Last email!

Hello everyone!

It is crazy to be writing my last email to you all in the mission field. My last week has definitively been memorable. The Lord has blessd us with a lot of lessons to teach and I had the opportunity to invite many people to baptism and activation. We have a strong teaching pool in my area. I had my departing interview with President Mendenhall on Thursday and he gave me some good counsel. We were able to watch all sessions of conference, except for the Priesthood session, at members' homes. Tuesday morning I will be going to Westminster to the mission home and we will go to the Denver Temple for the last time. Then we will have dinner and a testimony meeting and Wednesday morning I fly home.

I will surely miss my mission a lot. If I could stay out for a little longer I would. Not that I don't want to go home, but I love this work so much and we are working with a lot of people who have a lot of potential. I am so grateful for my mission. I will see you all next in person!

Love, Elder Rodriguez

September 26th

Hello! 

Last full week in the mission field. Last transfer the office called all the returning missionaries and asked which airport they would like to fly into. This week was pretty good. We didn't teach as many people as we would have liked but we still taught many lessons. We are working with a ton of part member families in both of our areas. Those families are gold mines for the Arapahoe Stake. 

The English Classes have been going great. There is a lot of support and service form the members of the stake. The classes will now be moved to another church building in Aurora, where there is a much more concentrated refugee population. I have been to that church building and it is kind of a rough area. The classes will start again next transfer so Saturday was my last time. One of the members took all the missionaries out to lunch as well.

We are working with a part member family in one of the wards we cover and the husband is not a member. He does marketing for Mucle Pharm, a protein brand, and he was so kind as to give us a ton of free stuff. Sometimes I feel like a spoiled missionary, lol. We went on exchanges with another set of Elders on Wednesday. I was able to go with an Elder named Elder Long. He is from Hemet Califonia and he goes home 6 weeks after I do. We did a lot of finding this week like always. Finding which consists of knocking doors, street contacting, and talking to people, will be something I will miss a lot. The more people you find the more people you can teach. 

It's pretty crazy to think I go home so soon. I had a lot of members yesterday tell me good bye and good luck. The wards I serve in now have been great. I will miss a lot of great members and families from these areas.

I think it's pretty cool to have 5 general conference's on a mission. I still remember when I was in a huge auditorium in the MTC watching it with all the full time missionaries preparing to enter the mission field with me. We will be watching a couple of sessions with members this weekend. I hope you all have a great week!

Love Elder Rodriguez

September 19th

Hello!

Happy Monday! P-Days are just too busy for us now. There are 6 companionships in the zone and only 3 of them have cars. So we have to pick a companionship up and haul them around where ever we go. We wish we could have some time to play sports or something but we always run out of time. Our appointments went well. Almost all of them went through. We were so busy last week and we found a couple of new investigators. We have been setting up appointments like crazy too. We will ask our investigators and less actives when we can meet and they tell us when. That is very unusual for this area because it didn't happen the past 3 months but it's happening now.

We have an investigator named Sean Dunlop who is probably one of our top progressing investigators. He is married to a less active who has 5 kids of her own. And Sean has 4 kids of his own. They all live in the same house so it gets pretty crazy. He is a very busy person but he is also lazy when it comes to Church attendance and keeping commitments. If he were to do those two things he probably would be baptized by now. He's hard to pin down to get lessons but we are making slow progress with him.

The English classes are going great. We haven't been teaching yet, we have been doing the interview process but we were told we will be teaching this Saturday. Last week we had people from Iraq, Ethiopia, and Mexico. The emergency transfer went well. The companionships seem to be getting along ok now, and I was happy to see one of my past areas again. We had my last zone meeting on Wednesday and that was great. We were able to go on exchanges with the AP's on Thursday. I went with Elder Sekona. He is a huge football player from Hawaii and he goes home the transfer after I do so I have known him my whole mission. It was a fun day with him.  

This week will be more of a normal week. There won’t be any big meetings or anything like that. It's crazy to think I only have two and a half weeks left. I'm trying to stay as consecrated as I can to sprint to the finish line. 

The weather has cooled down a little bit this week but then it got really hot Sunday and today. I'm kinda ready for winter when I go home as well. I'll be sad not to see any snow. But I am excited to come home!

Love, Elder Rodriguez

August 22

Hello everyone! Aug 22^nd 

Things are changing a lot over here. I thought for sure I was getting transferred but Elder Gray got the boot instead. I am staying in Arapahoe as a zone leader for the rest of my mission with Elder Weller. I will be training Elder Weller on this assignment as well. I've never served around him but I know he is a great guy and I will do well with him. This past transfer we had 2 visa waiters. One that went to Jamaica and his companion went to another zone early in the transfer. Another visa waiter is going to Fiji today and his companion is going home Wednesday. So the zone has shrunk a lot. Next transfer, there are a lot of new missionaries to the zone. There will be two wards with a brand new set each.  

Monday we were supposed to go to the Ft. Collins Temple Open House but our investigator, Faith, bailed out on the very last minute. Elder Gray and I had our suits on, Tyrone made arrangements at work to be able to drive us all, and while I was shining my shoes she gave us a call and said she can't come. She said it was for personal reasons that she wouldn't tell us. We were both so mad and frustrated but we got over it. Tyrone took us to Golden Corral instead. The temple is in the Ft. Collins mission still but the Boulder Zone is in our mission now. 

This week will be crazy with transfers on Wednesday, new companions, and other changes. Yesterday we had an investigator come to church. His name is Tyler and he has a brother and a grandmother who are members. He is 20 years old and is suited for YSA but if he doesn't want to investigate the church there we will keep him in our area. He is on baptismal date for Sept. 10th and everything is looking good so far. But we haven't taught him the law of chastity or the word of wisdom yet; those might be some barriers for him. A lot of our investigators are still stubborn and don't want to change. We are also teaching Tyler's mom, who has been seeing missionaries for 8 years now. She believes that this is the true church but doesn't want to give up smoking. But we will keep working with her. Not much else is new, until next time.

Love, Elder Rodriguez

August 15th

Hello! Aug 15^th 

The weather has cooled down a little bit here in Colorado. So Adora didn't come to church unfortunately. We even went by her house about an hour before church started and she was asleep. We did have one investigator come to church though. His name is Lee and he has mental disorders. He understands a few things we teach but he forgets a lot of things. Not sure if we will continue to teach him. Eddison, is not doing well. He stopped reading the Book of Mormon for now and doesn't agree with a lot of things we teach. His wife has been feeding him a lot of false information. A lot of our appointments fell through this week unfortunately. But we are still working hard and trying to get our investigators to church. Zone Meeting went well. We have a senior couple in the zone and they provided lunch afterwards. We are still getting fed really well in both wards. That is a plus to covering two. The rest of the month is full.

This is the last full week of the transfers as transfers are next Wednesday. We will have to make this week really count. Later tonight we are going to the Ft. Collins Temple Open House. This is the only day full time missionaries can attend with their investigators. Tyrone, the person we live with, is driving us and our investigators, Faith and Victoria, out of the mission to Ft. Collins. Faith is in her 60's and her daughter, Victoria, is 23. It should be quite an experience and I'm really excited. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures. 

We were able to go on exchanges with another companionship on Saturday. I was able to go with Elder Wunderly, who is from West Virginia. He has been out a little less than me and I've known him pretty much my entire mission. He's a funny guy and I like him a lot. Nothing much is new for this week but we are going to be working hard our last week. Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Love, Elder Rodriguez

August 8th

Hello again! 

This week we were busy as heck! P-Day was fun as always. Tuesday Elder Gray and I went on exchanges with another set of Elders. I was able to go with Elder Ishibashi in his area. He just arrived here in the mission at the beginning of the transfer. He is from Hawaii and is a Visa waiter going to Fiji. He is an awesome guy and I wish he was staying here. Wednesday was the Temple. We had the 6:30am session and I was so tired during it. Not sure about the LA Temple but in the Denver Temple they keep the Endowment rooms super cool to keep everybody awake. Thursday was District meeting and our weekly planning as well, since we had MLC on Friday. We did some more service for a young couple that just moved in on Saturday morning. Tyrone, the Polynesian that we live with, likes to take us to Golden Corral every other week and we went with him Saturday as well. 

Our investigators are not progressing as fast as we would like them to, but we still experienced some small miracles with them this week. We are working with a young adult named Adora. She is in her early 20's, African American, and is looking into the Book of Mormon. We tried to contact her last week but had no luck until yesterday. She texted us and asked if she can come to church this Sunday. She seemed really excited. We picked Eddison back up. We had three lessons with him during the past three weeks and we invited him to baptism on the first one. He said he wants to learn more before he does it. The second lesson went down hill because his wife is giving him anti information. He says he doesn't want to leave his culture and we explained that he doesn't have to but that didn't sink in. We will probably end up dropping him soon. Yesterday was busy as well. We have ward counsel with the Fox Hollow Ward at 8am, then ward correlation at 10:15 and then we went to the Smoky Hill Sacrament Meeting at 11am. We went to 2nd and 3rd hour in Fox Hollow to finish church. Lots of driving around but thankfully the ward buildings are close. This week we have Zone Meeting on Wednesday but other than that, we don't have a whole lot.

Transfers are on August 24th and the clock is ticking way too fast. Not sure if I will stay in this area for the rest of my mission but there is a possibility that I will get transferred, who knows. Monday August 15th, the Ft. Collins Temple Open House will be open just for missionaries and there investigators. We are going to try to get one of them to go and if that happens we will be able to see it. We will have to get a ride though. I hope you all have a great week!

Love Elder Rodriguez

July 25th

Hello all! July 25^th 

Elder Gray and I did a lot of good work this week. We found a lot of new investigators but not a whole lot of them are solid. We'll need to follow up with a lot of them. We had a couple of district meetings that we went to and I gave a training on asking for referrals. We met with the stake president as well this week to talk about the missionary work in the stake. He's not too pleased that the stake isn't helping out the missionaries by giving them people to teach. He has invited a lot of people to the Fort Collins Temple Open House and he said he has 15 people going. On Friday we had a special meeting for all the zone leaders in the mission. The theme of the meeting was the "School of the Prophets" It was a really great meeting that helped a lot of new zone leaders. On Saturday I went on exchanges with another companionship. I was able to go with Elder Folau, the elder I trained about a year ago. It was an awesome day being back with him. While I was with him we did service for a part member family. We finished painting their bathroom then they fed us a great meal. 

       

This week we have a lot of appointments scheduled and hope they all follow through. We also have interviews with President and Sister Mendenhall on Tuesday and a couple of exchanges throughout the week. Other than that nothing much is new. We will be going to the Temple again on Aug. 3rd and MLC will be that Friday as well. The ward didn't do anything for Pioneer Day. We just sang 'Come Come Ye Saint' but the Pioneer spirit was there. I miss you all, until next time.

Love Elder Rodriguez

July 18th

Hello everyone! 

This week was a wild one for me. Monday and Tuesday we did are usual and Elder Eldredge had to pack. Wednesday was transfer day and it was fun catching up with the rest of the missionaries. Elder Gray is a good guy. He is a hard working and I'm fortunate to have him. Change is good but it can be very stressful sometimes. I hate week 1 of transfers. We have a lot of visa waiters in the mission. One just arrived and is in our zone. He is from Hawaii and will be going to Fiji whenever he gets his visa. Another one is in our zone and will be going to Jamaica this Wednesday. We did a little service this week for the Frause family. They are recent converts. Brother Frause just had by-pass surgery and is not doing well. He asked us if we could wash his dogs to get the smell off them and we had a blast. We went to a couple of district meetings this week to meet everybody new in the zone. We have a senor couple in the other district named the Kartchners. Elder Kartchner is the mission doctor that covers the Denver North Mission and a couple of others up north.  

Saturday we did exchanges with the Assistants. Do you remember an Elder Takis? He was my companion my first time in Westminster back in May of 2015. He is by far one of my favorite companions and it was so good to spend a day with him. He is from Logan Utah and goes home in 5 weeks. We met with one of the Bishops last night to discuss a missionary lesson we will be teaching on the 5th Sunday of July. The Bishop is very missionary minded and is one of the best ones I have worked with on the mission. We have a Zone Leader Meeting on Friday in Aurora. I think it is a training on how we can be better zone leaders; should be fun. Hope you all have a fantastic week, stay cool.

Love Elder Rodriguez

Happy 4th!!

Hey Everybody,

Happy 4th of July, even though it passed. The libraries were closed yesterday so we had a little more time to do P-Day stuff. It was a fairly hot day as well. Yesterday morning we were able to attend a ward breakfast in a members spacious back yard. Over half the people there were not members so we were able to talk to a couple. We played a lot of sports with the other elders in the zone. We played basketball, speed ball, and indoor soccer. The members fed us good too. For dinner we had hamburgers, hot dogs, stake, ribs, chicken, and other stuff. They also had other family visiting them as well. Today we have a stake wide ward missionary training that we have to go to. President Mendenhall, the Stake President, Elder Eldregde and I, and others will be giving training's. We have been preparing for a while now and hope it goes well. Tomorrow is another Zone Meeting and I'll be giving some input there too. 

This is the last week of the transfer and many missionaries are calling it "P-Week". But Elder Eldredge and I decided we will finish strong. I do have feelings about next transfer. I think my time as a Zone Leader will have expired and I will either be a district leader again or train. I honestly would love to train next transfer; it was so much fun training Elder Folau. The Fort Collins Temple is in the Fort Collins mission but there are a couple of stakes in the northern part of the mission that will be in that Temple District. Westminster is one of those and the youth in that stake will be participating in the youth cultural celebration. The Temple will be dedicated at the end of October, right after I get home. The Lawhons turned out to be less golden than we thought. We spoke to Jeremy a couple days ago and he told us that his wife is stubborn and is a strong catholic. She doesn't really want to read the Book of Mormon but she will be nice and listen to us. We have an appointment this Wednesday and we will see where that goes. So far no members have invited anybody to dinner. Every time we call to confirm a diner appointment and ask them they seem to take it as an offense. There are not a whole lot of members these days that will do missionary work.  

We did a lot of service this past week for non members. About a month ago we were street contacting/tracting and we talked to a guy and he said he would move out in a month. We gave him our number and told him we would love to help and he actually called us. We spent about 2 hours at his house and he bought us pizza. We also helped move a non member couple that used to investigate the church. Their daughter got murdered within the past year and the husband became supper depressed and feels like God told him to divorce his wife. The wife is a strong woman but she is going through very hard times and she is just not happy. She has been very grateful for our service and she will be moving out today. We had MLC on Friday and that was fun as always. This Friday we will have another MLC but it will be shorter.  

Love,

            ElderRodriguez

Teaching and Finding

Hey everybody!

Its already week 5 in the Transfer. Glad to hear you all are doing well. Its been pretty hard to find people to teach in this area of Colorado. The Member referrals didn't turn out that well. They wouldn't answer their door. We did a ton of tracting and street contacting and taught a couple lessons. But they were those Lesson 1 only people and didn't go anywhere. It has been pretty hot here too. I am so thankful we have a car to drive. It not only hastens the work, but it gives air conditioning. 

We found one lady named Sherree. She has a daughter who has a really good friend who is on a mission. She knows little about the church and we offered her some service in her backyard. She happily accepted and we pulled out a lot of weeds for her and trimmed her bush. We are planning to go back and do some more so we will see what happens. We set up an appointment with a part member family named the Lawhons. Jeremy Lawhon is the father and he has been less active ever since he entered adulthood. His wife is a catholic but is somewhat open minded to our message. We taught them the restoration and watched the 20 min video about Joseph Smith on Saturday. She was a little intrigued and wants to read from the Book of Mormon. Jeremy says he wants to get active again but he is trying to get his kids baptized in our church and at the same time his wife is trying to get them baptized in the Catholic Church. We have a return appointment on Wednesday at 8pm and a member of the Bishopric will come with us. 

We had District meeting this week and our district came up with a vision to get more members to give us referrals. We will be asking the members to invite a nonmember to every diner appointment we have and Elder Eldredge and I will be taking a 5th Sunday lesson in July. The stake President, Mission President, all ward missionaries and ward mission leaders, and full time missionaries in the stake will have a meeting to attend on July 5th. The meeting is designed to train ward missionaries on their duty and how we can hasten the work in the Arapahoe stake. President Mendanhall asked Elder Eldredge and I to give training's at the meeting, so it will be interesting. Yesterday was Elder Eldredge's Birthday so the member that we live with gave us $50 to go out. We went to Chillis and had some good steaks. This Friday is MLC's again and the week after that will be another MLC but this one will focus on the Fort Collins Temple Dedication and Open House. A member of the Temple Dedication Committee will come down to Broomfield to teach the missionaries how to use this in our approaches. 

As of right now, no instructions have been given to us about the 4th of July. We normally have to go inside right after dinner on a holiday, but we will probably talk about it at MLC. The 4th of July is on a P-Day this year so that will be interesting. Hope you all are enjoying your summer despite the heat.

Love,

            Elder Rodriguez

Biking

Hey Everybody,

Another week has gone by and the transfer is already half over. I guess I'll be on the plane ride home soon. Elder Eldredge and I did a ton of finding this week but sadly we didn't find a whole lot of people. Everybody is just so wealthy and prideful they won’t even take a card from us. I went on exchanges with another set of elders on Saturday and I biked for the first time in a while. It was so hot and we were so thirsty but fortunately we ran into a couple of nice people that gave us water. I don't remember it being this hot in Colorado last summer.

We had Zone Meeting on Wednesday and that went well. I had to give a training because I'm a zone leader and I went to MLC. But after a while, giving training's gets kinda boring.  Elder Eldredge and I had to report to the stake president on the missionary work in the stake. His name is President Todd and he is not like the normal Stake President. He is very animated and direct. He threw down on how badly the missionary work is going and how the members aren't willing to do it. He is right because not a whole lot of members actually do missionary work in this stake. The members have given us a few referrals in the past couple of days so we will see what comes of that this week. Until next time.

Love,

            Elder Rodriguez

Dropping Spree :(

Hey Everybody,

Happy Monday again. Zone Conference was pretty fun as well as car judging. The week went pretty well too. We have been on a dropping spree for awhile now. The people in our teaching pool are not willing to progress. On Saturday we taught a less active couple that struggle with reading the scriptures. Actually just the wife does. I invited her to read the scriptures everyday but she wasn't going to have it. She felt we didn't know enough and that she was on a different level of spirituality. We found a couple of new investigators but they don't seem all that promising. They both said they will be at church yesterday but neither of them were. But Elder Eldredge and I are planning to do a ton of finding this week. Boulder is in our mission now, and from what the missionaries serving there now say, it is pretty cool. The zone goes into the mountains a little, or a lot, not sure.

Sundays are always crazy for us. We cover two wards but they both start at the same time. Whatever investigators attend sacrament meeting, that is the ward we will go to. But we attend two missionary correlation meetings, a ward counsel, and report to two ward mission leaders. At least it keeps us busy and on our feet.

This week is Zone Meeting and the High counselor for Missionary Work will be attending as well. He will also be providing us with pizza. One of the wards will be having a BBQ Picnic at a park. So we will try to get our investigators and less actives there. Other than that, nothing else will be happening. Just the normal week again. I am certainly enjoying the warmth but not the heat. We live with two guys in a town home and we don't have air conditioning. They are both Polynesian and one of them is Less Active. But the active one's name is Tyrone. He is married and has children but they live in Utah. He is living in Colorado for work and visits his family every 3 weeks or so. I miss you all! Until next time.

Love,

            Elder Rodriguez

New Transfers

Hey Everybody,

Another Monday is here and almost over. P-days fly by so fast. This week was super crazy. Tuesday before transfers Elder Conlin and I saw so many people to teach and take pictures with. Wednesday was transfer day and we spent a lot of time getting missionaries luggage and bikes to the zones they needed to be in. And needing to be with a companion 24/7 makes things more complicated. But it was fun seeing my friends and catching up with them. My new companion, Elder Eldredge, is awesome. He is from Georgia and I think we will have fun together this transfer. Friday was MLC up at the mission office. We normally do it at another building but since we got Boulder it became the new central building for the mission. I think that's why they changed it. Arapahoe is actually a county so I am covering a lot of Aurora. Coming back from MLC we were able to stop for dinner at Cafe Rio in one of my past areas in Denver/Aurora. It was so awesome and weird to be in an area I served in again. We call it being area trunky. 

Arapahoe is a VERY wealthy part of Aurora which makes the work harder due to the pride of the people. It's very hard tracting and street contacting. However, we have been working really hard the past couple of days and found a couple of promising people. Last night we were tracting and we knocked on a door that opened up. It was a man named Marv who answered and he looked as if he was very not interested in our message. Remarkably he let us in to do a quick survey. After the survey we asked if we could share one of the lessons and he accepted as well. He has a daughter that pasted away 3 weeks ago and wasn't doing well. We shared the plan of salvation and he was very open to it all. You can tell that the spirit was working on him. He said we could come back in 30 days and he will pray and read about the things we taught him. Hopefully he does that.

Sunday was pretty busy too. We cover 2 wards now so we went to sacrament meeting for one where the bishop asked me to bear my testimony then we took off to the other ward for the last 2 hours. Zone Conference is tomorrow and Wednesday so Elder Elderdge and I will be judging cars tomorrow. Then Wednesday will be our turn for Zone Conference. We will have a busy week. President Mendenhall is famous for transferring missionaries at their last transfer. I've seen him do it to so many missionaries and it might happen to me. So I'm not sure if this will be my last area. The wards I cover are awesome. We get fed in one a lot but the other not so much. Probably because one is a lot smaller than the other. Arapahoe Zone is very small. There are only 12 missionaries serving here and they're all elders. But it is pretty cool down here, it is a lot like Parker.

Summer is definitely here as well. It has been pretty hot lately averaging in the 80's. That's probably nothing compared to Whittier though. Tomorrow we will have to go to Downtown Denver to get a light on our truck fixed. I love Downtown so much. That's why I take pictures of it all the time and I would love to serve there if I have the chance. I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

            Elder Rodriguez

Mission run!

Hey Everyone!

Transfers are tomorrow and I will be getting transferred to Arapahoe CO. I will still be a Zone Leader so I will have another opportunity to serve the missionaries in the zone. By the time I go home I will have served in just about every zone in the mission except for couple. My new companion will be Elder Eldredge. I'm not sure where is from but I served with him when I was in Denver and he is an awesome guy. I have been greatly blessed with awesome companions for some time now. I will definitely miss Elder Conlin a lot. We got along so well and accomplished many things together. He is staying in Westminster and will be getting another companion.

The mission expanded and we got 2 new stakes from the other missions. We got Boulder stake from the Ft. Collins mission and the Parker South Stake from the Colorado Springs mission. However, we aren't getting a whole lot of new missionaries. So there will be many missionaries covering 2 wards at a time. I will be doing that in Arapahoe. 

I got my stitches out last Monday and my scar seems to be healing properly. I absolutely loved serving in Westminster. I will miss the ward members and the people we worked with. Two less actives got the Priesthood on Sunday and I ordained one of them to the office of Elder. There are two investigators that we are working with that will probably get baptized sometime in the near future, I can feel it. Suerina and her daughter Antionette. She is really sad that I am leaving but if she gets baptized I might go back to attend. 

Yesterday was the Mission 5k run. All the missionaries in the mission came up to Westminster for a 5k run. We all had to run/walk by zones. It wasn't a competition but in the minds of the missionaries it was. It was a blast seeing all my friends and missionaries I worked with. After that all the elders in our zone had a bbq and played football on our last P-Day of the transfer. It was a really fun day. Until next time,

Love,

            Elder Rodriguez