November Air

November has flown by and Thanksgiving is this week

Had a pretty solid week in the sector working.  To start out, our buddy Winner had his baptismal interview and passed it! Our district leader asked him for his testimony and our district leader says he has a powerful testimony! So that's a fijo baptism for this Saturday! Kind of a crazy story how we found him and how he came to church, basically he was an online reference that we received Saturday night. We called him that night, invited him to church and he came to church that week! 

Then yesterday we put another 2 baptismal dates for the month of December! We found Martha and Amy just knocking doors and they were super interested and ended up coming to church the first week too! Yesterday they accepted the invitation to be baptized with a simple yes and said they are ready be baptized in Decemeber. 

This week we also had our consejo de lideres or leadership council and this time we were guided by the Spirit a lot more compared to the last time. Last time in October, it felt like everyone was just kind of barking out suggestions with no focus, but this time it felt a lot more focused with a bigger desire to help the mission out. 

Today I also hit 11 months in the mission! November has flown by, low-key these past months have flown by so fast.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving! 

Miss you guys! 

Elder Roper 

Leadership Council

Today was Mission Leadership Council.  

Mission leaders gathered together to discuss issues that will 

help the mission and the missionaries they are serving.

 

Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset Repeat

What a week we've had...

To start, we found 10 people and 9 of those new people ended up coming to church. We went to go pick up a family so they could go to church and we waited for awhile and eventually came out and were ready to go! 

We really didn't think the other 2 families were gonna go since they sent us a message thinking they couldn't go but ended up coming right after the sacrament ended. So that was a miracle and a half. Good thing it was the Primary Program and focused on the book of mormon and on Jesus Christ. The spirit was there and I feel like the parents and kids liked it. 

Our buddy, Winner's date for baptism is seguro or safe so he should be getting baptized the 30th of November and we want to put 2 others who went to church for the first time on date for December!! Our prayers have definitely been answered since Elder Tzul and I have been praying for "una familia de oro" and we have found a lot of people that have the desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ in ALL things. 

I think this is the week I have taught the most about baptism and it's always awesome when the Spirit is there and testifying that the people need to be baptized the way that Jesus Christ so that is a valid baptism and they can make a covenant with the Lord. 

Little bit of a smaller email but looking forward to this next week! 

Love you guys 

Elder Roper 

It's Hot

I swear the heat is getting worse here in Guayaquil.  Hopefully that means we can get some rain and the power outages can go away.

But another week down in the 12 de Octubre going up and down the Lomas here in Prosperina. Another week of knocking doors and talking to a lot of interesting people. We found a lady who's Catholic but doesn't believe in the resurrection. After studying deeper about the resurrection I realized how sad that would be if it wasn't for Jesus Christ and His Atonement. 

Also this week we put our buddy, Winner on date to be baptized for the 30th of November. We received him as an online reference and usually the online references don't want anything or aren't interested but this guy has shown his interest or desire to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized! He has had a hard life and a hard time with all of his family, so I hope this can bring some peace and joy into his life. 

This week we did 2 intercambios with 2 different companionships and I was with the younger Elder either in his training or recently out on his training and it's pretty fun to see them progress and see and hear their Spanish get better and better. I think every missionary has the process of getting better and better and it's fun to see a lot of that growth happen with a missionary in training. 

I'm trying to think of things that have happened this past week and nothing is coming to mind, just kind of a normal week of being a missionary. I think this past week is the most "trunky" I've been haha. Just for all the stuff that's going on, the World Series, the Holy War, and college football in general. But thinking about a year back I went to the temple for the first time to do my endowments and it's crazy how quick a year can go by! Sometimes I wonder what will I be thinking next year in November 2025. 

Happy Veterans Day🇺🇸

Love and miss all you guys 

Elder Roper 

Vida Eterna - La Cola

 Bueno, buenas tardes a todos. This week was a pretty quick and busy week...

To start, we had zone conference this past week and the way our mission does zone conferences is that they are always multi zone conferences and President let's 20-25 minutes for a presentation by the ZLs and the HLs or Hermanan liders. So I got the opportunity to make a presentation. The day before the zone conference and present it at the conference. President's first presentation that he gave at the conference showed us how much potential the mission has and how we have been slightly improving! Then his second one was about we all needed to REPENT. 

His wife gave a pretty cool presentation about our missionary purpose and the scripture that if we lose our lives in the service of the Lord we will find our life in Him. I'm not sure where the scripture is at but it was a good presentation. 

Then after zone conference we had an exchange with the Elders of 9 de Enero 2. I went with Elder Haynie from Arizona and we taught one lesson to start the day then the rest of the day we were finding. We found I think 6 people and even found a hermano that served in Iquitos while Hayden was there and remembered Elder Roper and Hermana Richard's -  kind of funny to run into a random member of the church that knows your brother. 

This weekend was a holiday, so church was a little bit rough.  We had another person come to church that we found this week. I think only 30 members came to church so it was kind of weird for Fast and Testimony meeting. 

Anyways that's it for this week, glad the Dodgers won! GO UTES (please don't lose to BYU) 

Miss all you guys

Elder Roper