Hello everyone,
I’ve
counted down another week in the city of Atlanta and what a fabulous week it
was too! Wow! I don't think I ever remember being this busy on my mission. I
probably say that every week, but that's really how it feels. Elder Flake and I
had so many hilarious and amazing experiences this week. I swear, each day with
that kid gets more and more fun. Every missionary deserves to enjoy a cowboy, from
the middle of nowhere, as their companion!
To start off the week, on Monday we played
soccer with a ton of missionaries at a park near the mission office. We split
into teams and played for hours. When we finished playing, I took off my shoes and saw that I had blisters on every toe, which didn't make walking around this week very fun.
I realized I probably shouldn't have played four hours of soccer in white
high-top converse. But hey, I thought we'd be taking pictures and Elder Roddy
always has to look good. Ha!
We met so many amazing people this
week and had the opportunity to teach some inspired lessons! We met a girl
named Alicia Hernandez and had the opportunity to teach her. She lives with her
family in a trailer park in our area. She had a lot of thoughtful questions and
we committed her to be baptized on the 17th of May! A girl in our ward picked
her up for church this week and Alicia had an awesome experience. She loved it! She is still figuring out
exactly what she's doing and we have a lot of teaching to do, but her baptism
looks promising. We also had a great lesson with Patrick! On Thursday we
committed him to be completely done with smoking! He said one of the most
sincere prayers I've ever heard. He asked his Father in Heaven for help and
then we took the remaining five cigarettes he had and crushed them up and threw
them away! He was doing great and hadn't smoked for about two days and then he
left on a road trip. His phone doesn't work so we have no idea how he's doing.
This will be the real test for him so we'll see what happens when he gets back.
Remember the family we found late last Sunday night? Well, they're doing great! We
didn't actually teach them a lesson this week but we took them to the ward Scout
Court of Honor on Wednesday and then to the Ward Talent Show on Friday night. And, guess what? Brandon (the boyfriend), and Kamari (14) participated in the
talent show. It was so awesome!! Brandon performed acrobatics which means he did flips around the room. It was so sweet! They are getting fellowshipped like
crazy because everyone loves them, and of course, they love Elder Flake and me.
Also, we've been taking Kamari to play basketball with us every morning. So,
hopefully this week when we meet with them we'll put them on date for baptism
and commit them to live the law of chastity! Ohhh, the topics I have to
deal with!
On Saturday we were
knocking doors and met a priest from the Anglican church. His name is
Father Vaughn and he invited us inside. When I walked inside I
was thinking to myself, "Great, here we go… a priest." However, our
talk actually turned out to be a good experience. We sat down and he
literally spent the first ten minutes telling Elder Flake and me about his
religious degrees and how much schooling he went through to get to where he
was. I was thinking, "Ya, that's great! My little brother is a Priest too
and he's only sixteen years old!" Father Vaughn didn't seem to like that
very much. Anyway, he spent the next hour quizzing us with skeptical questions and I think he was expecting some long, elaborate answer for each of
them. However each time he would ask a question, we would simply bare
testimony of the Book of Mormon and you could see the Spirit change him
word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence. Between the two of us, we probably bore
testimony thirty times. That poor guy might think twice about letting
missionaries in again and hopefully he will read the Book of Mormon like he
promised while he thinks about it!
On Sunday, we enjoyed eating dinner at
a member family's house and their oldest daughter was home after completing her first year
at BYU Idaho. When she told us that's where she was going to school Elder
Flake sarcastically said, "Oh that's sweet! So when are you getting
married??" Well, the girl put down her fork and held up her hand to show
us a big fat diamond ring and responded, "In June".
............................................................................oh...................................................................................
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| Elder Roderick, Sister Burns and Elder Flake |
The highlight
of the week was definitely Sunday morning! Sister Burns was BAPTIZED and
it was SWEEEEET! We held the baptism immediately after church and the ward
supported her so well! Most people didn't even know her and they came anyway!
She invited eight of her non-member family members as well as her less-active
husband who hasn't set foot in a church in at least thirty years. When we were walking
into the water she started freaking out because she was so nervous. But, we
calmed her down and I DROPPED HER LIKE A ROCK.
LOL! It was soooo cool! The program was amazing too. Everyone was crying
because the Spirit was so strong! I wish you could've been there.
On a different note, over the next
couple of days Atlanta will be under watch because of tornado warnings so everyone needs to pray
that I don't get swept up. Your thoughts and prayers would be greatly
appreciated.
I love you all.
Thank you for your endless support.
Peace up,
A-Town DOWN!
Elder Roddy
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