On the Brink

This week was good. It sure seems like we are on the brink of seeing amazing things in this area, because the adversary is working hard to try to discourage us. We still don't have any investigators, but our less-active success is doing well!

So we now know for sure that most of the Ward doesn't like Elders very much. From what we are gathering, it's because they didn't like the last several sets of Elders. But that is changing! As we have

been able to go to the few dinner appointments we've had with members, we are able to help them realize that we are hard working and that they can trust us. We were at the home of the previous WML, and the wife was very open and honest with her thoughts about some of the previous missionaries. But she really liked us, and at the end of the appointment, she gave us a referral for a part member! She said that she has been waiting for a while to give this referral, but she didn't trust any of the previous year's missionaries enough to give it to them. We're pretty sure that she is telling some of the other people in the Ward about us too, because some of the members that have never even said hi to us before, now are inviting us over for dinner! 

We were at a dinner appointment the other night (Mostly because we have been working a lot with a kid in the family that is leaving on his mission in a couple of weeks, so his family likes us) so going on a hunch using my mad observation skills (and seeing that they had violins and cellos hanging up in various parts of the living room,) I asked them if they had a Viola floating around in their house. Turns out, they did. So we busted it out, and I got to play on a Viola again! The dad actually turned out to be the ward chorister, and through a series of events, I volunteered to do a musical number next Sunday. Hopefully this will help with member-missionary trust as well.

So Elder Page's 21st birthday was on Saturday, so I bought him a Lego Boba Fett watch. He only got one piece of mail for his birthday, and it was a hospital bill for almost $3000 dollars. :) 

We got like 4-5 inches of snow this past week, so driving was a lot of fun. ;) We had to go to the church for something during the peak of snowfall, and the parking lot wasn't plowed, so we took that...opportunity...to learn how the Fusion handles in snow when the e-brake is applied ;D But now the snow is all gone, so the fun is over... for now.

Anyways, that's about it for this week.

Thanks for reading!

~Elder Roderer

 Stunt kite flying. :)

Week 2 in Grand Blanc!

Hey guys!

So this week was good! We did a lot of finding, and found no one, but it's okay, because we know that great blessings are just around the corner.

There's a kid in the Ward that's leaving for his mission soon, so we've been working with him a bit, and this week we took him tracting with us for an hour or so. No one was interested, and at the end he asked us "Are you always this successful?" The answer was "Usually." :) But it was a good experience for him, and we all had a good time, so it was good.

While we didn't find anyone, we did get some great less-active work done, and we even figured out the reason why one of the members isn't coming to church, so we'll be able to help him out and it'll be great! :) We also found a less-active that was really friendly that has a 1965 mustang that makes over 800hp, so that's pretty exciting too ;)

So we're kind of picking up clues that most of the Ward doesn't trust Elders very much. One clue was after church when we were looking at the dinner calender, and saw that the Sister missionaries have a member meal lined up almost every day for the rest of the month, and we have.... one. 

We're not like bitter or anything, because dinner appointments are a privilege, not a right, but it was still a little frustrating. Hopefully we'll be able to restore any lost trust.

We stopped by a member's house one night just to get to know them better (And they said we could stop by whenever) and they let us in and we start talking a bit. Then the father told us to follow him because he wanted to show us his plane. We were thinking he was talking about an RC plane or something, so we follow him out to his garage where he opens a door into another room, and we were pretty shocked to see an actual plane! The guy has a stinking hanger built into his house! I guess it makes sense, because they live right off of a tiny air strip, but it was still quite the shock. But it was sweet!

So yeah, that's about all I have time to write about. 

Thanks for reading!

~Elder Roderer

 

 

 Proof of the plane.

  

 And a view from someones back yard. Like I said, I'm in the sticks! :)

New Area!

Hey everybody!

So I got transferred to the Grand Blanc Ward! It's pretty much the sticks. The Ward boundary is something like 400 square miles. It's great :) I actually got transferred to the area above Clarkston, so I didn't move very far. 

My new companion is also from AZ, so that's cool I suppose :) But he's a cool guy. He's been out one transfer longer than me, so I'll be killing off another missionary in 5 weeks. It's making it a little tough to not get trunky, but I'm doing pretty good at keeping trunky thoughts at bay. Lets pray that it stays that way.

Elder Page is a cool guy though. He's like 6'5" and 300 lbs, so it's a pretty tall companionship. He's also super witty, so it's been a lot of fun working with him. And boy have we been working! Since we're both going home soon, we both want to end our respective missions with a bang, so we've been working really hard and trying to get this area out of the hole that it's been in. It's been great!

Preach My Gospel says that when a missionary works, he (or she) is happy, and it's true!!

Anyways,

Thanks for reading!

~Elder Roderer

 

 

If you want to send me a letta, my address is

2501 Hogan Cir.

Fenton, MI 48430

Here's a sign proving that I'm in the sticks. :)

 

 

Transfer News!

Hey everybody!

Sorry for not writing a mass email last week. We had mountain biking to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it in :)

Welp, Elder Ryder is going home on Wednesday because he's done with his mission, so obviously he's not staying in the area, but as it turns out, neither am I! I'm getting moved for my last two transfers. I pretty much knew it was coming though. So the area is being "white washed" but not shut down which is cool. I thought it would be one of the 20 or so areas getting shut down in the next 3 months (Just from not as many missionaries coming in as there are going home) but I guess not! 

I'm sad to leave the Clarkston Ward, because it's just a sweet Ward, but I know that getting moved again and stuff is for the best. 3 out of the 4 missionaries in the Clarkston Ward are actually leaving, so there's quite a lot of change happening. The Ward Mission Leader isn't very happy about it :) But for our last P-day in the area, we went bowling with the district (which includes us and the sisters) and asked the ZL's plus another to area come, so we had a good old time today. I did pretty terrible, but it was still fun :)

For all who may care, we found out for sure that Elder Ryder and I were the oldest missionaries in the mission. At this point, we're at 45 months of missionary service. Good stuff! It'll be interesting to see who I get next, and how we'll stack up in the experience bracket. 

We helped a old member in the Ward put a tarp over his big old pontoon boat to prepare it for winter. It sounds like a simple, straightforward procedure, and it probably should have been, but it took like 2 hours to do. The tarp was also like 40 feet long. I don't know if you have ever tried to open and work with a 40 foot tarp in windy conditions, but it's very exciting.

For Halloween, we pretty much did nothing out of the ordinary. We just tracted in some light sleet/snow, and then went in at 7:00 per the mission's orders. It was pretty fun :) 

So yeah, I'll let you know where my new area is at next Monday!

Thanks for reading!

 

The District.

 

 

After some mountain bikin.