Miracles in Craig

November 18

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 77

Buenos dias a todos! Que raro, que les cuneto una historia bien interesante. Y nadie me manda un email de regreso. Esta bien puedo vewr que me han olvidado aqui en Colorado. Es bueno este porque nunca voy a salir de Aqui voy a server en la mission por todo mi vida!

Good morning to all! Funny, that cuneto them a very interesting story. And no one sent me an email back. Okay I can see that I have been forgotten here in Colorado. This is good because I'll never get out of Mercer. I will serve a mission all my life!

Well we had a super crazy week last week so Elder Condie and I are just taking a nice relaxing P-day. FALSE!!!! There's no such thing as a nice relaxing P-day! We still have lots of things to do like finish cleaning our apartment and getting ready for our zone meeting on Wednesday, not to mention be ready for Elder Searle to come on exchanges with us!

Anyways last week was crazy as I mentioned in the email I sent Wednesday and earlier. Monday was the hanging lake ordeal, Tuesday we did exchanges, Wednesday we had interviews with President Murdock and then drove to Craig to do some work up there, I'll be telling a few miracle stories, because it was an AMAZING day up there. Wednesday night we had to drive down to Rifle where we spent the night with Elder Gibson and Elder Barfield, then MLC's the next day in Glenwood. Friday we went to Rangeley. And then Finally! Saturday and Sunday we had two somewhat normal days here in Meeker.

So first off let me tell you about some of our Craig miracles. We went to see some investigators, and we decided to park down the street giving us a chance to OYM some people. We parked next to a house and prayed for an opportunity to share the gospel with someone. As we got out of the car someone pulled up to the house where we had parked. Perfect! So we went and talked to her, she let us into her home and we taught her and her son the Restoration. It was such a powerful lesson, the spirit was incredibly strong and she accepted a baptismal invite. Later that night we went to see Los Pando a family that we'd met and taught a few weeks earlier. As we picked up where we'd left off in the Restoration, the thought came to me, oh no we don't have a Spanish book of Mormon to give them! as we'd already given away the copies we had with us. The thought came to me "Give them yours, and write your testimony in it." So I did as Elder Condie would teach I would take a minute to write my testimony on the first page. When we finished the lesson and testified of the book of Mormon I gave them my copy. At first they insisted that they couldn't take my copy, after explaining that I wanted them to and had written something just for them, they humbly accepted it and promised to read. Bernardo, the husband was so excited to have his own copy and was asking us about church what time it is and everything!

Well I'm going to wrap up there, I could never even begin to write all the miracles we see in a week. I know that our Father in Heaven is a God of Miracles, I know that this is his work and that he is hastening it. I know that this is his true church once again restored onto the earth!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo

Sister's Hiking Accident

November 13

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 76

Pues perdoname que mando el correo muy tarde, pero es que el Lunes las bibliptecas ya estaban cerradas por el dia de los "Veterans" y ayer estabamos demasiado occupados para hacer el e-mail. Tengo una historia para contarles y tambien hicimos los intercambios ayer. Hay mucho que hacer! Hoy tenemos las entrevistas con el Presidente Murdock, y vamos a Craig porque tenemos citas. Despues vamos a Rifle para pasar la noche con Elder Gibson y Elder Barfield porque tenemos los MLC's manana. Oh no les dije pero Elder Barfield mi hijo ya tambien es un lider de zona! Y sirve en mi antiguo area! Pues no tengo mucho tiempo hasta que llega Presidente entonces a las historias!

Well forgive you control the mail very late, but Monday is that libraries were already closed for the day of the "Veterans" and yesterday we were too squatted to the e-mail. I have a story to tell and we also trade yesterday. Lots to do! Today we have interviews with President Murdock and Craig because we're going to appointments. After going to Rifle for the night with Elder and Elder Gibson Barfield because we have MLC's morning. Oh but I did not tell my trainee is already Elder Barfield is also a district leader! And served in my old area! Well, I have not much time until then President comes to stories!

Ok so first off my new companion is Elder Condie! I sent you a picture of the two of us drinking from the spigot at hanging lake a couple months ago, and I'll send more pictures next week when I have time. So interestingly enough we hiked hanging lake again this Monday. We knew that we were heading down to Rifle to buy groceries anyways so when other missionaries texted us about hanging lake we decided to go. our whole district came too! The Rangeley Elders and the Sisters here in Meeker, two of whom are from Fiji. IT was a beautiful hike as always and a lot of fun. However closer to the end of the trail up the canyon where there's little sunlight it was a little slick. I just kicked footholds for myself and kept going with a few other Elders who were all racing up to the top. It was beautiful up top and we had a great time and took lots of pictures! on the way down however we had a slight mishap. When we reached the super slippery part some people started falling. So an Elder Pikula (amazing elder love him! more later) started helping people down one of the slick sections. We were about half an hour behind schedule and hoping to finish early enough. Well that didn't happen. Sister Keavali, on of the Fijians here in Meeker slipped and hurt her ankle. We got her down to the flat and I quickly took a look, I pulled out my ankle brace which I'd wisely brought. Then she told me that her quad hurt. ... ... Ooooookkkkaaaayyyy?.... ... somehoiw she hurt her ankle and her quad? then her calf hurt her. Ok so it's her knee that's hurt then. I checked it quickly (Thanks for paying for those first aid classes mom and dad!) I didn't feel anything seriously wrong so I said, "We'll get some snow on it tie it up and then get her off the mountain. Annnnnnnd that's when she started hyperventilating and went into shock. So, we tried our best to calm everyone down and just carry her down the mountain, we sent a few runners ahead to get the rest of the Elders. It was tough carrying her down because the trail was still pretty slick for quite awhile. luckily we ran in to a group of nurses who were hiking up and they helped us out. We made it about half way down when some Paramedics came up. We stayed and then helped them carry her down on a stretcher. long story short we took another three hours to get down and were back to our area very late. She's ok though just a strained muscle and she should be fine.

But I gotta go we've got interviews! I love you all and quick question mom and dad when you get home could you scan and email me my call letter I need it to renew my license.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo 

Member referral

November 4

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 75

Pues Buenos d-d-dias! Hace un popco de frio aqui hoy! No tanto como en Canada, pero sufficiente que llevo mi Chaqueta!  Nos pone un poco nervioso porque manana son las transferencias y si sigue nevando va ser dificil para manejar a Rifle por la reunion. Pues oramos que las carreteras esten bien y todos los que cambian pueden llegar con bien!

For Buenos d-d-day! It's a little cold here today! Not as much as in Canada, but enough to wear my jacket! We were a little nervous because tomorrow is still snowing and if transfers will be difficult to manage Rifle by the union. Then pray that the roads are well and all that change can come with either!

So as I mentioned tomorrow is transfer day! I'm a little sad because Elder Merrill and Elder Khaky-Kazzazy are both leaving... =( But at least I'm not leaving! I was scared of that, We're opening two new zones and three other Zone Leaders got released, so there's a ton of movement going on. I think almost every zone leader companionship is having a change. I was scared, but luckily I get to stay here in Meeker because I absolutely love it here! I'm excited to keep working with all of the people here which leads me into a few awesome stories from the week!

So on Tuesday Elder Merrill had a really bad fever, thus we had to stay in the apartment. I don't think there's anything worse than staying in your apartment on the mission. It's just absolutely miserable because you want to go do missionary work, and you feel disobedient just sitting around. Not to mention you get BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!!!! But anyways Wednesday morning right before we left the apartment, we got a call from Brother Murray. Ok I haven't told you all about him yet, but Brother Murray is amazing he's one of the two members in the ward who speak Spanish, and he's an amazing member missionary! So he called and told us that he wants us to meet Tony's friend Joe. Well ofcourse we'd love to meet him! So that night we went with Brother Murray and Tony to meet Joe. HE IS SO AWESOME!!!!! He's a really intelligent really open young man who's just amazing he was asking amazing questions and has amazing answers to questions that we ask him. I'm also pretty excited because we're goin to go play basketball with him today, he plays on the high school team and the coach. (who's a Less Active) is going to let us play!

Another amazing miracle was just last night. We were teaching our investigator Kimii who's been on date before but never came to church and was struggling a little bit with keeping commitments. We went and were teaching her. It was such an amazing lesson! The spirit was there so strongly and man it was phenomenal! As we started she told us about how she wants to change her life and dedicate herself more to God. So as we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, she became so excited to come to church, and to read her scriptures everyday! She knows it will bless her and she's so fired up for her baptismal date on the 30th!

Alright well I don't have much time, but I love you all. I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I know that he is at the head of this church and that thtough him all that is unfair about life will be made right if we will follow him.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo 

Visit from Elder Baxter of the Seventy

October 28

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 74 

Pues que loco que ya estamos en la ultima semana del cambio! Me siento que acabo de llegar a Meeker. Estoy un poco nervioso, pero no voy a pensar en esto nada mas.

Well, we're already crazy in the last week of change! I feel like I just got here to Meeker. I'm a little nervous, but I'm not going to think about it any more.

Well last week was amazing! It was such a privilege to have a seventy come and teach us! I remember back to when Elder Robbyns came to the mission, and Elder Bednar, all of them have been so different, but exactly what I've needed at the time! It was amazing when he trained us, he stood at the front and asked us what we wanted to learn, he took all of the things missionaries asked about and wrote them on the board. Then he started going through them one by one teaching us how to find better, how to better involve members in our missionary work, how to help those we teach keep commitments. It was an amazing experience! It was also hilarious because he's from Scotland so he was constantly making fun of America! He said that they'd destroyed his language and it was just a blast! 

It was really funny at the beginning of the meeting when He and Sister Baxter shook everyone's hands. All of the Sisters were giving Sister Baxter hugs. Elder Merrill, Khaky-Kazzazy and I were sitting next to Elder Gibson and Elder Stephens. I turned to Elder Stephens and said. "All the Sisters are hugging, I'm giving Elder Baxter a hug!" Elder Gibson replied, "No Elder Redd don't do that!" I turned to him and with my little mischievous excited grin that he's so used to nodded my head vigorously and said, "I'm gonna do it!" So when we got up there I said, "Sorry Elder Baxter I'm a hugger!" I gave him a big hug and everyone started laughing. He then said to me, "Since you hugged me I now know everything about you." Well that's a scary thought! 

It was a great week overall but I've got other things that I need to take care of, I lvoe you all and hope you have a great week! 

Con mucho amor, 

Elder Rojo

Sick Companion

October 21, 2013

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 73

Pues han recibido correos largos por dos semanas. Y esta semana no les voy a dar cuneta larga como las de las semanas pasadas. Espereo que este cae bien con ustedes y si no les gusta lo voy a hacer de todos modos.

Long as they have received emails for two weeks. And this week I will not give them as long ditch in the past weeks. Espereo this falls well with you and if you do not like what I do anyway.

So This week was a bit of a bummer. Elder Khaky-Kazzazy was really sick. So we had to stay in the apartment a lot. But when we did go out we got to see some amazing things! Probably the most amazing of all of these was on Thursday night. Now as you read this story wait until I finish it before you freak out. So Thursday night we were up till midnight helping Elder K. I was super tired that night because it had been a long day. But for some weird reason I could not fall asleep! Then we heard a knock at our door. Ok small town, no one's ever out past 8. And someone's knocking on our door. Well we answered it to man named Drew. He asked us if we were the missionaries. We told him we were. He told us about how he just found out he has cancer and he needs to turn his life around. We talked with him for about 15 minutes and prayed with him. Afterwards he went and dumped his bottle of alcohol out into a gutter. It was super awesome! Super sketchy but an amazing experience!

Well I'm super busy today but I will also send some pictures today!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo 

Raul to the Rescue

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 72 October 13, 2013

Yo veo como esta. Me piden me molestan tanto para escribir mas. Escribo el email las largo que he mandado por meses... Y nadie me mandan nada de atras! Que pasa con este ah? no me quieren? Me han olvidado aqui en Colorado? Jajaja yo se que no esta asi, solo queria decir algo differente en espanol, y ni sabia que decirles! Les quiero!

I see it like this. I ask both annoy me to write more. I write the email that I sent along for months ... And no one sent me anything back! What about this ah? I do not want? I have forgotten here in Colorado? Hahaha I know that is not so, just wanted to say something differente in Spanish, and not wise to tell them! I love them!

Alright so we had an awesome week last week! It was just fantastic, super busy but just a phenomenal week! It was filled with many miracles which I will write more on later!

First off thank you so much to Sister, for helping me with all of the crazy stuff I've had to deal with. I do greatly appreciate your help.

So one of my favourite events of the week was our zone training meeting. Most of the missionaries there have been in a zone with me for at least a transfer, and I think word is starting to spread about the crazy trainings I give. I just really feel like in a three hour meeting where we talk about all of these things someone needs to liven things up and be the comic relief. So that's me. Whenever I train I just get all crazy, I just get so excited about the things I'm training on! And start talking super fast! I always have to slow down and breath for a minute before I hyperventilate. It's crazy and they laugh, but I hope that they take something from it and remember the overall arching message that I try to deliver to them. I also really liked it because I got to train on something different. I've given five trainings on finding in the last 2 transfers. I love finding and I love to help other missionaries love it, but I was getting a little fed up. So this time I got to train on lighting ourselves on fire! No we didn't use matches or set fire to the church I'm talking about spiritual and emotional fire! Being so excited and fired up about missionarry work that we don't get tired or sad because we don't have time. When we truly engage ourselves in the work nothing else matters because we love the Lord and we're in his work so why should we care if people reject us or swear at us or throw rocks at us, because they need this!

Yeah I'm excited about it right now! I just love being a missionary, I love to run up and talk to people about this amazing message! Because it is so amazing, and they need it!

Anyways I'll settle down now and finish my email.

  

So a few of the awesome miracles we had. First off a super spiritual experience that is kinda funny. So we went to see our Investigator Raul, he's an amazing man. We went and he was working in his backyard, building a shed. He had a friend there who was just hammered. Usually I try to avoid talking to drunk people because they can't feel the spirit and they usually just end up getting aggressive. So we helped him finish up what Raul was doing so we could go inside and have a lesson. Unfortunately the drunk guy came in to. He started bashing, telling us all about how our church is wrong and telling us what we believe. Most of what he said wasn't true at all. I wasn't saying much, I really don't like bashing. Then he quoted John 3:16 and said that's all we need because we are saved by Christ’s grace. The spirit came to me super strong, and it said, "No he's wrong. Tell him that." So I flipped over to John 3:5, and explained that we needed to be baptized. He said that he didn't really believe that scripture. We told him that you can't just discredit scripture because you don't like it. He stood up and I thought he was about to hit one of my companions. I pushed my scriptures to the side incase I needed to get up and intervene. He went off on all these weird examples proving that we don't need to be baptized. I've never felt the spirit guide my words like that I spoke super boldly with him and just linked scriptures in ways that I've never linked them before. It was 100% by the spririt, 200% even (jaja The district reference) I wasn't speaking when I said those things. That was the Holy Ghost! Raul actually came to our defense and told him in his broken English. "These guys come from God. They are my friends. you don't tell them to leave, because they come here and they help me!" It was such an amazing experience!

  

There were just so many miracles, we found so many prepared people. I know that the Lord is blessing us for all of our hard work!

I know that this church is true and the Jesus Christ is our Saviour! He has put us on the earth at this time to perform his work!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo

Great Conference, Eh?

Las Venturas de Elder Rojo: Capitulo 71 October 6, 2013

Aye cabere! como pasa el tiempo! a mi me parece que esta semana no se occurio! me siento que estaba aqui hace dos minutos mandando el e-mail!

Cabere Aye! as time passes! seems to me that this week is not OCCURRED! I feel that I was here two minutes ago sending the e-mail!

Alright so this week was awesome! what a great conference eh? You'll notice that I have my eh back. That's because I have a Canadian companion now, for the first time in the mission! No, I didn't get transferred and no, Elder Merrill didn't get transferred. We're still serving together and loving every minute of it! The catch is we're also now training a new missionary! Want to know the best part? He speaks absolutely no Spanish! He wasn't called but President is changing his call to be a Spanish missionary. His name's Elder Khaky-Kazzazy, and he's from Toronto. I would include a picture of the three of us, but no time so that'll come next week! But it's awesome!!! I love it so much!! he's a great missionary and learning really quick. Probably the best thing about him is that he has no fear to open his mouth. Both of my other new missionaries that I trained, I had to push a little, but he just talks to everyone even the Spanish people who don't understand him at all!

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I LOVED CONFERENCE SO MUCH!!!!!! That was amazing we spent the whole week telling everyone about the special experience of hearing the voice of a prophet! It was amazing and a lot of people were interested in the concept. Regrettably only about 20% of the people who said they would come, came to church, but that's ok we'll get them next week. And in no way do I mean that in a scary kind of context. It's just that we have the most important, most beautiful message in the whole earth! And everyone needs to hear it and even if they don't want to, we need to try to help them realize and understand all the doctrines of the Gospel!

Ok so I'll give you a quick rundown of the week. Tuesday we went to Rangely, worked there and did our exchanges with the Elders there. I went with Elder Jordan and Elder Mayne-two great missionaries- one getting close to the end who I really love and I can learn so much from, and a greenie who wants to be here, and be a great missionary so bad! We had an amazing day to super productive with some just POWERFUL lessons! we set two of their investigators on date it was awesome! Then Elder Merrill picked me up Wednesday and we drove to Rifle to meet with our Stake President. Then spent the night with Elder Stephens and Elder Gibson, (oh yeah I never mentioned that my last two companions are now serving together in my last area!). Also another thing I never mentioned. remember dad how you told me I had a distant cousin coming to the mission Sister Remington? yeah I was her zone leader for two transfers. totally forgot about that until now!  Anyways then Thursday we had MLC's in Glenwood amazing day then we picked up Elder Khaky-Kazzazy and came back to Meeker... IN A BLIZZARD!!!!! so yeah we got a ton of snow I'll send you pictures next week! then Friday we did exchanges with the Elders in Craig, I went there and had a great day with Elder Drake great missionary! Then conference! It was a super busy week but I loved it so much!!!!!

Ok time for a quick miracle story. On Thursday night we met a man named Nacho, yes it's a nickname. Just at his door we talked to him about prophets and how God had called prophets again on the earth. We told him about conference and invited him to watch it. He said he was working both days so he wouldn't be able to. Good thing they broadcast priesthood session this year! We went by and helped him set it up on his computer so he could watch it in Spanish. Then we said we would come back after and rushed off to watch it with the ward at the church. We came back afterwards with one of the members who speaks Spanish, he opened the door and his computer was still on lds.org "Oh" I thought, "Maybe he actually watched all of it" oooooooh yes he certainly did! We sat down and he started talking about how he'd felt so good watching it and he didn't want it to end, he was asking us questions about the Prophets and how God called them. So we taught him the restoration and set him on date for Oct. 26th. When we invited him he paused for a moment and said, "Will I be ready by then?" testified to him that he could know by then and that we were there to help him every step of the way. Man the spirit almost knocked me out of my chair it was like a Tsunami class wave!! He accepted and then said one of the most heartfelt sincere prayers I've ever heard in my life!

I love this work so much, I absolutely love being a missionary and serving the Lord! I know that this is his true church!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Rojo