Transfers

Hello everyone, I hope all is well.  I am very excited to get a new companion, Elder Sessions, on Wednesday.  I have never met him but I have heard good things about him.  I will probably have more time to write next week. Thanks for all the support.

Elder Roden

Strange Week

This week was a pretty strange week. Last week I forgot to mention that a 19 year old girl in the ward had passed away due to a rare form of cancer.  The family was trying to get her to Houston to see a very prestigious doctor, and their flight left on Thursday, but she had fallen in her house and couldn't get up. She was just literally dead weight because she had no strength. So a member of the ward picked us up and we went over to try and get her into their car.  But we could only lift her back into a chair in their house because she was not a small girl.  So eventually the fire department had to come with a special chair to help get her out of the house and into the car, which they did successfully, and the family was off to the airport. That night we got the news that they had to call an ambulance from the airport to get her to UT hospital, where she passed away the next day. It was such a sad situation. 

   This last Wednesday was the funeral, which I wasn't able to attend because I was on exchanges with the District leader in Maryville, but I was told it was very well attended. That same day, a man named Brother Sheets heart had stopped and he had to get an ambulance to the local hospital. He was put on a ventilator and had not been doing very well. Brother Sheets was the Bishop about a year or so ago, and then he was diagnosed with cancer. In the last year he has gone from about 230 pounds to about 140 pounds. He is still a powerhouse missionary, even through his sickness and old age, and he has made such a big impact on this ward and this community.  It’s just another sad situation. 

   This week was just another tough week for missionary work. We had been working so hard to get the area moving again, and then all of a sudden the last 2 weeks have come to a screeching halt.  But that's how it goes sometimes I guess. The biggest thing that my mission President told me in our interviews last week was to always be able to leave an area better than it was when I came in.  It has been really tough, especially the last couple weeks.  But the area has definitely improved. Sevierville is going to explode one of these days! It will just take some time.  I'm just here helping pave the street so that can happen.

Valentine's party

   On a better note, on Saturday night we had a really fun ward Valentine's party, so that was cool.  We had a good amount of investigators there as well. Also, transfers are coming up on the 28th so I'm really excited for that!

Well sorry there was nothing too exciting to report on, but we are pounding the pavement.

Elder Roden

Another week bites the dust.

 

Tennessee sunset

  This was a really odd week honestly.  It was one of those really dry weeks (even though it rained the whole time).  We had at least one or two appointments fall through last minute every day, mostly due to illness.  And we were planning on having 5 investigators at church this week, which for this area it is really tough to get any, and they all couldn’t make it.  So it was a pretty long week of "well, shoot".  Haha, but there are still lessons to be learned nonetheless.  And we have been able to get some inactive families starting to come back, so that’s good.

   It has been raining like crazy, but it’s also like 60 degrees, Holy Humidity.  Haha, it’s pretty nasty.

The Pigeon River flooding from all the rain

   We were able to pick up a few new investigators, one of them is named Maricela, a Spanish speaking single mother.  We taught her La Restauracion del Evangelio de Jesu Christo (I know very little Spanish so I use it as much as possible… haha), and she really loved it!  I couldn’t understand a lot of her words, but I could feel of her desire to know more. The spirit is real!  I was able to understand almost all that she was saying, but not a single word.  Right there on her front porch in the Smoky Mountains.

Tracting...

   We were also teaching a member family from West Virginia, and turns out he used to be a root digger! He used to dig for Ginseng and he still has a big bag of it.  There is a TV show about digging for Ginseng and I think it is called "Appalachian Outlaws" or something, but one of his friends is actually on that show!  West Virginians are pretty wild!  Another guy in our ward from WV invites us over sometimes to ride his Pigs!  He said he even has one for me to ride, it is over 800 pounds, haha!  We will have to go sometime.

   Also, one other distinction I have learned since being down here, don't call southerners “Rednecks”. They make it very clear that they are to be called Hillbilly's.  Haha! They say Rednecks are from West Virginia, Florida, and out west. 

  Well I’m sorry there wasn’t too much to report on this week, just one of those weeks.  I love getting out and being able to work all day, it’s a privilege!  Even if the reward isn’t seen right away! Thanks everyone for their love and support and prayers!

Elder Roden

Birthday week!

 This week was a pretty good week for us here in Sevier County, even though we ran out of our monthly allotted miles for our car and we have been walking everywhere! Haha. But it was a good week nonetheless.

Just walking...

   Just a little investigator update, Kurtis and Abigail, who I mentioned last week, have been making pretty good progress.  Last week we invited Kurtis to read Alma 32 and he did, and he said it was all new to him but it felt super familiar.  He now knows for himself that the Book of Mormon is true, which is huge.  I was also talking to him about prophets and I said, "One question we get a lot is 'how can you believe there is actually a prophet and apostles?" and Kurtis literally cut me off and said, "well how can you not?! It makes so much more sense!". So we are really excited about his progress.  Abigail is a little more reserved and I can tell she has some concerns she isn’t sharing with us, but hopefully Kurtis will be able to help with that because he is ready to hit the water- he just doesn’t know it yet.

The Smoky Mountains

   So a couple weeks ago the ward High Priest group leader just brought his neighbors to church.  So they have been coming to church the last few weeks and we have been talking to them a lot.  Last Sunday they invited us to their house to teach them and they even fed us, so that was really nice.  Jeremy, the dad, is a nonmember and Amy, the mom, grew up in the church but left for a while and just barely started coming back.  They also have two young kids.  So we went over and taught the restoration and he committed to being baptized if he found the Book of Mormon was true.  He really likes the church and everything he has learned so far so we are really excited about him, too.

Still walking...

   On Thursday we had our zone conference in Ootlewah, which is down by Chattanooga.  We left our apartment at 5:30 to pick up some biking elders that live in Knox, then headed to the Ootlewah building and got there right around 9, when ZC started.  We had a super solid day of training.  It is always good when you leave amped up and ready to go.  We also found out that all instruments must be sent home.  Honestly, when I first heard it I was really bummed out about it.  But I know there is a reason for it so I will trust President Pickett. I know it is inspired.  

Elder Roden's nickname has always been Buddy, so he had to eat here.

   Friday was  super awesome mostly because of all the messages and emails I got regarding my birthday.  So THANK YOU everyone, it was so awesome.  That night at about 6:30, we were driving away from a member’s house where we had been helping them move, and a guy named Brother Minton (who was a companion of my dad’s on their mission in LA) calls us and invites us to a Birthday dinner at a Hibachi grill.  They even gave me a couple ties and they were texting my family while we were at dinner and then I got to see a short awkward video of my family so that was cool. haha.  They told the restaurant it was my birthday, which my family knows I hate.  So we were eating then, all of a sudden, all the lights in the restaurant shut off and the cooks stop and turn around and I went "oh boy" in my mind.  But it was good. ALSO shout out to Grandma and Grandpa Treseder for sending Texas Roadhouse gift cards, we went on Saturday night! haha. We ate like kings this weekend! 

 

Birthday dinner with the Mintons...they take such good care of these elders

  I would also like to take a minute to send my heart out to the Frischknecht family.  I was one of the many who were fortunate enough to know Mac.  He was my Home Teacher, School Teacher, Bishop, and good friend.  He always knew how to make everyone around him smile, it was a gift.  The last few years I had truly felt like he was a good friend of mine, and we had been able to bond because of his kindness.  He had that effect on everybody, and his smile was, in a literal sense, contagious.  I absolutely love that man, a man of God.  When I heard of his condition I was shocked, and then when I heard of his passing I was heartbroken.  But, I know he is on the other side.  He is now working for the Lord, "flashing radicals" and living true to his blood type, B Positive.

Flashing radicals for Bishop Frischknecht 💗

   I love this gospel, it is so real.  If you reach out to the Savior, in all portions of your life, he will reach back.
Elder Roden