Monday, January 27, 2014

Stake Conference, Cookies, and Friends with the Dog

Highlights of the Week:

We had stake conference this weekend, which was amazing! we had the adult session in Columbus, which was just great. The whole theme was on Hastening the Work, and the speakers added that we need to finish the work, and its so true! Our Stake President's talk was on the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, and how sometimes we see less-actives as a lazarus and think there is no help in trying but there always is, and how we are all Lazarus's at some point in our lives and how we all need help being unbound by things. 

John 11 really is an amazing chapter.. i love it. I just love the bible.  

one of the other speakers shared a video from the "Hastening the Work" Webpage, it was the video on "I'll go where you want me to go", man that video really brought me to tears.. 

when we pulled up to the stake center, i couldnt help but notice this beauty in the parking lot..   



Sunday, we had a regional broadcast originate from Orlando, where Elder Russell M. Nelson spoke. Man, he is a hoot! he spoke on the heart.  one of his opening lines was,  "Well, President Uchtdorf can make airplane jokes, and i can make jokes about hearts!"  It was really great.  The Spirit was so strong there.   

Earlier this week we were out in this neighborhood with lots of trailors, we were planning on going to the far one and just start our way back, but i felt that we should stop at the first one instead.. well, turned out, Burt Shorter is such an awesome man with many of the same beliefs as the church! we talked at his doorstep for like 5 minutes, about small things, about how important the family is, but the world is falling away from that and everything, but then he asked, how long do you guys have? and then he invited us in and we talked for about a half hour more! It was really great! we are really excited about him.  

i think the highlight of the week though, we were visiting with our gator Tomario and our member Kenneth while they worked on Mario's car, and we were tired of the dog barking at us so we just stood there and stared at it, and threw pinecones at him, and then he started to play and now we are the best of friends that anyone could have..  i'll get a picture this week with him :) 

I also made oatmeal raisin cookies this week.. yum! 



well, till next week yall!
Elder Bodily



Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Time is a Blur

I look back on this past week, and I don't even really know what happened. Time is such a blur and I love it.  It's just a testimony builder to me that when we are working, that we don't really have time to worry about life and the worldly things.  

We had some great lessons this week and Branch Conference was awesome!  We had a lesson with a Jermaine and Cierra Nelson. They are wonderful.  When we got there, he was watching espn but turned it off when we got in., but we were able to connect and talk sports for a second and get comfortable. but then he threw it on us, "first of all, I'm a baptist." Yeah, and i ate yesterday.....  but that opened up our whole conversation. we talked about the restoration and he was really intrigued about the Priesthood Authority and how it was taken away.  He then called himself  "a seeker for the truth."  I thought, well, time to introduce our good friend Joseph Smith.  He loved it. Him and his wife both.  

 Another lesson we had this week was with the Hayes' family. it was great. we had an appointment Monday night last week, and when we got there, their whole family was there, 3 kids and 11 grandkids.. already doing FHE and not even members yet.. love it. But we were able to talk about families and the importance of them in the eyes of God and that. We are excited about them too!   

Branch Conference on Sunday was great. Our stake president spoke and he was amazing. He said a few things that stuck out to me.. 

"If there ever was a complicated church, this is it."  Haha and how true that is. But yet, we can explain it so that little kids can understand and come to love it.  He also challenged us all to pick two things to do, either each day or for the year. 1 thing is something you can do to help yourself become a better person, and the other thing is something you can do to help the Kingdom of God grow.  It was powerful.   

Our investigator, Tomario: we were over to his house, his wife's car got water in the engine so him and a member have been working on it for a week.. and we were over helping and visiting and Tomario's kids showed me how much of a baby i am. not really, just the dog is just not used to me yet. Rocko is so cute though.. thats the big dog.  and then the little dog, is a baby bull mastif. The Pryor family just got him this week, for Brother Pryor's birthday on Monday.  So cute! his name is Al Capone.  I perfer Kevin, but hey, thats just my opinion. 



Kevin and Al Capone . . .


well, till next week yall.  I love you all. 

oh yeah.. hehe. i forgot, we were doing service this week up at a members how a good 25 miles away, and we had to travel on the Interstate.. yeah, i felt at home.. construction the whole way.. 



Love,
Elder Bodily

Monday, January 13, 2014

What a Week!

hey yall!

What a week it has been!  With the transfers and me getting my new companion has been one great experience! My trainee is Elder Bartholomew! He is a great missionary already and i am so grateful to be his companion! Things are going to click with us because we have so much in common! 



this week was a great one. we had some really good lessons. one of them in particular was on saturday. we visited with a recent convert/less-active lady. She is solid, but just confused and some things.. our lesson was the plan of salvation and it was such a strong lesson. the spirit was there, and so was the storm. during the lesson, the heavens opened up and downpoured. thunder all over.. during the lesson i felt the phone go off, but oh well.  after the lesson, i looked, yeah.. there was a tornado watch in georgia.. hehe that was cool. so we rushed to the apartment and just hung out for a while till it past, and after, we went walking.. boy. that was a weird idea.. we walked about 15 miles.. yeah.. crazy.. and the skies were clear when we started, and then they got dark again, but no storm luckily.. we were quite a ways away from home..  



really i dont know where to start with this week and all the experiences we had. there were so many i cant keep tract of them.. good thing i got my journal though..  

the girls in pink, are the daughters of one of our gators.. they wanted to say hello to everyone :) 





sorry its short this week..  crazy to think this week is 9 months for me..  anyways, i love you all, even if you're upset that this is short, oh well! thats life.. 


Monday, January 6, 2014

Happy New Year and some changes

Happy New Year everyone!  i hope yall made some good resolutions that you wont break after the first week :)  Since this will be my first and only full year in the service of my God, i made my resolutions to help me become a better missionary, and a better man.  

This past week was a great one! one of the Zone Leaders came down and we were in a trio for the day, which was just amazing! we set 5 baptism dates! I really am excited for them all! sadly none of them came to church, but thats okay. we aint giving up on them.  

we did have a less active family come to church though! That was great! they have really changed their life around. it was a good feeling to see them there. church was amazing. we had about 16 people there, and again i was the only white one. i seriously love it! one of our members said something that really stood out to me. he said that the same thing that happens in wards with 200 active members, happens in our meetings of 15 on average. the spirit is the same no matter where you go.  I gave the lesson in priesthood on the first pres. message in jan. ensign. it was very powerful.   "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is now."





Also this week, in a matter of 3 hours, we talked with 2 islamic people who professed they found the true religion, and one of the said that we cant follow the path of Jesus, we gotta get past that, we have to follow the path of Jehovah..  i just laughed, i laughed more when he even acknowledged the budweiser in his hand..  

another cool experience, we were walking around and we saw this guy with a ladder so we walked to him to see if he needed help, nope, so we talked about the 65 mustang in the driveway and then he opened up the garage and showed us these two beauties and sayd he has 25 classic cars in a building.. crazy.. so yeah, im gunna go talk with him more! he knew about the church and mormons. His idol was Dale Murphy, so thats a bonus ahaha. 




Haha, so yall know how i had the ghost pepper on Christmas, well, we gave one to our only active youth priesthood holder, Jermain. He is 12 and so mature. its awesome. but yeah.. he didnt enjoy that pepper too much.. Jermain is a wild kid and hard to control, but man, he is so smart and mature.. sometimes.. hahah




with this new year, we had transfer calls on Saturday, and the news is that Elder Zukela is being transfered and i have been given the responsibility to train a new missionary!!! AH!! it is such a weird feeling to be pregnant on the mission.. I really am excited though.  Dallan Blotter helped me out when he said that we are called not because we are qualified yet, but that the Lord wants us to learn at an accelerated pace.  i also love turning to my patriatrical blessing. That is so powerful!  I encourage yall to read yours and apply it more fully to your life. 

anywho, I hope yall have a good week!  Tomorrow, I will have a son! 

Elder Bodily
(Man, I miss this kid!  Love, mom)