One week to Christmas!

Spanish studies (his comp is a Spanish elder)

Last Monday: P day was super nice to talk with friends and family. We just kinda hung out doing laundry then went to the church and played basketball for a while, pretty laid back.

Tuesday: Tuesday was a long day of a lot of grumpy people, haha. Not many people were fans of us today. But we worked our hardest to the end of the day.

Wednesday: Another pretty long day, but we did teach a lesson to a guy named Monty in Pigeon Forge, which has been lacking in this area. Then that night we went to Mutual and hung out there for a while. 

Christmas lights on Apt. 23 (on the right)

Thursday: Today we had district meeting in Maryville, which was really fun, and got to go on "exchanges" for like an hour at Wal-Mart so we could get our comps something for Christmas. I was with Heninger who's one of my really good friends from my MTC district.
We came back to Sevierville and taught a lesson we had set up (!), and then went to a member’s house for dinner and they have a Catholic son-in-law who we were also able to teach (!!). They are also just a really cool family so, hopefully, we can work with them a lot. Teaching opportunities are pretty sparse right now so that was awesome.

Friday: Today was another long day of finding (contacting inactives, tracting)

Nashville Temple!

Saturday: Saturday was a super cool day. We left the apt. at 5am then met at a member’s house at 5:30. Then we had a 4 hour drive to the Nashville Temple! We were able to do a lot of stuff in the temple but the coolest was witnessing the sealing of a couple in our ward, the Barraza's. So that pretty much took up our whole day because by the time we got back it was like 8:00. I got really lucky because missionaries rarely get to go to the temple, so that was awesome. Also, the Nashville Temple is tiny. It's right next to a ward building and the ward building is probably bigger. 

Elders Martin and Roden, Sisters Rodriguez and Spencer

Sunday: Today we went to church, ended up being selected to teach Gospel Doctrine while sitting in the class, and taught the primary the history of the Christmas tree when I honestly don't really know it, haha. Then we tried contacting people for awhile, then we had a dinner appointment in Gatlinburg. It was cool because it was the first time for me driving through the Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg. We ate with a cool family with the sisters. We and the sisters also sang a song for them and I played the guitar. The song was “Love is spoken here”. 

Elder Roden was happy to find out that guitars ARE allowed in the TKM

What every missionary needs...

This week was pretty good! I got a cheap guitar from a pawn shop and a sweet UT (University of Tennessee) moonshine bottle from Walmart so that was a blessing! Some days are a lot better than others but that's all part of it. Southerners are tough, but us Utah boys ain't too bad either.

Elder D. Roden