Hallo!

It has been a fabulous week! And we only have ONE left before we head to Germany!

I definitely feel a mixture of excitement and fear about heading off on Tuesday. All of a sudden it's like "WAIT! I don't want to leave, I haven't learned enough yet, I need like 3 more weeks. At least!" Haha, but that's OK, because I am so ready to be IN Germany!!

So this week I got to play Be Still My Soul on the flute for the group of missionaries that are leaving this week. There is always a Sunday Departure Devotional, and that's what I got to play for. It was really lovely!

So the weekly service update: This week Sister Carroll and I got to clean the toilets on Monday. It was a party! And we took so long, that the cleaning supervisors had to come and find us. I am sure that conversation was interesting. "Uh...wait a minute, these Sisters haven't signed out yet. WHAT are they doing? Did they get lost or something?"

One of the Elders likes to use to word "turd" when referring to whatever missionary is doing something silly. I decided that we needed to "German-ize" it. So, next time someone does something you don't agree with, say "Wow, that was tuerdlich." eheh (mission appropriate??...)

My other favorite Germanization of the week was when we were all beyond focusing and I said "my brain gesplodet". (in German, the past participle often adds a g and et to the word.)

In one of the talks we heard this week, someone mentioned that it is really the small moments that you remember most, and it is the small moments that have the biggest impact. I definitely had many of those this week, and sometimes it is hard to translate them into email form. :) But I challenge us all to remember that. And to look for those moments, and for ways to create those moments for other people. Often all it takes to brighten someone's day is that one smile, that one compliment, that one kind gesture. I think we can all afford to do just one more kind gesture a day. And the return will be greater than we expect, that's for sure! :)

Elder Maxwell said something awesome in his talk "Be of Good Cheer".  He said that we are justified in ALWAYS being of good cheer or happy and positive for ultimate reasons: like eternal families, forgiveness, second chances, absolute truth, a loving God Who is our Father, and many more "ultimate" reasons like that.

Gotta run, but I love you all.

Life is full of reasons to laugh, to smile and to love. Don't let them pass you by, just because things are difficult. The difficult things become less so when you are laughing hysterically. ;)

 Sister Roderer

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Matching by the temple

Live Animal Trap

One of the only times Sister Carroll and I will ever sort of match!

Hello Alle!!!

So this week has been mighty eventful. The Lord knows how to strengthen, humble, and teach His missionaries, that is for sure!

So gym has been fun, when I am not playing basketball with Sister Carroll, I am boxing on a stack of hanging yoga mats. Sister Sant is a black belt, and she taught me the Roundhouse kick the other day. That was pretty cool.

I am one of the official MTC special musical number accompanists, but so far, I have only accompanied Sister Sant. But that's OK, because she is FABULOUS! :)

We figured out that by the end of the six weeks, we will have spent an ENTIRE WEEK's worth of hours in our classroom. That's a lot of hours, but it has been really awesome.

Service was exciting on Monday. Sister Carroll and I got to vacuum all of the edges on four different floors, which was exciting enough. But, we named the hand-held vacuums. I was working with Harold, but then he started squealing and smelling like fried electronics, so I returned him, to avoid death. :) Then I got Rhonda, and she was pretty great, though she was a little bit of a slowpoke. Sister Carroll was working with Toto, who only really worked if you kicked him over. Imagine two sister missionaries at 6:30 in the morning, running and racing up and down hallways with handheld vacuums and laughing hysterically and you will about get the picture. :)

I have been learning more about this "time" idea, which has been really beautiful. I realized that sometimes when we ask God for things, it is like we are an animal stuck in a live-animal-trap. The animal could escape and find something a lot more delicious to eat, but they are so focused on the morsel of food that they won't let go, and basically capture themselves. Sometimes what we want requires us to let go of what we think should happen. God asks us to have faith before we see our miracles, because He cannot give blessings to people who are not ready to receive them. If we ask for progress, but refuse to let go of something in the past, it is like holding on to bait inside of a trap. We have to sacrifice that bit of bait to receive what we are truly desiring. God, in His mercy, does not give us what we don't have room for. But as soon as we show a willingness to let go of what is holding us back, He fills us with strength to let go, and blesses and nourishes us, both temporally and spiritually.

Anyway, God is so good.

May God bless and keep you all!

Sister Roderer

Meanwhile at the MTC

February 4, 2015
Hello Y'all!

It has been a FANTASTIC week here in the MTC. I got a picture with Sister Popham, and I got to see Sister Smith!

The other day we were playing basketball, and I was trying to get the ball from Elder Keck, and I cam up from underneath and popped it out of his hand and the ball smacked him in the jaw. Immediately, a ball came out of nowhere and smacked ME in the face, and smashing my lip against my teeth. Elder Keck said it was karma, but I think karma brought too many friends. I was glad to see that by the end the of the day that the swelling went down and my lips was normal again.

This week we got to teach real-life people! It's called TRC, and it means that members come into the MTC and get 20 minutes lessons with the missionaries. It was a really cool experience.

I got to see Patrik on Friday! It was such a blessing to get to see him. The Lord surely knew that I needed to see him, and that it would deepen my desire to serve an honorable mission.

So during one of our lessons, Sister Carroll needed a question that we had written down. I gave it to her, and then she mispronounced it. Later come to find out, it is because she could not read my handwriting. So now I and writing most thing with my left hand, because that is more legible than my right hand! I will be returning from my mission basically ambidextrous. :)

I got a mystery package from Amazon yesterday, and it didn't say who it was from. But thank you, thank you, thank you! The contents have been thoroughly enjoyed by myself and my entire district. May you get extra blessings for cheering up a bunch of missionaries. :)

So my two favorite service jobs are power-washing the showers and ghost busting the stairs. We get to wear these backpack vacuums and vacuum the stairs, so we always yell "Who ya gunna call?" For the showers, Sister Carroll sprays the showers down with a chemical gun, and I scrub the walls down. We have to hook up a hose to the sink, and as I was unhooking the hose, I got sprayed down too. It was like a cartoon. Sister Carroll just laughed at me. :)

So the sisters have left some gifts for the Elders, like Sister Nielsen's mothers send German Choose The Right rings for the whole district! So the elders decided to repay us, and got us all German scripture ribbons. They are so thoughtful!!

I have been thinking a lot about why we compare, and why we judge each other. I wanted to better understand how and why that was a fundamental part of the human psyche. This week I finally felt like I found an answer. It has to do with time. We act, think, and define ourselves by a finite, mortal sense of time. So when we look at a person, and we think that they are better at German than we are, it is because of time. The timing of when I started vs. when you started. And so on. But to the Lord, timing is irrelevant in the way.  To Him, timing is in proportion to our eternal exaltation, and that is extremely personal and individual. The next time we feel tempted to compare, I would encourage all of us to remember that the Lord has a much better timing for us, we just need to show a little trust.

Sister Carroll and I were released as Sister Training Leaders last night, because we have hit the HALFWAY POINT!!!! Germany, we are coming!! Sister Helmick and Sister Peterson (who is from Hyrum) have been called. They will be so fabulous!

Every Sunday night we get to watch a film, either Meet the Mormons, Legacy, The Mountain of the Lord, The Character of Christ (an Elder Bednar talk). We get to choose each week what we want to see. This last Sunday, we went to Legacy. Oh. My. Toadstool. It was so funny. I love this movie, but with a bunch of missionaries, there was too much kissing, and too little acting. It was hilarious. We're convinced that they will stop showing it now, because we were laughing too hard. We learned some great pick-up lines for after the mission, though.

Well, my time for emailing is almost over, but I wanted to challenge any one who reads this to prove God like it says in Mormon 9:25 and ask Him if He really loves you. He wants to give you the evidence of His reality, and He cares about us more than we could possibly imagine.

All my love to all of you!

Sister Roderer

The Best Missions in the World!