Friday, January 13, 2017

Planting Seeds

Hola!                                                                                                                 
Well, I have another week down in Salto and it was a pretty good week! We started this week by having interviews with President Goates. I really am so grateful to have a President who cares so much about me personally, one whom I can talk with about anything I want to. When I met with him, I asked him about “losing myself in the work” and about how I can put all my heart, might, mind and strength into the people who I come in contact with. He gave me some really good advice about how to do that and it was exciting to put it into play this week.
At the beginning of the week we had exchanges with some other Elders and as always, it was really fun to be in a different area where I could meet and talk with new people. During this particular exchange, I was with Elder Aguilar who is from Arizona. He has only been in the mission for a couple more months than I have, so our weak Spanish made it was a little interesting, but it was still tons of fun. We actually worked in the area where the Hermanas in our District are assigned. We did what is called a “white storm” which means the whole Zone was there, just knocking on as many doors as we could for 2 hours. It was actually really fun, especially because we were all together.
Probably the most exciting part of the week was joining with the Salto community to put in some serious work in the fields! One of our members has a10-acre fruit and vegetable farm. His mom is very sick right now so we jumped at the opportunity to help him. He actually makes a tomato sauce out of his tomatoes and sells it so, he really needs his harvest to pay for his living. We put in about 2.5 hours of work and it was truly something I will never forget. We moved all kinds of dirt and fertilizer all over the place. (I think they were homemade fertilizers because of the beautiful smell.) To say the least, it was nothing like mowing the lawn or pulling some weeds on 2350 Berkeley Street. 
We were challenged this week when we had to push back Carla’s baptismal date so she and Daniel can have more time think about getting married. To be honest, I was pretty bummed about it but, this also caused me to look back at the progress they have made since we started teaching them. I’m trying to recognize the positive side of their situation and remind myself that they have improved so much and truly are a stronger family.
One thing Elder Mena and I are trying to do right now is strengthen the Salto Ward. Our Sacrament Meeting numbers haven’t been looking too good lately so we talked with our members about helping us contact inactive members and former investigators of the Church who still live relatively close. Also, after sacrament meeting we had a council meeting with some of the members.  During this meeting, we made appointments with them to go talk with other ward members.  Our plan is to boost the ward a little bit by getting ALL members to come to Sunday meetings. One thing I have really noticed is how important the members are to missionary work. Truly, we need their help to have success and I’m really hoping and praying we can gain their trust more and strengthen them so we can strengthen the entire ward.
This coming week is the last week of the transfer, which is crazy! It seems to be that Elder Mena and I will be separated soon, which is sad.  Even so, change is always a good thing!
I hope all of you are enjoying the fresh powder up in the mountains and skiing as much as possible for me while I am sweating my bum off on the bike!

Paz y Amor,

Elder Roderick


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