Gloria.....ous

First off... Gloria is getting baptized on Saturday!!! We are so so so excited for her. Everytime we say her name we sing it to the tune of Glorious... so that explains the subject line, i'm really running low on the creativity lately haha sorry. 

Well Tuesday we had a really cool experience! We got out of dinner a little early and we had a potential in that same neighborhood so we decided to try her. I've never met her before so I'm just following Sister Park. She realizes we missed the house so we turn around and she sees it. Park goes "It's a bright green door! How did I miss it?" but we start walking up to it when a car pulls up in the neighbors driveway so this girl gets out of her car and we start talking to her. She said she has a lot of faith in Christ and would love to hear more of our message! Right before we were about to leave she tells us "You have no idea how much I needed this. I was having the worst day. I'm gonna go make a FaceBook status about you Sister Park and Sister Rodriguez!" hahaha it was so sweet. So we knock on her neighbors door, the potential, and she tells us she's not interested. It really strengthened my testimony of how God is in control. His plan is so good. The sisters were supposed to meet the lady behind the green door so we could come back later and meet her neighbor and help her have a little happiness in her bad day! One of my favorite things about the mission is seeing bits and pieces of God's plan come together. God is so good. 

Another cool experience! We have an investigator named Karen. Last week on exchange, she dropped us so hard (I wasn't there but that's what they said) apparently she went off on how she doesn't believe what we believe (this is a few lessons after she told us she smokes weed and is gay so she doesn't want to get baptized). Well this week she reached out to us again! She's manic, so she told us she had a manic attack and couldn't remember anything she did. She said she was scared to talk to us cause she thought she offended us. So we went back to meet with her and she told us she's stopped smoking cigarettes and weed!! She's been smoking weed everyday since she was 12 but now she's quit because she wants to get baptized!! She's been free from them for almost 2 weeks now!!! The evidence of repentance is so apparent in her, it's incredible. She's still drinking coffee but she's working on cutting that down so she can get baptized! She keeps on telling us the things she used to do but now she's stopped so she can repent and be baptized, one of those is that she used to bring a huge purse to her therapists office and steal toilet paper when she would go! Hahaha she was like "But you know what? I didn't do that today. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be honest." She is the sweetest and I just love her! 

Thursday we had exchanges with the Greenwich Sisters aka my MTC comp Sister Hall!! It was so much fun to be with her again and see how much she's grown this past year! 

Well, that's about it folks. The weeks are just flyin by and I can't believe it's already Monday again! Hope y'all have a good week! 

P.S. 

S park: *randomly wakes up* "We forgot to send in key indicators!!!!.. wait... it's Saturday. Nevermind" 

investigator: "I've got ADD, PTSD, OCD, all the acronyms"

Sis Park: "Except LDS!"

"is that in the Pearl of Rice?" 

"How's your day been?"
"my colonoscopy went well" 

(actual conversation we had with someone) 

Pics: 

1. The Lees came for apartment inspections

2. Ice cream with Sister hall!

3. The Crapos made us cards

4. comp unity.. or somethin idk

5. The Davis's took us out for the best mac n cheese in town. heck ya

6. The district

Mormon life = Mormon wife

Hello and Happy Pioneer Day!! Sis Park mentioned that was today and I was like "Oh no do you think the library will be open?" and she goes "You're not in Utah anymore" haha I forgot for a sec!

Anyways it was a really good week!! Sis Park and I are forreals blessed. We have the best area. It is just booming, it's incredible. Saratoga is famous for all of the horse races in the summer, which started this week so the town is POPPIN! There are SO many people it's insane! 

There are so many people here that are searching for the truth it's awesome. We picked up a couple of new investigators this week. A lot of them had questions that we were able to answer through the Book of Mormon. That is something I've been working really hard at, to use the BOM to answer their questions, instead of my own knowledge. The studying has definitely been paying off (and PMG too, forreals) A cool experience we had with this was with an investigator (more like eternigator) she has the question "why does God let bad things happen to good people? Why doesn't He just wave His magic wand and make it all better" The Spirit immediately brought the story in Alma 42 to my head. We read that story with her and it gave her a lot to think about. It was cool to see how we related her question to the story in Alma and how interested she was to see how the Book of Mormon answered her question. She committed to reading the BoM looking for answers to her questions. 

Thursday we had the Hudson Falls sisters come with us for exchange so that was fun! It's always so stressful because we spend a lot of time planning for it and then things always end up falling through, but it's cool because that's when we know Heavenly Father needs us somewhere else! Even though our plans fell through, we were able to see a lot of success and talk to a lot of really cool people! 

Friday night we went to visit our investigator Karie who is in the hospital. We went after visiting hours, but since we have our nametags we can literally get in anywhere  it's sad cause Karie hasn't been coming to church so we have to push her baptism date back :( but we definitely have faith she'll make it soon!

 

Saturday we volunteered at a race going on in Saratoga that we had to be at at 5:30 am. Ya girl was not happy. But it's all good. It was really fun to help out! 

Miracle story... We had an appointment that Sister Park set up on exchange while she was with another sister. The apt was set for Sunday night in the Elders area. Well sometime on Saturday Sister Park lost her planner. We looked EVERYWHERE and could not find it. We said so many prayers and called so many people asking if they'd seen it at their house. We were stressin cause it had this guys address and phone number, it wasn't in my planner cause she met him while on exchange. We had no way of finding this guy or telling him that we couldn't make it cause we didn't have his number! Sunday comes along and we are still searching frantically and it's about time to leave for this appointment. I asked if Sis Park remembered the name of the apartment complex he lived in and she said "I know it starts with a 'B'" hahah that's a start! so we ran to the church and searched apartment complexes in Ballston Spa that start with a B! And we found it!! She was like "I'm pretty sure it's this one!" So we race over there. She' like "it's apt. 26 J I'm pretty sure" Well there was no way that there were 26 apartments in building J, it was just way too small. So we park anyways, determined to find this guy. We say a prayer and get our stuff ready to get out of the car when I look up. I was like "this guy is just staring at us" when Sister Park opens her door and goes "are you Angel?" this guy goes "yes!" the only words out of my mouth were "No way" He told us he'd been waiting for us all day and the only reason he was outside is because his daughter had just barely texted him saying she was outside. He was like "I came outside to look for her but she's not out here, but that's when i saw you two!" God is so good. He helps us out sooo much despite our imperfections. We also found out his apartment number is not 26 hahah without God we definitely would not have found this guy. It was a huge miracle to find him! 

Well that's about it folks. Hope y'all have a great week!

xoxo

Sister Rodriguez

P.S.

me: "Gio keeps saying he wants us to find him a Mormon wife. I just want to be like, 'look, if you want a Mormon wife, you gotta-'"

Sis Park: "life the Mormon life!!"

"Do you ever have those really long and hard days where you're just done? And you think 'I could hit by a truck right now. I could go home and it would still be an honorable release'" 

Gio: "I have 992 phone numbers" 

Sis Park: "Ya know New York makes my heart happy and I never thought I'd say that"

Sis Park: "The 42 points are NOT like riding a bike.. it's like climbing a cliff" 

Me: "maybe I should go to BYU.... excuse me I need to go wash my mouth out" 

"I was dropped on my head as a baby"
"is it rude to laugh at that?" 

Random lady at the food pantry: "Don't give up on marijuana when it doesn't work the first time" 

Pics!

1. Hudson Falls Sisters

2. Best meal appointment ever.

3. Sister Park and I have the worst Stewarts addiction ever. I can't even tell you how many times we've had Stewarts ice cream this week. ... okay. It's 6. We've had Stewarts ice cream 6 times this week. 

Potato Chip Fest

t's Saturday morning and the Elders call to give us some valuable information. They told us that there was going to be a potato chip festival in Saratoga Springs that day!! Hahah so Sister Park and I combined our lunch and dinner break to go to this thing. It was so fun! We waited in line for like an hour but we got like 12 bags of chips and Sister Park and I both won free shirts and bags!! haha so worth it.  We just got to go around and sample all of these chips and stuff, it was so fun!

Anyways, this week we were blessed big time! There's this lady named Gloria that is visiting our area. She lives in Mississippi but met the missionaries when she was here last year. She's here visiting for over a month and then she'll go back to Mississippi but she wants to move here next year. She is SO prepared! She wants to get baptized while she's here! We went over the baptismal interview questions with her and she is seriously so solid. We're helping her prepare to be baptized on the 5th of August! Also, our investigator Karie had her baptism interview this week and she passed!!! So she will also be getting baptized on August 5th! We are so excited for her!! 

Thursday we had Zone Conference which was awesome. We did a training on tracting approaches and how to make it fun. At the end we had the AP's give a demonstration on doing a rap as your door approach  it was super fun! After that we had the MANCHESTER SISTERS come for exchange! It was so much fun to see Sister Hall!! We had an awesome night where we taught the Restoration to this couple and picked them up as new investigators and we also taught the Plan of Salvation to one of our investigators. Sister Hall and I were like "We've taught more lessons tonight than we did our whole time together in Manchester" haha okay maybe not that extreme but it was fun for us to teach with each other again! On Friday I got to work with Sister Miner which was super fun because she's a brand new missionary! It was one of my favorite exchanges that I've been on! (also one of the most nerve wracking cause I still get lost in this area and had to be separated from Sis Park, but don't fret, we made it everywhere safely!) 

One of the things that the brethren asked mission presidents to instruct us to focus on is teaching younger people between the ages of 9-30. This is something that Sister Park and I have really been trying to do. We found this girl named Monise who met with sisters in the past and seems so ready for the gospel at this time in her life! She really wants to know more about God's plan for her and about the Book of Mormon. I'm super excited to teach her more! 

This area is seriously so incredible. Sister Park and I are so grateful to be here. Everyday we can notice how God is so merciful to us and how much He really loves and blesses us. I'm so lucky to have Sister Park as a companion! It's really fun cause we've been out the same amount of time so we can kinda relate to each other in ways we can't relate to with anyone else. She's a huge blessing and great example to me. Honestly just so blessed. I love this area, my companion, the people we teach, and the weather is finally starting to really heat up! I love it! 

God is good. 

P.S. Our investigator: "I got style! I got swag! I don't even know what that is but I got it!" 

Pics:

1. Our free t shirts that we won!

2. LOOK AT ALL THESE CHIPS WE GOT 

3/4 potato chip fest

5. Manchester exchange

6. Half the missionaries left before this pic was taken, but here's our mini zone picture!

We are 1 years old!!!!!

Sister Park and I are still in shock that we hit our ONE YEAR MARK this week!!! Her fam sent us the cutest package so we've been celebratin all week. But it seriously does not feel like it's been a year. Time has gone by SO so so fast. I can't believe it's already Monday again. 

I've said it before, but Saratoga is seriously the promised land. I feel so blessed to be here. Life is so good. The members are amazing, we seriously get fed every night, which I am not used to but it's amazing. 

Cool experience of the week: Sister Park and I met one of the 3 Nephites (we're convinced). There's this guy in our ward that won't tell anyone his name. He just got done walking across THE UNITED STATES, from Florida to California he WALKED. And he's just really mysterious. Anyways, one night we called an investigator to see if she could meet with us and she said yes and was trying to decide if she wanted us to come over, or meet at the church and she eventually decides she wants to meet at the church, so we meet outside at this pavilion. Well like 5 minutes later, this mystery man walks up and sits down and joins our lesson. He was so bold and upfront with her and I was trying so hard not to laugh cause it was just crazy. She has so many distractions in her life that are preventing her from being baptized. One of the distractions is she wants to go visit her mom in another state. He gets out his phone and maps it all out for her and tells her to do it. If you've seen the Shia Lebouf video of him saying "just do it", yeah it pretty much went like that. Then after TWO HOURS, he just gets up and leaves. Sister Park and I probably said a total of 10 words. I've never had a lesson go that long and it was crazy. The only logical explanation is that he is one of the 3 Nephites. It was super cool though because at the beginning of the lesson she said the prayer asking to hear something she needed to learn. At the end, she said another prayer thanking Heavenly Father because she heard everything she needed to hear. We're still prayerfully deciding if she needs more time or if we should put her back in the Lord's hands for now. We'll see. 

For the 4th of July we volunteered at a race that the city does and it was super fun to get involved and be apart of that! We really didn't do anything else super exciting (besides District Meeting, that was fun!) 

We also met this really cool lady that recently moved up to Toga who was meeting with missionaries in Mississippi and wants to be baptized next month while she's up here!!! And our investigator Karie is on date to be baptized next month as well and she's been living the word of wisdom but her biggest struggle is getting to church because she has to work, but today she called us and told us that she got someone to work for her on Sundays!! So now she can come to church!!!!! It seriously is a huge miracle because she has been praying for this for so long!!!

 

Oh and one more thing, I read Mormon chapters 8-9 this week and holy cow. They have SO much power to them! I was like freaking out while reading them. They were the coolest and definitely strengthened my testimony of the Restoration. Personal study is for reals the best. 

Earlier today we got a call from Sister Martin in Manchester that was going to be in Saratoga today and she wanted to take us out to lunch! It was soooo much fun to see her! I have seriously met the most amazing people while out here serving the Lord's mission and I feel so blessed. Hope y'all have a great week!!

Funny quote: 

Sister Park: "way to drop a bomb and not have a lightswitch!"

me: "what?!"

Her: "I don't know why I said that, but it was in my head and I had to say it..." 

Pictures:

1. Ya girls kicked the elders trash in Missionary Feud this week!

2. Felicia and Marquel got married last week and baptized this last weekend! It was awesome to be apart of it. 

3. Sister McVicker from the ward invited us to her Hawaiian birthday party it was so sweet. 

4. Sister Martin and I at lunch today

5/6 TWELVE MONTHS OLD

Oh Heck Yeah

Seriously best week ever! I can't even explain how blessed I feel (and also how tired I feel haha). Monday and Tuesday were crazy saying goodbye to everyone and getting ready for transfers. On Tuesday Sister Hall and I drove to Greenwich where I spent the night being Sister Reintjes's companion while the two Sister Hall's drove to Utica so they could get their trainees the next day. Being in Greenwich was SO fun! I seriously just love Sister Reintjes. We've served around each other for a lot of the time we've been out here so it really felt like a sleepover with an old friend. While I was in Greenwich we were able to go teach this Mexican family! They spoke mostly Spanish and luckily we had someone from the Greenwich branch come and translate! As I was sitting in the lesson, I knew I was called to speak English for a reason! Honestly props to everyone who has to learn a language, I know Heavenly Father knew I couldn't do that. I was so lost in the lesson and they kept asking me why I was from Utah and why I don't speak Spanish with a last name of Rodriguez  It was pretty funny and an awesome experience! They are an awesome family. 

Wednesday was transfers and we spent the day in Albany where I got to see Sister Folkman! Wednesday night as we were coming home we got a phone call from the AP's giving us our travel plans for MLC. We had no idea it was this week! So everything was thrown off schedule as we had to leave Thursday night and got into Utica. We spent the night in the room that the Apostles stay in when they come to the mission! So that was sweet. Friday was MLC and that was almost all day. We didn't get back into our area until about 6:30 pm. It was long but so awesome cause I really learned a lot. It got Sister Park and I so pumped for this transfer! We have so much going on in Saratoga it is AWESOME! I feel so blessed to be here. I really look up to Sister Park. She has taught me so much already and has really pushed me to be better which I need. It's also so cool to have so many houses and neighborhoods that we can tract!!! It gets me so pumped!!! I haven't seen neighborhoods with this many houses in literally a year. We are so blessed to be here. I love it. I couldn't think of a more perfect place for me to be. We also have a couple of really cool people on date to be baptized in the coming months and I'm excited to see them continue to progress!

 

On Saturday we went to a wedding for the elders investigators. They got married on Saturday and next week they're getting baptized! The girl bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting yesterday and wow, she is so prepared it really strengthened my faith! The wedding was super cool because there were so many non members there that we got a lot of their phone numbers and they said they'd be interested in learning more! Sadly they all live outside of our area, but we're giving their info to the sisters that live near them so that's sweet! Sister Park is so good at talking to people. She has so much faith that as long as she opens her mouth, the Lord will fill it. And He does, every single time. She makes it so easy to transition to the gospel, I've already learned so much from her!

I've had my faith built a lot this week which is all I could ask for. I'm seriously just loving Saratoga and my new companion so so much! I definitely know I am where I'm supposed to be. It makes me so sad to think this week is my year mark. Time has gone by so much faster than I ever wanted it to! I wish I could stay forever!! So it's good I still have a while. Definitely gonna live it up! :)

 

Thanks for all the love and support! 

xoxo

Sister Rodriguez

Funny quotes:

So Sister Hall would ALWAYS say "oh heck yeah" and that got me in the habit of saying it... so last night we were at a members house and they asked me where I'm from and then go "I knew you were from Utah. I could tell by the way you said 'heck'" hahahah! I didn't even notice that I had used that word, so that was pretty funny. 

S Park: "I don't know how people can starve themselves... I tried to go one day without cheez its once, and oh man..."

pics:

1. Sister Folkman

2. Last time seeing Graver before she goes home..

3. Park and Reintjes

4. The same bed an apostle has slept in!

5. Your typical Sister Missionaries 

6. MLC