Hendersonville, North Carolina

What a week!

   Monday and most of Tuesday were pretty slow, then after our dinner on Tuesday we called it a night so I could get packed and ready to go.  I was sad to leave Elder Vinyard, his been one of my favorite companions by far.

Elder Roden saying goodbye to another elder from his district

   Wednesday was transfers and it was really fun, as always, then my new companion and I hopped on in the van with 6 other missionaries and took the 3 hour drive out to NC.  Once we got there, we then had to take the downtown Asheville Elders their bikes, since we drive a 2018 Toyota Tacoma (yes, really).  They live in a house that could house 10+ missionaries easily, its huge.   After that we headed back down to Hendersonville and did some tracting.  Then the activity day girls in 2 of the wards made dinner for us and 4 other sisters, so that was really fun.

Transfers

   Thursday we had our first district meeting, which was good.  Since we are the only Elders in our district, we get to be Zone leaders and Co District leaders, haha.  We just switch off running the meetings each week.  Then we headed down to this super cool hidden town called Saluda. And we worked there for most of the day.

   Friday we started off teaching a guy named Brandon at the stake president's house at 9.  He is a really cool guy and he collects guitars, so hopefully we can get a good relationship going. The stake president is Pres. Van and he is such a cool dude.  Then we went to the church to study and weekly plan, as well as make a Zone goal for the transfer.  Then at about 3, the Elders from the Marion ward were in the area, and were going to a baptism at our building at 6, so we went out and did a little exchange with them. 

Not really sure...

   Saturday was one of the craziest days of my mission so far.  It started out by tracting for 7 hours straight, which usually isn’t super fun.  But we found the hood and felt like we needed to pound it out. And even though we were the only white boys within 3 miles any direction, we were able to teach 13 people and all of them took a Book of Mormon and scheduled a return appointment.  One in particular was named Christopher, and he had a cool experience while we showed him a video on the first vision.  We asked him how he felt after watching it and he said he was trembling and stuttering because of how he felt, and he was on the verge of tears, pretty cool.  There were a bunch of older guys outside in a yard and we walked up and met one of them named Efantan, from Jamaica.  He is the craziest dude of all time, haha.  We kept seeing him and his friend, Terry, who is in a wheelchair, all around the neighborhood, so it was funny. "Fast cars, fancy ladies, get paid, and I’m gone". He kept saying that over and over.  He is the Jamaican equivalent to Lavar Ball, if any y’all know who that is.  Then we went and visited a lady named Jean, and she is getting baptized on the 7th of next month, so we are excited about that.

  Sunday we had our ward conference, which was really good. Then we went out with Bishop Poole, who was just called last week.  After that we just tracted a little and did a bunch of administrative type stuff all night.

Elder Roden and Elder Ostler

   My new companion, Elder Ostler, is from Highland, Utah and played LB at Lone Peak high school.  He’s got a couple of offers to walk on to play college ball when he gets home.  But we have been getting along really well so far, and Hendersonville is already one of my favorite places.

Hope y’all have a good week

Elder Roden

On the Road Again...

Well we had a pretty good week here with some fun things happening.

Norma Jean:

 She is a lady we have been working with since I got here and we do service for her as well. On Tuesday we had a pretty long day of fixing gutters, cleaning windows, and stuff like that, but it was fun. And she made some really good ribs for us, so it was all worth it.

Last District Meeting before transfers

Chuck Zurakowski:

Chuck is a member that I really get along with and we also do a lot of work in his yard to help him out because he only has one arm.  But he has a huge deck and patio that I power washed and we also laid down a bunch of mulch, power washed his garage, and a few other things.  He’s a really good guy and I like working with him. He also fed us twice that day, haha.

Victoria:

This is a really weird story with a lot of little details that wouldn’t make sense over email. But long story shor,t we first got in contact with her on Saturday, and haven’t met her face to face, but last night we did a video chat lesson and she is on date for baptism for May 25th. So that was pretty cool.

Easter dinner at a member's house

Transfers:

Saturday was transfer calls and I found out I’m leaving Hardin Valley.  I’m heading to serve in Hendersonville, North Carolina.  It is just south of Asheville. I’m headed to be a Zone Leader with Elder Ostler over there.  I was pretty bummed to leave Elder Vinyard, but I’m excited for this next challenge.

Elder Roden

Hello from Knox!

 We had a very very slow week this week, unfortunately, but the highlight was probably Zone Conference. 


   We got up at about 5am to get ready and head out to Asheville, North Carolina for Zone Conference.  We finally got there and had a pretty good meeting.  President Pickett gave a training called "What's in a name?" It was very good.  He spoke of some Chinese traditions that believed what you are named has a great deal of influence on your characteristics, and who you become as a person.  I believe that.  I know it has influenced me a great deal.  I know that no matter how little feedback or interest we receive while being out here, me going and putting the 'Roden' stamp on people’s doors will make a difference.  It might not be through the typical missionaries’ categories like how many baptisms they have had, if they are really keeping a tally, but it will circle around.  I might not ever see that happen, but that doesn’t matter to me as long as it happens, and it will eventually.  

   Anyways, after Zone Conference we headed back to our area.  And one of the routes that used the least amount of miles happened to go right through Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville. My birthplace!  Elder Vinyard was actually the one that replaced me there when I left so we were both super excited.  We stopped and got some awesome tacos from a gas station and cruised around town for a little bit.  We even swung by our old ward mission leader’s house, Brother Thedy.  He was super surprised but super excited to see us, haha.  Then on the way back through Knoxville there was some really bad traffic so we didn’t get home until about 9:30. It was a looong day and we were glad to be back home. 

One thing I found interesting studying this week was in 1 Corinthians.  Paul sets some things straight about how we should go about our own teaching and examples:

  4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:

  5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life(2 Cor 3:6). I just thought that was pretty cool.  Also, I am SO tired of hearing "well my pastor says..." haha. 

Hope y’all have a great week!
Elder Roden