Sister Rodriguez Mission Adventures in New Caledonia

yes my package came yesterday!! perfect timing in fact!  Anyway all is well here, normal missionary work, not much to report on this week. Bermos and Linda i think are going to have to wait to go to vanuatu to get married, we tried getting all their paperwork and everything together so that they could get married here but with having to translate a lot of stuff (because their papers were in english and would have to be in french) and what not it became a little too complicated and we wouldnt have enough time, so i think they are going to go back to vanuatu and get married over there and then have Bermos's baptism over there as well. Veronica is doing good, we had to reschedule our lesson for this week, but we are praying that she willl be coming to church this sunday anyway.  Something ive learned in the mission is just how to love everyone, how to accept peoples imperfections and not let their weaknesses get in the way of seeing the good in people, and seeing their di...

elloooooo bonjourrrrr saluuuut  hows it going? all is well here in new cal, workin away in same old koutio! things are going well though, i feel like i dont really have much to report. We did see Bermos this week, and hes doing great! And guess what my dream when i was younger of being a wedding planner, its come true!!! haha we are in the middle of helping Bermos and Linda get married! I dont think it will be quite as exciting as the TLC wedding planning shows pretty sure itll just be a civil marriage so our job is just to help them get the papers together but still! anyway we shall see how it goes over but wish us luck!  other than that all is well, we had a lesson with veronica yesterday that was awesome, she is this really sweet mami (grandma) from wallis, she dosent speak great french so we have been having a member who speaks wallesian come and translate for us during the lesson so that she can understand better, and she is starting to progress! love her...

okay this week has been pretty normal. We got transfers and i am staying in the same area (excpet it got cut down a little bit) and with the same companion, so nothing too exciting there. cyclone, was about ten minutes of rain and then i think it might have rained a bit that night, so also nothing too exciting there haha. but probably good, because that means every one is safe! the weekend was good though, not much to report on actually, i feel like not much has happened...hmmm oh! we did have a lesson with bernadette, an investigator who is about to go to lifou to get baptised with her family there, and we had a lesson about preservering, where you have "maizena" you add water and its like putty, when you squeeze it it becomes hard but as you release it starts to melt again so you have to continue to squeeze it and squeeze it and swueeze it for it to become like a rock, and she loved it! she pretty much taught us the lesson, saying how she has to continue to preserv...

this weekend we had a mission tour where an area of the 70 came and had a zone conference with our zone. The conference was really really good and Elder Cardon and his wife were very sweet and inspiring. Learned a lot about how i can improve in missionary work and just overall in life. During the conference Elder Cardon had had interviews with some of the missionaries in new cal and i was one of them that was asked to have an interview with him. First question he asked was, "tell me about your family" and as you guys know that can take a while, but explained literally everythingggg, at first i gave just a general overview but then he asked for all the details asked which kids were from who, who was sealed to who, what number in the line up i was, who had served missions, who were converts. He seemed genuinely interested and afterward ensured me of the blessing i have from being born into the abrahamic covenant and how this covenant would bless my family. then he asked ...

This week i got the letters from the ward! so sweet!  Bermos is still  doing good, they live kind of in the woods and its been raining lately making the roads kind of sketchy for us to take our car on, so we havent been able to see him, we are hoping later today though. But yah its been RAINING!! i love it! i forgot how happy the rain makes me :) the sun had been stressing me out! As for Bernadette she is doing great! and a plus her sister, who isnt a member has seen how bernadette has stopped smoking and now wants to meet with us so we can help her stop smoking as well, so now we are teaching her sister too! This week was good! we had an exchange on monday, i was with Soeur Tuaone for the day and she is awesome, shes part tongan part samoan but she grew up in texas, and she went to byu hawaii for a year! we had a lot in common so we had a lot to talk about. We did contacting for like the entire day but it was so fun, we sang songs for people with the uke, we did some...

On Sunday we had lunch with the Sun family and with a new investigator Bermos! i think i told you about him last week, he is awesome! He really just wants to get baptised so hes willing to do anything to get baptised, he isnt married yet so Linda and Bermos are working on that but other than that they are doing great. This week has been good! Soeur Chung Tien and i have been working hard and praying and fasting a lot for our area, and we have already seen the blessings. Saturday we saw an ami who we invited to church, she said not this sunday but maybe the next, but then sunday morning comes around and she had changed her mind and decided to come to church with us! Also another ami, Bernadette has been working on getting baptised for a while now but hasnt been able to stop smoking, sunday she told us that she hasnt smoked for the last 5 days (and thats the first time she has ever gone that long without smoking) we are stocked for her and continue to pray for her everyday! We have l...

this week! things have been going so fast! This weekend was rough missionary work wise cause you know everyone is celebrating or partyin or you know are drunk haha but it was good! new years eve we stayed in the house but a member brought us dinner, we had mussles and oysters and caviar and all sorts of yummy food oh and buche, a french cake that is in the shape of a log. I am pretty sure its the same kind of cake that aunt sandrine would make for chirstmas. but yah so you know like normal missionary days we went to bed around 9:30, all was well until exactly at 12:00 tons and tons of fireworks went off all around our house, Soeur Chung Tien was the first one to shoot out of bed, and say "bonne annee" or happy new year. then we watched the fireworks for a couple minutes and then went back to bed. But HAPPY NEW YEAR! its hard to believe its actually 2018! new story, we have a new investigator that we found at the chapel! we were going to the chapel for a funeral of someone i...

A note from Etinne Sun, a member who had us in their home for dinner multiple times: Th ose two sisters were our guests at home for dinner and my wife and I were happy to them at home where we prepared some  « escargots » as special meal for them...  We’ve been honored to have them at home as sister Rodriguez’s comp is my niece !   It’s always a pleasure for my wife and I to have the missionaries at home as our kids, for they always bring the light of the world in our home.  My niece sister Chung Tien is very fortunate to have your daughter as her companion in this great work they are serving together ! Happy New Year to you and your family too ! With love, Jane & Étienne Sun

these photos were from sining hymns with some of the members  christmas eve! then there was that giant green bug we found at the  chapel its literally like a grasshopper the size of my hand! and then  the other picture, in the sink we found a GIANT centepede that are  apparently really dangerous, it was just sitting in our kitchen sink  one day and soeur chung tien and i like flipped out because it was  huge, and fast, and really creepy. but we killed it by filling the  sink with water and pouring some bleach on it, then once it was  knocked out we cut the head off put the head in one trash can and the body in another. apparently its possible for the body to find its head  again and come back to life or something so thats why we put them in  dffernet trash cans! but yah i guess santa sent us some cool bugs as  christmas presents this year!  soeur rodriguez ps oh you should google letchi (i think thats how you sp...

hello!!  all is well, secteur is good, companion is good, new cal is good. can not wait for christmas!! and to talk to you guys i am stocked! I also cannot wait for this weekend, we have a family that is getting baptised, we are super excited, the family Manupuava, its a dad, mom and their 11 year old daughter, their other daughter is only 3 years old, but we are so excited for them and they really are ready to be baptised, we are stocked for this weekend.  christmas we will spend the evening together as missionaires at the chapel, eat, have some activities, do a gift exchange and what not. And for the morning we are going to ELCAIREZLEMONDE or the light the world thing that the church has been showing. we are going to sing christmas songs, probably make cookies, and hopefully some other creative things that we have yet to think of haha. I dont know if people are actually more receptive now, or maybe its just a little bit less awkward for us to go out and talk to peop...

well transfer time happened again! yes i am back in my old sector, except now its bigger! we have both rivieree salee and koutio and lots of people we are teaching right now so i am super excited! My companion is soeur cheng tien, she is from tahiti and she got here the transfer before me, so we will actually end up going home at the same time next year. She is really nice though, we only just got transferred yesterday so i dont actually know much about her yet but hopefully ill have more to say next week! things change pretty often in the mission, makes time go by pretty fast. speaking of time, cant believe it is almost christmas!! cant wait for the christmas skype, i will be skyping at 8:45am the 26th of december, eeeeee cant wait. For christmas i believe we are spending the day all together as misisonaires, not really sure yet, we find out tomorrow.  oh by the way, back as STL, fun stuff. annnnnd we have 5 new sisters that are coming in next wednesday!! yesterday, ...