Hello Everybody

 Hello everybody,

Hope y’all had a good week. We had a pretty fun and busy week. 

TUE:
    Today we had our last district meeting of the transfer. It was a little unusual but still good. The Zone Leaders were up in Knoxville for the transfer missionary leadership council so they weren’t at the meeting.  But about an hour into the meeting, the whole mission got on a video chat to discuss goals for next year. It was, all in all, a good meeting.  After that we all went to eat at this Mexican restaurant that we’ve been to a couple times.  The first two times we came here, me, Sister Ogden, and Elder Haynes were accidentally all wearing the same exact outfits each time(well for me and Haynes it was the same tie) and took a picture with sombreros on. So we continued the tradition this time as well.

Three visits, same outfits each time

WED:
   Wednesday we picked up Elder Haynes and Anderson and headed up to Sparta, TN for our Christmas zone conference.  It was a really spiritual meeting with a lot of musical numbers, which was nice.  Each of the 3 zones there had to perform a skit, and I got roped into doing it. But I got the lucky job because I was just the narrator.  But it was a really fun conference, and I even got to see 2 previous companions, Elders Jeppesen and Farley. 

Catching up with friends at ZC

    On the way back, there were 2 Malibu's side by side. One was driven by me with our crew, and the other was Sister Ogden driving with her companion, S. Jensen, and the STL's as well.  Well their TiWi (speed monitor) doesn’t work in their car, so we were trying to pass them for a good 45 minutes and couldn’t because I had a tiwi that actually worked.  So we were getting pretty frustrated, and they thought it was pretty funny.  Oh well, I guess it was fun anyways.
    Then that night when we got back we went to the church to help set up a bunch of tables and chairs for the Christmas party on Saturday.

THU:
    Today we went to the church again with the other Elders for a little bit to set up some more stuff for the party, as well as practice a skit that, once again, we somehow got roped into doing.  Then the rest of the day was the norm for us.

FRI:
    Friday started pretty crazy, we were tracting near our apartment and got a call from a member named Hardy saying that his friend, Jacob, who we taught last week, had gotten in a car crash right near us and for us to head over and check on him.  We went over there and luckily it wasn’t too bad. He was just a little shaken up. He was super surprised and happy to see us though.  

    Later that night was our Christmas party with the ward. It was super fun!  Our skit actually went pretty well, and a lot of people thought it was really funny.  I think a member recorded it so we will try to get it from her. But I did get some pictures of us in our outfits with Santa. 

    Then on the way home for some reason Elder Haynes requested we stop off the side of the road so he could cut off a beaver tail they biked by earlier... So there were 4 Christmas elves out there in the dark and in the rain surrounding a dead beaver while one of them sawed off the tail. It was quite the image, I’m sure.

SAT:
    Saturday morning was transfer calls, and me and Weyland are staying here together to finish his training, so that should be good!  The district got realigned a little bit with the recent boundary changes as well.  So we now have an Elders Quorum, which is a district made up of all elders, and there are 8 of us! It should be interesting but fun, haha. 

SUN:
    Sunday was great! We had a guy named Mark come to church and he had such a great time. He has already made friends and introduced himself as being "a new member" even though he isn’t quite there yet, haha.  Then we had a dinner appointment with the other elders for one last time and that was fun. Elder Haynes is going up to Johnson City to be with one of my favorite companions, Elder Sessions, so that’s really cool.

MON:
    Since the church doesn’t like to fly a lot close to the holidays, we had to move transfers up to Monday instead of Wednesday.  So for us it was just a normal day because we didn’t go to transfers, haha.

That’s just about our week. It’s been a relief to see some success come out of these last couple weeks, so we are looking to build off of that momentum! 

Have a good week!

Elder Roden

Tennessee Knoxville Mission 

11320 Station West Drive Suite 101

Farragut, TN 37934