Elder Roach in Atlanta Georgia North Mission

Hi family and friends! Merry two days after Christmas! I forgot to mention that president moved P-day to Tuesday because of the holiday  on Monday . In fact, the next three or four of my P-day's will be on Tuesday.  This last week was a fun week. We did a lot of stuff. As some of you may have noticed, it was Christmas last week. I very much enjoyed Skypeing with my family. It was really weird, I went upstairs and it was like I forgot where I was for a second. I don't think of myself as  Barak  anymore, I'm Elder Roach now, but it's all good. We were able to do some good stuff on Christmas, we visited a lot of people. All of our investigators are out of town, but it still worked. A neat story happened to us in finding a new investigator. We were out one night, about to go on a teamup, but our teamup cancelled, and all of our set lessons canceled as well. It happens sometimes. We were left to our backups and nothing was working. I decided to pray, and I felt inspired

Hello Family And Friends, It Has Been Another Great Week Here In Shallowford! Also since I won't email again until the 26th, merry Christmas! Thank you all for the cards and especially my family, I got the presents you sent and I'm on day 6 now. I really appreciate the bike lights. So some good things happened this week. I met a woman who's last name was Roach, except now she's married so it isn't anymore, we had a lot of Christmas lessons, basically every visit was a Christmas lesson in some way. This week we had a zone conference about working with members, so we come up with a plan to get members involved with our investigators. What we did was we inviting all of the members who lived within walking distance of someone we're teaching, and asked them to use the light the world calendar as an excuse to drop off cookies for them. It was pretty simple, and we got about 20 members to commit to visit people. We're really excited, and I really like the whole

Hello my people. How's life? Life is good here in the ol faithful Shallowford. Another week has gone by on bicycle and it was really cold this week. Biking in the cold is really confusing because your body gets hot and your limbs stay cold. Ah well, it was fun. I don't really remember any crazy highlights this week, we had a really good week, but not much nutty stuff. We met some good people, we taught some fun lessons. Oh we ate with our fun Czech friend, and our wacky investigator Carol dropped us out of the blue. That wasn't really fun. We were able to go to mission prep and teach some future missionaries. I guess that's pretty much it, sorry there's not a ton. I've been thinking about a few things recently, but mostly it's chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel. It's the Christlike attributes chapter. I like to read through it every morning because it's pretty short, and I can feel the effect that it's having. I have been thinking about how m

วัสดีเพื่อนของฉัน  How are you? Have you all had a good week? I hope so, I certainly did! It had a lot of funny things, I'll tell you about the funny stuff. We decorated our apartment for Christmas, I'll attach pictures.  We were given a giant bag of pecans, so we put them in a big glass jar. We don't really know why we were given them, we ate lunch with our Czech friend and he just handed them to us. Oh, and I met someone who had the perfect explanation for how the children of Israel left Egypt. You see, we all know that the Egyptians were using the pyramids to 1) create hydrogen using the ark of the covenant 2) communicate to aliens 3) generate A/C current to communicate with the lighthouse of Alexandria 4) generate antigravity forces. Here's where speculation steps in though, he believes that the Egyptians were using mind control because, as we know, they had access to their inner power, and they used that power to control the children of Israel. Moses used the ma

Surprise! I bet you guys thought I forgot about you. This week is transfer week, so pday is moved to today. I'm not being transferred yet, season three of Elder Eric Nadybal and Elder  Barak  Roach. But I'll tell you about this week now. It was another fun one on bike, we biked an whole lot this week, but it was good, and I just keep remembering 2 Nephi  20:16  and it keeps me going. Some highlights, we found a bunch of new people this week, we had a great thanksgiving, we were able to eat with everyone we saw so we had three dinners that night. It was pretty great. We also found a fair few people. This new Christmas video is really amazing, I'd invite you all to check it out and then do the little calendar thing. And not just the lazy ones at the bottom, mix in some of the medium difficulty challenges.  Anyways, things are going well out here in the Shallowford ward, we are finding and teaching a lot of people. Our top investigator Carol is progressing really well, sh

Howdy y'all, life's been good here in the GANM. A lot of fun stuff this week, as usual. I'll just jump right in. So on Monday we had a cool miracle. We were running out of stuff to do and it was getting dark. We tried a bunch of people, and none of them wanted to talk. We decided to try one more person, a less active who we'd never met, and she opened the door and was so happy to see us. She said that she was trying to Skype with her kids and have a fhe with them, but they were all too busy, and she was praying for something to happen, and she said that we showed up just after, and she knew God sent us. We were able to have a little lesson with her husband and some of her younger kids, and we prayed for her kids who were away at college. As we were leaving she told us she knew he spirit directed us there and she started texting her kids at college to tell them about her experience. There are a ton of things like that that happen every week, but I thought I'd me

Hello! How's it going? It's been another exciting week here in Marietta where it's betta. Lots of fun stuff happened this week, some cool stories and also some Lil miracles. Also I heard Donald Trump is the new president, that's fun. So some fun stuff, we taught our super duper investigator Carol. She's the one who is an artist and likes to paint decapitated barbies and stuff. I took a picture of her living room, and I'll send it if you want. I will warn you, it is a bit odd. It's funny too, because we've had the most powerful lessons in her house. Also we met a guy who built model trains for 35 years. It was nuts, I took some pictures of those too. We met some people who were bahá'í and that was interesting. If you don't know much about them, they kind of believe in every religious text, so they had no problem with the Book of Mormon, but they struggled with some other aspects of the restoration. They were also kind enough to give us some pam

Hey everyone. This was a great week! Halloween was weird, because we planned after pday, so it was a full 24 hours of no proselyting. Actually more, because  on Tuesday  we went to the temple. It was pretty nice, we can only go to the temple every 6 months because it's out of the mission, and the temple really eases the mind. Anyways other than that it was pretty good. We started teaching a woman named Carol a while back, and it's been pretty exciting to see her progress. She's the artist, and she texted us the other day and said that she felt that God was telling her that she needed to join our church. It was pretty great. We have been really struggling to avoid political talk, everyone seems to have an opinion. They like to tell us all about Hilary's evil deeds. Oh the south. One guy accused us Mormons of costing Trump Utah's vote. I tried to tell him it wasn't me. Elder Nadybal told him he was from California and he told him "California's just full o

Hey all, this was a pretty great week! I don't know if I mentioned, but I'm back on bike as of last week. You never realize how hilly an area is until you have to bike it. At least I'll get in some great shape, and it's way easier to contact people you pass on a bike. Anyways, this week there were numerous miracles and highlights, I'll list a few. We talked with a lot of people, we had a trunk r treat/chili cook off that we got to be the judges for, a random woman from off the street showed up to it. There was a pretty cool one  on Friday , where we had just biked to an area we were going to tract, and I was pretty tired. A member just pulled up and gave us a cookie out of the blue. What's even better, she told us about her neighbors and which ones would welcome us and which ones wouldn't. We got a return appointment from that. Another interesting one was  on Sunday , we were still two new investigators and a lesson with a recent convert or less active an

Howdy guys. It's been another fantastic week here in the GANM. As some of you may know, it was my birthday this last week, and our investigator got me a baptism! It was really thoughtful. Also thank you all for the cards and emails and whatnot, it really means the most to me. I have attached a few pictures that we took before the baptism. So, that was probably the highlight of my week, really the highlight of my mission so far. It was pretty amazing, the baptism was half members from the ward and half non members that Cheryl invited. And I got to do the baptizing and we had another investigator present. It was just really great all around. There were some other funny things that happened, we followed up with our pirate friend Johnthany who told us, in his words, "I'll just stick to my heathen ways". It's a shame really, but it made me laugh. We met a woman who has not only seen Jesus, but she's seen 15 Jesus's at once! She was also on some prescription med

Hello all, it's been a little while. Today is an interesting day, because Monday is a holiday, and president likes us to tract on holidays. We would normally move pday to Tuesday, but this time around were splitting it up so there's some today and some tomorrow. I'll tell you how it goes. So, this week was pretty good. It was our stake Conference, which is interesting because last week was general Conference, so things have been kind of scrambled. We were able to bring our investigator to our stake Conference and there was a general authority there, and he was doing this q and a thing during the adult session, and our investigator spoke into the mic and said how thankful she was that we came and knocked on her door and about all the questions she had that were being answered. It was pretty amazing, that was probably the highlight of my week. She's still on date for the 22nd, and now I'm really hoping that I'll stay here for another transfer, because I want to se

I'm not doing that emoji thing again it was a little much. This was a petty good week in all. We saw a lot of success this week, and I got to go spend some time in Canton. Georgia is a weird place, I'm in Marietta right now and it's basically the same as back home, just really wealthy like I see Lamborghinis and corvettes daily. If you head about an hour northeast it turns into redneck land and college town, about thirty minutes south is Atlanta and inner city stuff. Canton is basically like halfway from wealthy suburb to poor country, so there was some neat stuff. Some highlights from this week include conference, teaching a man who smoked a pipe and believed in Bigfoot (not in God unfortunately), teaching an old black man in his underwear, meeting two bible bashers, one of whom is now an investigator, eating some BBQ and getting new shoes (for free) and getting flu shots. I think I'm healing up alright, I finished all of the medicine they gave me at least. I don&

Text  message we received from Elder Nickel. : I am the physician for your sons mission. He attended zone conference today (Wednesday 9/21) and not only looks great but is feeling great just two days after his surgery. We will keep a close eye on him and make sure that he gets extra rest.

Well, this has been a weird week. Also there's a new update for apple 🍎 that has an option to put emoji s in the text automatically, so I'm going to do that. I spent Monday in the hospital 🏥 and got my appendix out.  Tuesday  I came home 🏡 and my comp went out with a member to teach.  Wednesday  I got back to work and really that was that.  Saturday  there was a baptism 🌊 for a child of record and we brought our prime investigator to it. She told us that the spirit told her that she needed to be baptized 🌊 and she cried during it and it was really cool 😎 and we were pumped ✊ and she chose October 22nd  as her date, which also happens to be my birthday 🎉. It was pretty amazing 😉. Idk 😐 really what else, it's been weird because I get really tired 😴 easily, some days I have to come home 🏡 and take a nap 😴 and that has been strange. I try to stay out as long as I can, but it's weird, I have a limit now, and it's really low. It's been humbli

Elder Roach was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday.  He felt well enough to go back to his apartment.  He will return to see the surgeon in one week.  He will rest and resume activity slowly.  There is a Zone Conference today (wednesday) which he will attend and rest if needed.  They expect a quick recovery.  For the first week he will see how he feels, maybe a few appointments or a dinner, no tracting or service. He is currently in a car area.  No lifting for a month, no basketball, ect..

Surgery Update We just heard from the mission nurse.  Elder Roach is out of surgery and everything went smoothly.  His appendix was inflamed and had not yet ruptured.  Some tissue surrounding the appendix is also inflamed so they are keeping him in the hospital to monitor.  9:37 AM

A lot happened this week. In fact, it was ranked top ten (even though there have only been 8) until Sunday  happened. I'll tell you the bad first. Remember how my companions appendix ruptured my first week into the mission? Well now they think that's happening to me. I'm currently writing this from a hospital bed😂. I'll send pictures. They don't know if it is my appendix for sure. Apparently the CT scan shows inflammation around where my appendix is, but the weird thing is my appendix is apparently hiding behind my other stomach stuff, so they can't see it. All in all, It was a pretty brutal Saturday  night, went into the urgent care and they told me to go to the ER. Idk I think I'll be fine, they'll do surgery later today if it is my appendix and if not I'm on antibiotics for now which might make me better. I'll give you guys an update if I get out of surgery before 6 pm. Also I got to use morphine on my mission. Anyways a lot of other good hap

Hey all, how's the life? This week has been hectic, but also pretty amazing. Like I mentioned last week, it was transfers and my companion was leaving and I got a new companion named Elder Nadybal. I didn't realize this before, but now I'm the one leading the area, and I still don't really know how to get around. Look up peach tree road on Google maps some time, there's like 15 of them. It's been pretty dope so far though, we saw a lot of good things this week, I'll mention a few of them. So, some highlights, waking up at 5 to get to the mission office, meeting my grandpa, talking about all of the stuff elder Kirk did when he was a greenie, finding four new investigators and a few new solid guys, speaking in church on the commandments, getting an investigator to church to hear me speak on the commandments, and meeting two families that are super legit. This has been really weird. Before it was like my trainer knew exactly what to do always, but now that I

Hey guys, p-day got moved to Tuesday this week because of the holiday on Monday.   Also this week is my first transfer. Elder Kirk has gotten  the boot and I'll finish being trained by his trainer, which is pretty  weird. Idk If I mentioned before but when you come out you're "born"  and when you go home you "die". Your trainer is your father and anyone  else he trains is your brother. So now my grandpa is my stepdad which is neat.   I have had a pretty great week, some highlights include eating  authentic Czech food (I'll put a picture), exchanging with a nice  Elder named Elder Egbert, finding a whole lot of new people,  exchanging with a crazy person named Elder Hernandez and really trying  to scramble everything together because exchanges are this week.  One of my favorite experiences this week happened when I was with  Elder Hernandez. He taught me a lesson about boldness. He talked to  everyone, and that includes people inside their cars while they

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