Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 21

Hola Familia y Amigos!

 Como estan? Felicidades Papa y Mama estoy muy animado por cuando estan en el campo misional tambien! espero que todos tengan un gran fin de semana, en su casa por el ultimp vez antes salen por su mision!

First off, many thanks to Bishop for the letter. It was great to see the articles about the temple and hear from bishop. It was also great to hear from Aunt Colleen, G & G, Ivy, and my regular faithful of course.

It sounds like mom and dad's farewell was a grand affair, and you all had a lot of fun! I'm so excited for you mom and dad it's going to be a lot of fun emailing each other from our respective fields! It was really fun to hear about all the ibbi's and especially the story of (Brigham or Blake? Two emails said each of them) in the temple. Also Elena please take good care of Neb... I miss him a lot. I'm also really glad that you have good roommates that take good care of you while I'm gone. Benjamin yes! please do take them and sell them! 

OK so quickly let me ask Janine and Benjamin did you get the letter I sent you back because you used to be my most steady snail mailers. Did it dry up because you didn't get the letters I sent? Or you just... forgot about me :( 

This week was a really great week, our area has really grown and I'm super excited to be here for at least one more transfer if not more! It has been really sad though because Elder's Sweeney and Graf have started packing up some of their things that they won't use this week. I'm really gonna miss these Elders they're both amazing and we all get along so well. I've also really enjoyed being with them because we all eat really healthy so we buy all our food communally which lowers grocery costs a lot! I really hope that my next companion has the same commitment to exercise in the morning and eating healthy.   

This week we've continued working with an Investigator we found last week named A. He's 15 and just a really awesome guy. He has friends who are members of the church and he's already accepted a baptismal date. I love teaching him because he's so faithful and when he prays you can really tell that he wants to know.

Last night we had Dinner with the M family, not sure if I've mentioned them before their recent converts from the English branch in our area. They are so faithful and so charitable, they wanted to feed Elder's Sweeney and Graf before they left. They love the missionaries, and are always willing to help us out. I really hope that all of you are willing to help the missionaries, but only if they're good obedient missionaries.

I love you all and hope you have another great week!

Elder Rojo

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 20

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 20

Hola Familia y Amigo! Estoy muy feliz aqui en Denver, y tambien estoy muy agradecido por sus correos electronicos! Mama y Papa felicidades en todo es tan maravilloso que ustedes van a servir un mission tambien!

Its been a great week here in Denver and It's so great to hear from you. Thanks so much for the package mom I just got it. Thanks for the picture of Jack! It's awesome to hear about all the missionary opportunities that are coming as a result of the temple! I'm really curious as to the increase in baptisms over the next few months. I'm super curious now as to how new investigators are found. I've learned that that most likely people to progress to baptism are member referrals, and the temple gives people so many more opportunities to refer people!

In answer to the questions about my transfer I'm in a new apartment with Elder Sweeney and Graf, but because Elder's Lopez and Reese helped me move all the stuff over I kind of had 4 companions for the day. So I took them all out for Chinese because we couldn't really find a turkey dinner type place. To explain the transfer in more detail, Elder Graf goes home at the end of the month, Elder Sweeney leaves for Buenos Aires North, and I'll be staying in Denver 1st North. Quick comment from Elder Sweeney, if you ever meet an Elder Heap in Thailand he's a friend of Elder Sweeney. (Note from Jim: Elder Heap was transferred to be our zone leader one week before Christmas-he and his companion live upstairs)

OK so here's something exciting that happened this week. Do you all remember that book of things that you were supposed to look for while driving? Do you remember that there were some that you might see only once in your lifetime? Those things were: A motorcycle with a man on the back and a women driving, and the other was... YES I SAW A PINK CADILLAC!!!!! I was so excited and Elder's Graf and Sweeney laughed at me.

Dad It's great that you're loving the PMG fundamentals, those are so essential in mission work. Sometimes it's hard to just do the fundamentals because I want to teach something else and answer a question that I have, but those fundamentals are what make us effective and powerful teachers.

Well, a few quick stories from this week. At first it was a little hard to leave the South area and some of the people that I've been teaching and working with. Especially because the North area doesn't have quite as many set appointments whereas in the South we almost always had appointments for every hour of the day. On Wednesday we were tracting and getting some typical tracting results, "no not interested" or "you can come back, but I'm super busy all the time so it might not be until next month" in other words "we're not interested". The last door that we knocked on the man let us in and we taught him for about 30 minutes before he left. We came back on Sunday and taught his whole family "the restoration" His wife told us that it was a miracle that we were there because here husband usually doesn't talk to "religious people" but he was excited and told his wife about us! and we also went there on the one day that he was actually at home at that time. It was a huge testimony builder to meet people like that who were so prepared for us by the lord when we just went out and worked. The other awesome experience was that I got to give Jesus the Priesthood and then he baptized an investigator of the sisters. It was so awesome to see him progressing in this gospel and using his priesthood.

Well, that's it for this weeks email, next weekend seeing as how the whole family will be there tell them all to send me an email!

I love you all and hope you're having a great time

Elder Redd

Chapter 19

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Les amo much y espero que todos disfrutaron el fin de semana de "Thanksgiving" es muy triste que nadie aqui sabe que en Canada "Thanksgiving" es diferente que los Estados Unidos. Quiero decirles que estoy muy bien aqui en Colorado y hoy tengo muchas noticias.

Time has passed so fast it still feels like it should be summer and not October yet. The only reason that I know the whole world isn't lying to me about what day it is is the cooler weather.

 A few weeks ago Elder Lopez and I were tracting and we knocked on the door of an old man who spent several minutes cussing at us and telling us we were wrong. I bore testimony to him that I knew the Gospel was true, and I gave him a Mormon.org card with our number if he ever wanted to hear us or if he needed service. As we walked back to the car I was amazed that even after all the bad (And I mean horrible) things that he said about our religion and Christianity in general that I felt a love for him, and if he called us I would happily go to serve him. It's been an interesting experience being a missionary. I've learned that I need to be like Christ and see all these people as Christ sees them. As he said, "Love them that hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you." It's something that I'm really trying to apply in my work and I hope you'll all try to apply it in your lives to. 

I got transferred today!!! I only found out on Saturday, and this just came out of nowhere! I'm really not getting transferred that far, I'll be in the same ward, but I'm now in the North Area. This is because Elder Sweeney got his Visa and will be leaving at the end of the Month, this also happens to coincide with the End of Elder Graf's mission, so President is sending me to the North so he won't have to Whitewash the area. It was a shock and I'm sad to leave the South, especially since I had so little notice and I really didn't have a chance to say goodbye to some of the people we've been working with. That is assuming they don't come to church, hopefully some of them will come to church now if they really miss me. When I first found out I was sad, I was thinking about all the people here that I love and it was kinda bumming me out. After awhile I realized that this is what President Maynes and the Lord want from me, so I'm going to do it. And not only am I going to do it I'm going to be cheerful about it!! So Dad that explains why I kind of have 4 companions now.

Yeah as I mentioned above earlier in Spanish nobody here knows about Canadian Thanksgiving, that was a little saddening, but I had some amazing tacos yesterday so it makes up for it.

Mom and Dad I'm so excited to hear all about the Temple and all the missionary work you're doing. And yes Dad you are completely right doing missionary work is infinitely more important than missionary training, if that wasn't the case we'd probably spend over a year in the MTC and the rest of our missions in the field. That's a lesson that I've learned, that sometimes you need to sacrifice your study even though it can be one of my favourite times of the day, in order to serve people and do the missionary work. The great thing about that is one of the greatest ways to learn is to do. I've learned that if you want to be great missionary you need to go out and serve the people.

But I'm so excited that the temple is about to be dedicated! It will be so cool to see something about it during next conference in the world report.

Ok so lets talk about General Conference. That was such an awesome conference and an exciting announcement! That will bring so many more missionaries into the field. It will be a little strange because I will probably have at least one 18 year old companion on my mission. I really hope that anyone who wants to leave at 18 will prepare sufficiently. Actually scratch that I don't think anyone can prepare sufficiently to be a missionary. But I encourage all young men to prepare to leave at the age of 18. It will require lots of study because they're shortening the MTC time. It will also be really strange to have sisters out here that are the same age as us, but we really do need more Sister's they make the best missionaries. Also there were some fantastic talks I loved Elder Ballard's Elder Holland's and Elder Bednar's specifically. Elder Bednar's was awesome also partially because I've met him now.

Well that's all for this week. I love you all and hope that you enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Con Mucho Amor,

Elder Rojo

Chapter 18 Sorry it's been so long

Hola Familia y Amigos

Estoy muy contento hoy y espero que todos sean bien. yo estoy muy

animado por La Conferencia General este fin de semana. Ustedes deben

ser animados por Thanksgiving, pero aqui ne celebremos este semana.

It was great to hear from you this week! sorry about last week, I was

just short on time and couldn't write a long email with all the

details I would have liked to include. First off is Jesus' baptism!!

That was an amazing experience I'm sorry you didn't get the pictures,

so i'll resend them today. but at Jesus' baptism I felt the spirit so

strong and really just got an affirmation that I'm where I'm supposed

to be right now serving the people that heavenly father has prepared

for me. After the baptism we went to Jesus' house and watched Joseph

Smith prophet of the restoration with him. He knows it’s true and he

will be an amazing member of the church for his whole life. Also when

we were driving home from Jesus' house Elder Reese and I talked about

how at the end of the movie we both just felt such a strong witness

that our church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I already

knew it but I love receiving an added witness of the truthfulness of

the gospel.

Ok and now for a cool experience from this week! So we've been working

with this woman named Rosa since I got to the area. Actually when I

got here she was on date to be baptized September 2nd unfortunately

her "Esposo" so in other words the man she lived with cancelled their

wedding and she wasn't going to kick him out. Ever since then we've

been working with her to try and help-whether that's to get them

married or anything. We'd ben fasting and praying for her for quite

awhile, but unfortunately we weren't seeing any results. Then suddenly

this week she told us that he moved out. Just out of the blue the Lord

provided a way for us and now she will be baptized later this month!

Anyways I love you all and I hope you're all doing great send me an

email so I can know how you're doing!

Con mucho amor!

Elder Rojo