Elder Hayden Roper: 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.