Mud season

Hola familia y amigos! Si mi amigos de verdad leen mi correo. No se, porque nunca escucho de nadie! Es la verdad que esta pasa a casi todos los missioneros. Y ahorita mi compa es verdecito entonces el recibe tan mucho correo! Pero esta bein.

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you're all doing great! I'm loving life up here in the mountains. just this week I once again realized how high up we are here. We went to Leadville last Friday, and while there we ran up the stairs of an apartment complex. It really wasn't that much, just two flights of stairs but man was I out of breath! The weather up here has warmed up. (As you can probably see from the picture I sent) and it is just gorgeous. We're currently in what the locals call "mud season" the interval in between ski season and the summer tourist season. I'm loving it even though all my clothes are getting pretty dirty.

So to let you all know I will be spoiled for my birthday. Some of the members found out that I was turning 20, It still makes me shudder to think how old I am, and so we have a great couple days. Tonight we are eating with the Allen's a great younger family with four young boys. They wanted to have a birthday party for Elder Redd, but the oldest son has baseball tomorrow so we're doing it today. Then tomorrow la familia Higuera will be giving me a good mexican birthday. So I'll make sure to take pictures and send them to you all next week. So don't worry about that I'll be taken care of.

Alright so now I'll tell you a little bit about the missionary work that i've done here in the past week. For the past transfer and a half we've been experimenting with a new finding method called "The Prayer Approach" It's super cool and I really like using it. This past week we found two great families through it. One of them is la familia Gonzalez. They are a super cool family. Hermano is a Seventh day Adventist, but he's very open and willing to hear us. On Saturday when we gave him a book of mormon he was excited to read it and learn more. It's always amazing to see the spirit touch peoples hearts and prepare them to receive the Gospel.

Ok another quick story, not sure If I ever mentioned back when I was in Denver this amazing investigator I had back in Denver named Carlos. He was just an amazingly prepared man who was super excited about the gospel. Regrettably for my last transfer there we could never get a hold of him. It was really sad, I wasn't sure what had happened, maybe he had friends who were opposed to the church, or had otherwise encountered anti material. Then just this week the Elder's currently serving there Elder's Havig and Gonzalez, both good friends of mine, called and told me they's seen Carlos again. It was great to hear that he was once again meeting with the missionaries, and progressing. Even better he asked about me! It was great to know that I was living in a way to be recognized as a disciple of Christ who he remembered and didn't forget.

I hope you all know just how much I love my mission. I love being a missionary and I know that this Gospel is true!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo.

Totally forgot to include this super cool amazingly awesome story. 

Ok probably the funniest and coolest story of the week. So on Thursday we had to drive over to Vail so I could do baptismal interviews for the Vail elders. on our way there we called them to get the address and they told us just to call when we got closer. Right before we got close our phone battery ran down. I started calling them to get the directions, but they weren't answering. Just as we reached the point where neither of us knew where to go it died. It was already late and we really didn't have much time. Elder Barfield and I had no idea what to do. we decided to go find a phone and call the Vail Elder's we figured we could turn the phone for just long enough to get the number and then we could call them. regrettably the phone wouldn't even turn on. I could really tell that the adversary did not want this interview to happen. This made me want to do everything I could to ensure that it did. When we found a pay phone and got change I decided to try and call one of the office missionaries numbers that I keep in my wallet and get the Vail number from them. I called Elder Drake, our Housing Coordinator. After explaining to Elder Drake that I didn't have time to explain the situation and I needed the Vail number he gave it to me (It was really fun telling him the full story the next day) "Finally" I thought, "Now we can call them and figure something out." I called and it went straight to Voicemail. I got slightly frustrated. then almost immediately after hanging up the pay phone they drove right up to the gas station where we were. "That was fast" I said. They didn't even receive the message until later, but they had felt impressed to come and find us and knew exactly where to go. I was able to interview them and they were baptized the next day. It was so cool to see the hand of the Lord in ensuring that these people could be ready for baptism.