It's Truly Humbling

Hello Family and Friends,                                                                                             

P-Day Tennis with Sister King 

I hope you all had a great week!! My week was fantastic and filled  with tons of miracles, the least of which being that I ran 1 MILE without dying. Hallelujah. Philippians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.) at its finest right there!

My first full week in Canton is complete! It was a great week too! I

love being in a trio with my two sons. I mess with them all day and we have a great time together. We got iPads at the beginning of this week and they've been great tools to help us with the Lord's work! Besides taking selfies with ease, it's been so awesome to able to show videos during our lessons.  Whenever I think, "Man, I wish

I could show them that video or Conference talk right now," I can do it!

              The Mays family (Julius, Joyce, and Angel), who are our top investigators right now, are doing awesome. I don't think I ever told you how Julius met the missionaries. It is an awesome story. Julius has been struggling with alcohol nearly his entire life.  He has had a drink of alcohol every day of his life since he was 14-years-old. One night he was walking home from the gas station with a beer in his hand when he ran into some Spanish speaking missionaries. They started talking to him, and during the course of their conversation, they convinced Julius to pour out his beer right there on the spot, and he did it! Since that day, 3 months ago, he has only had 3 beers and hasn't had a single drop in the last month.

             Last Monday night we made a game plan to help Julius with his smoking habit. We helped him commit to smoke 1 less cigarette a day so that he could be completely clean from smoking by a week before his baptism. We promised him that if he had the desire and the intent, then it was possible with the Lord's help. The next day we met with him again and he had smoked 6 less cigarettes than the day before. Then, the day after that he cut it down another 4! So, he's doing really well and has nearly reached his goal! His desire to follow the commandments is so strong. The greatest part of the working with Julius has been to see him become spiritually converted to the gospel.  He’s not just abandoning his habits because he knows he needs to for his physical well-being. He’s doing it so he can be fully converted.  He reads the Book of Mormon every day and he's been praying multiple times a day for strength. In this process, his countenance has changed right before my eyes. It's just amazing what the Lord can do.

Julia and Kimberly Olascuada are baptized.

             We also had a really cool miracle with his wife, Joyce, this week. At first, Joyce was open to us coming over only because she saw what a change our message immediately made in her husband. Her attitude about our lessons was pretty laid  back because she saw them as tool to help her husband, not herself.  She listened to what we had to say, but I could tell she was thinking, “I already know about this church stuff.” She works every Sunday and gets off at 2:00, which prevents her from coming to Sacrament meeting. This week we tried to focus on helping her see that attending church could benefit her as well, and how the restored gospel could bless her in personal ways. So, on Saturday night, we committed her to pray specifically to know if theBook of Mormon was true and if this is the true church.  That night, after praying, Joyce and Julius received a call from their daughter who was in an emergency and needed them to come pick up her daughter (their granddaughter). Because of the situation with their granddaughter, Joyce was able to get off of work for the first time in MONTHS on Sunday, which allowed her to come to Sacrament meeting for the first time ever. Fortunately, she loved testimony meeting! After the meeting she told us, "If that's not an answer from God, I don't know what is!" It is just so awesome to see them getting answers to their prayers and its awesome to be a tool for God to make it happen. It's truly humbling.

           We also got to go to the temple this week! It was an incredible experience and I got to see Brother Price from the Roswell Ward who was working there, so it made it even more awesome. Also, Julia and Kimberly Olascuada got baptized this weekend in Roswell! I wasn't able to go, which I was bummed about, but I'm so happy for them!! I love you guys! Thank you for everything you do for me!

I'll talk to you next week!

Elder Roderick