Well this week was pretty hard. We had some trouble getting in with some people, but when we didn't think we would teach anyone, the Lord would bless us with someone! Really we just saw a lot of litttle miracles this week. We didn't have so much to do and a lot of our appointments fell through. We kept going as much as we could and we found some cool people that we hope to keep teaching. Some of them we couldn't get back in with last week so we're going back this week periodically to see if we can get in with them and teach them again .I've just come to a realization this week about how important home teaching really is. There's one of our recent converts, Luis who expressed that he doesn't want us coming over and doesn't want to go back to church. When I asked his home teachers if they'd gone over since his baptism they said no and didn't even know who he was.... That's really sad to me. I don't know if that's the reason why he doesn't want to come to church anymore, but I mean at least it would've helped. Really the blessings from home teaching are amazing. I was reading in the General conference copy of the Ensign and in one of the talks by President Monson I think it was "True Shephards" it said, "Home teaching is just missionary work, but with members." The Elders Quorum President here told me that while he loves the drive to get baptisms that our Branch President has, he is scared that a lot of people have been left behind or forgotten about. Please don't let people get left behind. We need to find all of the lost sheep. Oh one thing, try to find a talk called "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence E. Corbridge. It's really good!
My favorite part of this week was on Thursday when a guy called us saying that he'd spoken with the English missionaries and he said that the wanted to hear our message in Spanish. We got really excited and so on Saturday we went over to his house to meet him. We're pretty sure he's not in our area, but he actually called us for this appointment and so we felt like we had to go. We went in and taught the first lesson. The whole time he had this big smile on his face and was participating in the lesson. We left and called the English missionaries to tell them about it. Then one of them said, "Oh my, I kind of feel really bad. Guys... He's actually a member" and then burst out laughing. Yeah. That guy just wanted to mess with us hahaha and he speaks English. So we called him back and pretended like we didn't know. We invited him to church and he was like, "Oh Elders I don't know if I can make it." So then we said in English, "But Brother Francisco, you should ALWAYS be coming to church!!" to which he burst out laughing and apologized for it. It was pretty dang funny if I do say so myself. We still counted the lesson. hahaha To be honest that was about the only thing that was funny or memorable this week. We had lots of little things happen, but I'm kind of forgetful. I've been forgetting to write in my journal so I need to get better at that.
I'm glad that Davis could give a longer homecoming talk! I really want to hear Nick's, Sam's and Davis's Spanish. They had the chance to be in a foreign country so that they could be surrounded by all the culture and language. But here I'm pretty bombarded with the cultures of like 10 countries and then English ontop of that.... But hey, I'm learning a lot actually. I feel like my Spanish has really improved. But I still speak like I've got 5 months in the mission. Elder Mayo helps me out a lot actually to improve my Spanish. I'm glad to hear that everyone is getting used to the new ward and their new callings. That would be cool to have Dad teach the Gospel Principles class. The guy that teaches it in our ward is pretty crazy. He's funny and the investigators and recent converts really like him so it's helped us a lot.
Family, I do love you all so much and I really am having an amazing time being out here on the mission even though this week has been pretty discouraging. This is really the best time of my life. Elder Mayo and I had a really good talk yesterday about how our companionship is going. I realized that I've been really hard on him. He's not used to working at the level I do so he's been sort of stressed out the past six weeks. We're going to work on finding the same level that we can work together. If you have any advise for me I'ld love to hear it! Things here are hard, but they're still going. We're actually so blessed. Noah told me that he teaches about five lessons a week and we taught three in one day! I know things here are going pretty good here in the mission, it just seems hard right now.
Love your son,
Elder Rodabough the second
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