Transfer Week!

Hey y'all, hope you had a good week. We had a crazy one!
TRANSFER DAY:
   At 8:30 on Wednesday morning the Mills family came to our apartment to take us to transfers. It is a pretty good drive to Farragut from Kingsport and we got there at about 10:30.  Transfer day is always a good time to see friends that I’ve made out here, even some that are going home.  But after a while of talking Elder Donahoo and I loaded back up with the Mills to head back. They even took us to Cracker Barrel, which is always good.  On the way back there was a big accident on the freeway so we were in traffic forever, and we didn’t get back until about 5:00. 

Elder Roden and Elder Donahoo

   Then at about 6:30 I had set up a meal appointment with this guy named Bruce Miller, who is a non-member, but likes feeding missionaries!  It was one of the coolest nights of my mission.  He is not a member and is not interested in becoming one but he just really likes missionaries.   He owns over 100 acres nestled back in a more rural area, but he has an amazing house and property.  He also raises cow and he fed us steak from one of them and it was probably the best steak I’ve ever had.  In his basement he had one of the BB guns that Ralphie used from A Christmas Story ,haha, it was the one that he dropped on the porch.  And he also had the original telephone from The Andy Griffith show.  I’ll send some pics.  It was all authenticated and everything. But we had a really good time with him. 

Best steak ever with a view

The gun Ralphie shot his eye out with

Andy Griffith's phonw

WHAT'S NEW DONAHOO:
   Well I am very, very excited, to say the least, about this upcoming transfer.  I know Donahoo a little bit from my last district and we get along really, really well. We have already had a really good time working together.  He is from Montpelier Idaho and has been out for 20 months.  We are both on the same plan when it comes to missionary work. We are busting our butts so far but are also having a blast while doing it.

Newest version of the Kingsport District

LIGHTNING BUGS/AGGRESSIVE BIRD/HOLE:
   Well one night we were just sitting on our back porch and we could see some fireflies, so we wanted to catch some, haha.  While we were walking around I went up to this tree to shake out some of them hopefully.  Well I shook it and I just heard this loud flapping noise and SMACK! I got right-winged by a freakin’ bird, haha!  At first I had no idea what it was but I was just like "AH! Dude I swear that felt like a bird", and Donahoo was laughing super hard and just said, "Yeah it just flew off". Haha, it was funny! 
   We continued our hunt in this big field of tall grass next to our apartment complex, and Donahoo was chasing after one and I just heard him yell and he disappeared. Turns out he ran straight into a big hole! It was a funny night.

The Kitchen of Hope owns no manly aprons

KITCHEN OF HOPE:
  One day we were helping out serve at the Kitchen of hope, because the 2 Kingsport wards serve a meal once a month. After we were about done cleaning up, this woman came into the place with her 2 month old son and they were not in good shape.  They had been kicked out of her parents’ home and had just been floating around for a couple days.  She was absolutely frantic and it was so sad to see.  So some members took the baby to take care of it for a little bit and we tried to help the lady.  We offered a blessing to her and she accepted. So we took a chair outside, because we couldn’t "proselyte" in another church.  It was just an odd, loud setting…  Downtown area, hysterical woman, lawns being mowed, cars driving by.  But as soon as we put our hands on her head, all was still for a moment.  She stopped crying, and almost every word that I was thinking in my head, Elder Donahoo spoke right after. 
   After that she calmed down, and a member took her and her baby to her house to say. Such a tough situation and she needs all the prayers she can get.
MALAKAI/MATT:
   We got Malakai’s baptism all set up and ready to go on Wednesday.  He is super excited and we are too!  Also, we got some news that Matt Courtney is going to be baptized next month instead of this Saturday.  It’s mostly because his step son, Sister Courtney’s son Nick, will be gone for all of June. But we are super excited for him. 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"The most important of the Lord's work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own homes" -President Harold B. Lee- 

Thanks everyone for everything, have a good week! 

Power Ups

From May 14, 2018

POWER UP's:
On Tuesday after district meeting we got to go on power ups in our area with the Zone Leaders.  Power ups are when we go on splits with the ZL'S in one of our areas.  It’s usually in the Zl’s area but they came here.  I went with Elder Tanner from Kaysville, UT and he is a really cool guy and we get along really well. It’s always cool to get to know more missionaries.  We got a good full day of work in and just got some return appointments and also talked to this guy that went on an hour rant on how Christianity is evil and all that.  But he was a nice guy I guess.  We also got to teach Malakai and he is going to get baptized on the 30th of this month! I’m super happy for that kid. Then after that we went and got some dinner at The Purple Cow, a local burger place. It was a solid day. 

The Purple Cow

SERVICE:
We did a crap ton of service this week, but it was really fun.  On Thursday we went to help a member move a bunch of stuff for a fundraiser yard sale she was putting up, and there was so much stuff.  But I got to mow a big chunk of yard in the lot next to the member’s house so we could set it up, so I was happy about that. The next day we went back and helped the actual set up part of it. It was so hot and humid so it made for a long day but it was relieving to see the whole thing finally ready to go.  Then the next day was the actual yard sale and we went in the morning because they thought they would need help.  But I just ended up mowing the member’s lawn instead because there wasn’t a ton to do. 

Yard sale

Mowing...a favorite activity

At 2:00 we went to help out with another project for the Make-A-Wish foundation.  One of the ladies helping with the yard sale was in charge and needed some extra hands.  So we showed up and the kid it was for, a 5 year old named James, had just wished for a swing set in his backyard. That’s all he wanted. So we and 4-5 others who had never built one before got to work and finished at about 6:30. haha. But it was super cool to see the kid’s reaction when he saw it the first time, he was so excited. 

James' swingset

 MOTHERS DAY:
Yesterday was so awesome being able to talk to my family! I really enjoyed seeing everyone’s faces and hearing their voices.  Happy mother’s day to all the moms out there, but especially mine!! 

This time next week I will know what it happening on transfers, which is next Wednesday. This transfer has flown by! Thanks for all the love and support!

From May 21, 2018 

 

Found a turtle

What a crazy week! It flew by so fast but it was a solid week.

EXCHANGES (Back to back)-

  So on Monday after P-day, we started our exchanges.  I was in my area with Elder Harris from Monday night until Wednesday morning.  We had a really good time together. On Tuesday night we went to this pretty sketchy Chinese buffet. We were the only ones in the restaurant, haha, but we didn’t get sick, so that was a blessing. 
  Then on Wednesday morning we met up with some other elders and I took Elder Urry back to Rotherwood for another day. We get along really well and we have a lot of really good business ideas that we might pursue after the mission, haha.  But we worked together until Thursday morning when we all met back up for district meeting.

MATT COURTNEY-
   On Tuesday Elder Harris and I went over to the Courtney’s house to help Matt out in his yard.  He was being really nice and saying "if you guys don’t want to come you really don’t have to, I could probably get it done"... yeah, with the 3 of us it took like 4 hours! haha.  But it was a really good time to fellowship with Matt and also to get some manual labor hours in!  He also bought us Taco Bell so we were thankful.

The elders and Matt Courtney

INTERVIEWS-
  After district meeting on Thursday we had our interviews with President Pickett and also got to talk with Sister Pickett.  They are such great people to have leading our mission. During my interview with president he gave me some "transfer doctrine", haha. Transfer doctrine is when he tells you or hints at what might happen at transfers…  Which I will talk about in my next little paragraph...

Last week with Elder Nixon

TRANSFER CALLS-
   Well it was that time again on Saturday morning at 9:00.  We learned that Elder Nixon would be transferred to Dayton, and I will be staying here for at least another transfer with a new companion.  I will be working with Elder Donahoo from the Bear Lake area in Idaho.  He was also my district leader in my last area for a transfer and he is a really awesome guy so I’m really excited to be his companion.  But I’m happy to be able to stay here another transfer. It is a great ward and a really cool area. 

Sunday lunch with the Carter family

WHAT-
   Well we just got news also that Matt wants to be baptized on June 2nd!  So that should be a crazy week!

Thanks for all the love and support as always, hope y’all have a good week! 

Field of Dreams

Hello everyone,

We had another good week with some pretty cool things happening.  This time of year this area is so beautiful and it’s fun to be surrounded by it.  But dang is it humid! Haha! But here are some of the highlights this week.

MALAKAI: I think I talked about him 2 weeks ago, he is 13 and he has been wanting to be baptized but his Mom wasn’t really loving the idea. But on Sunday we heard from Sister Spencer, Malakai's grandma, and mom is now open to him getting baptized. It is not 100% sure yet but we are teaching him on Tuesday and we will know for sure.  But if it’s true, they want it soon so we will be finishing up teaching him everything, and hopefully on the 19th we can get him baptized.

MATT COURTNEY: Matt has been married to a member of the church for almost a year now. He has been taught pretty much everything, and has zero concerns, but has not wanted to be baptized yet.  But we feel like he's really close. He’s a super cool guy anyway. We went over on Sunday and set him up with a Family History account and hung out with them and it was pretty fun. 

The Elders with the Courtneys

KITCHEN OF HOPE: We went to the KOH for a full day of food service and it was super fun. We got there at about noon and started cooking and prepping. At about 3 the doors opened and we started serving.  It is open to anyone who needs a meal, mostly homeless people, so you get to meet a lot of interesting people.  I also got to wear a cool heart patterned apron so it was nice. 

Serving in their manly aprons

SHADES OF GRACE: We did service there again and went to their 4:00 service on Sunday. There is a guy that performs there about every week named Oscar Harris who has actually performed with some bands at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. But he sang some awesome songs and played an Auto Harp.  We actually got to play his afterwards and it is a really cool sounding instrument. 

Elder Roden and the auto harp

Other than that is was just another normal week of missionary life.  One night we were contacting people is this one area, and we are driving along this ridge line in the mountains and we saw a lit up baseball diamond nestled back in the trees. Field of dreams in real life! Haha! It is where the Kingsport Mets play, a minor league affiliate to the New York Mets. But that was a cool little find.  

Field of Dreams

 I hope everyone has a good week, thanks for all the support!

Elder Roden