June 29, 2015

Hey family,

What a week it has been.  This week seemed a little long because we spent a lot of time entering all of the teaching records from our area book to our iPads.  It is just a long hard progress but when it's done our lives will be so much easier.

Life for me continues to go well.  I am growing to love this ward more and more each week.  Yesterday was a little weird at church because not a single member of the bishopric was there.   I guess the Stake Presidency held a meeting during our sacrament meeting.  But church was

still fabulous.

We sadly didn't have any investigators at church this week.  It was not from a lack of trying though.  But we have some amazing plans for the coming week.  One thing that as a mission we are struggling with is having investigators at sacrament meeting.  It is scary how normal it is to have Sunday as just another working day.  My Mission President

has sent out several emails about how we need to focus on getting people to church and I plan on doing that this next week.  My companion and I have set some pretty big goals for the coming week and I am excited to see what happens!

I have put some serious prayer & faith into them and they start tonight so here we go.

I have very little time but I wanted to share a little quote that I

found in my studies this week and has help me immensely.

We Are Not Alone “There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of weakness we may cry out, ‘No one knows what it is like. No one understands.’ But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for

He has felt and borne our individual burdens.” The lord knows us each on a personal level and also knows how to help us with truly anything and I am figuring out that sometimes we just need to open up our hearts and talk with him!  Life sometimes just isn't all that easy but with the savior’s help I am learning how to just keep my mind on the work, smile, and go for it! Ha sorry this probably doesn't make sense but I just love my savior.  Learn to rely on him and tell him everything.

I hope you all had an amazing week.  Mine was wet!  It rained hard every single day this past week and is raining as I write this.

I love you all thanks for everything,

Love Elder Roper

June 24, 2015

Hi everyone,

Well family sorry it has taken me so long to email. Today we get to go

to the temple so they asked us to wait until today to email.  The past

week  has been some of the most glorious and hardest days of my life.

I will just get right to the point. Saturday was just simply amazing.

My last companion, Elder Weber, and I were teaching a family when I

was down in greenfield. The family was just amazing and progressing so well, and leaving them was so hard for me.  We have stayed in contact over the past few weeks and on Saturday I was able to get permission to drive down and baptize there 9 year old boy Treven.  It was easily one of the highlights of my mission.   Randy and Misty were also Baptized by Elder Weber and Elder Rawling. This family has a special place in my heart and I will forever love them!  While teaching this family I am beginning to feel what charity is.  The first night Elder Weber and  I met them we Immediately feel in love.  It was so fun meeting them for the first time because it was like I was see in

them how Christ would see them.  Whenever we would teach them we would see them in white and then just a few days ago our vision came true!

After our first lesson we got in the car and looked at each other and

decided that we were going to try our hardest to help their family and

do whatever it takes so that they can be sealed one day in the temple,

and on Saturday they made the first step. When we met them they were smoking 2 packs a day and drinking more cups of coffee than I can count, and when we told them that in order to be baptized they would have to quit all of that and more they laughed at us and said they never would! Ha-ha that was a little over 2 months ago and now they have quit everything and are baptized!  Watching this family progress and have the spirit come into their lives and into their home has just been amazing.  Watching this family truly has brought me so much joy! 

Moments like this are what make all of the hard times worth it! I read a quote by David O McKay this week that described my week.  "True happiness comes only from making others happy." I love being a missionary!:) The power of the Atonement is real and truly can help

anyone no matter what they have done or are struggling with!  I hope

you all had  an amazing week! Sorry it's short.

I love and miss you all SO much!!

Love Elder Roper

June 15, 2015

Hi there everyone!!

I had a fun week with both of my companions. I think i mentioned it last week but we had a mini missionary with us all week! His parents came and picked him on on Saturday and that was the end of his mini mission. It honestly was hard to see him go! Even though we were only together a week we became really good friends and i hope he learned a lot as he served his little mission.

We talked to a lot of people this week!! We did a ton of tracting and tried out some different ways of contacting. The disappointing this is everyone we talk to seems to be fine where they are and they like the church they are going to! Some days the spirit is the only things that keeps us positive and smiling! I Love having the spirit with me. 

My comp was sick on Friday and so me and my mini just had to sit in our house all day long!! This was a long day because i am used to leaving the apartment early and not coming back till late but  luckily we had an i pad and watched every mormon message that the church has come out with!! haha All i can say is dang those little clips are powerful!! ha We did finally end up convincing my comp did come sleep in the car while we moved a member in the ward. So we weren't stuck in the house all day! haha

One thing i started doing this week which i love is now that we have i pads we can listen to all of the recent conference talks. So every morning as i get ready and shower and prepare for the day I listen to recent conference talks. One of my favorite talks from this week was by Elder Bednar about fear!! Often when I am out tracting it is easy to just say thanks and move on to the next door. But He gives us 3 things we can do help us hush our fears! 

1 look to Christ, 2 build upon the foundation of Christ, and 3 press forward with faith in Christ. This helped me a lot this week!

Sometimes the "natural man" in me comes out and when people say that they aren't interested it is easy for me to just say thank you and walk away. But we learn in PMG not to do that! We still need to be polite but we also need to be bold and loving and always testify. I am striving even harder each day to always make Christ the center of my life.

Yesterday i had kind of a cool experience. My comp and i are teaching this family and helping them set a temple date where they can be sealed. We felt that we needed to teach the plan of salvation because we learn a lot about that in the temple. So we went and had dinner with them and then started into our lesson. I honestly dont think i have ever had a lesson "flow" so well. My comp and i said a prayer before we went in that we could have the spirit with us and teach in unity and dang did we ever!! Everything just seemed to go perfect and the spirit was so strong!! I know that the power of prayer is real!! This past week wasn't really that easy for me but i have been praying more than i ever have and each and every time i pray my prayer gets answered and i feel that i am getting closer to Christ!  I am learning that if i ever have a problem to just pray and everything will work out!

I love you all, thanks for everything!

Love Elder Roper

June 8, 2015

Well lots happened this week and I wish I could tell you all of it but i will try to highlight the important stuff!!

Wednesday we had zone meeting and it honestly was one of the most spiritual meeting i have been in yet!! I love my new zone leaders!! We talked about the importance of church attendance and the reason we push so hard for investigators to come!! I could go on and on but it was amazing! After that we all got our ipads!! So we spent the next several hours setting them up and figuring them all out!! They have been fun and have  been useful on the door step!! It has been so nice to be able to show people short little videos and have them ask questions right there on the door step then bear our testimony to them!! The work is moving forward at a rapid rate!! The lord wasn't joking when he said the field is white already to harvest!!

Friday night we got a call from the assistants telling us that we had to be in Columbus the next morning to receive a mini missionary!! I had never heard of this but i guess the youth in our mission have the opportunity to go on a weeklong mission and my companion and i were chosen to get one!! So Saturday we woke up and went to a mini transfer meeting! They were set apart to be missionary's for a week by there stake president and it was so powerful!! My mini name is Nick Powell and is from Newark  Ohio and just graduated high school!! It has been fun having him around!!  We had a lot of success this week and had 2 new investigators at church, which might not sound like much, but it was better than the 0 we had last week!

I don't know why but i loved my studies a lot this week!! I am learning so much every day and wish we could have personal study for hours each morning!! I read a lot of amazing stuff and learned even more!!  I have been working on the Christ like attribute humility this week and love finding people in the scriptures that were humble!! I was reading in Moses and love the whole story but i loved the verse where he said" I know that man is nothing, which thing i never had supposed" Just like Moses I am realizing more and more each day that i really am nothing with out the lord!! The other story that i loved is in 2nd Nephi where Nephi puts his trust in the lord and glories in the goodness of god!! I love how Nephi knew that he was nothing without the lord and says "o wretched man that I am" I am striving each day to put more trust in the lord!

I can say that as of today I know now more than ever before that this church is true and that this is the lords work!! I love this Gospel and everything about it!! I love being a missionary but some days it is just hard!! I read a quote this week that went something like this he might not always move the mountains in front of us but he will always help us climb!!

Well I wish I could write more but I am off to go play basketball with a bunch of mini missionary’s.

I love you all!

Love Elder Roper