Thursday, November 10, 2016

Some Fruits of Our Labor

HOLA AMIGOS                                                                                                   



It was another great week in Salto! At the beginning of the week there were some crazyyy winds that knocked out the power for a few days and the town looked exactly like a ghost town that you might see in a movie. It was freaking me out! Apparently, during the power outage there was a little jail break in a nearby town and twenty prisoners escaped to Salto where they hid in the fields. Fortunately, all of them were eventually caught. This event made an exciting start to the week!
This week was probably our best week of missionary work so far! We were able to go out with the two members who were called to help us and “Wow!” it was amazing to see how much of difference their participation made. We were able to teach Francisco with both of them present and it was so great because the three of them are such good friends. They helped us explain to him the steps he needs to take in order to be baptized. Having two of his good friends explain certain things, instead of two missionaries, made a great difference. Francisco knows all of the lessons and he has a great understanding of Church principles, but he really just struggles with attending church. So, it becomes tough for us when we don’t have a ton to teach him. Now it’s just up to him to make the conscious decision about whether or not he wants to be baptized.
Wednesday night was probably the most rewarding day so far here in the mission. We taught Daniel again, along with his wife and kids. Luis accompanied us to this lesson and it went so smoothly. The Plan of Salvation is always a little tough to teach because of the unique vocabulary and the complexity of the whole thing but, with the help of Luis, we were able to explain it clearly for them. Because they are a family with two young kids they loved the eternal family aspect of it all and it seemed like they were engaged during the whole lesson! We connected with them so well and it felt like we were all just a bunch of friends talking and discussing, rather than us two missionaries just lecturing. At the end of the lesson, we felt prompted to extend a baptismal invitation and they accepted!! We explained how we do it differently and they loved the concept. The Spirit was so strong during the lesson too and it was just so great; the best feeling ever for me. Nights and lessons like this one with Daniel and his family always make the long days of not talking to anyone so worth it. I’m so excited to help them start preparing for their baptisms!!
The rest of the week went really well and we found a couple of new people who want to talk to us and they also have families. “Yay” for eternal families! We went back to the “hidden neighborhood” to find an investigator and we got extreme responses from the people we approached while trying to find him. Every other person was either super nice and tried to help us find him or, they wouldn’t even let us get a word out because they knew we are missionaries. I was so confused. This neighborhood is technically the most dangerous one we have in Salto, so walking around in it always makes things more interesting!
We had another big zone meeting this week and it was such a great feeling to see another missionary who has less time than me in the mission! Oh man! I’m not the youngest anymore. What a great feeling that is. I’m still the water boy in the mission, but at least I have a back-up!
This week I really just tried to have as much fun as possible. Even with my poor Spanish, I tried to talk to everyone I could. I probably butchered half of the conversations, but like my momma used to say on the ski hill, “If you´re not falling, You´re not trying!”
As the work is starting to pick up here in Salto, so is the heat! Oh man! There have been a couple of really long hot days here and there is never a way to escape the heat, but we are all good! There were lots of miles covered on the bikes, which is always a good thing and there will be plenty more covered this coming week!

¡LES AMO!

Elder Roderick


P.S. The one-year anniversary of the “Miracle on 17th”was yesterday. #GORAMS (even though they lost)

No comments:

Post a Comment