Email 06/30/2014 The Mission & Mistake of Last Weeks Email

Well this week was pretty good if I do say so myself.

   I thought I would start with telling about an Elder who went Haywire. So its Tuesday morning and Elder Kerby (zone leader) calls me. ¨hey are you in your house¨, obviously I was. ¨Oh okay well can you meet us in the park and help us find Elder Blas¨. Hahaha this Elder was in a trio with the zone leaders and after a bad haircut went off on his own to buy a hat. So about an hour later of us looking for him my companion and I find him wearing a bucket hat and walking with a member like nothing was wrong. I couldn't believe it haha. So thats a bit about how that Elder went haywire and looks like a Jehova´s witness now because he won't take off the hat.

   So weird story for the week, my companio and I were buying sandwiches and talking to the guy who works there. Turns out he was a member as a boy but his father died and has never been back. Its crazy because he doesn't remember anything about the church so he's like a completely new person. He then told us that he always saw the missionaries passing but felt he should talk to us. AWESOME. Missionaries to the rescue. 

   As a District leader my responsibilities are only starting. I did my first 2 baptism interviews this week and I was about as nervous as the 2 people. They were only kids but still. I'm just worried if someone tells me they killed someone before hahahaha. 

   This week was especially cool since I recieved a package from my dad. The mother of all packages. Full of all sorts of candies, twinkies, beef jerky, sunflower seeds, shoes to draw on and cool T-shirts. So that was great. I kinda went a bit over board on the candies but its all good.

   This friday I also had my first divisions as a District leader (change companions for a day) which was really weird. The Elder I was with was just trying to impress me the whole time but just making himself look dumb. All he was talking about is how many baptisms he could get. Thats something I wish all missionaries knew, its not about baptisms, but rather, conversions. Plus all his investagators are children.... not to hard, just saying. 

   All right well that's all for now. I'll update on the T-shirt and shoes I'm making next week. Thanks for writing.

Love ya all.

PEACE

Elder Rodriguez

PS: I just realized that I wrote last week the Nephi and Lehigh were mediocre missionaries....They were the consecrated missionaries. I just hope I don't get struck by lightning for the one!! 

Photo's

Delicious Food!! Your average portions. 

Stairs

My new born puppy

Package from my dad

Email 06/23/2014 First week as District Leader

Well this week went alright for us here in the Esmeraldas Zone. My companion & I have been working super hard to Find some new people to work with and we have some promising results. We even went to this one part of our sector were the super rich people live. Not too many people listened to us there hahah but some which is better than none. 

   On Thursday I had my first District meeting as a District leader. That means that I stand infront of about 6 missionaries and teach them how to be better missionaries. I talked about the Module of Ammon. I based it off of the experience of Ammon in the Book of Mormon. Its a way for us to contact a new person, discern their needs and teach them according to those needs. It went fairly well.

Well for the most part the district is doing well. There is a group of missionaries that work in the most dangerous area who never call me at night so.... That has me a bit worried. Especially since about every week there is a new murder over there. Hahahah no joke.

    So on the bright side I have a cell phone now, on the down side people are constantly calling me.

  Anyway this sunday was terrible. Nobody went to church. At the time of sacrament I counted only 10 people and none of our investagators assisted. So that's something to work hard on. Anyway I'm devoted here to being a consecrated missionary, because two consecrated missionaries is better that 100 mediocre missionaries. By the way those 2 mediocre missionaries were Nefi and Lehi..... Look it up.... I read that in a talk. 

Love ya all

PEACE!

Elder Rodriguez

Email 06/16/2014 Changes!!!!

Well I'm going to start by leaving the changes part to the end. Let me tell you all about my week. 

   So this week the World Cup started so we can't really work when there is a game going on. As missionaries we are not supposed to watch the games, but rather get to work as normal. Just one problem.... Who do you teach when everyone is watching the game? I don't know yet but me and my companion are going hard knocking on every door possible. This week we found a couple of new people that have dates to get baptized so thats super good. Oh then there was Father's Day (Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there, especially my Dad) On Father's Day everyone and there mother was having a party with huge concert speakers. That night three different neighbors of ours partied all through the night until the morning. I'm not joking when I tell you my bed was shaking because of the base of all their giant speakers. So that was cool. Then my companion had a surprise talk on sunday. Everyother word of my comp was cut out because the microphone was having problems. I was laughing my head off hahaha. It probably wasn't good to laugh especially since I sit in the front stands were everyone is looking. Then last night some teenager tried robbing us with his hand in his shirt, pretending it was a gun. I just told him, we don't have any money and I know thats only a hand. He just ended up walking away with a pamphlet that we gave him. 

    Okay now the good stuff..... CHANGES.... I received the changes in the morning and me and my companion are staying in the same place. But something did change. Now I'm a district leader. That means some missionaries have to report to me every night. Oh also I have a cell phone now. I was kinda bummed about it at first because now a whole bunch of missionaries look up to me. I need to interview people for baptisms and every Thursday I have to teach all the missionaries something. Then thinking more of it, I know I have an opportunity to serve that much more. And heck it's a bit more job experience. 

So thats the news. Oh and my companion finished his training. Yaaaaayyyy. 

Love ya all and I have pics coming. 

Elder Rodriguez

The last Zone meeting before the changes. The Elder with a llama on his tie just finished his mission.

This is the bird of the Samora family. And their neighbors small house.

Some of our adventures with the Samora family. The food is Plantains with some Cheese and the drink is some plantains with some milk...plantains are not sweet. The youngest son Mattias. One of the daughters Curly in the blue with the hate and her older sister Britany.

Email 06/09/2014 2nd to Last Week of the Changes

Well this new week is going to be the last week before changes. Not sure as of yet If I'll be going or not. At this point I'm not even sure that I want to go. This week we have a family that is going to be married so that in the following week they can be baptized as a family. They are a family of 7 but only 5 of them are of age to be baptized. Sincerely I love this family they are just a bunch of goons.}

  So that's why I'm not sure that I want to leave yet. I really want to see this family get baptized. One day I had a prompting to knock on a door that I pass everyday. That's when I met the mother of the family. She had once listened to the missionaries and was at the point of baptism until her father died. So that's were it started. From that point on everyday we visit them and we see great changes in the family for the better. The mother told us that since we have been visiting them every aspect of their lives has been better. A story for the Ensign (Liahona) right there.

  Anyway the rest of this past week we have been working really hard, knocking on doors and such.

 Oh so yesterday something really weird happened to me. This random hippie guy walks up to me and in english asks me if I've ever heard about the New World Order. So with his English and his crazy look, he got my attention. Then he tells me a whole bunch of stuff about conspiracy theories and that he was once a scientist but they kicked him out because he made a machine to control the weather but now the military is using it. Hahah. The best part was he told me he was from Egypt and a scientist. He was no older than 24 and had a perfect Californian surfer accent. So anyway that was weird.

  So that's it, hope it was interesting.

Love ya all,

Elder Rodriguez

Nachooooooooo

And my Llama!

One of the investigators of my District leader had a birthday. So us missionaries surprised her.

We are all trying to set a date for her to get baptized, so I drew her a card of Jesus, we all signed it, then Elder Blas sang the mission song to her. The Elders are Elder Rojas (from bolivia), Elder Tituaña ( from Ecuador, he has a pony tail because of his culture its okay), Elder Blas (from Peru) and my companion Elder Nogales (from Chile). This family and these missionaries are great! 

This is a profile picture for sure. 

Oh by the way this is part of the island in our sector.

Email 06/02/2014 Paraiso!!!!!!!!

So Let's start this little letter here. This week was really good. My  companion and I worked super hard all this week and sweated durisimo (really hard) working our butts off. And it truelly bore the fruits for our labors. This week we found 10 new investagators which is awesome. So everyday we have a bunch of lessons while knocking on a bunch of doors too.

It was super funny this week because we knocked on one door and a little kid answered. The little kid literally didn't say anything except no. So we kept asking just rediculous questions like "can you hear me (no), are you even alive (no), can we go now (no)". A little jokester this niño.

Anyway today is P-day and our awesome District leader bought just the 2 of us pizza for having the best numbers this week. So we are feeling really good here. 

Well I'm happy here but I still kinda want to leave the coast. Everything here is awesome, the food, the people, the other missionaries, just one thing I don't like..... The heat. Especially here in Esmeraldas when water isn't a thing you have everyday. Anyway that's my email for yall this week. Love ya all.

Elder Rodriguez

Me standing in some Radiation! I'm going to turn into the Hulk.

My companion Elder Nogales & I 

Email 05/26/2014 Mission News

OK hey there everybody!

This week was a bit of a change to the norm. It started by all of our zone traveling by bus to Quito to hear the wise words of the area 70, Elder Waddel.

Traveling to Quito is always super cool because we get to watch movies in the bus. This time we watched the new Captain America movie, good stuff. Anyway the lesson that we had with Elder  Waddel was truely awesome. He truely is an inspired man. Also in Quito I was able to see many of the missionaries that were with me in the MTC so for me that was a bit like a family reunion. After our 3 days in Quito we returned back to Esmeraldas in the heat. The coolness of Quito was a nice change. Oh I forgot we went to this mall in Quito and it was the biggest mall I had ever seen. It had a rollercoaster inside. I was blown away when Elder Kerby, who served some time in Quito, said they have them all over. So today is P-Day and I bought some new shoes. They wanted 50 for them but I brought it down to 25. Just hope they don't fall apart on me hahaha. So this P-Day we went to the beach. It almost brought me to tears feeling the cool ocean breeze which reminded me so much of California. But it was really beautiful there. I'll send pics. Well that's all for this week PEACE.

Love ya all

Elder Rodriguez

Sorry I'm so good looking! 

I don't know why my butt looks huge....Nice