#FriendsintheATL

HEY Y'ALL!!!                                                                                                  

Another week down in the ATL! Time is flying by so fast. I feel like yesterday was Memorial Day and I can't believe school is out too! This week was graduation for all the schools in Georgia and ohhhh my goodness! You would think that it's the biggest event of a person's lifetime. Northern Georgia is organized into subdivisions and each subdivision has it's own name.  They are separate little communities that don’t connect to each other. So, for the past two weeks each subdivision has hung up a huge sign in the front of their neighborhood that says, "Congratulations 2014 graduates!" Then, in front of every-single-house there is a sign with the graduate's picture and an announcement about where they are going to college. Ya, apparently it's a huge deal. The southern people love to celebrate and the graduates deserve a celebration because they're all bi-lingual.  They have to pass English class AND master the southern language. I promise, ATL is a different world with a different language and I LOVE IT! 

         

   The week was great for Elder Flake and me! On Tuesday, we had a zone conference with four of the seven zones in our mission. It was such a great conference! It was the Wolferts last one before they return home to Utah so, of course, they were pretty emotional.  It was so interesting to hear them talk about all of the experiences they’ve had over the last three years and how much they have loved being our Mission President and wife. I'm really going to miss them! Last week the Assistants called us and told us that we were assigned to provide a training in the conference, so we thought, "Ya, okay. No big deal." Well, when we got there and the conference started, we finally realized how many zones were attending and how many missionaries there were - only 100+! So, low and behold we got up there and trained in front of everyone! At first, it was nerve wracking but after awhile we settled in and it went great. Our training was on the “standards of excellence,” which is a rather boring topic, so the only way Elder Flake and I could figure out how to spice it up a little bit was by comparing it to dating. Ha! Ha! I could tell that at first President Wolfert was thinking,  “Whoaaaaa!” But, then we tied it all together and it went really well!

            As I'm sitting here typing the lady next to me asked me how to spell "muscles." My morning workouts must really be paying off. Not.

          We had the opportunity to provide tons of service this week, which was awesome! It's been either really hot or really foggy and humid. So no matter what the weather is like, in less than an hour  I’ve been soaking wet from the moisture. After just one hour of yard work, I seriously look like I have taken a shower! One day we were doing some yard work for a member and he walked outside and said, "Hey Elders I gave you that water to drink, not to dump all over yourselves!" We were thinking, “YA BRO! WE KNOW. IT AIN'T WATER."

Friends in the Library

For all my #twitter fans out there I have a funny story. One night this week, Elder Flake and I were teaching a member family and at the time of our lesson, their teenage son had three of his ward member friends over to their house. After our lesson, I was talking to the son and his friends and they asked if I had a twitter account. So, I told them my profile and they went and looked at all my tweets. (Note: The lesson here is that it is soooo important to have clean tweets.  You never know who will read them or when they will be read!)  Well, as my followers know, on my profile half of my tweets are the “#friendsinthe___” tweets that Smitty and I started. So, the kids started looking at all of them and they loved them. By Sunday at church everyone was taking selfies and doing the #friends hash tag. Ha! SO, THE LEGACY CONTINUES!

            Our investigators are progressing and we

feel great about them! We're still teaching Brandon, Emoy, Kamari and Aaysia every week and they're doing really well! They aren't even baptized yet but Kamari has been bringing his friends to our lessons and he even brought one to church this week. It's so awesome. This week we're teaching them the Law of Chastity, which is their biggest hurdle since they are dating and living together. So, pray for us that it goes well. We'll probably just get the bishop to come over and offer to marry them. Ha! If it were only that easy!

Thank you all for your love and support. I'm beyond grateful for each of you!

Peace up, A-Town down!

Elder Roddy