Investigators

Hey all!

This week went pretty well. Elder Folau and I are always finding new investigators. We had interviews on Wednesday with President and Sister Mendenhall. I always appreciate how loving and caring they are to all of the missionaries. Elder Zwick said he knows a lot of mission presidents and President and Sister Mendenhall are one of the best. There is so much work in this Zone. I have never done this much work in my whole mission. We are working with 10 or so investigators but only 3 are really progressing. The rest are just "crack investigators". We were working with a family that was making excellent progress. Their names are Channel and Connie. Connie is the wife and Channel is the husband. They are Hispanic and it is hard for Channel to understand English. Wednesday night we had a lesson with them and we took a member of the ward who is from Columbia to translate for him. She was such a big help and he said that when he reads the Book of Mormon he feels comfort and at peace. But right in the middle of the lesson, when Sister Burk was translating for him, he said he doesn't want us to come over anymore. We were all shocked and he said that he wants time to be with his little daughters and that he wanted to talk to his wife about some things. I was really sad but he said that he will continue to read the Book of Mormon and when he is ready he will call us...... whenever that is.

However we found a new investigator to kind of take their place. His name is Richard and he is super awesome. We taught him the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation and today we will teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I really feel he has potential and he has an honest loving heart. Hopefully we can get him baptized within the coming weeks. Another one of our progressing investigators came to Church out of nowhere. When I recognized him I was so amazed. We haven't taught him in awhile because he never answers our calls. He does have potential but he has some problems with 3rd hour church where the men and the women are separated. He left right after 2nd hour and told us we could talk about that issue when we see him on Friday. I feel that we are so close to getting one of these investigators baptized but it hasn't happened yet. They say that the ratio is 10 investigators invited to be baptized, only one will. I hope and pray that we will make progress with them.

Yesterday was a fun P-Day for Elder Folau and myself. In this zone not a lot of missionaries hang out with each other. So you have to get creative on your own. So we went to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. It is a huge store for camping and fishing and stuff. We looked around for a little bit and then we went to a few other stores around the bill mall that is in our area, such as Target, Old Navy, World Market, and Whole Foods. This is the last week of the transfer but I am confident that Elder Folau and I will stay but anything could happen. If I stay another transfer it is very likely that I will be transfer by then. But things are going really well with us in our area. The ward is struggling with going on splits but the sisters and I have a few people that go out with us a lot which is good. I miss you all,

Love,

            Elder Rodriguez