2015-11-14 Re: How's Life?

I don't have much to say, I don't know if I'll make a group email this week, but here are a couple of pictures for you that I got from Elder Lind's camera (he came down this week for his visa) from our time in Tuxtepec. He had his camera that day and I didn't. We found these suckers when we were helping a less-active member move some stuff and chop some other stuff behind his house. There were three in total. The one on the right was around the size of my hand :)

This one was the smallest, but he was funny, because he would literally jump around.

Here's Alejandro, one of our converts from Tuxtepec, and some neighborhood puppies their neighbors were giving away. They kept the one on the far right, if I remember correctly.

Love you all, lots!

Élder Rob Weatherford

2015-11-07 Another Day in "The Office"

So, this week has been extremely busy, but with very little proselyting time. Mission-wide leadership conference to prepare for, meeting the new temple president & Co. (his counselor, their wives) to do their green cards, zone conferences, renewing green cards of other missionaries, and a lot of other stuff, some of it unpleasant. And right now I don't have much time, so I thought I would send some photos that pretty much explain themselves, from a long-overdue photo shoot we did the last night we had Elder Espinoza (featuring Elder Espinoza, me, and my companion Elder Gamboa) here, before he was sent out to a new area to finish his last three weeks in the mission field. 

So we have a new assistant, Elder Hackleman from Nebraska. Pictures of him probably to follow next week. Enjoy...

Élder Rob Weatherford

P.S. Ponderizing scripture for this past week was 2 Corinthians 9:7:

"Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver."

2015-10-24 Re: Hello, Beto!

Here's a little Q and A with Rob:

Mom: (Kathy) How’s the office? What do you get to do in the way of teaching?  Do you like your new roomies?  Do you get any more musical opportunities here?  Think you will?

Rob:  The office is good... it's kind of sporadic, periods of hectic activity followed by periods of not much activity... sometimes it's a struggle, honestly, but it's helping me to really "try my testimony," or rather to stay obedient and focused when it would be so easy to lose that focus. So actually, I'm grateful for the opportunity, because I feel like it's helping me to fortify my character. As for teaching, we're in the process of that. Neither I nor my companion really know the area, and there wasn't anybody here (in terms of investigators) when I arrived, so the work's honestly going pretty slow. So we're focusing more on less-active members, with the hope that we can find people to teach through reactivation and retention efforts. And honestly, I still feel good about helping members reactivate--it's just as important as baptism, if not more important. And, of course, we contact in the street, but at times you really have to make yourself because often it's super unfruitful in the port, especially in these areas. But that shouldn't matter :) President Córdova told me once that there are two things that are the most important in our daily work: talking with everybody and finding the Lord's chosen/prepared people. Even if we're not succeeding with the second, it doesn't matter if we're doing the first. And, if we're doing the first, we're more likely to succeed with the second. In fact, what you told me in that email, the one where you mentioned about when Elder Morrill came back to your house, stuck in my mind. I've been trying to pay even more attention to the small things, even just the impression I give off.

Roomies--yeah, they're good guys. We all get along really well, but it's a shame because Elder Espinoza finishes his mission this transfer. But the rest of us'll probably be together for another five months. As for music, they've started asking me to play occasionally on Sundays, which is always nice. And there's a keyboard in the offices, so on P-day or down-time when I have to be in the offices I can practice a little. It's great!

Love you lots, hope everything's going well. Tell everybody I love them!

Élder Rob Weatherford