Transfer Calls

TRANSFER CALLS:

Probably the highlight of this week was Saturday morning at 9 when we had our transfer calls.  This was a HUGE transfer as only about 5 companionships in the mission were not changed.  We found out that I would be leaving Rogersville to go serve in the Brainerd Ward, which is down in the Chattanooga area.  I think the most exciting part about it is that I’m sharing the ward with another set of elders, and one of them just happens to be Elder Haynes, who was my best friend from the MTC!  I can’t wait to be able to serve down there.  Also, my new area is actually in Georgia, so I will have served in 3 of the 5 states in the mission so far (TN, VA, and GA). Now I just have Kentucky and North Carolina to go.  

P Day ping pong

I will also be finishing training a new missionary, Elder Jeppeson. Training consists of the first 2 transfers, so this is his 2nd one.  Haynes is actually going to be training a new missionary as well, so it should be a fun ward! I’ve heard nothing but great things about the district so far, so I’m excited to come join and help lead these great missionaries. 

WOOD SPLITTER:

One morning we headed to the house of a member, who is slowly moving from Florida, to help out with service.  He owns 125 acres of forest and has a beautiful cabin home.  We did something I had never done before, which was assemble a Hydraulic wood splitter. This thing was huge! It weighed about 1000 pounds and I think he said it ran off of a 270cc engine, haha. It took a while, but we finally got it all set up. I don’t know if i took any pictures or not but if I did I’ll send them. 

Elder Roden's surprise visit from the Courtneys in the church parking lot

COURTNEYS:

My companion from 3 transfers ago, Elder Donahoo, is going home this transfer and he is just about 45 minutes west of Rogersville, which is about 25 minutes west of Kingsport.  So the Courtney family from the Rotherwood ward in Kingsport went to go say goodbye to him at church today, and then on the way back they surprised me at church because they heard I was leaving to go to the Chatt area.  If you don’t remember, they are an amazing family that I got to be really close with.  Matt was the one that I just barely got transferred out before his baptism, haha. But they are doing so well and I was glad I could see them again! 

Elders Roden and Donahoo with Sister Courtney

Not a whole lot else to report on that I can remember. I’m excited to get down to Georgia! 

Elder Roden 

Fastest Week Ever

This was the fastest week of all time, and I will try my best to remember stuff that happened. 

ZONE CONFERENCE:

The highlight of the week was definitely Zone Conference.  Thursday morning we left the apartment at 6:00 to pick up the Greeneville Elders and drive down to Asheville, NC.  It was cool to see some missionaries I hadn't seen in a while.  The actually conference was the best one of my mission so far!  It was super spiritually packed with a lot of great people.  After zone conferences, all of the district leaders from both zones have a meeting with the AP's and President Pickett.  It is usually good but this one was especially powerful. It was a great motivator to be able to discuss things we are doing well, but more importantly what we can be doing better. 

Meeting up with Elder Sessions at ZC

After everything was wrapped up, we headed back to Greeneville to drop the other Elders off.  Before we left, they wanted to introduce me to one of the people they are teaching, so we went and talked with him for a bit, then decided to go and get some McDonald's for dinner because we were starving.  I ordered first (I was more hungry), and after I was done the manager just said "alright it'll be right out" without having me pay. And she did the same thing for all 4 of us!  Needless to say we were very grateful. 

CAR SHOW:

On Friday night the town closed off downtown Main Street for a car show so we went to check it out.  We walked around for a little while trying to talk to as many people as we could. We didn't see a whole lot of success but we did get a lot of "what are those Mormon boys doing at the car show" looks, haha. It's always good to be planting seeds while showing people we are human too. 

A familiar truck at the car show

HURRICANE FLORENCE:

So there has been a ton of chatter about the hurricane hitting the Carolinas!  There are a lot evacuated people staying in the areas very near here, including my last area.  It is super sad. Luckily, all it should be for us is some big rain storms. It's kinda weird to see the clouds coming in from the east coast when usually it's the opposite, so it should be a good storm. 

CRAZY GUY AT CHURCH:

About 45 minutes into sacrament meeting yesterday, this guy just walked right in and sat dead center in the first row. Pretty cool right, that never happens... haha. Well after sacrament was over we were in the back talking to another guy when Sister Anderson and her daughter, Franky, basically dropped him off to us and ditched us saying "we think he could use a Book of Mormon or something" haha.  We took him into the relief society room and he told us ALL about his beliefs, and there were some fun ones.  He said he just goes around to these different churches because he talks to Mohammed and he tells him to.  He is a big believer in the Boogeyman, we talked about that for a while, haha. I just eventually started walking outside towards our car (in the pouring rain) and all the while he is just going off, we were just trying to humor him, haha. And once we got close to the car he finally said he was gonna take off. 

It was so funny, Elder Farley, who is the most kind, patient, quiet, proper human on the planet was just getting tired this guy’s rambling and when the guy was like, "Did you know, Jesus killed?" 

Farley, "That’s so dumb, no he did Not"

Guy, "It says in the bible!"

Farley, "No it doesn’t"

Haha, I had a good laugh. We went back inside and Sister Anderson was like "Heyyy… sorry I didn’t know what to do" but we were just like, “ yeah you did the right thing”.  Then we were walking down the hall and President Stockinger (Branch pres.) was like, "Jeez that was scary, I was coming over then I heard some of the things he was saying then I thought “nah they got it". It was a pretty funny experience. 

That’s one more week down in the TKM.  I hit month #10 on Saturday, I think, so that was cool. We have transfer calls this upcoming Saturday so we will find out what if any changes will be made! 

Elder Roden

Exchanges!

Well we had a crazy week of exchanges here!

Monday we were down in Greeneville for p-day and we just kinda hung out.  That night we stayed down there to help them out with running a YSA activity which was pretty fun.  Then that night we stayed the night in the Greeneville elders’ apartment.

TUESDAY:

Tuesday I took Elder Petersen back up to Rogersville to work for the day. He is from Mesa, Arizona and is a really cool guy. He has been out about 19 months. So we had a good time working together.

WEDNESDAY:

Wednesday morning we left and met the other elders about halfway between Rogersville and Greeneville to swap again.  This time I took Elder Holmstead up to Rogersville.  He is from Lehi Utah and we had a good time together.  We dropped his stuff of at the apartment and set out for the day, only to realize I had locked the car and apartment keys inside.  After trying to use a credit card to slide the lock for a while, we went around back and found the little kitchen window above the sink was unlocked.  So I took Holmstead under the arms and he walked up the wall with me holding him up,  and he slid right in, haha!  I also got a surprise package from my grandma and grandpa Treseder, so that was sweet. Then later that night we drove back down to Greeneville to stay the night.

THURSDAY:

Thursday morning me and Elder Farley got ready and set off to Johnson City to go on exchanges with the zone leaders.  I went with Elder Morris, who I really get along with, so it was fun. We got to teach some really awesome lessons that day.  We also went out to eat lunch with the other JC elders and one of them is Elder Sessions (former comp). I absolutely love that guy so it was awesome to see him, too.  That night we had dinner with some really cool members, and went back to the elders’ apartment to stay the night. 

FRIDAY:

Friday, me and Elder Farley were finally companions again, haha. We got ready and left Johnson City to go back to Greeneville for district meeting. The spirit was STRONG in that meeting.  For my training I read a story,  about 15 minutes long.  The story put everyone in the place of Jesus Christ, and went into incredible detail about all he did for us, and what it would be like.  I handed everyone a picture of Christ, and they all were able to ponder the picture while listening.  By the end we all had tears in our eyes,  and we felt that much closer to our savior. It was a great meeting. After that we were finally able to get back to normal and me and Elder Farley headed back to Rogersville.

Those were the highlights of the week, thanks for all the support

Labor Day

FACEBOOK:

One cool thing that we have started to be more proactive at and experimenting in is using Facebook in missionary work. We have already been able to see it work through contacting people we are teaching and also members. We are able to share scriptures, videos, and a bunch more through Facebook messenger. I also just posted a little video of a story that I had on there, just to try it out. It is really cool to see how the Lord has blessed us all with incredible technology; the test is how do we want to use it?

Tennessee...

9 CANCELATIONS:

It was just one of those weeks where we had 9 appointments set up for teaching, service, and meals that all fell through.  It was crazy.  There’s always next week!

BAD MEXICAN:

We were able to go out to eat at a really good Mexican restaurant with a really cool family, Shannon Willis and her 2 kids.  It was a really fun time we had with them. Her son Zachary is 12 years old and plays basketball, and so within the next couple weeks we are going to set up a time for Shannon's family and also the Houston family, who have a son that plays basketball as well, to go to the park and have a meal/basketball/lesson night.

The bad part about that experience was that all day I hadn't been feeling super hot anyways. But something about that fajita really got to me. By the time we got in the car and started to drive out of the parking lot I had to have Elder Farley take over driving and take us home. It was a ROUGH night, needless to say.

LAST PDAY:

Last pay day we had a pretty fun time setting up a mini golf course throughout the church, and also playing capture the flag with Nerf guns, haha. 

P Day mini golf

Rough studies?

Sorry, unfortunately there's not a ton of good missionary stuff to report on, considering all of the cancellations.  It has been a challenge trying to get creative in finding new people to teach, considering I have tracted just about every place in our area, haha. But it has been a fun challenge. Hope y’all have a good week.

Elder Roden