LIGHT (of) THE WORLD

Merry Christmas!!! This Christmas season was seriously the BEST because the entire focus was on Jesus Christ and serving others as He would. We tried hard to participate in Light the World but my favorite activities that we did weren't on the list. 

On Christmas Eve we went to a members house and watched the Nativity and read about the Saviors birth in the scriptures. We also baked cookies for our investigators and others in the area and delivered them with cards that day. There's also a family in the branch that told us they were going to cancel Christmas because they didn't have money to provide presents. We made a few phone calls, swiped our cards, and made Christmas for that family happen!! Their home teacher bought them some gifts and let us deliver them. Sister Miner and I also put together cute little stockings for each of the kids so they would have something fun for Christmas. That was such a neat experience for Heavenly Father to allow us to be the means of helping someone this season. The day this family told us they were struggling, we almost didn't go see them. They live pretty far away and I wasn't sure if we would have time to see them. But that day I felt strongly that we should go to their house, so we did. I am so glad that we did! 

It reminded me though that no matter what we have on Christmas, if we have Christ, we have more than enough. 

On Christmas Eve and Christmas we spent time in the nursing homes near us passing out presents and playing games with the seniors there and it was so much fun! 

On Christmas morning Sister Miner and I both studied the Christmas story in Luke 2 and about Christ's birth in Jesus the Christ. It was a really powerful study and helped us keep our focus on Christ. He truly is the Light of the World and I'm grateful to represent Him this Christmas season.

 

Also good news, Brittany has a super weird living situation so we weren't sure if she would be able to be baptized next month, so we called our mission president and explained the living situation and he gave us permission to baptize her!!!! We hung up the phone and danced, and hugged, and jumped around everywhere. Seriously the best Christmas present i got. haha 

Well I hope that you were all able to have a good Christmas remembering the birth of our Savior and everything that means. He truly is the reason for EVERYTHING and I love Him with everything I have. I have truly come to know and love Him more than ever these last couple of months serving His mission. I hope we can all remember Him year round. 

Love you!

xoxo

Sister Rodriguez

1. classic christmas pic

2. lighting the world

3/4. We had our christmas conference this week and these are my fav pics of me and sister Hall   

5. last time i'll see jenkins :( i'm cryin

6. NYUM 

HOI

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Sister Miner and I literally spent all morning working on our Christmas Card so you should be pretty excited, we definitely are :) haha

This week was a little bit of a struggle but that's okay! I'm back in my area and it feels so good! 

Since we haven't been here for a while we haven't been able to see people consistently so setting up appointments has been a bit of a struggle. 

Also the Aumicks (part member family) dropped us the second day that Sis Miner was here. I literally cried for a solid 15 minutes. Hahaha people's agency sucks sometimes. They were so solid and Emily was preparing for baptism at the end of this month but the parents decided they love the people but they're not going to join and don't want to take lessons anymore. It honestly hurt really bad to read that text, but they'll get baptized one day, I know it! 

And one more struggle: we are now a car share area! So the elders take the car half the week and we take it the other half. So for 3 days we don't have a car. In the middle of winter. In Upstate New York. Yeah... it's been kind of hard to have a positive attitude about that but Sister Miner and I are having so much fun and laughing all day everyday so she is definitely my saving grace! 

But okay okay I have some good things too!!! On Saturday we made Christmas cookies with my FAV family the Torrences!! It was so much fun. Then on Sunday Brittany came to church!!! She is preparing for baptism next week and is progressing so well. I just love her so much. Then she came with her roommate to the branch Christmas party which was great! We also had a snowball fight with the Torrence  fam and with some other branch members while we were helping a member move. Haha it was so much fun!

 

Sunday night we saw Jennifer (who also came to the party) and one of her aides was there, Flo, who loved church when they came last time. We read a chapter from the Book of Mormon and Flo took a copy for herself and said she'd read the chapters we assigned to Jen with her! So awesome. So we were able to pick her up as a new investigator and I'm excited to see where things go with her. 

Okay also I have to end with some funny stories: 

Sister Miner and I CANNOT stop laughing. This week my head has not been on straight and I keep mixing up my words. For example: 

The elders called us and I answered by trying to say "hello" "hi" and "hey" all at the same time, so it came out as "HOI" hahahaha and no one has been able to let me live that one down hahaha

Also I was explaining a Christmas sweater that I saw to Sister Miner and I said "It said 'so tacky I tinkle' I MEAN TWINKLE" Hahahaha we couldn't stop laughing. 

But our favorite funny story from this week happened on Sister Miners first night in Painted Post. We saw an investigator who is always drinking whenever we go over. We were trying to show her the Light the World initiative when her fiancé came in (also drinking) and was like "I have a fun fact for you"

her: "no, we're trying to watch this"

him: "Rudolph was a female" 

her: "no he wasn't, leave us alone."
him: "yes, Rudolph was female!! Only female reindeer have antlers in the winter, look it up"
her: "you're a Jehova's Witness, you don't know anything"
him: "look it up!"

her: "Fine! Sorry ladies, one second...*looks it up*.... he's right..."

him: JUMPS off the couch and ran all over the house yelling "THAT'S RIGHT. RUDOLPH WAS FEMALE" 

Sister Miner and I were literally CRYING it was the funniest thing of my life. So, there ya go. Rudolph was female. MERRY CHRISTMAS!! :) 

xoxo

Sister Rodriguez

1-4 Sneak Peek/Behind the scenes of our Christmas Card

JENKINS and Gavito at transfers.  Such bros

We were walking out of an apartment building when I saw this.  It honestly was placed there for me to see.  It brightened my day so much and was a good little reminder.

leftovers that members give us (I love my life)

The twins Tristan and Christian making cookies, they got flour EVERYWHERE haha I love them.

The Trio

What a weird week. Haha I love the trio!!! Sister Moore and Sister Johnson and I had a BLAST this week, it was so much fun!!! It was a crazy week though going back and forth working between Corning and Horseheads the whole week. It was really stressful not being in my area but it forced me to put my trust in the Lord and know that He would take care of these people and help me this upcoming week with more appointments and getting things back into the normal schedule. 

It was kind of a bummer week because Sister Moore got really sick. But since we were in a trio we would just drop her off at members houses so she could sleep while Sister Johnson and I went out and worked hah it was weird, but it worked! 

Lots of fun things happened this week though!:

-Jennifer was super prepared and willing to pay her tithing after she gets baptized.

-We had a ward party in Horseheads which was super fun and a member from Corning brought his investigator girlfriend that lives in Horseheads so it was cool!

Now for Brittany. This girl is my favorite. She is amazing. On Wednesday we took her to the YW Christmas party and she had so much fun! Friday we were able to read from the Book of Mormon with her over a Facebook skype lesson while we were in Horseheads. Then last night we went over and taught her the Word of Wisdom. She knew that it would be hard to live because of the people she hangs out with. But she committed to live it and at the end she prayed for Heavenly Father to help her live this commandment so she can get baptized! She's so solid and still preparing for baptism next month. I'm pumped for her! Also we were talking about the YW and I asked if she noticed anything different about them. She said "yeah. They're all SO happy." We pointed out that they're all so happy because they live the commandments of God and because they have the gift of the Holy Ghost. I know that I wouldn't be who I am today and how happy I am today if it weren't for the gift of the Holy Ghost and following the commandments of God. 

I love this gospel so much!! I've been working on reading the New Testament and I'm almost done! It's so good and I often find so many "pearls" (as President Rogers would say ha) in there! Then yesterday in church (I admit, I was having a pretty rough day yesterday morning just really unsure of a lot of things so I was not in the right mood to be at church or to learn from the speakers. I honestly just sat there trying to tune them out. It was one of those days where if I wasn't a missionary, I wouldn't have been to church. I was pretty bummed.) But luckily the Holy Ghost was working on me. I swallowed my pride and really tried to listen and have a better attitude. One of the speakers talked about her 22 year old daughter that had cancer 3 times and it eventually took her life. This is the scripture that she went back to: 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." my pity party was immediately over. I know I'm so grateful to be a missionary and have this precious time to serve the Lord. So one day I can look back and say that I fought the good fight, finished the course, and kept the faith. That's what enduring to the end is all about. That's why Heavenly Father put it in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for all of us to endure to the end. Sometimes it's easier than others but with faith in Jesus Christ we can endure all things with JOY! 

Love y'all and hope you have a good week!!

xoxo

Sister Rodriguez

P.S. I have so many funny quotes from the trio but my favorite thing that happened this week was the elders printed a picture of Elder Vorkink last week and put it on our car. So we took it home and made a shrine for him in our apartment, took a picture of it, printed it out and put it on their car... hahaha good times! 

Pics:

1. Bill (Recent Convert) had a shirt on a couple of weeks ago that said "My parents said I could be anything so I became a (bad word)" so I kept teasing him about it and telling him it wasn't appropriate so he said he was going to make a new shirt. So last night we went over and he had this on!! Hahaha the people spelled Mormon wrong so he's going today to get a new one but it was soooo funny. 

2. Sis Moore goes home this week :(

3/4. THE TRIO by Sis Johnson

More pics of the trio...

The district, we love and miss you Sister Solis!!!

Sister Moore went home so now Sister Williams is in our trio! Hahaha such a good pic.

Cradle of the Restoration

Hello! Honestly this week was a bit different. Just when I think I've gotten the hang of things, BOOM something else happens that keeps me on my toes. This week I am so sad to say that my precious companion Sister Solis is flying home today. She served her little heart out the best that she could and I am SO proud of all the effort that she put in and all the things she taught me in the time we were together. She truly gave every. single. thing. she had to the Lord. Unfortunately due to some health problems she was released as a full time missionary but I know she's going to be a stellar member missionary at home! I'm honestly so honored that the Lord called me to serve with her the last 4 weeks. 

Since she was going home, our mission president set up a trip for us to go to Palmyra and attend the temple and see all of the sites. We got to see the Sacred Grove, the Book of Mormon printing press (probs my favorite site), and the Hill Cumorah. How blessed am I to live in the cradle of the Restoration?? When Elder Stevenson came to visit our mission a while back he said "How lucky are you to serve in the cradle of the Restoration, no one else can say that" (besides the Rochester mission obviously but still). One thing that was cool though is how all of the sites were incredible, and yet they didn't strengthen my testimony. I didn't need to see the Sacred Grove to know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith there, I didn't need to see the Hill Cumorah to know that Moroni buried the golden plates there, and I didn't need to see the Book of Mormon printing press to know the miracle that the Book of Mormon is or that it's true. Those are all things I've already come to know are true because of studying the scriptures and praying to know. By the power of the Holy Ghost my spirit already knew the truthfulness of those things! (But it was freaking awesome to see where everything that we teach about actually happened)

I honestly don't have much else to say, this week has been STRESSFUL haha but for this next week and a half I'll be working with the STLs in Horseheads and covering my area as well so I'm in a trio with Sister Moore and Sister Johnson for the rest of the transfer which will be so fun! We've already had a blast! 

I just want to bear my witness that I KNOW that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. That he really did see what he said he saw. He did translate the Book of Mormon by the power of God and that sacred record is TRUE. It is Gods word, i know it. I know that Jesus Christ truly did restore His church through Joseph Smith. We are not some new church, but we are the same exact church that Jesus Christ brought to the earth 2,000 years ago. Any honest seeker of truth can come to know these things for themselves through reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if it's true. I know these things are true and I say them in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Sister Rodriguez

Funny story:
We taught this lady the Restoration and Sister Solis was like "That's a pretty bold claim to make, to say someone saw God the Father and Jesus Christ" and the lady goes "Yeah, it's a little ballsy" HAHAHA I COULDN'T STOP LAUGHING IT WAS BAD 

Pics: 

(i have tons) 

1/2. Saying goodbye to my precious green bean. LOVE YOU SISTER SOLIS. 

3. Palmyra temple

4. Hill Cumorah visitors center

5. Book of Mormon printing press

6. I've dreamed of reading Joseph Smith History in the Sacred Grove for forever and I finally got to do it!!! SO much power in his words. 

More pictures