Happy Star Wars Day!

4 de mayo! 

Hello all! This week was crazy. Thursday was Zone Leader´s Council (again, it feels like we just had it) so it was somewhat stressful getting everything planned and ready, BUT at the end of the day everything worked out fine. So it was great. It’s always such a great time to get to see people there that you don’t normally see every day or week. It’s a bit trunky knowing that a majority of the Zone Leaders are in their last weeks and that sooner or later I’ll be there soon. But the Mish goes on.

David and Maralin, the first family that I stayed with sent me a whole bunch of bread that they make. They had a big oven and David was a baker and we would always help him and sometimes take some of his bread and they knew how much I loved it. So now that Elder Newell is back in Pucallpa (he was in the same area as well with this family) I´m assuming he went to visit them and then they sent a whole bunch of stuff for me with him. I was pretty stoked, but I ended up sharing it all with everyone because if not, I would’ve ended up weighing 98 kilos by today. It pays to have good friends and be friend with the members!!

It’s been hot and rainy lately. Really off and on. Pretty much normal Iquitos weather. What can you do?

Elder Jacobson also received a package just barely and he got American Oreos. So this morning we did an experiment to see if there was a difference between American ones and Peruvian ones….. and we determined that American ones are better hahahha. And bigger. 

This week we got another companion. Kind of an emergency transfer type of thing that could possibly going home because he is not mentally sane. I guess he was saying things like “podría quemarles vivo y tu no sabrías nada” and he was dead serious. (I will let yall translate that one hahah)  So were just kinda waiting around to see what happens with him. I’m not gonna lie it is a really awkward situation with everything going on.  

I also got an email from Elder Neves which is known in the mission as the “correo trunky” (trunky email) which just means that he’s in the process of buying some flights to Lima and then from there to SLC. It’s amazing how fast time just kind of disappears. I hate it. 

I´ll finish with a scripture I found this week. It is Revelation 21:4 and it reads…. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” Sorrow is part of life, but at the end of everything we're meant to be happy. Everything we face in life is temporal if we have an eternal perspective of things. I remember clearly Dale Schipaanboord (not sure I spelled that right) said in a testimony the summer before I left that “in the end everything will be alright. If everything isn´t alright, it’s not the end” or something like that. Having an eternal perspective was also a big focus in Seminary as well. It is hard, but it is something that we can do. 

I think that’s all for today! Happy May! Shout out to Mom and Jack for graduating!!!

Elder Roper