! 

Elder Roper