He Eventually Pushed Her Under

What's up my crazy family!                                                                       

Thanksgiving Day forecast in Cornelia, Georgia

This week was great! A lot happened so I hope I can capture the best parts for you. We had a zone conference on Wednesday and it was amazing! President Bennion was on top of his game and provided us with some great training sessions. I always learn a ton from conferences where we are taught applicable missionary ideas and tools.  Then, on Wednesday night we went to the Young Men/Young Women activity because James (Robin's nephew) came! He wants to be in Boy Scouts so he got to know a lot of the boys in the ward. His attendance that night made it really nice for us on Sunday when he came to church for the first time because he already knew people. Robin, Renee’ and James are doing great! We also found a few new investigators this week, including a family that we're really excited about. So, pray for them and for us!

The Church is introducing a really cool finding tool for us. It's a Christmas video called “He Is The Gift.” The missionaries were given tons of cards and things to pass out that have John 3:16 printed on the front - so all the Baptists will love them! The video will be released the day after Thanksgiving, so check it out!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,

but have everlasting life.

Cornelia Ward Turkey Bowl participants

On Saturday morning the ward held a turkey bowl. Luckily the weather was perfect and a whopping 12 people showed up! Even though our numbers were few, it was still so much fun! I had to show respect for my team and all of my Utah t-shirts were in the wash so I ended up wearing my Utah pajama shorts. It was way fun!

Today we are going to the Dustin’s to have Thanksgiving dinner at their house. So, that means another PIE IN THE FACEEE! Ya Baby!

Elder Roderick plays QB in the Turkey Bowl

The best part of the week, by far, was yesterday! Well, I don't know about the BEST part but it was definitely the most memorable. The sisters in our ward had a baptism scheduled after church for a sweet 55-year old lady they've been working with. On Saturday night they asked me if I would fill up the font during church and of course, I said, "Ya sure. No problem". Well, yesterday church was crazy because we had to teach a couple classes and escort investigators around, so ya, you can see where this is going…. I forgot to fill up the font! I was sitting in Elders Quorum, which was in the same room where the baptism was going to take place, and about five minutes before church ended I remembered about the font.  I thought, "Oh! My! Gosh!........." Well, of course the Bishop started to get mad and the sisters were looking to kill me and people were fussing and everyone was just looking at me and I was thinking, "YO! CAN WE ALL JUST STOP TALKING AND FUSSING AND FILL THIS THING UP???" Usually it takes at least an hour and a half to fill up the font and the baptism started in twenty minutes. So, we turned the font on and then we also ran a hose from the janitor’s closet into the bathroom and into the font. Then, we literally started cleaning out garbage cans and filling them up with water and dumping it into the font. Ha! Ha! The whole ordeal was quite a site. By the time the font was ready for the sweet lady to get dunked, there was maybe a foot and a half of water. The Bishop was performing the baptism and while I watched him baptize her I wasn't sure if I should laugh, or cry, or run away. Eventually, he pushed her all the way under! YAY! I took our new member some flowers this morning to apologize, again.  So, that was definitely an experience I'll never forget! Leave it to me. Goodness gracious.

Well, enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend and know that I love you and I'm grateful for each of you! I don't want to get too cheesy so just PLEASE DON'T EAT ALL THE JELLO. K. Bye.

Elder Roderick

UP and DOWN and WRAP AROUND with a SNAKE

Hey y'all!!!!                                                                                       

How are you?? HOW 'BOUT THEM UTES BABY!! Ha Ha! All the poor BYU fans here in Georgia probably want to kill me. Anyway another week down! It's starting to get freeeeezing here. I think the high for tomorrow is 39! Pray for little Roddy! I might die!

Well, it was definitely an up and down week, which is basically my life as a Mormon missionary. I started off the week by giving one of the other Elders here in Cornelia a haircut. Oh man! That poor boy! Ha Ha! The entire time I was cutting his hair I kept thinking back to my junior year when Mom cut my hair and she totally messed up so I had to walk around school all day with my hood on! (I can laugh about it now!) But, I actually did a pretty decent job of cutting his hair. I was surprised! The mission is teaching me more than I thought it would.  Ha! Ha!

The “down” part of the week was that Chantz decided he doesn't want to get baptized yet… or anytime soon. More than anything, I was just surprised because he was so solid and so engaged with us. But, I guess he prayed about it and he felt like he couldn't leave his mom right now. I'm not sure what I've told you about Chantz, but his dad just recently left his mom and it's been a pretty rough situation. It was a sudden change for them and it's been hard for their family. So, Chantz was torn between religion and his family and he felt like he just needed to stay with his mom for now, which we totally respect. The good news is we can still teach him, obviously. We actually had dinner with his mom on Saturday and she is looking for a church right now. So, they will be coming as a family to our ward with their grandma soon and hopefully we'll start teaching their entire family. I think the Lord just wants us to be patient and He has plans for the family as a whole. So we're not losing hope!

As always, there were definitely some “ups” in the week! We taught Robin's Sister Renee' and her nephew, James, twice this week and they were both really effective lessons! Renee' is really struggling with the loss of their dad and she's basically at rock bottom right now. So, we're trying our best to help her find hope in the gospel. James is going to start attending Boy Scouts in the ward which will be the PERFECT step to help him feel comfortable. On Tuesday night while we were teaching them, Robin was telling us how much it had meant to her to come back to church and feel the love that was there. She said, "I'm going to church for the rest of my life! The way I feel while I'm there and while you guys are here teaching me is so peaceful and I love it. I'm never missing again!" Well....on Saturday night she got a stomach virus and had to go to the ER so she missed church. Ha! Ha! Of course! But hey, it's the thought that counts!

Elder Roderick, the Cornelia Snake Charmer

On Wednesday night we played basketball with the Elder's Quorum because they always have non-members there and President Bennion gave us the “OK” to play. It was so much fun! It was soooo nice to play again, but MAN! I'm out of shape!  I'm not sure who was in worse shape: the 74-year old guy in our ward who was playing with us or me. Honestly!

Last night a member of our ward showed us his collection of snakes that he keeps in his basement. He has over 30 of them. While I was holding them, I felt like I was a part of the snake-charming church or something. 

 Well I love you guys!! Thank you for everything!   Elder Roderick

 

"I really, really, really, really, miss my boy Roddy."

What's up guys!                                                                                

            Howwww y'all doin'?? Thank you for the emails I love hearing from each of you! This week Dirty Z sent me an email and he said, "I really, really, really, really, miss my boy Roddy." So, I'll echo what Dirty said to you, "I really, really, really, really, miss you guys!" With 4 reallys! Yes, I miss you that much. Believe it or not! But, I love everything going on in Cornelia !

Airsoft with Chantz

We had some amazing miracles happen this week. Chantz is doing great! We had a lesson with him and he still wants to be baptized and his mom is totally fine with it. We are having dinner with their family and with his grandma on Saturday so hopefully we'll start teaching her too! The other Elders actually met his mom while they were tracting, and she told them how much we meant to Chantz and how much our lessons and friendship were helping him. We talked with Chantz and with his grandma about the best time for his baptism and we all agreed that it would be best to wait until after they return from their Thanksgiving vacation.  If we wait, we can prepare him more fully. So, most likely Chantz is going to be baptized on December 6th, and lucky for us that is the Saturday before transfers.

Chantz is really into airsoft, and he's been asking us a lot lately if we’ll play with him.  Unfortunately, every time he wants to play we don’t have time because we're always running to one place or the other. On Wednesday we had an appointment with him at 4:30 and our 5:15 appointment cancelled, so when he asked us if we'd play with him I thought to myself, "What the heck. You gotta have some fun right? If I were 11 and these guys never played with me I wouldn't like them at all!" So we played airsoft with him. Ha! Ha! All my friends can tell you from past experiences that I am terrible at airsoft! So of course, I was out first. Even so, it was so much fun. 

We had such a cool thing happen with Robin this week. Hopefully I can explain it well enough so you can see how amazing it was, but my emails can never do my experiences any justice. Sometimes you just have to be there. Well, Robin and her non-member sister, Renae, and her nephew, James (12), came to our trunk-or-treat at the ward last Wednesday, but she wasn't able to come to church on Sunday. We taught her on Tuesday and to our surprise we learned that Renae was quite against the church and was saying some negative things about it and how she didn't want her son James to go to church with Robin. We were really surprised because Renae seemed to have a great time at the trunk-or-treat and didn't appear to be negative about the church at all. So, we helped Robin practice what she could say to Renae so she wouldn’t be so negative about the church.  Then, we went back on Saturday night and learned that Robin’s conversation had gone well and Renae agreed that she was being ridiculous. So, yesterday Robin came to church for the first time in eight years! It was so awesome to see her there because Satan did EVERYTHING he could to stop her. Every time she's been reading the Book of Mormon something happens, and she even got really sick and started throwing up this week, and THEN Renae hit a deer with her car. But, Robin still came to church. We promised her over and over that she would see blessings for it.

The Cornelia Elders

Well, church was great and afterward we got a call from Robin who apparently went straight from church to visit Renae. Apparently, Robin found Renae pretty down on herself. She is in a rough place in life and is about to lose her home, and she asked Robin where she could get a "recipe for happiness in life." Robin said, "I know just the boys you need to talk to!" Renae responded, "Yes. I knew you were going to say the Elders could help me and I've actually been thinking about that. For some reason I feel like God is pushing me toward them. I would love to meet with them on Tuesday night when I'm off work." While telling us this story, Robin was almost in tears. It was awesome! I was so happy that Robin had this experience because she saw immediate blessings from attending church. That's what being a missionary is all about: watching God work miracles in people's lives. I'm just grateful to be a part of His work and His miracles every day!

Well, I love each of you and I'm grateful for everything you do for me. I was thinking the other day about how Emily has taken my spot at all of the Utah football games, and I was wondering what is going to happen when I get home. I came to the conclusion that Nathan needs to get ready to serve a mission so I'll just take his spot next season and I'll go with Emily and Dad! Let me know what you guys think about that plan.

Love y'all!!

Elder Roderick

Sinners in Sunday School

Hey y'all!                                                                                 

Another week down in Cornelia and a lot of things happened! So, I guess I'll just start from the beginning. On Tuesday night we had a ward council meeting and the bishop asked the missionaries to attend.  So, we did and basically we sat on the back row with Brother Dustin the whole time because none of it involved us. At one point in the meeting they started talking about the young men and young women and before they moved on to the next topic, a counselor in the bishopric brought it to everyone's attention that "Some of the young men and young women are starting to be more interested in each other than normal. In fact, one young man even put his arm around a young woman in Sunday school!" OH NO!!!!!!!! Well, you can only imagine the conversations that were started after that! Questions started being asked such as, "Well, are they holding hands too? That would be concerning." and "Oh my! Are they 16 yet?"Of course I'm just sitting in the back trying not to laugh and all I can think is "I must really be in the hills of Georgia right now! If this is bad, I wonder what they would think of us sinners in Salt Lake!!" Ha Ha! Good times, good times.

Trick or Treat?  Who's the trick and who's the missionary? 

On Wednesday night we attended the Trunk or Treat at the ward! And no, I didn't dress up this year because we weren't allowed to. But, it was still a lot of fun! Many less active families and investigators attended.  In fact, some who hadn't been to the church building in about eight years came! However, the part of the night was that our friend Will dressed up like a Mormon missionary. You've probably seen Will in some of our pictures; he's the blonde guy who hangs out with us every P-Day. He's a non-member and the cousin of a family in our ward. His costume was pretty classic!

Elder Anderson, our 24-year old friend, left us on Wednesday to complete his mission in another city. The new Elder to join us in Cornelia is Elder Harward. Coincidentally, he served in Hickory Flat so he and I have some great things to talk about. He said Stanley, my first baptism, hasn't missed a single Sunday! So sweet!

 On another bright note, our investigator, Chantz (11), wants to be baptized right away! He said he went home and prayed about whether Joseph Smith was a prophet or not, and as soon as he did he got chills up and down his whole body. We told him he would never forget that feeling! His mom said it was fine for him to get baptized and we're hoping to start teaching her soon as well. Chantz will probably be baptized either the week before or the week after Thanksgiving.

In addition to Elder Harward, a new sister joined us in Cornelia as well.  She served with me in Grayson for 3 months so I’ve been able to talk with her about how my friends in that ward are doing, and I got some GREAT news from her! She said that Emoy is still taking the missionary discussions and that Kamari and Aaysia are going to church regularly. The best news though, was about a less active member that Elder Flake and I taught, Nicole Campbell. I can't remember if I told you about her or not, but we actually found her when we were knocking doors, and at first she didn't want us to teach her anything because she’d had some bad experiences in the past. She did, however, let us provide service for her. So basically for 3 months every Wednesday we went to her house and served her. During most of the time we worked for her we built a little house behind her garage. As a result, she began to trust us and slowly we started to teach her. Well guess what? Now she has started going to church and she brings her kids with her! And, that little house we built? SHE is moving into it and on the next transfer date, the sister missionaries in the area are going to move into her original house! It was so satisfying to hear this news! In a million years I wouldn't have guessed that would happen.

Well that's about all I have to report for this week! Great things are happening and I'm excited for my work to continue! Thank you for your support and love! I love being a missionary and seeing miracles every day.

Love y'all! Have a great week!

Roddy