Spanish It Is!

Hey how are you all? Thanks for the pictures of the festivities this week!! Looks like everyone had a good time and enjoyed Halloween. It was a decent week for us as well.

It rained pretty good last Monday and Tuesday. Tuesdays day of work there close to the chapel was fun . . . mud everywhere and it made for a good time. All of the members still tell us that it will still get worse though. I love working in the rain and mud though so it should be a good time :)

Zone Conference was Wednesday. A Seventy by the name of Elder Alan Walker and his wife came and visited us. They just got done being mission presidents is Mexico City. They are from Argentina and gave two really good trainings. We had a whole bunch of the ward leaders that are in charge of missionary work from the various wards in Tijuana and they learned a lot with us. The ward here doesn’t really work that well as a council, so Elder Tall and I put together another training and it worked well yesterday. Dad my biggest advice would be to study Chapter 13 in Preach My Gospel  and Chapter 5 in the red handbook from the Church. Read about the Ward Mission Plan. If there isn’t one in the ward, the ward council AND this missionaries under the direction of the Bishop need to make one. From that plan every organization sets goals and makes plans to find, retain, and reactivate. As for motivating the members, I would check out the website the Church has that you sent me awhile back that came out in July after the training of the work of salvation.  There are a lot of motivating videos and a lot of examples of the responsibilities of the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader in regards to missionary work.  The elders shouldn’t be knocking doors. 1 out of every door knocked on gets baptized. Two out of every 3 referrals from members that are taught in the members' houses are baptized and stay active. The Prophet said that NOW is the time for members and missionaries to work together in the work of salvation. That should be enough motivation as it is, right?

We found a guy by the name of Gerado this week. He is a friend of a member that we had met my first week here. So I mentioned to the member that he go and teach him. So we went twice this week. He accepted a baptismal date and came to church and everything this week. He is super excited and so are we!

Halloween was a bummer here, ha. We had to be home early and there wasn’t public transportation here after 5 o’ clock because people throw eggs at the buses for who knows why . . . so we just had to stay here in the area where we live and visit members all night. Pretty normal day for a missionary though. OH! Mom, I totally got your package Wednesday in zone conference :) It got here in a hurry! Thanks for the goodies!! I got a birthday package from Jenny's mom as well, so can you please tell her thanks??

Elder Cornejo is from Pachuca, Mexico. It’s close to Mexico City. Real great dude. Still has a lot to learn but does a really good job for only having 3 months in the mission. I have learned a lot from him finishing up his training.  

We speak 100 percent SPANISH :) he actually speaks English really well but we’re in Mexico, so Spanish it is. I feel really comfortable with the language. It really hasn’t given me a whole lot of problems. The gift of tongues is something real though!! I have still have a lot to learn but I feel great with Spanish. I still speak with the gringo accent and I’m trying real hard to get rid of it but I think it will always stick with me!

I hope you all have a great week. My year mark will be here before we all know it! I love and miss you all!

Elder Roper