“He Who Does Not Stand for Something, Will Fall for Anything.”

This week went by just as fast as the others. A bit frustrating though. I've been working in a trio this week because Elder Newell´s replacement came this week. Elder Neves from Alpine Utah, graduated from Lone Peak. He is awesome. He is the youngest missionary in the offices now with the ripe age of 8 and a half months. He’s cool, he should be awesome here. We (Elder Newell and I) went and picked him up Tuesday afternoon, he had to fly in from Moyobamba, and honestlyyyyyyy ever since then, Elder Newell has been completely different. It is frustrating. It reminds me a lot of how people acted in high school, when they wanted to be your friend, they were your friend. When they had other people to hang out with, they went with them. I understand he's training Elder Neves and all that, but it is just different. Its like he doesn’t wanna be part of the companionship of 4(well now 5) that we are. And I'm not gonna lie, it has really been bugging me, and I don’t know why I let it. Yesterday beloved Elder Chavez (DL here in the offices) and I had a little interview and we talked things out and he let me know that everyone has felt that, its just something that happens, and we just have to put our heads down and go to work.  And having to work in a trio hasn’t helped a bit either. It is just that Elder Newell and I worked so hard to find people and had so much fun doin it, and now we don’t even talk. It is weird how life works sometimes. I'm really worried about how next transfer is gonna go down, Elder Chavez goes home and we'll have a new comp, and Elder Neves will just be getting started here in the area. 

I fasted this week and I saw miracles. One my purposes was to be able to find happiness and joy in the work, and the other was to be able to understand and apply the Christ like attribute of Meekness (Elder Bednars talk from April 2018). We (Elders Chavez, Macz and I) were out smashin' doors like always, and where I was kinda new in their half of the area (like the people they had planned to visit, I was just kinda following along), and we hit a bit of a brick wall. Everything fell through. And so they stop for a second to look at their planners  trying to figure out what to do and I saw a man just standing in his door, and thought “Hey, why not give him a contact card?”, so I went and the man just blew up on me. He told me that he had no reason to believe in God when his family had all died, he was all alone and didn’t believe that Christ could help him. I feel like normally, I would get a bit angry, and try to fight him. But I simply responded and said, “hermano, que he hecho para que me hable asi?”(What did I do for you to talk to me like that?) And then my comps came over to talk and we just ended up walking away, and honestly I just laughed. Wasn’t mad at all. It wasn’t until later that night that I realized that that happened 100 % because of my fast. The other part about being happy… we woke up at 5:30 to go running today. We left at 6. Theres a little sidewalk place on the border of our area, it reminds me a lot of the parkway, where we run in the mornings. So we went there, and we ran up a big staircase a bunch of times and normally when we go running I suck air. I hate it. I wanna quit ASAP. But I just kept going, something just said keep doin it keep going. And so I did. After that, we forgot our keys and we knew the APs were at the offices playing soccer with the rest of the zone, so we went and watched them for a bit. While we were sitting there I had the clearest clearest thought… “You have to do this more. You have to have more fun in your mission.” So I took that to be another answer from my fast. I need to go running more and play more sports with the zone, and in turn I’ll be happier. Interesting how God works sometimes. Alma 37:6-7.

Our view as we run

After running this morning

After Sunday meetings we usually have 20 minutes to have a small meeting with the bishop, not ward council, just la obra missional. (Missionary work) but he’s usually slammed with interviews and we have to wait for him, so during that time, we usually try to knock fruit out of a tree that’s there in the little courtyard. It’s quite fun, and the fruit is delicious. It’s called pijuayo. It’s kinda like a sour apple.

Looking for fruit

Trying to get the fruit down

pijuayo - similar to a sour apple

2 weeks ago, a letter arrived with my name on it. I about crapped! I never get letters. The Young Men and Young Women are awesome! It sounds like they had a great activity! Thanks Valley Park 1^St youth!!

Ever since I finished Jesus the Christ, I've been reading parts of "Saints" here in the offices on my computer. And it is quite great. Many times we hear about the stories that happened and just kinda brush them off. We don’t think much of it. But its good to learn, and realize what the early converts had to go through. 

Sunday we got to speak in church, and I spoke about the Hymn that I wrote home a bit ago about. “Brillan Rayos de Clemencia”. I felt like I did a good job. At home I always dreaded having to speak in church, but as a missionary, its like hey why not? I cant count how many times its happened where we get to church and the bishop just calls on us to speak. Quite fun. 

There’s a Mormon Message(I’m not sure what those are called anymore) called “And None Were with Him” its taken from a talk by Elder Holland. He basically describes the Savior's life. He had the help of the 12, up until a certain point when he was in the Garden, and essentially, He was alone. Many times in life we feel that we are alone, and we wonder why? If God is all powerful, almighty, all loving, why would He let us feel that way? I think that the answer is obvious now. If He had to let it happen to His Only Begotten, then surely He would let it happen to us in order for us to grow and exercise more faith in Him. 

I've spent a lot of time in the bank this week, and usually when I go, I go with Elder Chavez. I like talking to him about his future. He said he wants to go home, work in a bank, and for a career work in the area offices that are right there in his city of Lima. Right by the MTC. Working in a bank sounded like a good idea to me. It gave me a job option, maybe not a career, but just something to do in college tryin to make some cash. 

There are 44 days until my birthday! Time is flyin!!!!!!!!!!!!   

A quote I remembered from High School this week… “He who does not stand for something, will fall for anything.”

Elder Roper    

     Locking up

Stake/ Zone activity that we had

Cake from the members

Our ward

Cool picture of the light one morning in my office

P Day fun

We had a bit of a water and shave cream fight today

Elder Macz and Elder Chavez found kids fishing in the floating neighborhood

Otra semana!

Hey all! First off it was great to see everyone last week! Being in the offices definitely has its pros and cons, and that’s for sure one of the pros! Time has been really weird lately, some days seem slow, some days absolutely fly by, and the next thing I know, its Friday night and we're getting ready for Pday again. 

Today we got up and got the house cleaned, and then we had to go to the airport. We took a missionary there so he could catch a flight home. After 10 weeks he just gave it in, I think he was havin problems or something. Presidente just said he flat out didn’t want to be here. Poor guy. So that ate up a good chunk of our morning today. After that we went to a Plaza and took some more pics and goofed off for a bit. After that we went to an ice cream shop and got some ice cream. Its always kinda fun just to relax for a bit on Pday. 

This week has been interesting. We've been finding lots of good people that are honestly prepared for the Gospel, and they just….. disappear. We can’t find them, their neighbors don’t know where they're at, it is frustrating. Among the 4 areas that I’ve had/have in the mission, this has definitely been one of the most frustrating to work in. 

This week I've spent some time reading some talks from past general conferences, and I've really grown to like Elder Christofferson and his messages. Granted all the Apostles are Prophets are very well educated, I just feel so inspired by reading his words. I've been downloading some too just to listen to while I'm doin my stuff. It is really good!

I don’t have much to say about this week honestly. Elder Newell´s replacement comes this week so he can be trained to be the new personal secretary. It is hard to say good bye to comps, I think Elder Newell has been one of my favorites during my mission. It is weird to think that about the time that he finishes his mission, I'll (maybe even earlier) be leaving the offices and going to my last area. How time flies……..

I found an article on the church website about Jermey Gutherie and his new call as a Mission President. I think that’s so awesome. The man was on top of the world, as a world series champion, and now he's dedicating his life to bigger and better things. The humility of that man is real. 

It's getting to a point where I feel like I don’t know anyone in the mission anymore, simply because everyone is so new, they're in other cities and don’t see each other, it is a weird feeling to be one of the “older guys”. Depending on who comes in the next transfer to the office (Elder Chavez goes home in April), I could very well be the oldest missionary in the offices……….. that’s scary. 

Last week I found the photographers email that came to Iquitos with Elder Renlund in August. I sent her an email to see if she had any pics of me, and she sent me a link with everything she had!!! I'm stoked. I'll spend some time looking for them this afternoon and send them home ASAP!! 

I'm stoked that you guys finally met up with Elder Walker and got the package!! I hope you love everything!!!

Welllll I think that would be all for this week!

Elder Roper

PS - March is over hahaha

Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

Buen día a todos! This week was crazy, but honestly so dang awesome. I did a reimbursement for my box last 2 weeks ago in order to prepare for the tour, buttttttttt I ended up needing an emergency reimbursement again to finish it. I got down to about 400 soles, just over 100 bucks. Needless to say I was poopin my pants about all week. That is to explain the pic of empty box hahah.

Friday morning we had a Zone Conference with Elder Gavarret from the Seventy and his wife, Hermana Gavarret. It was honestly one of the best Zone Conferences I think I've ever been a part of. The APs had set up the schedule for the conference and Elder Gavarret completely changed it. The man just follows the Spirit. He didn’t really burn us a lot, but he got us a couple of times pretty well. I remember in Pucallpa when Elder Falabella came last April, he was just so serious and so sahhhhhh (we say sahhhh whenever someone gets burnt or is burning someone), but Elder Gavarret was cracking jokes, and all that good stuff. It was just a good time. 

The day before, Thursday, they stopped by the offices with Presidente and Hermana Li, just to see what was  going on. We were a bit unprepared. My office was clean, but I was doing a bunch of filing, and had an Inca Cola bottle about full of eaten sunflower seeds and my bag of Spitz on the desk. Hahah I had to hurry up and tidy up a bit. They took us all into Presidente Li´s office and we just kinda introduced ourselves and what we do in the offices. That day I just happened to shine my shoes up and wear one of my nicer flower ties and glasses, so when I introduced myself (hola mucho gusto, soy Elder Roper y estoy encargado de las finanzas de la misión), Hermana Gavarret just said “tiene estilo” which translating means “you look like it” so we got a good laugh out of that. They were just a good solid couple. Spiritual giants for sure. We took pictures on Hermana Li´s Iphone X, so hopefully within the next week or so I can be sending you guys those pics. It was quite the experience. I asked them if they knew “Hermana Wightman”, but they just kinda seemed confused when I asked them hahha. Elder Gavarret said that he had met a man with the last name of Roper that lived in Utah, but he couldn’t remember who it was or where he was from. Interesting hahah. 

This week we got an English Hymnbook, and we were lookin' through it and comparing the differences to our favorite Hymns in Spanish and English. We found a pretty good one, Himno numero 208, Brillan Rayos de Clemencia is awesome in Spanish, but we looked it up in English, Brightly Beams our Fathers Mercy, 335 and we didn’t understand what it meant, soooo Elder Newell did a bit of research and found the PDF file that I sent, that tells a little backstory about the Hymn. I'll let you read that one (: 

Needless to say we loved it. It’s a very great analogy. We also found this one 52, the Day Dawn is Breaking….

 “In many a temple the Saints will assemble

And labor as saviors of dear ones away.

Then happy reunion and sweetest communion

We'll have with our friends in the beautiful day.

Beautiful day of peace and rest,

Bright be thy dawn from east to west.

Hail to thine earliest welcome ray,

Beautiful, bright, millennial day” 

I think many times back home I just didn’t pay attention to the Hymns, just kinda sang along, but now I realize that they actually contain soooo much doctrine. 

Sunday we had a Stake Conference, so we took a pic with the whole Zone and Presidente and Hermana Li. It was a solid conference, they burnt the members pretty well hahah. 

THE QUORUM OF THE 12 AND THE FIRST PRESIDENCY WAS AT THE ROME TEMPLE DEDICATION AND THE PICTURES ARE AWESOME! I didn’t realize how significant that was until I realized that Rome is just that close to Israel and Jerusalem and all that. 

We're about to create a new zone, and honestly the work is being hastened so much. So many wards are splitting, so many areas are being opened. Its cool to see the changes that have happened within the past 15 months. The Lord is definitely hastening His work, and we better get in or get out of the way. (heheh that’s a Jake Brown quote right there) 

Elder Newell and I have been working real hard together in the area, and Elder Macz and Chavez have been killing it this week as well, as a companionship of 4 we've found 10 new investigators this week, but were going to dump a lot of them. We have faith that one of these people “caerá en al agua” (will fall in the water). Among them is a young family, Micheal and Katherine. They have a 3 year old daughter, and they're awesome. We found them just contacting and we've taught them a bunch. They’ve been reading their Book of Mormon here and there, and we can see that they’ve been feeling the Spirit big time. We just need them to get married and to find time to go to Church. 

One of the perks of having a computer is being able to do my language study on Duolingo hahahahah.

General Conference is officially within a month!!!!!!!!!!!!

And to finish, I found a great quote from Elder Renlund this week.

Happy St. Patricks Day tomorrow!! ………and 17 months on Monday gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsppppppppppp

Elder Roper

Another Week - Another Dollar

Hello all! This week was slow.... er than normal. Week 1 is crazy because Tuesday is transfer day. That means that we're running all over, getting people to new areas, making sure people catch their flights, all that good stuff. It is pretty insane to be honest. Monday night the APs make all the calls to the missionaries, and Tuesday they show up ready to travel. The best part is is that the mission buys us dinner Monday night because it just takes too dang long. I think we were in the office Monday until about 1040 or so. It was also a special night because it was Elder Ruiz´s last night as Assistant. We sent him off to Moyobamba on Tuesday as well. We went to the airport about 18 times this week. We always send the missionaries suitcases as packages in the mail, but to do that we have to go to the airport. To send them we have to wrap them with a giant thing of saran wrap. It is quite the chore to be honest hahahah. Transfer day means that I also wear my dollar tie hehheh. 

Sunday was a special day for Loreteo (our region), I'm not sure why or what but it was a huge holiday. It consists of building a tree, and trying to knock it down while throwing water on everyone while consuming large amounts of alcohol. 

Soooo we as a mission got the red light to proselyte on Sunday. We stayed in the office from about 1230 to 9pm. Cabin fever? Cabin fever. So we knocked out a bunch of the new Safety Zone videos. And ate lots of oreos hahaha. 

This week we realized that General Conference is within a month. I will never forget how weird I thought Jackson and Jenny were when they told me that its like the Super Bowl, but now that I've lived it, its 150% true hahahah. Conference is great, and I think it will be even better to watch it here in the offices with A/C and food and all that good stuff. 

With the new group that came in, I met an elder who knew Marcus Witt from the MTC in Lima. Marcus had written me and told me that he had his call to Trujillo, but I completely forgot about it. It was kinda cool. 

This week I got to the final chapter of Jesus the Christ. I'm definitely going to have to read it again, there's too much that I don’t remember hhahahah. I also finished the Book of Mormon this week. The 4^th time in my mission, 3 in English, and once in Spanish. Now I've gotta read it in Spanish again. yahhhhh

It is really weird sending people off to other cities and wondering if we'll see each other again in the mission. It is hard when your friends have transfers and go to other cities. 

This week the General Authority comes, I think Friday will be the zone conference. They're also gonna fly in all the Zone Leaders to do a little leadership council, so I’m lookin forward to seein all my friends there hahaha. 

This next transfer, we're going to have to open some areas just because there are so many missionaries coming in finally and so few going home. That means that in the coming weeks we're going to have to spend a lot of money.

This morning we went to the northern part of Iquitos and got to see Bella Vista, which means something like Beautiful Sight. We got to see where the Nanay River or something like that connects with the Amazon River. It was pretty sweet. It is too bad we can't go in boats or anything as missionaries or we totally would’ve done it.

I think that’s all for this week! The APs will travel with Presidente Li and the General Authority this week, so things should be somewhat quiet this week. We'll see! Happy March Madness!!

Elder Roper