I'm Really Loving My Mission!

Hey, how are you all?? I hope you had a Happy New Year and enjoyed the festivities . . . I spent the whole day on the 31st sick in my bed:(  DON'T WORRY I’m up and going just fine now :) I’ll explain in just a little bit....

Mom, sorry to hear that you got in a car wreck and I am glad to hear you are okay! Happy Birthday this week! :) . . . and what’s up with a new car?? Man, I’ll sure miss the Sequoia :( that thing was a lot of fun to get around in . . . oh well!  Sounds like you got a good deal out of it all though :) and dad don’t worry about the new ride being small . . . I’m already used to it after getting around in all the mexibeater cars here :) I sure do miss driving . . . it’s weird to think that I got around driving before . . . now I just walk everywhere.  The mission life is interesting :)

So we baptized 4 on Thursday :) It was a good start to the year. A sister that goes by Nati and her 3 sons named, Aldrin, Erivan, and Isacc. All are sweet and are super ready for the Gospel. 

Elder Estrada had been teaching them since he got here to the mission (he got here in August I think). I was just lucky enough to be one of the Elders that finished off the teaching and was able to baptize them. A couple of other Elders that had taught this sister and her kids came back to baptize them. That’s why I’m not in all white clothes :) It was a cool experience though!  I always love to see the investigators in the white baptismal clothing ready to make covenants with our Father in Heaven. Their smiles afterwards are always priceless as well.

We have another family of 4 that will be getting baptized on the 30th and 2 others that will possibly get baptized later on in January.  It’s going well for Elder Estrada and I though :)

So in my blessing when President Schulte set me apart . . . it tells me that I would be able to declare the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon to the people here in Tijuana.  That is honestly been one of the biggest themes of my mission up to this point.  We had two appointments this past week where the investigators asked a TON of questions that had to do with really deep doctrine.  We taught the Plan of Salvation to one of them and she began to ask us about the Millenium, the spirit world, and all that jazz - really deep doctrine that we never teach in details. Needless to say the lesson just turned into a Q and A and we lost focus completely.  This investigator hadn’t completed her Book of Mormon reading that we had left her before.  She really isn’t praying and doing anything to get an answer from God. Instead she is searching answers that come from man (Google, Facebook, etc)  I have come to learn that we can search on Google, ask our neighbors or even the missionaries questions about the Gospel and we will ALWAYS receive answers to our questions from man.  I know God has ONE answer for everyone and that is that the Book of Mormon is the most true book on the planet and if one person knows that, they will know that the rest of what we teach is true. Basically if a person doesn’t understand or have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, they will never understand anything else in the church because they don’t know that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  So with these two people, in the middle of the lessons I kinda got after them for not reading the Book of Mormon and praying because they were just searching answers from men and not from God. I bore my testimony super strong about the Book of Mormon and how if you know the Book of Mormon is true, you know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and everything else that follows is true. Ha the room went silent afterwards . . . but it’s true! I hope this all makes sense with my Spanglish :) To sum it all up, the Book of Mormon is true and if anyone back home doesn’t know that, they need to read it so they can know it’s true and that this church is the ONLY true church on the planet :)

So last Saturday we went and ate breakfast at a well known taco stand right by our house. Everything was fine until Sunday morning . . . I woke up with a terrible fever, dizziness, and all the symptoms that bothered me when I got sick back home.  Needless to say I manned up and went to church.  The members there gave me pills and I felt great Sunday afternoon and all day Monday morning.  But when I woke up Tuesday morning, hell had hit me, but this time with stomach pain.  So I called the president's wife and she told me to go to the doctor. So Bro. Sol (the member in the picture below) took me to his family doctor and the doc told me that I had a bad stomach infection and that action needed to be taken right away. So I bought my meds and hit the hay. The tacos raised hell in my stomach - probably the last time for a while that I’ll being eating street tacos.  So I spent all New Year’s Eve in my bed chatting with the member that stayed with me while Elder Estrada was out working. All of the traditions are the same as Christmas though - food, family, friends, music and fireworks. But I missed it all . . . sad day! But mom, PLEASE DON'T WORRY :) I’m perfectly fine now :)

I’m really loving my mission at this point. Being district leader is legit!  I love being able to help the other two companionships and seeing their progress. There will be 4 more baptisms in the district and it’s really going well for us. Faith goes a long ways afterall :)

Well, I love and miss you all! The weather down here is gorgeous - 75 and breezy everyday!

That’s cool Hayden got to go to the Utes game and meet some of the players . . . send my shoutout!

Have a great week!!

Elder Roper :)