The sad story of Rodrigo

Hi. So I still don't have very many peoples emails so sorry I guess.

Tuesday, we went to district council in the Stake Center, after we walked back, and oh my Mexico is a hot country, and it's even worse when wearing a suit like we were in that moment. We went home to get some water and then went to the church to have some lessons. All the lessons fell through, so we decided to go outside and contact people. Our extremely intelligent zone leaders had suggested we wait outside the gates of the church and invite people who walked past, to take a tour of the building, they claimed it would work so well and said it was better than our normal way of contacting. So we tried it. It literally did not work AT ALL. it was probably the least affective session of street contacting I've ever done. Literally one guy just started laughing at us. We then decided to switch to our normal more old fashioned way of street contacting cause it works better. Later we taught this guy named Alvaro. He's really cool and he's really smart with the Bible too. In the evening we went outside to go knock some doors and look for people. We went to some colony and started knocking doors. We met a few nice people but not too many. We were about to leave and go contact somewhere else, but we decided to knock one more door all the way at the end of the row of houses. The guy was named Javier and he was super cool. We talked to him for a while and he gave us his phone number. We finished the day knocking some more doors and looking for more people. We didn't find any but it felt good to get out and do that. Also it was evening so we weren't burning up.

Wednesday morning, we went to go find a reference from a member. Her name’s Emma. She's an old woman who sells juice right outside of our colony where we live. I really am not sure she's very interested in what we have to say, but the fresh squeezed orange juice she sells is extremely good. After we talked to her, we went to go find Enrique and Miriam, the investigators who are really close to baptism. In the morning they sell street food so we found them there. We started talking and our plan was just to contact them and set up a lesson, but we ended up teaching the Word of Wisdom with them right there in the busy street. Enrique drinks coffee and smokes, but he is very willing to stop. After we set up another lesson, and left. Our worry after that was that they might not be married so we were gonna have to verify that. Later we went to go eat with a member and contacted outside a bit. Later that evening we went to to meet good ol’ Miguel Vega. He's a very enthusiastic older gentleman in our ward. (well I guess he's actually in the other ward, but he comes to ours cause he doesn't like his bishop). Miguel said he had a reference for us and he was very excited about it. Miguel is a teacher (of who knows what) and he wanted to visit an old student of his and see if she'd have interest. We were walking around the colony with all the houses and he was trying to remember where this woman lived. He finally found the house and for him, it was quite a triumphant moment. We were about to knock when a mean old, vulture like woman came up to us and started getting all mad we approached her house and that no one lives there and to get out. Miguel was quite sad and I felt bad for him. Miguel commented after that the lady who rejected us is gonna hear about it in the final judgment so at least he took solace in that. Then, me and my companion left with intentions to go do street contacting. We went to Recursos in Ecatepec which is one of the more sketchy places I've been. We didn’t have the most success. When we were there though, a recent convert named Rodrigo called. I didn't know him and my comp either. I answered the phone and woah. This may be a sensitive subject for some, but let me explain the whole story. Rodrigo began to tell me he was very depressed and suicidal and all he wanted to do was die. He said his wife left him, he hates his son and he hates his mom and there's no point to living anymore. I was caught VERY off guard and had no clue what to say. I had never dealt with anything like that before. Rodrigo was just talking and talking about how much he wants to end his life and how God hates him and has never done anything for him, and nothing I could say could change his mind on his decision. By the end of the call I'd talked to him and invited him to watch conference and he sounded a little better. After the call I was a bit alarmed and me and my companion decided to tell some people. First we contacted the zone leader who had baptized him. He wasn't very useful (zone leaders rarely are) so we called a member who knew Rodrigo really well. She told us the truth. She said that Rodrigo had been saying all this stuff about wanting to die for about 25 years and she said she knew he wasn't gonna do it. She actually warned us to not talk to him, because more than suicidal, he just gone a bit mentally crazy. She told us Rodrigo had sent her a ton of messages and audios saying he was gonna kill everyone in his family including his mom and brother. After She told us this, we decided not to answer the phone if Rodrigo called. We decided to talk to the bishop instead. The bishop then told us even more about Rodrigo and told us this story. So basically Rodrigo was baptized in the end of January or early February of this year. After his baptism and conformation and stuff the bishop and secretary, Sergio, (Sergio is literally such a legend) went to put his name in the registry and oh boy. It turns out years and years ago, Rodrigo had already been baptized in our church. Not only that, but he'd already received the Aaronic priesthood and he just had lied I guess so he could get baptized again. It soon came apparent that Rodrigo is a bit mentally unstable. The bishop advised us to not take his calls, cause Rodrigo shouldn't be seeking help from 19 year old missionaries, but from professionals, and also to protect ourselves cause apparently he wants to kill a whole bunch of people. Sigh. It's quite a sad story. 

Anyway. Thursday. In the morning we decided to contact some random lady sweeping the sidewalk, in our colony where we live. We started to talk to her and she was extremely nice. She shares a lot of the same beliefs. Her only problem with the Church is that she lives in a house directly above our bishop and she claims that the bishop and his family aren't very nice and are super loud and have carne asadas on Sunday and the fumes from the grill flow up and get all over her laundry that's hanging out to dry. She was super nice and were gonna try to visit her this week, that whole problem with the bishop could be a little difficult. After all that, we had a lesson for video call with Alvaro. Alvaro is cool. As we were about to start the lesson with him, some investigator named Enrique or something came to the church unexpectedly for a lesson that we didn't know about, so my companion left to go talk to him and I stayed to talk to Alvaro. Alvaro is a very smart guy when it comes to the Bible. Luckily Alvaro agrees with what we teach (mostly) I taught him the plan of salvation and he said it made sense, then he wanted to know what temples were and I don't think he was 100% convinced about those, but we'll keep working with him. 

I'm starting to realize I've combined the events of Wednesday Thursday and Friday into one. So Saturday. We all know the big event of the week was conference. We watched the first session and if the first two talks didn't convince you to go on a mission, nothing will. After the session I was feeling motivated to work so I called up some guy we met from Facebook, named Marcos. Marcos was really cool, I talked to him for a while, and to me he seemed like a sincere guy with real desires to change and learn about Christ and attend our church. So I thought. We watched another good session of conference and at night we went out with Sergio. He's the secretary in the ward. He's 30 years old and he knows where a TON of inactive’s live. We visited a bunch and set up appointments. Then we found 150 pesos in the road so that was cool. 

Sunday morning we woke up to a sad audio message from Marcos from Facebook. It was just one minute of him saying he decided we can't help him with his problems and we really don't know anything about Jesus and he does cause his parents are christians. It made me sad and with questions. It made no since why's he say that. Conference was great again. It's crazy how when the prophet talks you literally just cling on to every word he says. We tried to work after. Without much results, but were hanging in there. Enrique and Miriam are close to baptism, or they would be but surprise they're not married, we taught the Word of Wisdom and they're willing to stop drinking coffee and stuff.so its just the waiting game. I probably have more to write but I'm out of strength writing this thing. Bye. 

Here's a random picture of me and my companion cause I literally had nothing else. Rest assured I have indeed gotten a haircut since then.