Elder Roden's Tennessee Knoxville Mission: Obedience

The theme of this week:

Mathew 5:10 "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I had been thinking a lot for the last couple of weeks about the "persecution" we get sometimes as missionaries. Mostly because it was a weird week and it happened a lot more than usual, haha.

We were taking a day where we just walked everywhere, and it seemed like all day long cars were honking at us and having a competition to see whose middle finger was the longest, and seeing how loud their voices were, and using vibrant language so we could tell they wanted us to hear their golden pipes. This continued through the week, wherever we went. All week long, working all day long, we didn't have a lick of luck.

We also got caught in a couple massive rainstorms, one while we were a few miles away from out car. Soaked to the bone!

Then on Saturday we had used up a lot of miles, so we had to leave the car parked at the apartment for the day. That morning while we were planning, we were getting really frustrated and we weren't sure what we should be doing, nothing felt right. Then I just had one name pop into my head, Tyler Rowe. He is an inactive member that we had tried to see before, but we didn't think it would be a good use of time because he lived about eight miles away, and it was super hot and sunny, and there were not a lot of houses or people around him that we could see or try to find people, and missionaries hadn't seen him in over 2 years. But we decided to just go for it. After a couple hours of walking across town and up a canyon, we finally got to his house and were greeted very warmly and had an awesome talk with him for a while. He mentioned he is wanting to come back to church, and now he might be able to if he gets a job he is interviewing for on Tuesday. By the time we were done, and by the time we had gotten back to town and eaten dinner it was already time to return to the apartment. So the whole walk back, I was just thinking, we did see him which was great, but that seems like a long day to just talk to one individual. I wasn't exactly sure we had used our time wisely. But along the way multiple people stopped to give us water, and multiple people stopped to offer us rides, even if we couldn't accept them. Tyler even drove by us and offered to give us a ride, and without even thinking I said no thanks. Right after that I was wondering what the heck I was doing. But something just told me "you are supposed to be walking today."

After we got back into town we stopped at a Burger King about a mile from our apartment and ate. We then started to walk home. We were about 300 yards from our apartment walking in front of a tiny little gas station, when some bright headlights shine directly at us and here comes a big red pickup truck pulling us over to talk to us. At first we thought, oh boy here we go. But then we came to know two individuals named Keith and Shannon. They told us that they had seen us walking on an over pass above the highway earlier that day, and they wished they could have stopped and talked to us, but they were too busy. We wouldn’t have been there had we not listened to the spirit, to see Tyler. We immediately got into a gospel discussion about us as missionaries, Church organization, and other things. The questions he was asking brought up each and every point of the message of the restoration. They both agreed wholeheartedly and absolutely loved the idea of the Book of Mormon. That was the absolute best lesson I have ever taught as a missionary, because of the spirit. We were also texting Shannon yesterday, and she went home and told her friends in her apartment building all about it, and she’s bringing one on Wednesday when we meet with them again.

We needed to walk 17 miles in the sun that day, just so we could enjoy that last 300 yards. We needed to turn down air conditioned car rides with sweat dripping off our chins, just for that moment. There is literal power in obedience.

Sometimes I don't like to be here, but I love it always. I have been blessed to be "persecuted for righteous sake." Cussed out, flipped off, spat at, whatever it is. Elder Bluth, one of the AP's said something at Zone Conference on Thursday. "When you wake up at 6:30 every morning, that's starting off with a big right hook to Satan's mouth." That is 100% true!

I'm grateful to be serving a mission, it's been a year since I opened up that call letter, the best news I've ever gotten. I have learned something very precious to me out here, and it's simple: the Gospel simply works. It doesn't fail, if you try.

God bless,

Elder Roden