What's Up?
I wish you
guys could see me and the rest of the Elders in my area right now. We've been at the church since 6:30 this
morning working on our studies together, making pancakes and bacon and playing
indoor soccer and basketball. So, we're dead tired and as we sit down to write
our families we literally can't remember anything that happened throughout the
week! Ha ha! It's so frustrating! We want to tell you about every little detail
and all the miracles we've seen but it all just blends into one long
memory! So, I'm sorry if my emails always seem too short and lack details
but I'm doing my best to not make it 20349523408957 pages long!
Where do I
start? Where do I start? On Wednesday we had a zone conference and it was
AWESOME. It was just our zone with the Assistants and President Bennion
and Sister Bennion. So I got to see my cowboy, Elder Flake, again! And, we're
going on exchange tonight together! I can't wait! For the conference Elder
Gosar and I had to train for an hour. We
had to train the Elders on the information that the leaders from the Church
Missionary Department taught us about, and it went super well. I used my
skydiving experience as a metaphor of guiding our investigators and helping
them take a leap of faith and I'm not sure if anyone got anything out of it or
not because they were all laughing so hard.
But, hey! Whatever makes them happy and interested!
So much is
happening with the #Haitiannation LoL. Every morning I wake up feeling like I
got hit by a train because we're always so busying running around and it takes
everything out of me. Our investigators are doing pretty well though! Obviously
Cleevens was the highlight of the week with his baptism!! There is no better
way I would have liked to spend my Valentines Day! He is such a humble kid and
it has been so amazing to work with him. On Friday night, Elder Gosar and
another Elder in our zone (we were on exchange) took him with them to teach the
Pierre family, another Haitian family we're teaching. They said that at the end
of the lesson, Cleevens took the opportunity to bare his testimony to them and
he started crying! He is so converted it's amazing! He has gotten a lot of harassment from his friends but every time he just bares testimony to them and stands up
for the church! We made a total breakthrough with his mom this week too. We
were able to read the Book of Mormon
 |
| Elder Roderick, Cleevens and Elder Gosar |
On Sunday
after his confirmation we took Cleevens with us to dinner at the Young Men's
President's house, and he ended up telling us a lot about his life that we
didn't know about. Do you remember the huge earthquake in Haiti 4 years ago?
Cleevens was there! He said that every day, he would go home and play video
games in an upstairs room in his house EXCEPT on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays he would
go to a tutor for school. Well the earthquake happened on a Tuesday, and the
entire top floor of his house got wiped out but the bottom floor was fine,
which is where is family was. It's insane. After that his family came here and
the rest is history! It really was just incredible to hear more of his story
and how Heavenly Father truly does prepare his children to hear and accept the
gospel.
The actual
baptism for Cleevens was such a sweet experience; one I'll never forget! I wish
I could tell you about something that Elder Gosar and I did to make it happen
but we literally did nothing. We just taught, left commitments, and watched as
the Holy Ghost taught the truth directly to him! The entire process with
Cleevens has been an experience I'll never forget!
Our other
investigators are doing great as well! We've started teaching, Tyrone, the son
of a recent convert, Sandra Williams. We haven't been able to have a real
solid lesson with him so this week when we have a chance to really teach heim, we'll
be inviting him to be baptized. Keep him in your prayers! There is also another
recent convert in the ward named Hugues that has been coming out with us to
teach literally every day. He's 24 and from the Bahamas and I LOVE him. (He's
the kid in the hat in the baptism picture.) He blessed the sacrament on Sunday
and he and 4 of our other recent converts are going to the temple to do
baptisms with us at the end of the month!
I'll end
off with a funny and embarrassing moment I had this week. I went on exchange
with a greenie in the YSA Ward. The YSA Elders cover the entire stake so they
have a car, but of course the ONE day I'm there the car breaks down and we have
to ride bikes. The road they live off of is hugeeee and it has a ton of hills.
Yay! So in the afternoon, we were supposed to go to an apartment complex near
their home to follow up with some people. I obviously had no idea where I was
going so I was just following him. We started riding along this road, and we
just kept going, and going, and going, and goinggggg. I would stop and ask him
if he thought we were close and he'd say, "Nope. None of this looks
familiar so let's keep going,” and I'm thinking to myself "K. There is NO
way we're supposed to going this far."....Well sure enough, we ended up
biking 8 MILES FARTHER THAN WE WERE SUPPOSED TO. We ended up right by the
temple and 5 miles outside of the mission!! Hahaha Oh man! When I found out how far we’d gone all I
could really do was laugh. The life of a missionary! It's great. I love it! I
wouldn't rather be anywhere else.
Have a great
week! Love you guys!!
Elder Roderick
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