Ubers and Taxis

Final week of the transfer 

Since it's the final week of the transfer, Elder Knusdon has had his last dinner with President Suarez and his last interview. So that means we spent all day Friday and Sunday not doing much. Friday we finished studies then went out for an hour and all of our lessons fell. Then after that we went to the offices, I stayed in the offices and ate some Dominoes pizza which honestly wasn't that bad -  it was pretty good. 

Then Sunday Elder Knudson had his last interview with President so we went to church had lunch tried to have some lessons and then left for Presidents super nice house. We didn't get back later until that night, but I wasn't complaining since Presidents house has A/C and is really, really nice. Then we rode an UBER home which was kind of cool. I would've never thought they would have Uber here, but they do and I'm pretty sure they have Uber eats here,  too. 

Since it was Elder Knudsons last week and he had stuff to do both at the offices and with President, we haven't done much work this last week. We had an intercambio with my district leader Elder Daniels. Not all of our lessons fell through and we were actually able to give a blessing to a recent convert which was pretty cool. But other than that, that was pretty much all we did in that intercambio. 

But about that blessing we gave it to a young man who was baptized just in January and we are working with his mom and other sister to progress and maybe be baptized but we finished the lesson and the mom asked for the blessing. It was pretty cool since I got to do the first part and Elder Daniels got to seal and do the blessing. During the blessing I felt a still, peaceful feeling. It was really cool and I knew that everyone in the room could feel that same peaceful spirit. 

That's all for this week - nothing really happened and it was kind of boring.

 

Miss all you guys

Elder Roper

Cortas De Luz

Cortas De Luz=power outages

That is pretty much how the week has been. The country of Ecuador is in a Nationwide drought right now and the way they get their power is through hydro electric motors that use the water to generate electricity. But since it hasn't rained much this rainy season they have had to cut the power all throughout the week. Most of the time it has been around 1pm to 6pm so we haven't really been affected by the power cuts but other Elder's power has been cut in the night and I've heard that they just had to wait 2-3 hours without power since it is so hot in their house. I'm not sure if the power has cut out at our house since the new room we found is much cooler and has a big window. 

They also thought that we wouldn't have water or power for 2 days straight. So we took like 2 or so hours deciding to go back to our apartment to get as much drinking water as possible and fill up some buckets so we could shower and use the toilet but then we got up the next day and had running water. That was a pretty funny experience since the whole mission was told to make sure they have enough water for two days and then nothing happened. 

But that's pretty much all the exciting stuff that happened this week. Because of the power outages a lot of people were outside of their houses and we were able to talk to them so we had a lot of opportunities to talk to people and help them know more about the gospel. And of course this Sunday was a day the people had to vote about adding new laws to Ecuador so we didn't have a lot of people show up to church this week. It decided to rain all Sunday morning too so that's another reason or excuse people had not to come to church. But this past week 2 of our friends have started their marriage papers and that has been exciting since we have been trying to encourage them to get married or start the papers ever since I've been in the Sector but they are finally starting them. 

That's pretty much it for this week nothing too crazy happened.

Miss you all

Elder Roper

We Moved . . . kind of

Well, we had a pretty much boring week. Nothing too crazy happened. Just the normal contacts and lessons. But this week we kind of realized that we totally have another room in our apartment and we moved to that other room. I don't know why we haven't thought about that but our District leader told us to move and it's so much cooler than the room we were sleeping in. But that's all we moved, we basically just changed the room we sleep in. It just had a bigger window and let's more air in so its cooler than our last room. I dont get up in the morning with sweat and my blanket on the floor. So that has been a nice change. 

This week I also had an intercambio or exchange with Elder Sayer. I stayed in Sedalana and my companion went with our District leader.  Elder Sayer has a total of 3 weeks in Ecuador so that was a pretty fun time. It was kind of fun to see how he is adjusting in the mission and a little of the struggles and good times we both have had. The day went pretty well but as you can imagine a lot of the lessons were just ok since I don't have much time here and Elder Sayer is still working on his Spanish. In our last lesson of the night the sister we were teaching fell asleep during the lesson. She kept on drifting off meanwhile I was talking to her it was kind of funny but I felt bad since she says she gets up at 6:30 and goes to bed at 1:30. She still carves times out of her day just to meet with us. 

Another funny story that happened this past week is that we were doing a street contact with Elder Sayer and meanwhile the contact a trasngender person came up to us and pointed at his house and said that we were welcomed anytime. Then after that some teenagers in a moto passed by just laughing at us. It was kind of a crazy contact but Elder Sayer and I just laughed about it. It was pretty funny. 

Well the one sister that has a fecha to be baptized didn't come to church this past week so I think we have to move her date further back. That has been kind of frustrating since we haven't really been able to meet with her and can't contact her much. One day this past week everything fell through and we didn't find anyone and of course the last lesson we had was a video call with our friend Britany or the sister with the fecha. I asked Heavnely Father in my heart that if this lesson could just go through and when we called the sister she answered almost immediately. I felt the love of my Heavenly Father so strongly and know that he listens to our prayers. 

Anyways that's pretty much all for this past week.

Miss all you guys,

Elder Roper 

Primer Baptism

That's right this week the baptism we had planned for last Friday actually went through and it went pretty much smooth. Nothing went wrong and everyone showed up the usual 30 minutes later than it was going to start so Elder Knudson and I go the chance to clean the front of the church which had a bunch of garbage and weeds. The hermanas name is Ginevra and is probably better than some members in the eard and for sure a better member than I was at 14 years old. We have another hermana that wants to be baptized bit the thing is with her and her family we haven't been able to meet with them so we will probably have to push back the date even later in April. So hopefully that will still happen. 

This week we were also able to do some service for a sister in the ward. I think she wanted to replace her sheet metal roof so we tore it all down and were going to help her with another member in the ward to rebuild everything we tore down. But we had a lesson to get to so we had to leave early so I'm not sure if they actually built the part of her roof back or if it's still a giant hole over her laundry area. It's kind of bizarre to see how they work with concrete here and all the things they do without any safety gear. For example we will see a lot of people welding without a welding helmet on and just holding up a piece of darkened glass to protect their eyes. There also not wearing a shirt with shorts and flip flops with all the sparks flying around. Pretty funny. 

Of course we had General Conference too, which we got to sit in the AC and watch in English. We invited a lot of our friends to go to the stake center or even watch it with a member and all of them either were busy or out of town so we had the chance to just sit in the secretary office, get some snacks and watch Conference. There were a lot of good talks that had to have answered a lot of questions that people would have all throughout the world. Just goes to show that our Heavenly Father cares about each one of his children and has answers to every single one of their prayers. 

This week we also found some new people and out of those new people we found a guy who's on house arrest and the police officer that makes sure he stays there. We gave them a Book of Mormón and so we'll see if they read. If so that will be 2 people we are teaching that are on house arrest. Haha.

That's all for this week hope everyone has had a good week!

Elder Roper

Easter Week

This past week was la Semana Santa or Holy Week. To celebrate I think they just drank and drank some more. There weren't a lot of parties going on or big celebrations but just everyone sitting in their houses watching whichever soccer game that was on, usually with a beer or some type of alcohol in their hands. I don't suggest trying to find 2 people on Easter Sunday with a big holiday and a soccer game going on in the same night. Almost everyone was home but they were watching the soccer game or drinking so safe to say it wasn't a very successful time to knock doors. 

But this week was a pretty successful week I think. We got to mention the Holy Week and just teach about Jesus Christ' last week of life in Jerusalem. Most people knew what the Holy week meant and some people just thought it was a time to have a holiday and the weekend off. We actually got to talk to an Evangelical guy, and he said they don't celebrate Easter at this time of year and just follow what the pastor says. Me and Elder Knudson just kind of walked away and laughed that one off. There are so many different religions here and most doors we knock say there are either Catholic, Evangelical, or Jehovah's Witnesses. But sometimes we get someone who's just curious and looking for some direction. 

But now to the fun or not so fun stuff that happened this week. Tuesday night the power went out at 2:30am for about an hour. So our fans weren't working and we couldn't fall asleep. Then we just wound up outside on the patio and we almost felt a little chilly with the breeze that was passing by and the sweat on our arms to cool us down. Safe to say that day and the next day were a little rough to get up out of bed and just start the day. I'm not sure how often the power goes out here but I don't know how many more of those nights I can take. 

Now an actual cool story to kind of wrap things up, Thursday night we had found 0/7 people. We put 7 as a goal and we didn't really find anyone that was interested or that wanted to talk to us again. If I remember right all those lessons fell through and we almost decided to go in for the night and start making some dinner. But we decided to just knock on doors for 20 minutes and we ended up finding 4 people in those 20 minutes. It was pretty cool since we have been trying to find a lot more people to teach and just to get to know the sector and area a little more.

Then also today to start P-day off we rented bikes and rode for about 10 minutes crossing a bridge and just riding on a little trail until we got to a little pueblo of 30ish houses. Then we took a trail to see some Crocodiles and it was pretty cool. 

I'll finish with sharing John 14:27, this scripture is pretty cool since we can always find peace in Jesus Christ and His atonement. Sometimes we turn to the world or music, our phones, or any other distractions but in the mission when we don't have that stuff I often find myself asking for strength for whatever it may be. I can testify that if we need help all we need to do is to ask for it and Heavenly Father will give it to us in one way or another.  

Miss all you guys

Elder Roper