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

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

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.. 

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)

Christmas and Normal Stuff

Hey Everyone!

I hope yall are still full from Christmas dinners and all the festivities. I know i am.. It was such a blessing to be able to skype with the family!! even if you guys eat in front of me. thats okay.. :) 

this week really is a blur. i sit here and i cant remember much of what happened.. We had a fun time on monday night with the branch, we had a FHE activity with a family that came back to visit us. that was amazing! so much fun! It was a blast!  Christmas was amazing :) we had a great time with the Cassidy family. She cooks for an army, even though it was only 6 of us there.. haha. But that just means more for us to take home :)  Christmas night, we went over to the Alexander's home. Kenneth is such a good man. He is one of our few active Priesthood holders. and I made a decision that would change my life forever..  I had a tablespoon of a ghost pepper hot sauce and then i had a dried ghost pepper at the same time.. wow.. not such a smart idea, but hey, memories.  

on saturday, we organized a basketball game with Kenneth and some kids around. and of course, when the day comes, it starts to rain, but that didnt stop up. we pushed forward. we thought about stopping before we even started, but then it slowed down so we played.  i stepped to the side, and realized something.. i was the only white kid there.. awesome. i've gotten used to that feeling. But it was a fun time we had!  

Church on sunday was a great experience.  Cordele is a group, and we had 9 people at church. but it was amazing. I love how the spirit can just bear simple testimony of the power and truthfulness of the church.  i love reading my patriartical blessing every morning. It really helps out a lot and i have come to understand more of it, bit by bit.  It truly is inspired.  

Well, with the new year, comes new goals in life. im setting it a goal to be the best Elder Kevin Bodily in the GMM.  I love the gospel and the changing power of the Atonement in our lives.  I hope yall have a Happy New Year! 

love

Elder Bodily

I guess in light of the holiday season i should wish you all a merry christmas from the south. where there aint snow, but we are getting rain, and instead of snow, i rake leaves. 

He's still a kid at heart!

This past week was a party though. With us saying goodbye to our fellow elder that has now died. we had his funeral at district meeting. haha it was a good time.   With him going home, i was transfered to Cordele. I love it there. I already know the members so its easy to work with them. i had a testimony builder of prayer this week. i prayed for an opportunity to provide service. and lo and behold, later that day, we were going through a neighborhood and my companion stopped me and we helped a man rake his yard. now this man, he is a pastor at a baptist church down here, and the missionaries met him like a couple weeks ago. but he is super nice, after we finished he invited us in and the wife went to get food for us.. so we talked about how he got into the pastoring business and evertyhing, he is a great guy. the food came back, she got us Captain D's. Boy, that fish was so good. it made me miss Grandpa's fish and tarter sauce from back home.. oh well. but boy. my stomach wasnt too happy with me the next morning hahaha.  

We had some really good experiences finding new people this week. I love Cordele because it is in the Grid system, so it actually makes sense.. but the town doesnt have a mayor.. so weird.. haha. oh well.  we found this family, the Culpeppers.  We knocked on the door and the daughter answered, and we introduced ourselves and asked if there would be a time we could come back and share a message, she said one second. she went and got her dad, and he came out and we thought, oh boy, here we go. but then he was super nice and talked with us and told his whole family to come out and talk with us.. but it was only him his wife and daughter, than 2 younger kids, but they didnts really stay, just came out and sayd hi. but it was awesome.   

we also had a lesson with an investigator named Tomario. Man. he is so elect!!!  It sucks that he is on probation and parole, but that just means he is more spiritually strong than most people, because he has changed his life around. while we were there, he practically taught himself.. thats how powerful the spirit was and how awesome he is.  

another investigator we have is named Sister Lulu, she is a hispanic lady that would be baptised and join if there was more of a stronger youth program for her daughters.. its hard.. but she is wonderful. we go over and her husband was there, he didnt speak much english but she translated for us. but she just cooked up some tacos with shredded beef for us. boy it was delicious.. and a tomale. golly the hispanics know how to cook. everyone does. and with christmas, my companion and i are going to get fat, especially since he likes to play jokes and tell everyone that i love whatever food they cook.. so we have a possibility of like 5 dinners on christmas.. joy..  but anywho. i am excited!    

its been raining pretty hard here the past couple days. i love the rain.. 

Merry Christmas to everyone that reads this. and just remember, in light of the Holiday season. If you trust in the Lord, you will be made fat. Proverbs 28:25.

I love you!
Merry Christmas!

Elder Bodily

Kevin is on the far right.  His new companion is the one with darker skin.

Pretty sure this pic is for his buddies from home - Pipe envy?

Week Flown By

I really don't remember what happened this past week.. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.. all I remember is Christmas parties..  

We had our zone Christmas Conference! That was a blast. It was pretty much an all day thing. We were in Columbus by 12, and then we didnt get back to our apartment till about 1030.  it felt so good though, the drive is an hour and a half. yeah.. open road and a 2014 chevy cruze.. But it was a good time. We watched Ephraim's Rescue. That movie is about the rescue of the Martin Handcart company and that whole thing.. but it was a really good movie.. and then President Cottle read us Christmas stories! yay! haha.  and then on saturday, we had our branch christmas party, "Breakfast with Santa", that was fun! i sat on santa's lap! but it was a good time. 

At the party, our branch president cooper asked if i would speak on sunday.. boy, less than 24 hours to prep, i loved it though. It got me more comfortable with christmas though. the true meaning for me.. i talked about the different memories i have and then certain things that christmas has. It was a good time.. weird that this is my first christmas away from home.. oh well. sounds like you guys are forgetting about me quickly with dad getting a dog for trevor! whats up with that?! oh well.

well, with an elder in our district going home, there was to be some changes. and im moving areas this week! Im excited for a change, but its also sad cuz its right at the holiday season.. oh well!  Its part of the life.  for anyone who would enjoy my new address it is as follows,

Elder Bodily

1018 24th Ave East Apt. B

Cordele GA 31015.

Im just moving 30 miles up the road, so its not too bad.

I hope you all have a wondeful week! 

Love,

Elder Bodily

ps. the picture of the little boy, That is Jace. He is one of my favorite kids out here! He has down Syndrome, and is one of the coolest kids in the world! 

Kevin's new hobby - taking artsy pictures of ornaments . . .