Sister Stephani Rodriguez: Goodbye Toga, Hello Painted Post

Hello from Painted Post! Kinda weird, but apparently Native Americans used to hang peoples heads on a post to mark territory and the blood would drip down to make it red and that's why it's called Painted Post!!! Wow my life is so cool!!! :) haha but for reals it's kinda funny.

So my new companion is Sister Jenkins and she is the cutest ever. We get along great and she's awesome! I'm definitely learning a lot from her! I always overcomplicate things and I need to remember to go back to the basics. I've been focusing a lot on bearing testimony of what we teach to everyone. It's something time and time I forget to do. But this last little bit as I've done that I've noticed it brings the Spirit so much stronger than anything else. It really helps build my faith and testimony too!

Cool miracle this week: We planned and were about to start our studies, and after Sister Jenkins said her personal prayer she got up and said we needed to try a family that morning after we did service. So we did, and we caught them home! The mom let us in and we sat in the backyard and taught her and her 17 year old son the Restoration! They were AMAZED that we have a living prophet on the earth!!! They actually understood what that meant! Cause most people don't, so it was cool for them to understand what we were saying. We also shared Moroni 10:4-5 with the son and he was like "that is so cool" and the whole time he just kept saying how much he loved that scripture. He said he had a lot of respect for us and knew this message meant a lot to us in order for us to leave our lives for 18 months. He said he's been struggling to know who/what God is and everything, so Moroni's promise was perfect for him. We invited him to read Alma 22 and then pray and ask God if what we shared is true, it's so cool because we both added our testimonies that if he did ask in faith, by the power of the Holy Ghost, he could receive his own answer! And that promise goes for everyone, I love how God wants each of us to have our own personal testimony and relationship with him.

This week has really just been me settling in and meeting everyone! There are a lot of cool people to see so I'm really excited! The sisters recently baptized a family here so we've seen them a lot and they are so cute! 4 boys and a girl, who are just so fun! We also had a devotional in Elmira this week so that was fun, and we've done a lot of service! That is one of my favorite parts about missionary work. There are a lot of places for us to help out in the community so I love it! We were also able to watch the Womens session of General Conference which was SO GOOD! We are so blessed to have leaders that love and care for us so much and really want each of us to come closer to Christ, which is what this life is all about!

I hope y'all have a blessed week!

xoxo

Sister Rodriguez

P.S. we were at dinner last night and the kids had this conversation:

"what's a seizure?"
"It's where you swear in church"

HAHAHAHAHA earlier the parents were talking about someone that had a seizure in church and swore while he was seizing and that was their interpretation of it