Another week down here in Hardin Valley. This week flew by, but we were able to do some fun things.

   A few weeks ago we tracted into a lady named Norma Jean. She used to have missionaries by for service all the time.  So we went a few times this week to help her out.  We just did things like removing fences, cleaning gutters, tilling, and things like that.  On Saturday night we went over to her house and had a big bonfire with her with a bunch of branches we trimmed from her trees.   So it’s been pretty fun.

    We also taught the Lozano family the 3rd lesson and it went very well.  They are really trying to come to church, but just have trouble getting there due to work and the fact they only have one car.

   The rest of the week was filled with normal stuff like tracting, so not much else to report on, but we have been having a good time.

Hope y’all have a good week,

Elder Roden

Bass fishing

Howdy, it was another good week. 

   The work was unfortunately very slow this week, which is rough, but it was still a really good week. 

Elder Vinyard and Elder Roden

      Wednesday we sent Elder Sowby off at transfers and brought back Elder Vinyard.  He is from Grants Pass, Oregon and has been out as long as I have.  It has been a really fun last few days and we get along great. One cool thing about him is he is a convert of almost 4 years and is the only member in is family.  But it has been very fun to work with him. 

   Sorry for the short email, we are on the way to go bass fishing with our ward mission leader so that should be fun. 

"Bass" fishing. This wasn't the bait...

Hope y’all have a good week. 

Elder Roden 

Transfer time again

Last week of the transfer was a pretty good one, here’s the highlights. 

Lozano-Garcia family:

We went by with a Spanish speaking couple in our ward on Tuesday and taught them the Plan of Salvation, which went very well.  Their 12 year old son shouted out "ahí es donde quiero estar!" Or "That’s where I want to be!" When we read about the Celestial Kingdom. It was a great lesson. 

Helping Hands:

With all the flooding here in the Knoxville area, the church sent a disaster relief supply truck to the stake.  So on Friday we went over to one of the building to help unload a Semi Truck full of supplies.  Our main job after that was to assemble the Wheel Barrows, haha. It was really fun, actually.  We got put into teams of 3 and I was with Elder Love, one of our ZL's, and President Pickett.  All in all I would say there were close to 75 built by about 10 missionaries. 

Saturday:

Saturday was weird.  It was supposed to be a big long day of service from 9-5, so that’s what we were planning on. So we show up to the same church building and there are tons of members and missionaries there, which was cool to see, all in those yellow 'helping hands' shirts.  They were sending people out to different projects, but we, as well as about 25 other people, ended up getting told they didn’t need us because there wasn’t enough to do. It’s a good problem to have I guess. 

The new AP was also there. His companions had left to the Nashville temple with a recent convert. The plan was for him to do the service with us until they got back, but instead we just took him back to our area for the day. 

Church of Christ MTC:

Well one day I guess I was feeling pretty bold because we walked by some apartments on a little campus of a preaching/missionary school, and we decided to knock a few doors. We talked to a few people that were pretty shocked that we were there, haha. Most the people there have families and stuff, and they just go to the school for 2 years to get their degree.  

I think it was a good thing, although a couple of the conversations went down the more 'Bash' road. But it feels good when the spirit backs you up when you are going toe to toe with a trained preacher.  We ended up giving one of the guys a Book of Mormon. After clearing up some little misconceptions, he was more open to the idea. So it ended up being pretty good. 

Transfer calls:

Elder Sowby is going to be headed out on Wednesday, and my new companion will be Elder Vinyard.  We actually came out together, but were not in the same MTC district because he learned Spanish, so I just know him a little bit. But I am really excited.

Hope y’all have a good week. 

Elder Roden

First week of March

Another week down, here are some highlights. 

Lozano-Garcia family:

   We had a great lesson with this family of 6 from Honduras.  I went with Elder Deteige, one of the ZLs who speaks Spanish, and Brother Lyons from the bishopric. We taught them the restoration and it went very well. I can’t speak Spanish but during lessons im able to follow along so I just hold up pictures and stuff haha.   
   The next day Brother Lyons picked them up and took them to the church for Wednesday night activities and I heard that they really enjoyed it so that was good. They were supposed to all come to church but they had to work last minute, but we are still going by on Tuesday again to teach them. 

Pizza Hoss:

   So last week I had to do a very last minute, out of our way baptismal interview for some elders just barely outside of our zone.  They felt bad so they offered to order us pizza, which we accepted of course.  But they also forgot the baptismal forms I had to sign so we just decided to meet up at a restaurant to eat and fill them out. 
   We were there and we just ordered one pizza for us. Then the waitress comes out and says "Jesus loves y’all, just wait and see." We were pretty weirded out by that but we just ignored it. Then I went to use the bathroom and when I came back I saw all this food on our table that we didn’t order.  Turns out there was a couple sitting at the bar that just kept sending more and more food over to us.  Me and one of the Elders went and talked to them and they were both from Utah and weren’t members, but they had some family that were. He just said "I figured you were hungrier than what you ordered."
   So they bought our pizza, bought us an additional 4 pizzas, a bunch garlic knots and fried ravioli and stuff, and a ton of dessert cinnamon knots and a few other things. It was super cool. So we both went home stacked with good food, and we were very grateful to them. 

Summers:

   On Saturday morning we went to help Brother and Sister Summers move one of their neighbors out of  apartment and into her new house.  It actually went pretty smooth as we got the U HAUL loaded, moved, and unloaded in about 3 hours with just 4 people most the time.  But the lady was super friendly and appreciative so that was cool to see a good seed planted.  Then we went back to the Summers for lunch. 

We also retired our old car because it was the oldest one in the mission.  So we dropped it off at the mission office and got a 2018 Nissan Rogue which has been really nice.

The rest of the week was just normal, this is going to be the last full week of the transfer so that should be fun. 

Elder Roden 

Rain

From February 25:
Well the story of this week was rain. And that’s about it.  It rained every day for a good while. Towards the end of the week there was a ton of flash flooding and mudslides happening in Knoxville and throughout the whole mission.  Even a couple of churches got flooded.  A lot of roads around this area got flooded as well so as a result they had to cancel church this Sunday which was weird.  Hopefully things will get cleared up soon.

    Probably the highlight of the week was meeting a man named Oscar and his family.  They all just recently moved here from Honduras and don’t speak English. We were tracting this trailer park late at night in the rain and he opened the door super confused and said he doesn’t speak English.  So again I got to stumble through a Spanish conversation and he ended up letting us in, haha.  I guess I need to start studying some more Spanish again. But once we got in we had a good conversation with him via google translate on his phone.  We are going back to see him on Tuesday night, where I will exchange with one of the ZLs who speaks Spanish and also going with our ward mission leader who speaks Spanish so it should be good. 
    Other than that is was a really wet week of tracting, so that’s always interesting. Had a guy show us the way off his porch with his AR-15, so that was nice of him. 

Hope y’all have a good week,
Elder Roden

From February 18:
Hey hope y'all had a good week.

    This week is was really cool to have some general authorities here with us.  We had Elder Stanfill of the Seventy, Elder Vinson of the Presidency of the seventy, and Elder Gong of the quorum of the 12.  
   

On Friday  the whole mission met here in Farragut for a special meeting with all 3 of them and their wives.  Before hand, we got to go through and shake all of their hands and talk breifly with them. It was really really cool to be able to go eye to eye with an apostle of the lord. During the meeting he mentioned how them looking in our eyes, with the help of the holy ghost, was like a personal interview so they could sense how we are doing. Pretty cool.  We were seated on the front row and Elder Gong was walking right in front of us the whole time, it was like sitting court side at an NBA game.  He's a really funny guy and it was cool to be able to see some of his personality, like him dancing with his arms in the air in the chapel, haha. 

    After the meeting we had a pretty cool thing happen. We were tracting a more rural part of our area and we knocked on this trailer where a lady was and she started saying she doesn’t speak English.  Well I haven’t  been around many Hispanics in about a year, but I’m glad I was able to be in Sevierville for that time with 2 Spanish companions. I’m still not sure how, haha, but I told her that we were missionaries and where we were from and a little bit about the Book of Mormon.  We had a little conversation then I asked her about what we had been talking about and in her broken English she said "That I want".  So we are going back with someone who actually speaks Spanish to help us out, haha. But it was definitely  a gift of tongues moment. 

    That same day we also met this guy named Fred who has a ton of really cool cars and these crazy modified vehicles he builds. We talked with him for a while and he has a YouTube channel if you want to check him out haha. I think its called Fred Yuricic. He said it was family friendly haha. 

    On Saturday night we attended another meeting with Elder Gong and Elder Stanfill for recent converts and investigators. It was a really good turn out and a really good meeting.  I also got roped into singing in a double quartet during the meeting and that went well.  We sang the Army of Helaman/As sisters in zion medley, I think that’s what it’s called. 

    Sunday morning we went to a Presbyterian church with a family that had come to our church a few weeks ago. It was a pretty decent service. Then we had Stake conference with Elder Stanfill. Elder Stanfill gave an awesome talk that was highlighted by, "Don’t sweat the little stuff." 

Well that's our week, hope y’all have a good one. 

Elder Roden