Motivated by fear, motivated by love

Hey Everybody,

This week was pretty cool. A nice highlight was that we had a mission meeting from 10:00-4:00 on 

Friday with Elder Craig A. Cardon of the 1st (I think?) quorum of the seventy. It was pretty cool, because at the beginning of the meeting, they asked us to think of a couple of questions that we wanted answered by the end of meeting, and both of mine were answered really well! My questions were how can I be a more consecrated missionary, and how can I work better with members. It makes sense that the first one got answered, it being a missionary meeting and all, but then Elder Cardon spent like 2 hours on how to better work with members, and how to make sure we are not a burden but a tool for the members to use. It was pretty cool :)

We had two investigators and one less-active come to church on Sunday, so that was really cool.

Last Sunday's Sacrament meeting was pretty fun. I forgot to talk about this last week, but the Priests who were blessing it got it wrong like 8 or 9 times :) Like all three of them tried a few times, and they were all getting it wrong :) Almost each time, they just replaced the word "That" with "And."

So we're trying to work with a recently reactivated member's, non-member brother. He's about our age, and he comes to church, but he does have some Autistic tendencies, so he can appear to be a little obnoxious at church at times. But I always sit next to him and try to keep him calm and quiet. I've finally figured out how to do that (Just rub his back a bit) and it's been going a lot better. Yesterday, I did the same thing, and after Priesthood was done and we were putting up chairs, the EQ president told me as he was walking by "You're incredible!" And you know, that made me feel really, really good. It was interesting to feel the difference between motivation from fear, and motivation from love. It's not very often when a member just out of the blue tells me something like that, but it felt great. So my commitment to you all is to try to find something the the missionaries in your unit do well, and just give them a sincere, genuine complement. I promise that doing so will help the missionaries feel happier and more motivated. :)

Thanks for reading! 

 E. Roderer is third row, furthest right

"This was a picture of half the Michigan Detroit Mission taken during our recent mission tour with Elder Cardon of the First Quorum of the Seventy." 

Transfer News Inside!!

Hey everybody!

 (Elder Ryder with the snail)

So here's the transfer news! Nothing in my district is changing. So now you know. 

Naw, it's cool. This means I get to kill off Elder Ryder. I've never done that before, so it'll be an interesting experience :) 

So this morning was pretty funny. We do laundry at the same place as the Sisters, and today they accidentally washed their phone with their clothes :) So for the next few days, they are going to be without really any communication.

We finally has a lesson with John this past week. He understands that he needs to get back into the groove with meeting with us regularly and coming to church, and he want's to, so please pray the he'll be able to do that.

We dropped Brian this week. He wasn't showing a hint of commitment, and told us that he wasn't going to come to church anymore because he felt uncomfortable last time. Doesn't make sense, because everyone was really nice to him. Hopefully someday he'll shape up.

This week, we were able to get in contact with a few less actives that we have been asked to try to work with, so that was nice. Hopefully, we'll be able to help them get their priorities in order. Like church ;)

Anyways, that's about it. 

Thanks for reading!

Snails

​Hey everybody!

So this week was another one of those kinds of week where not a whole lot seemed to happen. But there's still some stuff to talk about. :)

Most interesting to note, is that my sister, Gabbi got her mission call this past week! She's going to Frankfurt, Germany, which is awesome!! But she reports to the MTC on January 14th which to me is a lot less awesome. Reason why I say that is because I get home January 28th. Oh well. I'll figure out a way to see her :)

So about what's happening in Michigan.

I'm pretty sure I've gotten fatter than any other time on my mission, so that's pretty lame. Portion control. It's a killer.

So our Ward Mission Leader sometimes talks about when he went on his mission, and how he really wanted to go to Russia, because it had just been opened, and teach the gospel to people who had never heard it before. But he ended up going to Argentina, which isn't exactly new to having missionaries around. He talks however, about trying to find the "Russia" of his areas, so places that probably haven't hardly ever seen missionaries before. We would be more than happy to do that, but the problem with doing that, is we have limited miles, and those out of the way "Russia" type areas, are usually very out of the way. But we had the opportunity to make it out to a more remote area a couple of times. The only person who was willing to talk to us was a Jehovah's Witness, so he wasn't exactly open to learning a whole lot. But it's okay, because we are trying :)

I saw a 2015 F-150 this week, so that was exciting (At least for me:)) I of course took a picture of it, and really weirded out some people that were standing outside their car a little ways left of the truck. I think I embarrassed my Elder Ryder :) Our WML actually designed the grill for the truck, so I thought that was pretty cool too. 

We stopped by an investigator, and he ended up not being home, but we did find a snail, so we were cheered up a bit :)

Thanks for reading!

~Elder Roderer

A dream, a golden investigator, and a knight from the 1400s.

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty good. I feel like I grew quite a bit during the week. Like toward the beginning

of the week, I really wasn't feeling very motivated and stuff, but as the week went on, I felt more and more motivated and I also gained a greater resolve to finish my mission strong. I think part of that came from a dream that I had. I had a dream Tuesday or Wednesday night that I finished my mission and went home (Like I was not a missionary anymore, which I've never had a dream about before) but it was really weird because it felt like I had just kind of coasted through through the rest of my mission instead of finishing strong, and if was not a good feeling! I felt full of regret, and I felt like I wasn't sure if my sacrifice was acceptable to the Lord. It was a terrible feeling, and it gave me the kick in the pants that I've been wanting. So we were able to finish this week stronger than usual, and that felt really good. I really hope that I can keep this attitude for the rest of my mission.

District meeting went well. It was quite a bit easier to plan and prepare for than last weeks, and I felt like my instruction went a lot better too. It's kind of cool; the nature of the task hasn't changed, but my ability to accomplish it well has. I think the Lord has been helping a lot with it too.

The area is going pretty well. We were finally able to get in contact with our investigator John (That I hadn't met before just last week) so that was a miracle. He is still solid, but he's just going through some tough times.

We found a new investigator tracting. She is a 19 year old girl that was super golden, but her dad is mega mean and hates us, so we're not allowed to teach her anymore. It's super lame. But I'll tell you the story of how we found her anyway :)

So we were tracting Friday evening, and as we were walking up a driveway, this crazy rain storm hit. Fortunately, the porch for that house was covered, so we stayed dry when we knocked. So the 19 year old girl comes to the door, and we're like "Hey, we're missionaries..." and she was like "Oh! Jesus! Tell me all about it!" We were sort of taken aback that someone was so excited to see us and hear our message, so we start talking to her about the Restoration, and she's super interested, so we pull up a chair or her porch (because she was the only one home) and teach her a full blown Restoration lesson! She was super engaged the whole time, and asked a bunch of awesome questions, and was all excited to learn more and come to church and stuff!... But right as we were able to leave, her very angry dad comes home, and asks what we're doing, and Tyler (The girl) tell him that we're teaching her about Jesus. Then he asks us where we're from, and she tells him that we're Latter-Day Saints. I guess that was the wrong answer, because he yells at us to "Get off my stoop!" and all sorts of stuff. He was a jerk. So we leave, and as we're walking away, we hear him say to his daughter "Is this why you didn't answer your phone?! A tree could have fallen on the house!!" I guess it was pretty windy, but I don't see how not answering her phone might have caused a tree to fall on the house. That's probably not what he meant, but whatever. We were smart enough to get Tyler's number before then, so we texted her last night to see if we could still meet with her, and she said that we couldn't, because her dad was really creeped out, but that she would love to come to church sometime. So it's pretty depressing that we can't teach her anymore, but it is what it is. We tried our best, and that's all we could do.

 

Here's another story from tracting. We were knocking on doors Saturday evening, and we had just finished a street, and were walking back to the Jeep, when the guy in a car calls us over and is like "For you, what day is the Sabbath?" And we were like "Uhh, Sunday.." So he proceeds to tell us why the "True Sabbath" is on Sunday. Turns out, he is a "Messianic Jew" (At least that's what he claimed) which I've never heard of before, but his doctrine was pretty different. He was saying that he still follows the "Old ways" so he doesn't eat pork and stuff, but then he's trying to convince us that living a riotous life that's full of sin is okay. The way he talked was super funny too. It felt like I was talking to a drunk knight from the 1400's. He even said himself that he was "Just a drunken fool sitting in a 1998 Missan Naxima".... For sure one of the craziest people I've even met on my mission :) 

So we do service at a senior center a couple of times a week (We just package food for a Meals on Wheels program, and do stuff like that) and one of the ladies that works there just loves the missionaries, because they have been coming by and helping for like 14 years, so she'll just give us food from the center. Like she has given us two racks of ribs, something like 10 lbs of chicken, and this week, she ordered this box of 48 gluten free hot pocket equivalents, and just gave it to me! She is a super nice lady!

Brian came to church on Sunday, so that was cool. And a recently reactivated member brought her non-member husband and brother too, so hopefully we'll be able to start teaching them too!

Anyways, that's about it for this week :)

Thanks for reading!

Happy Labor Day!

Hey everybody!

So really not that much new happened this week. We picked up a couple of former investigators, and I had my first district meeting as a district leader. It went pretty well, but it was a relief when it was done. But once you're done with one, then you have to start thinking about the next one. What fun! :)

Here's something that's pretty funny. There is an older member in the Ward named George Hemingway who is an outdoor buff :) .....At least it was funny to me!

 So Labor day was like the most boring day of my mission. Okay, not really, but probably the most boring holiday. Absolutely no one invited us over, so we just did our normal p-day things, and then sat in our apartment for the rest of our p-day. Oh well :)

Thanks for reading this super tiny update :)

~Elder Roderer

So something I've started to notice is that Michigan is kind of funny sometimes. Like some of the

stuff they do doesn't make a whole lot of sense... Like this speed limit sign for example.