Cornelia Continues

What's up guys?

Another week down! I know I say this every week but I swear time goes by so fast! Just like they told me before I left, the days are long but the weeks are fast. TOO fast! I hit my 14th month on Friday and I feel like I was at a year yesterday. It's not fair!

"YES, I've still got it!" said Elder Roderick 

This week was so good. Before any details, transfer calls were today and we found out that Elder Larsen and I will be staying together for another six weeks. I guess I was so bad that the Lord is making me stick with it here in Cornelia. I'm so excited about it though. I love Elder Larsen.  He's an awesome kid and we have tons of fun together. Sometimes I worry that I'm having TOO much fun but then I remember what a General Authority's wife told us, "If you're not having fun on your mission then you need to repent!" So, I realize that's how it's supposed to be.

The work in Cornelia is really progressing for us. I think one of the reasons why Elder Larsen stayed together is because there are some good things coming up for us during this transfer. Adam, our investigator, who is scheduled to be baptized in November, is doing pretty well.He takes the lessons slowly, and thoughtfully, which is good but sometimes it’s hard to teach him. I think, however, that he's starting to understand what we’ve been teaching him. We had a little scare this week because he's been experiencing some opposition from his family, mainly from his GRANDMA of all people. So, we had a lesson with him on Wednesday and cleared up his doubts and questions. On Saturday we tried calling him at least eight times because we were supposed to have a lesson with him and he ALWAYS answers the phone, but this time he wasn't answering. So, we were thinking, “Ohhhh crap.” But then the next day he showed up at church and I said, "Adam! Why weren't you answering our calls, man?" and he replied, "Because I changed my phone number so my grandma would stop calling me and bugging me all the time!" I was relieved and thinking, “Oh man!” I guess that means if he doesn’t hear from his grandma he won't experience as much opposition! He's literally so funny. Every time Adam (the prophet) is mention is Sunday School he gets a big grin on his face and looks at us then points to himself. It makes me laugh so hard. I'll let you know how things progress with him! 

We're also teaching an eleven year old boy named Chantz who is the grandson of a less-active lady in the ward. Chantz's family is going through some hard times. We've been teaching him and it's been great because he's a really spiritually-mature kid, but the only problem is that his grandma hasn't been to church forever! So, on Saturday we decided to just go over and teach her by herself, and we talked to her about Chantz and their family and the hard time they're going through.  Then, without us even bringing it up she said, "Ya know boys, I really want Chantz to be baptized, and his mom too. But I know I need to be a better example to him. So I've made it up in my mind that I'm coming back to church." Then, on Sunday, they came to church! Sister Ellison (the grandma) said she talked to Chantz's mom and she gave him permission to be baptized if he wants.  This means we're going to try and get the whole family to commit. Please pray for them!

Atlanta North Missionaries go golfing in Cornelia. 

I've told you about Robin Hood, the less-active lady we found through a miracle. Well, we got a call from her on Saturday and she told us that our lesson last week really touched her and she wants to start coming back to church. She wasn't able to make it yesterday, but she told us that she's been reading the Book of Mormon every night. It's so awesome! And, she's going to bring her nephew to church so we can start teaching him too. Yayerrrr!

This morning for P-Day we went golfing. It was my first time in about sixteen months. It was soooo much fun! We had a blast and YES I've still got it and YES I'll still beat dad when I get home!

Well, I love you guys! Thank you for everything. I'll talk to you sooooon.  Happy Halloween!
Elder Roddy

Preaching in the Park

Hey guys!                                                                                          

Well, it was an amazing week! This morning for P-Day the APs came to Helen for the day, along with four other Elders they picked up on their way. We hiked to some waterfalls located a couple of miles past Helen and it was awesome! They were gorgeous. Everything up here in the mountains is very scenic. For instance, this week we were just driving down the street and suddenly there was an opening in the trees. We stopped to see what it was and saw an awesome overlook to Lake Russel.  It was seriously so beautiful. Such experiences are one of the many reasons why I love Georgia!

The work is great! Our ward is super fired up about missionary work right now. As Elders we've made some changes to try and get everyone more excited. The ward is suddenly going crazy and all the members are asking us for pamphlets to hand out to their friends and even strangers, and after they hand out the pamphlets, they report their experiences to everyone the following Sunday. So, those who are having positive experiences are getting everyone else pumped up and it's been fun to watch! We’re actually seeing some tangible success from it. For instance, I told you about Adam, who a member brought to church last week. Well, we taught him twice this week and he committed to be baptized on the 15th of November. Ha Ha!  When we asked him to commit, he had a big goofy grin on his face and said, "Yes." So, hopefully we can make it go down. The lesson, after which we asked him to be baptized, was on Saturday morning in the park and that's what Brother Hack sent you guys a picture of. Glad you liked it!

Elder Roderick and Elder Larsen teaching in Cornelia.

Something funny happened last Sunday and I ran out of time to tell you about it last week. That night we didn't have any appointments and it was really dark so knocking on doors wouldn't be a very...pleasant...experience.  So, finally we thought, "Alright, let's go to McDonalds and see if we can talk to someone." When we got there, the other Elders just went and sat at a table and they said to me, "What are we supposed to do? We can't buy anything because it's Sunday and we're not about to just go sit down with someone while they're eating!" I thought, “That’s fine if you sit there but I'm not going to just sit.” Instead, I just starting walking around and I found this sweet old lady who was all dressed up so I approached her and started a conversation. I learned she had just finished attending her church service. I talked to her for about five minutes, when suddenly ten people came and sat next to us. I was thinking, “What the heck?” It turns out they were all at McDonalds with the lady and they were just ordering food when I started to talk with her. Before I knew it I was talking to a dozen people, including the church pastor, and answering questions about the LDS Church. One of them asked the classic question, "Mormons. Don't y'all have more than one wife?" So, I said what I always say. "No Ma'am. My dad has one wife and I think that's all he can handle!" Ha Ha! It was a hilarious experience!

On Saturday night we had dinner with a member of our ward and her two non-member neighbors. The neighbors are both from New York and one of them is Italian and has the thickest New York accent I’ve ever heard. I could've listened to her talk all day! "I really enjoyed feedin' ya's!" Oh man!

On Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting. The topic was sustaining our prophets, so I used my skydiving experience to make my point. You're probably wondering how in the heck I could tie that expereince into the gospel and at first I had no idea either, I just wanted an excuse to use it, but I found it actually worked really well and the whole ward was dying with laughter as I explained my experience. I think I got my message across.

I love each of you so much! Thank you for supporting me. I love being a missionary and I know there is nowhere I would rather be right now. Talk to you soon!

Elder Roddy

Livin’ the High Life with Nine-Toed-Tina

What's up guys?                                                                               

 I had another great week here in the luxurious town of Cornelia, Georgia.  Thank you for your emails and everything y'all do for me! I have the best support system in the world! 

Elder Roderick and his most recent friend in Cornelia

Well, tons of exciting things happened this week! On Tuesday we had a zone meeting and I went on exchange with one of the zone leaders, Elder Black, in his area. Our exchange was rather ironic because for four and a half months Elder Black was in the Lilburn Zone while I served as the zone leader.  So now, we just swapped places. We had a great time together! We had a lesson with a family he and his companion are teaching, the Cooper family, and we felt great about the impact of our lesson.  Their dad wasn't home so we couldn't go inside their house, so we taught the lesson on their front porch. The Spirit was super strong and Sister Cooper has committed to praying for her date to be baptized. Yay! We had a crazy experience while we were teaching them. One of their neighbors joined us on the porch and she is a funny old lady who all the missionaries call nine-toed Tina because has nine toes! In the middle of our lesson she just randomly start saying the strangest things. At one point she got a phone call so she excused herself.  Then, ten minutes later we look over and she is literally dancing in the driveway speaking in tongues and chanting hilarious things! Ha! We were thinking, “What the heck?” Then, when we left she yelled at us from the porch and said, "God bless you young men! I pray that Jesus will help guide you in your paths and bless you with success! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. AMEN!" Ha! Ha! So, we received a nice blessing from nine-toed Tina. That’s what I call livin’ the high life.

On Thursday, we had a lesson with Bobby Taylor, a member in our ward whom I've told you about before. He considers himself an active member, but he's trying to gain a solid testimony of the Church. He asked us many thoughtful questions and we were pretty bold with him while we taught. We told him that in order to gain a testimony, every single day he needs to conduct his life in a way that will allow a testimony to come. We also gave him President Uchtdorf's talk from Conference, “Receiving a Testimony of Light and Truth” because we felt like it was so applicable to him. Teaching Brother Taylor has made me realize that each of us needs to work on strengthening our testimonies every day. No matter what!

On Friday we had an awesome day! We literally had ZERO new investigators for the week so I was pretty anxious. (You know me!) Then, after one of our appointments fell through we were biking down the road and I had a strong impression to turn down the street to my left, so I did. On the street there was nothing but old buildings and run-down stores, so I was questioning why the Spirit told me to go there.  Even so, we just kept going and sure enough there were some houses further down the road and outside of the first one there was a guy working in his front yard. So, we stopped to talk to him. His name is Eric and he is a super nice guy. We learned that he had just finished serving as the foreman of a jury for a super big case here in Cornelia. Without going into too much detail, I can tell you that there was a really sad incident that happened here about five months ago. A police force was ordered to break into a drug house and drop a flash-grenade inside. Unfortunately, the drug dealer had left about an hour earlier, and when the police threw the flash grenade inside, it landed inside the crib of a 19 month-old baby who was positioned right inside the door. Really sad stuff! Fortunately, the baby survived and is doing okay now. But, obviously it was a super sticky situation for the police and Eric was randomly selected in the county to be the foreman of the jury for the case. So, you can only imagine the load that has been on his shoulders! As we were talking to him, I said something to the effect of, "Jeez, man. I'm sorry you had to go through that." Eric’s reply was really interesting. He said, "Well, ya. It was hard, but I think God put me in that situation because he needed a man of faith to be in charge, so He tested me and gave me the opportunity." I was totally taken back! I learned a great lesson from Eric.  We need to cease every opportunity we have, good or bad, and have a positive attitude about tackling it!

Ahhhh… I just found out I have five minutes left on the computer.  I’ll briefly tell you that on Sunday a member brought a friend with him to church, and of course when I first saw him, I knew he was a non-member so I quickly pounced on him. His name is Adam and he sat with us through all of church and he LOVED it! He said, "I'm definitely coming back!" We are teaching him tonight, so pray for us!

I love you guys so much! Thank you for everything! Talk to you soon!!

Roddy

"GIVE ME REVELATION!"

Helllooooo my loved ones!                                                                

            I had a great week, as always! It's definitely not summer anymore here in Georgia. It was super cold this weekend (60 degrees...FREEEEEZING RIGHT? lol) Football season has made the whole South act as crazy as ever because the games have been so wild. On Saturdays for 3 hours while the Dawgs are playing I can kiss any contacting opportunities, “Goodbye” because I can't talk to ANYONE. Ha ha! I can't blame 'em though. I'd be watching too if I could!

Of course there was something better on this weekend though… General Conference! (I know you all were watching it instead of football.) Seriously, it was amazing! It dawned on me this weekend that this is my 3rd Conference in the field because there was one right when I started serving, which means I only have one left. Just the thought makes me shutter! This was by far the best Conference I've ever heard in my life. Maybe it's because the longer I'm serving, the more I appreciate modern-day prophets and everything the Church has to offer.  The real reason I felt like this Conference was so inspiring for me was because prior to listening, I wrote down 10 questions that have really been on my mind lately, and prayed that God would help me answer them. So, with the questions in mind, I listened really closely, and it was crazy how well they were answered! Seriously, there were some talks where I felt like the speaker was talking directly to me. It was a huge testimony builder. The Church is true!

As far as missionary work goes, things are going great. We had tons of lessons with less active members this week and committed two of the families we met with to let us teach their children. It's been hard for us to find new investigators, so Elder Larsen and I have been praying diligently to find people. On Saturday, before the Priesthood Conference session, our prayers were answered! We had a lesson with a less active lady and when we got there, she introduced us to her non-member grandson who lives in the area and usually spends 3 days a week at her house. He's going through some rough things with his family so we're going to start teaching him when he’s at her house. I'll let you know how it goes.

On Wednesday we were teaching our man, Earl Alexander, who I've told you about. We were supposed to teach his friend, Robin Hood, with him that night, but a few hours before our appointment she ended up getting really sick and going to the hospital! So, we just focused our lesson on him and it ended up being an effective lesson because we were able to help him understand the importance of tithing so he can be worthy to attend the temple again. For the last few weeks, we've also been trying to teach Brother Alexander's less active son and his family, but whenever we're there they are drunk hanging out in the back yard and it really makes Brother Alexander sad. So after our appointment, Elder Larsen looked at me and said, "We need to go talk to them right now and tell them that they need to respect their father and come to our lesson this week." As he was talking I was thinking, "Whoaaa! Where did that come from?" Then he continued, "I don't know man. I’ve just got an impression that we need to!" Well of course, me being the wimp that I am, starting making excuses about how they were drinking and it was pitch black outside and they were going to get mad at us...blah… blah… blah… Excuses. Excuses. So, finally we agreed that we would pray about it.  Then, we would make our decision about whether or not to talk to them. After we prayed, Elder Larsen did this routine that he alwayssss does (usually as a joke) where he flips open the book of Mormon, closes his eyes, points to a random scripture and yells, "GIVE ME REVELATION!" So, he did it, and he read the following verses:

"And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine." 1 Nephi 4:6-7

Could those scriptures be any more direct to our situation? It was crazy! I definitely learned a lesson that night. And, the best part of the story is that the family actually agreed that next week they would have us over for dinner and sit in on the lesson afterward. We're so excited!

Also on Wednesday we had the opportunity to drive to Athens with all the missionaries in our stake to see a sneak peek of the new movie, “Meet the Mormons!” IT WAS SO GOOD! You have to go see it. I wish the Church would just give each of the missionaries a ton of DVDs to pass around because if everyone could watch that movie they would be calling us off the hook! Ha ha! Seriously, you have to see it! The very first person they talk about is a black bishop from Atlanta who is actually a stake president now. Also, this will make more sense when you see it, but in the movie it shows him and another man fighting about who's barbeque is better.  This other man is Elder Parker, who is now an Area Seventy and I know him because he came and spoke to us. Without giving too many details away, the last person featured in the film is a missionary-mom whose conversion story is told.  At the end you’ll see the family packing the missionary’s bags and sending him off on his mission. Watching this unfold made me think about how lucky I am to have a supportive family and tons of friends back at home. I love you guys so much! I know I don't give the most detailed letters in the world of everything I do every week but it is literally impossible, so if there is one thing you should know every week it's that I love all of you and I'm grateful for you!

Well I didn't eat anything crazy this week or get chased by dogs on my bike, so that's a relief!

Finally, I have to give a “shout out” to my man, Elder Henry Morris, for singing in the MTC choir during Conference. I always knew he had the voice of an angel.

I love you guys!! Thank you for everything! So long suckaaaaassss

Elder Roderick

"Yonah hike that mountain?"

HEY Y'ALL!!!                                                                                       

 

I had an amazing week! Ha ha ha… You're probably wondering what in the world that subject is saying. Last Monday for P-Day we hiked the tallest mountain in the area, Yonah Mountain. It's hugeee and it was so cool to see the view from the top! We got tons of pictures so I'll make sure I send some! The Southern people try to say, "Do you wanna go hike that mountain?" But, their accent makes it sounds like, "Yonah hike that mountain?" It's hilarious.

YMCA on Yonah Mountain

 This whole week we had to bike a ton because we only get 1500 miles a month in our car and we hit that mark at half way through the month. So basically, Elder Larsen and I are in big trouble. I'm just waiting for a call from the mission office and I'm NOT looking forward to it. But anyway, we've been biking a ton and on Tuesday Elder Larsen ran over a nail! That really did us in! So, we ended up having to walk a lot, use more miles, and eventually, we fixed his tire. We are doing a lot of less active reactivation and some of the less actives we're working with are starting to come back to church! We’ve working with the Hardings, a mother and her daughter, and they have been at church for the last 4 or 5 weeks now. We also have tons of appointments scheduled this week so we're going to be super busy!

Wednesday night we rode our bikes for 30 minutes (pretty much all uphill) to a neighborhood where we were supposed to have an appointment with an investigator. The ride exhausted both Elder Larsen and me because we had to book it there just to get to our appointment on time. We got there right at 7:00, which was when the appointment started, and as we were locking up our bikes we got a text from her that said, "Oh no! I'm so sorry but I forgot I had to go to a birthday party tonight so I'm going to have to cancel. I saw you two riding your bikes and it reminded me that we had an appointment." I seriously couldn't help but laugh when we got that text! Then, later she told us she wasn't even interested in learning more. Oh well… You gotta’ do what you gotta’ do!

On a more positive note, we witnessed some great miracles this week. A few weeks ago I told you about a miracle we had with a less active member, Earl Alexander, and his friend Robin Hood but I'll re-tell it quickly because something else happened this week. Brother Alexander is an older man and he lives about 30 minutes away from church and he is extremely sick so he can't attend church. He introduced us to Robin who accepted to have us teach her a lesson at Alexander’s house. However, the day we were supposed to visit her, she was picking up her nephew from the bus stop and the bus broke down. So, it took an extra hour for her to pick him up and she wasn't able to come to the lesson. Then, this last Thursday Elder Larsen and I drove to her home to visit her and luckily, when we arrived, she was there. While talking with her, we actually learned that Robin is a less active member of the church, not an investigator! She was baptized 8 years ago but hasn't been to church since. She expressed that she really wants to come back and she asked us if she could bring her non-member sister and her sister's family to our appointment at Brother Alexander's this Wednesday night. It was awesome and we have hope for her reactivation!

Last night we tried out a proselyting idea that President Bennion suggested – holding a cottage meeting. So, we arranged to have a cottage meeting at a member's home in Toccoa (which is about 35 minutes away from church). We invited as many less active members as we could (we were limited to 20 people because that's all the members could fit in their home). It turned out that we had 14 people accept our invitation to attend. There were 6 active members, 1 less active woman, 2 recent converts, and a less active family of 5.  And, of course Elder Larsen and I conducted the meeting and the couple whose home we were in joined us. So, there were 18 people total at the meeting. It was amazing! We taught simple principles and watched some good Mormon messages and the Spirit was super strong. We're looking forward to doing it again and hopefully, we’ll get more people to attend! I wish you guys could've been there in the room with all of us.

Well, I gotta’ go do something fun now. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! Thank you for everything!    Elder Roddy 

                                                    

                                                                     The view from Yonah Mountain