Another week down in TN

   This week we were able to go back to the local food ministry to do service for a while and I love it there.  It is kind of funny because we are the only volunteers under 60 years old, but it is still super fun.  There is one lady named Kathy who we work very closely with and she is a born and raised Alabama farm girl and it still shows.  Seeing her genuine love and service for others is so amazing to me.  Every week before the people come in and get their food, she leads everyone off with a prayer over the intercom, and she is always, ALWAYS thanking the lord for EVERYTHING.  At first I was kind of like, "ok, we understand", but the more I am around that influence, what a testimony builder it is! No matter what denomination, there are always wonderful people that we can learn from, we just need to open our minds a little bit.  She is also a diehard Bama fan and is convinced she will get me to be one too... I'll have to think on that one.

     As for an update on investigators, which I realized I have not done a lot of, we have a pretty decent teaching pool now.  When I first got here there were 0 investigators, and 0 lessons planned, period.  So we are definitely improving the area.  The most exciting investigators right now are a married couple named Curt and Abi. We have started to meet with them about every Wednesday.  They are in their early 20's and have a 2 year old son named Ash.  They are just really cool people.  They were born and raised Baptist, which is a pretty common theme down here, but have some things that they don't really agree with that Baptists teach, so they really like what we have to say.  We 'softly' committed them to baptism, meaning they agree with everything and like it, but they just need some more time to read and pray about everything.  But besides them we have a pretty decent teaching pool right now which is good. We just need to keep growing it like we have been doing. 

     We are starting to see the members start to open up to us as well.  We are able to meet with them more often and help them with their needs as well as help them understand what they can do to help the work in this area.  So the member trust is going up which, in turn, is bringing in more opportunities to get referrals and teaching appointments with members, and us getting fed more often, which is always good.
    It's been another pretty normal week out here though, chuggin’ along here in TN!  A lot of interesting, but good people down here in the buckle of the Bible belt!
    Y'all have a blessed week! (They say blessed in place of 'good' a lot down here, it’s cool with me, though)

Elder Roden 

Fun facts of the week: Dollywood is only about a 10-15 minute drive from me, although I haven't seen it yet because it's back behind some hills. If you ever want to go mini golfing or Go-Kart racing, this is the place. There are so many places to do both of those. Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are huge tourist areas so there are a lot of cool things down in that area.