DUTY becomes DESIRE

Greetings from ATL!                                                                                      

Elder Flake burns a shirt to celebrate his 1-year mark.

As always, we had an amazing week! On Thursday, Elder Flake hit his year mark so, of course he had to burn a shirt! We went to the bishop's house and made a huge bonfire and he burned an entire outfit. Ha-ha. Before the burning, he gave a speech and said, "One year ago today I left my momma's arms as just a boy. And now, I'm a man! Well, almost a man!" Watching Elder Flake on his year mark made me think about how close I am to hitting my own year mark next month and I spent some time reflecting on the last year of my life. I was able to speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday and I spoke a lot about my experiences because I wanted to help the youth see how fun and worthwhile serving a mission is. My whole talk was on putting your duty before your desire, because that's what Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane. He showed us the perfect way for everything. I helped them understand that it's normal if their absolute greatest desire isn't to serve a mission because that's part of being a teenager. But, it is our duty to the Lord and eventually when we put Him first, our duty to God will become our greatest desire. I explained that this is what I have experienced!

Elder Flake & Elder Roderick with the Priests from Grayon Ward.

Then on Friday, we celebrated COW appreciation day at Chick-fil-A, which is when they give away free meals to anyone dressed as a cow. Ha-ha! So, for the entire morning Elder Flake and I went with the Priests in our ward dressed as cows and got free food! We looked so dumb. LOL! We just taped spots on our shirts and put ears on our sunglasses. But hey, it was free food and good times with the Priests! We have to get lunch for the next week from somewhere. Right? And, if it's frozen Chick-fil-A then that's fine with me.

Of course we managed to fit in some missionary work too and this week was full of teaching! We taught more LIMPS (lessons to investigators with a member present) than I have ever taught.  I think we taught thirteen lessons and the standard for the mission is four or five. So, it was a solid week! However, we're going to have to go through and clear out some of our teaching pool because some people aren't progressing and working with them is becoming a waste of time. Even so, we are finding some great new people to teach. It's crazy because we only tracted for four hours this entire week and we're supposed to tract for around twelve. We were just too busy teaching. But during the little time we did have to tract we found amazing people! We found one potential investigator named Stanley Jacques. He's twenty-five and he let us in when we knocked on his door. We literally only taught him for ten minutes because we were short on time but then Stanley showed up to church on Sunday. It was so cool! We had six investigators at church on Sunday, which was awesome and I didn't even sucker them into coming by telling them I was speaking. I promisssseee!

Elder Roderick and Elder Flake with "their boy" Kamari.

The best news of the week is that my boy, Kamari, is getting baptized this Sunday. Yayyyerrrr! It was so funny, yesterday at church his baptism was announced over the pulpit but Emoy, Aaysai and Kamari were late so he didn't even hear the announcement. I was sitting on the stand looking for them to come in and time went by and thirty minutes later they still weren't there. They are usually late but not THAT late, so I was hecka’ stressin’. Then, I felt my pocket vibrate and I looked at the phone and it was a text from Emoy and she said, "YOOOO we've been out here since the sacrament and we aren't sure when we're supposed to go in. SO WHEN DO WE COME IN RODERICK!?" Those poor souls! I immediately replied, "NOW! RIGHT NOW!" As a member, I don’t really think about things as simple as entering the chapel at an approved time until someone joining the church experiences it. Anyway, he is SO excited for his baptism. He is going on a campout with the Young Men from Friday to Saturday then the baptism will be on Sunday after church. Everyone at church was so happy it's on Sunday because they can all come. I seriously think the entire ward is going to be there because they all know Kamari and his family and love them so much. Elder Flake and I are also very, very excited! We are going to make sure we keep him as clear from opposition as we can and pray that everything works out. Thank you for keeping him and his entire family in your prayers!

I love you guys so much!! Thank you for your endless support. I couldn't continue without you. Have an amazing week and know that I pray for you every night!

Bye y'alllll

Elder Roddy