74th Email Home November 16, 2015

Hello, Family and Friends! This week has been a blast with my new companion Elder Juarez! He is from Tamolipus and has been to the United states only to visit, but went to Hollywood and Utah and Texas, because Texas is right above him so, it is a great experience to talk with him! He doesn't speak English a lot, but he is learning quickly, he only has 3 months in the mission field and he is a fireball and it is so fun working with him! He is like my old companion Elder Armstrong, he is so happy to be here and ready to learn and work! 

  I have been trying to learn the area that I have, but it is too big! The cool part is that the Zoo is part of our area! The hard part is that there aren't too many members here and pretty much, there aren't any youth in this ward and its kind of sad, but it's okay, because we have a lot of people that want to know about the church here and we almost have a few baptisms too! I can't remember all the names of the people, but I think by the next week I will be a little more stable! We have a brother Mariano that was living in Arizona for a lot of time and was going to our church over there and he learned a lot and knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and so we invited him to be baptized, but was a little unsure until we explained the feelings of the Holy Ghost, then he understood and accepted baptism! Now we are just waiting for the day to come! 

 

  Well, to answer the question on how we travel from place to place is that we, go to a place that is called OCC and that is where we wait to take a bus with a group of missionaries to our destination! Sadly, I am not across the street from Starbucks, but I am about 20  or 25 minutes from it! I will try to be more active in taking tons of pictures of everyone and everything to catch up on all the time that I haven't been posting pictures! I love you family I have to go, but I will talk to you all sooooon! 

  

 Chiapas! so beautiful!

Our study room!  

 The cross of Jesus Christ!

A Cloudy day in Tuxtla

  Our First activity! Giving thanks was the Title!

73rd Email Home November 9, 2015

well,Family I have been in Tapachula for 6 months and I have sad news that I am going to be leaving! My new area will be Tuxtla again! Although I am going to leave this beautiful place, I can't wait to see what my area is like and my new companion too! His name is Elder Júarez and that's all I know right now, because I don't leave until tomorrow! So wish me luck!

  My companion continued being sick for about 3 days more and then, we left the house, FINALLY! It was so boring just sitting around! We have been having help from the youth of the ward and so we really enjoyed that time with them!

  Our investigators are leaving us!! One of the sisters that was so close to being baptized has left to Tuxtla..!! But that's where I am going hahaha! Then another moved to another city, but it is okay I am sure she will be baptized soon!! 

  I probably had an espiritual experience this past week, but either I don't remember or I wasn't paying attention... The only thing that was very impressive was when a recient convert was asking for us to borrow some oil to bless his baby. This moment was very special, because normally everyone runs to the Elders to bless their children. I am not saying that we don't like to give blessings, but when there is an able priesthood holder in the family. I don't want to deny giving a blessing to someone in need, but the family should have a patriarch to help I every moment!

 I haven't had the chance to go to the zoo, because here in Tapachula there is no zoo, but there are ruins, that I have never been to, but the tour guides help the people understand what happened in the time of the nephites and lamanites, they explain how people were doing rituals and this was in the times when they were wicked  and they also did sacrifices and other things, but that was I heard from my companion, I don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to see the ruins and the dream of Lehi carved into stone, but it's okay I don't need something to see to build my faith! 

 In our ward we have family home evening every friday at 6 pm and we try to invite everyone that we can, but no one comes, so we are planning to do a sport activity and invite the less actives to have a good time to come back to church!

Well, I have to go, but I will try to put pictures up the next week! Con mucho cariño! Elder Rolando!

72nd Email Home November 2,2015

 Well, this week was a good time to help a lot of less actives come to know of the Gospel more, with the help of some youth to help explain the gospel and their testimonies, I think that they spoke with power and with the love of Christ that helps these people leave their shell and come to know of the goodness of Christ, it's sad to hear that many believe and know that the church is true, but they don't want nothing to do with the church, only to hear messages from the missionaries and with this, I am grateful for them not giving up completely, they want to come back, but they just need that boost again to help them change! The reasonings of why things happen or why do we do things different from other churches is all answered in the scriptures. Me and a few other Elders were talking about the scriptures and what's in the earth and alone with that we were so overwhelmed with all the doctrine and how everything that is in the world, like the strange things and cities well, pretty much everything is mentioned in the scriptures and in there we can find our answers, but not only this but through personal revelation, we can comprehend everything if we are searching with really intent and it is for the benefit of the plan of God! 

 The way Jared is yelling into Mari's face is a bit rude, but it looks super funny, I don't think Jared will ever lose his sense of humor, I hope he never does either, because he is made to be funny! I feel that the family is actually working to change and they want to have a better life. I hope that Garrett and Wayne will make good decisions while they are working out there. 

 Is Mariasha Maleficent? And Jared is Shrek? It's okay if you don't have anymore pictures. I have bad news, but also good news. The bad news is that my memory had a virus and so we took off all the pictures that we could, and deleted all the viruses, but I can't plug in my memory into the computer right now... The Good news is that I have pretty much all the pictures in another file and they are all safe, also the member, that was helping us recover my pictures said, that he can try to bring back my pictures that were deleted from my memory and then I won't have a problem! I am also thinking that I going to buy another memory that comes with a anti-virus protection so I can use my camera's pictures again. Well I have to go I hope to hear from you all soon! Sorry for writing sooo late, my companion wasn't feeling well and we were in the doctor's office all day long! LOVE YOU ALL!  

More pictures that a sister was helping me take! these were pictures from my Birthday! Sisters Diaz and Sister Castillo!

71st Email Home October 26, 2015

Hello family members and friends alike! How is everything going? Everything is good here, although there were signs of the hurricane in México, it didn't touch Chiapas! In Wednesday, it was soo crazy I have never seen so much water in the streets in my life! The water was a little higher than my knees and we still had to work, but not everyone was willing to open up their doors to recieve us, so we went with a sister that is less active and we helped her to think about going to church, but she isn't less active for nothing, she always has family members that want to come by her house and the days are always Saturday and Sunday! So, she says that she can't go because of them, but I think we need to teach her to be more dedicated to the gospel, we normally invite her about a week before, but always her family comes out anyway..( Her parents-in-law aren't members of the church!) 

  Our investigators as of right now aren't coming to church, we always invite them to come chill with us and they always say,"Yes!", but they don't come, so we are trying to plan with our ward mission leader to help us put together a group of members that can help these investigators come to church, so that they can have a friend to talk with and people to guide them! We are going to talk with sister Alondra today to see why she couldn't come to church on Sunday! To tell you the truth we are finding more less actives than investigators, everyday more there is a less active calling us to help them and my wish is that all of them can come to church and that one day the ward can split and this area can grow bigger! There is only one less active that doesn't want to hear from us right now, but the other less actives are accepting us everytime and they want to change! I'm still with my same companion Elder Avila and we are learning how we can help this area to be more active!!!! 

 The weather here has been extremely hot, before it was okay, but now I am feeling the burn! The only thing is that I cannot tan here, everyone is tanning except me! I am like a walk sunscreen!! The only thing that I like about my body is my immune system, everyone is always getting sick and I am like,"What are you guys talking about?!!?!?!", I can eat all the food that the members give me and the most recent craziest thing that I have eaten was a raw turtles egg and everyone that was eating it was saying," It's soooo Good!!" and I was like," I was okay.... What's next?" Although during the day I felt a boost of energy from the egg and it was quite nice!  

  I hope the things Crystal is selling is going well! Less things for me to carry around, that I will never use! Aww, I kind of miss Halloween, when I got free candy and I got to dress up as my favorite characters, those were the good ole days! I hope to see a lot of pictures of decorations and Chewy!

 We recieved the new Liahona that talks about Joesph Smith and How he translated the Book of Mormon! It was so perfect and awesome is here so much information about the translation! The Article talks about mysterious objects that Joesph Smith used to help he in this process, There is a lot more that explains his experience during this time! About my camera's memory I think it deleted all the pictures that I have tooken with my companion, but don't worry I HAVE MORE!! WOOOT!! I have my card that says that I am a missionary of the church and then it has the dates when I entered and when I end and yeah my mission will be cut off 3 weeks!! It's pretty sad and kind of sucks, because I want to stay longer, but we can't even extend our time here! Oh and I will try to take pictures of my scripture covers for the next week! But they aren't so beautiful with the drawling, because the brother onloy had a nail to engrave the picture to the skin, but I think that I can find someone at home that knows how to work with cow hide, but I don't know! 

 The only people that are constantly writing me are, My companion that ended his mission Elder Montes, Johan( He is a member from the first area, and he is leaving to serve his mission in México city!), on occasions my old group from the MTC! I haven't had time to respond to everyone I always have to sacrifice not writing one person! NO PICTURES! My memory deleted everything! Well until next week!