Capitulo 38

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 38

Hola a todo mi familia y amigos! Primero disculpame que este E-mail va a llegar un dia tarde, pero ayer yo estaba bien occupado, y tambien era el dia de los Presidnete's aqui en los Estados Unidos, entonces todos las bibliotecas eran cerradas. Y por esto les escribo hoy!

First off I love you all Happy Valentine's day! (I'm not sure if I said that last week or not) It was great to hear from all, and thanks for the scripture case! Es muy Chido!  

I've been asked what it is exactly that keeps me so busy on my p-days right now. Well it's all kinds of things, some are in relation to the missionary work, last week we had to help Elder Belnap out so he could leave for Peru! and this week we went to Aurora partially because we had to, and partially because we went to play Soccer with the other Spanish Elder's over there. Oh wait none of you know where Aurora is. That's just to the east of Denver, whereas I'm in the west. So we went over there to play Soccer. (I'm also getting a lot better at soccer serving Spanish so after the day that shall not be named I might have to start playing a little more)

It was great to hear from you Mom and Dad, I always love hearing your mission stories from Thailand. It's great to hear that you're working hard over there. And I hope that family will get Baptized in March. 

I really am learning to love Hispanic culture, they are such friendly nice people and very very rarely are they mean. It's fun talking to English Elder's about that. they talk about tracting and how they don't like having door's slammed in their faces. I really don't think I've ever had a door slammed in my face except by white people. along with that I've also gotten really good at telling from the outside of a house if the occupants are Hispanic or American. Don't judge me, it naturally happens!

It's been a lot of fun this last week to work with the combined areas. Some of the people who I worked with when I served in the South are still there, so it's great to see them again. Unfortunately though, Elder Rollins and Elder Havig both got sick last week so that slowed us down a little bit. And as such there really aren't any stories to tell this week, but I will next week i promise!

I love you and I love being here in Denver.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo

It's been a while Capitulo 37

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 37

February 12, 2013 (infrequent posts are what happens when the parents are missionaries too)

Hola a toda la familia! Primero, Perdoneme por aquel abominacion que mando la semana pasada. Casi no tenia tiempo, ahorita mis dias de preparacion son bien locos y muy occupados! pero estoy muy agradecido que no recibi ningun correos de irritacion debido del malo correo que envie.

Ok so I do actually love you all, I just had a crazy week last week, my p-days are getting continually busier and more occupied. but anyways I have some pretty exciting news to tell you later. So first off If I could ask someone to send me Grandma and Grandpa Redd's address? The Christmas card I sent them got sent back. Also I want to profusely thank the Schneiders for those chocolates they sent me awhile I ago I just got them from the mission office because they put them in the fridge and forgot to give them to me. but thankyou so much because I have them now and they are great!

In answer to the question mom I am doing well I got sick for a little while earlier but I'm doing a lot better right now so I'm good gracias.

Also happy Valentines day! thanks for the Valentines they were quite funny Sister!

Alright so now I'll tell you a little bit about the week. Elder Havig and I had a great week, we were able to teach lots, and we also found several more new investigators. Possibly the most exciting news is that our investigator Felix accepted a baptismal date for February 24th, I may or may not have mentioned him before but he's super awesome and been talking with the missionaries for almost a year now. So could you all please pray for him? I really hope he can get baptized! But yeah it was just overall a great week.

Another really exciting piece of news was that I got to help with a Baptism yesterday!!!! The Hermanas' investigator Abuelito Romeo got baptized, he's a very old man and they needed two people to be in the font to help him get in and out of the water, The family asked me if I would help, and it was so awesome to have the opportunity to assist in any way of helping someone be baptized.

The last thing that I'm really excited about involves some transfer news. So this last week Elder Belnap received his visa and just left for Peru this morning. We had thought that Elder Rollins would get a new companion because there are two other Spanish Missions in our Zone serving in English Areas. Well he's not, instead he's coming with Elder Havig and I for the next two weeks! I'm really excited to serve with him, he's a great missionary and we'll have a lot of fun and we're also going to see a lot of success this week!

Well sorry but once again this week I'm a little rushed for time, so I hope you enjoy the email that is a lot longer than last week's. I'll also try to send a longer one next week!

Con Mucho Amor,

Elder Rojo

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

Capitulo 17

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 17

Hola familia y amigos como estan? este semana fue marvilloso tuve muchas gran experiencias y estoy trabajando duro. Espero que todos esten bien y les gusto sus semanas.

It was great to hear from all of you!

first things first... HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIMA!!!!! It was great to hear from you and it sounds like you had a great birthday with your gluten free breakfast, going to the museum, and the symphony! I'm glad you Jeff and the kids are all doing well.

Sister!! Congrats on the new calling! its really cool to hear about that and the adjustments you're making for it. Also I have not played human battleship but it does sound like a lot of fun. I've also never played telephone charades I have played telephone pictionary though we may need to play that with the family once The-day-that-shall-not-be-named arrives.

As for your Denverian prize you will get it once I go to a bank of America and can withdraw sufficient funds. I'll let you know once I've sent it.

So language mix up stories I do in fact have a few of them most from the MTC but I'll tell you anyways. The first is a story of when one of the sisters in my district said "Mediante la expiacion de JesuCristo podemos ser limpio de nuestros pescados" which translates to: through the atonement of Jesus Christ we can be clean of our fish. substitute pecados for pescados and the sentence actually makes sense. the second is when we were practicing door approaches and I said "hola somos missioneros de la iglesia de Jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias. Tenemos un mesaje para usted sobre la restauracion del evangelio de JesuCristo." which translates as follows. Hi we're missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day siants, we have a massage for you about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. ....... ..... that was a little awkward thankfully it was in the MTC not the field. I haevf more but I am super pressed for time so I'll make sure I throw them in my next email.

It was great to hear from you mom and dad it was great to hear about the temple. I don't have time to write much more. I'll tell you about Jesus' baptism and everything else next week because I am out of time

I love you all and hope to hear from you ALL next week

Elder Redd

P.S I also have a new companion we're in a tripanionship his names Elder Reese he's in the pictures.