Last full week in the mission field!

Hey everybody!

So this week was good! We worked pretty hard this week and I was able to avoid being really trunky, so good things happened. Having Elder Oaks, Elder Kacher, and Elder Dunnigan come and teach us was a real treat, and I'm super happy that I got to hear another Apostle right before the end of my mission. One thing about Elder Oaks that really struck me was how humble and willing to learn he is. He's super cool.

My sister, Gabbi just entered the MTC this past Wednesday, so that's super exciting for her! She's totally going to tear it up!

I think I told you last week about the part-member family that the Clarkston Sisters contacted and set up an appointment for us, but we were able to go and try to teach the non-member lady. Problem is, is that her member husband is the biggest talker I have ever seen in my life :) and so he totally took the show and ran with it and sort of taught the Restoration and stuff. But he taught it in such a way that even us life long members had a hard time following him. We couldn't get a word in edgewise. So it wasn't the best lesson ever, but we got a return appointment, so hopefully we'll be able to have better lessons in the future. 

We were also able to finally contact a less-active guy that our Bishop asked us to try to contact, and we were able to have a good talk with him, and he was really open in having us come and teach him and stuff, so that was really exciting as well.

So just so you all know, this is my last full week as a missionary...

Today, we're going to be going to the Auto Show, so I'm pretty stoked about that :)

Anyways, thanks for reading!

~Elder Roderer

 

 

 

Finally Decent Snow

So I don't have much time to write a very lengthy email, but I'll see what I can do :)

This week was a ton better than last week, so that was a blessing for sure. 

I had more or less my last district meeting this past week. Next week is something different, and then the week after that is interviews, so I'm kind of done with having to prepare district meeting agendas and stuff. I'm kind of bummed about it.

So I pretty much don't want to go home. Like I really want to see my family and all, but I really don't want my mission to end. So I do want to go home, but I really don't at the same time. It's a weird feeling :) So I'm just trying to ignore the fact that I'm going home in 16 days. :P

Something that I'm stoked about is that Elder Oaks is coming to speak to the mission on the 16th, so I get to have an Apostle speak to me right before I go home :) (This is what is replacing district meeting :))

Something cool that happened (you could even call it a miracle) is that the the Clarkston Sisters called us and told us a really interesting experience they had. There was a certain fellow in their area book that was written down as a former investigator or something, so they decided to go try and see him. Turns out that he lives in our area and was already baptized a few years ago. But they didn't know that, and figured since it was in their area book, it was in their area. So they go over, and he tells them that he is already a member in the Grand Blanc Ward (Which was a surprise to them) but what was cool, is that his non-member wife was there, and she expressed interest in learning more about the church, so they talked to her and set up an appointment for us to go and teach her! It's interesting, because we've gone over there several times, and we were never able to meet his wife because she has a crazy work schedule, but the Sisters were able to be there at the right time to talk with her and set up an appointment. I really don't understand how he made it into their area book in the first place, but it all worked out for the best! The Lord works in mysterious ways, I guess.

Anyways, as always, thanks for reading!

~Elder Roderer

Happy New Year

Wassup folks?

This week... hasn't exactly been my best week ever. It was hard, cold, unmotivating, discouraging, and distracting. I'm trying so hard not to be, but I'm trunked out of my mind right now, and it's pretty much the worst thing ever. It's been excessively hard to motivate myself (and my comp...) to work a dead area knowing that I have so little time left. 

 

But this week has had it's good parts as well.

We were able to really help out the older couple that is in pretty poor physical condition by cleaning out and rearranging a cluttered office into a temporary bedroom so that they will be able to stay more warm (because the heat from their wood burning stove funnels down the hall into that room) and now they're super close to a bathroom, as well as super close to the garage, so now they'll be able to be much more mobile, and the husband won't have to maneuver his way through hardly any stairs on his crutches. They haven't been able to make it to church for quite a few weeks now because of his injury, but they were able to come yesterday because we helped them out with this. At least that's what they said. So that was a cool experience.

The other Elders in my district gave us some excitement last Monday. So most of the way through P-day, the mission office called me asking for these Elders' numbers, because they didn't enter them in, and they weren't answering their phone. The senior Sister at the office seemed kind of worried that they weren't getting back to her or anything, so she asked us to see what we could do to get in contact with them. So to make a long story short, by the end of the night, everyone from the zone leaders to the Sisters in that ward to their ward mission leader got involved before we finally got a hold of them. Turns out, they just forgot to enter their numbers, and they didn't hear or think to check their phone for something like 7 hours.

Pretty dang exciting :P

New Years was good. Pretty uneventful, but still pretty good. At night time we drank some sparkling cider, played a game, and then I went to bed 30 minutes early :)

Yesterday was my last fast Sunday as a missionary, so I took the opportunity to bear my testimony. It was nothing crazy, but I'm glad I did. 

Anyways, thanks for reading.                                             

 

Elder Roderer