Sevierville, TN

Friends and Family,

Tuesday: we woke up at 4am and had to be at the bus by 4:50. Then we took frontrunner and Trax to the airport. From there we flew to ATL, then a 2 hour layover, and then on to Knoxville. We landed and met President and Sister Pickett and the AP's- all amazing people. We then went to dinner at the mission home and got to call home. After that we slept at a hotel a few miles away for the night.

MTC District

Tall guy problems on the airplane

Wednesday: We woke up and went to the mission office to fill out some paperwork, then went to the Stake center for transfers. I was assigned to the Sevierville (Severe-Vull) area to be trained by Elder Martin from Highland, UT. We cover Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, Seymore, and Kodak, and the sisters cover the rest of the area down by Gatlinburg. Martin is actually a Spanish speaking elder, and so was the guy I replaced. So there is a chance that I'll need to learn Espanol. We then got taken to our area by the ward mission leader, Bro. Thedy, who has long gray hair and no teeth, but he seems really great. We also met a ward missionary named Mama Sauce, haha.  We live in a pretty old apartment surrounded by trailer parks, which is interesting. That night we did a little Spanish tracting (so I did nothing but smile) then met some of the ward at mutual. I met a guy named Brother Minton who actually served with my Dad in LA for a bit so that was really cool. Then we just went grocery shopping then back home. 

Elder Roden's corner of the room

Tennessee "snowstorm"

Thursday: Woke up, workout, study, then went to District meeting, which was fun. We then tried contacting a lot of people and tracting with little success. Just struck up a few conversations which sometimes is all you can ask for. It's very diverse here, like today we knocked all day on multi-million dollar homes, trailers out in the boonies, and the projects. That night we had a couple sketchy guys out in the boonies with KKK flags, and they came out with shotguns when we parked, and they didn’t portray that they wanted to hear about the Light the World program, so we decided to change locations, haha. We then went to a dinner apt. that ended up being, like, 25 people in a house built for 2, so it was a bit awkward, but fun. The Sevierville area missionaries are me, Martin, Sis Rodriguez and Sis Spencer.

Not sure what's happening here...but it was at the MTC

Friday: Today we were able to contact some more people and found a new investigator and taught him the restoration. Other than that, it was just another average day of trying to contact and doing some tracting. 

Elder Roden and Elder Haynes trading coats

Saturday: Today was crazy, just running around and things kept falling through. We first wanted to go to the Pigeon forge Christmas parade go street contact, but turns out they didn't have one I guess. Then we tried to go to a flea market that is regular for us to go set up a table there.  But it had been snowing and everything goes haywire when it snows in the south, so nobody came. Then we tried to go to another parade in Seymore and just didn't plan our time right, so we drove out and literally came right back. Then at 2:30 Bro. Thedy picked us up to take us to stake conference in Knoxville, which is a little over an hour away. We then attended priesthood and the general adult sessions. We didn't get back home until about 10:45 

Sunday: Stake conference was really good. We heard from Elder Beheshti of the seventy.  There was a nonmember that just showed up out of nowhere because he had gotten a pass along card. His name is Cowboy Tim. We were able to talk with him a little while and are planning to meet with him this week. And he is wanting to start coming to church, so that was cool. We also attended a Baptist service so, HALLELUJAH! 

Elder Roden's new glasses, engraved with our family missionary motto: Stay there

It's been going good so far! The work here is very tough, not a lot of people get inside doors. In the last 2 years all the baptisms have come through the members, so that's where I think we will work the hardest. We do get a lot of bashers coming after us, but we are taught not to bash back, which is good. But I've been given some stuff to study so, if I need to, I can handle myself. But we will just keep working! Also, sorry this was a novel.

Elder Roden