Elder Hayden Roper: Happy Birthday Turk and Happy Father's Day!

Hey all! This week went by pretty slow to be honest, rare right? Mostly because small stupid things that happen during the day do not allow us to proselyte as much as we should/could. But even though that is happening, we are still having awesome lessons with our investigators. Les contaré de algunas experiencias que hemos tenido en esta semana……

Thursday night we taught our investigator Liz in the Church Building with some members. She told us that she had been reading her Book of Mormon and wanted to go to Church on Sunday and we were stoked. So we finished up the Plan of Salvation and made kind of a transition into lesson 3 (EVANGELIO DE JESUCRISTO) and she understood things very well. We invited her to be baptized and set the date of July 20^th…. Which she rejected saying that she just wasn´t sure yet. We then invited her to pray to know if that’s the day that God wants her to be baptized and she said she would, and if(when) she receives and answer, she will be baptized. So we don’t have a legit baptismal date, but we are getting there.

Sunday we had a lesson with a family. (Daniel and Cynthia) The dad is a very less active member, his wife is not a member, and they are not married - (22 and 25 years old). So we are working really hard with them, but things are going slow because the dad (Daniel) has a crazy work schedule, so it’s difficult to coordinate appointments with him. Anyways….. Sunday we stop by and were teaching with Daniel´s Dad (who is a member and has been for 25 years), Ernesto. And at the beginning, the lesson wasn´t going very well (la cita estuvo super bamba), and I kinda lost my patience with it. Their daughter was running around screaming and distracting all of us, the parents seemed like they didn’t really care etc etc etc. (we were teaching the Restoration btw) and it gets to the First Vision, and Daniel stops us and in essence says… “Elders, forgive me here, but I need to talk” and then proceeds to teach everyone about it, he even quoted James 1:5 while he was at it. It really changed the course of things and brought the Spirit right with it. We then finish the lesson inviting Cynthia to be baptized and she wasn’t as sure as Liz, but she said she wanted to. Her biggest doubt was knowing how she would get an answer… we turn to Galatians 5 and explain the fruits of the Spirit all that, (THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET GOOD) and she says (like I said in essence, the translation is different), “soooo like the feelings I get when you guys are here teaching us and then you leave and I feel good for a bit, but after it goes away… you´re telling me that comes from the Holy Ghost?” Elder Neves and I looked at each other with that “can you believe this??” look. It was quite the experience… to see how the lesson started and how it finished…. I couldn’t believe it honestly. Every day that we go out to teach it’s a miracle. The fact that two North Americans can enter the house of 3 Peruvians and they all understand each other (granted there are those moments when we have no clue what the people are saying), and that we can teach them the Gospel well enough in another language so that they can understand it, and they do….. that is incredible. That cannot be explained by the knowledge and wisdom of man.

Sunday we also took a less active to church with us. His name is Renzon. He hadn't been to church in over 5 years. It was cool to see how he remembered everyone and it seemed to us that he was having a good time. Now we just need the rest of his family to come with him.

This weekend Presidente and Hermana Li, and the APs are in Tarapoto opening the new Stake. Elder Falabella and I think Held are there as well. It´s a pretty big deal. It will allow Presidente Li (now Parker) to rest a lot more… he being the Mission President over a district has to oversee the work much like a Stake President would. He will still travel to visit the missionaries, but not as much to oversee the work of the Stake.

Last night we had a fun ward activity, “Escrituras Vivientes” which translates to Living Scriptures. All the groups determined that what Scripture story they wanted to act out and how, and then presented to the ward members. It was fun and had quite the turn out. We acted out the Prodigal Son.

This week I also learned that sometimes we think we are guided to a house to teach someone, but in reality it is somebody else. Our friend Martin that we were teaching a while back has disappeared, but we found his uncle and we taught him the Restoration and he understood it so WELLLLL. When we got to the great apostasy, he said "well, if there weren't Prophets or Apostles, that would mean that the people teaching about God didn´t have authority, and they still don't have it today either... right?". Once again Elder Neves and I looked at each other with that look. We set up a return appointment and we called him in the morning to remind him and he told us that he had been waiting all morning for us to call him and remind him. Our next appointment is Monday night, so we'll see what we can do with it! Like I said, Elder Neves and I are working so dang hard, and it´s really paying off.

Calling home on Thursday for Keaton's birthday was awesome! I´m really glad that the Church changed that!

I have officially received my travel plan from the Church… I´m not sure how I feel about that hahahah.

I honestly feel that Elder Neves and I are striving to do everything in our power to bring about good to the people, and the Lord is content and blessing us for our efforts.

Interesting week! Sorry for the lack of pics! I´ll make up for it next week!

Elder Roper