Weekly email 4

Hey everybody!
   
     So this week was a pretty good week. So last week we had exchanges with the district leaders and I went and we found a guy who isn't Mormon but his ex-wife was and he might be interested. We visited him again and he said he's looking for a church. He's hit that stage in life where he knows he's making bad decisions and wants to get on the right path, so he should be open to our message and everything we have to say.
     The next best spiritual thing that happened was that we had a lesson with a family and it was great. The family is a mom who is dating a member and her two kids. And during the lesson we brought up baptism and asked how she felt about it and she said she's down to be baptized so that's huge! Hopefully we can get that worked on soon, I'm really excited for them.
     Now for the crazy part, this week I had some pretty serious nerve damage that flared up pretty good so that was rough. And then the good part happened, we had this massive freak thunderstorm out of nowhere. So elder Myers thought it would be a good idea to go out in it so of course we did, and like thirty seconds into it we almost got struck by lightning like twice but we were determined. Then elder Myers and I got to the end of our street and we saw lightning go from the power lines like straight towards us and then veer off to the side, so we went back home right after that. It was good. Oh and we fed ducks.
     That was pretty much our week and it was good.

I love you all!

-Elder Rogers

Weekly email 3

     So last week we started off by getting groceries and then sticking them in our backpacks and riding back to the apartment. That was fun and the whole time I was praying that my milk wouldn't crush my eggs and luckily it did not so that was good. We taught a lady the first lesson and she seemed receptive but she hasn't contacted us back yet so I think she isn't interested anymore but we'll see.

     Later we went to this nature park trail and I stacked some rocks which was pretty fun and mostly frustrating. Most people who aren't already members just don't want anything to do with us so it's a miracle when someone finally does meet with us, so it's huge that we actually found a family, a mom and two kids. They're really receptive because she is dating a member and they're really cool. We're excited to meet with them again soon and keep giving them the lessons. 

     Oh and the members here love their Texas BBQ so they take us a lot to show off just how good it is and I'm amazed every time at just how good it truly is. 

Oh my favorite thing we've done so far besides teach that family was have lunch, let me explain. So we met up with the Spanish elders because they were in our area and we figured we'd go have lunch. So we get to the lake that they are studying at and one of the elders, Elder Gibbs, his aunt drives up and buys us lunch and we eat it at the lake. It was great and the weather was overcast and sprinkling it was a perfect day, then we went and did good work. 

     The other interesting things that happened was one night there was maybe a drug bust or something going on in our complex because me and Elder Myers rolled up to our apartment on our bikes and these cops sniped us in the face with a spotlight so that was fun, this happened right after the picture with the bike. Other than that its just been raining and storming like all day which is fun. 

Well I sure love you all and really enjoy hearing from you. 

-Elder Rogers

Mission Week 2

     So last week was the hottest Texas has been in the past 18 years!! So yeah I guess I'm just the luckiest person alive, I show up and we start breaking records. The weirdest part about it was that on Sunday it was like 107 and then it must've rained all night or something because on Monday it was 68 degrees and nobody knew why, but I sure wasn't gonna complain.
     So last week on P-day we went grocery shopping and everything so that was fun having to buy my own food for the first time, I got a lot of eggs and Sunny-D and milk so you already know I'm gonna starve to death. I'm just kidding. I actually have a fairly good grocery list that is healthy and filling and most importantly CHEAP. It's pretty good out here. Some other Elders from our district came over to give us a ride and I shared some of my Sunny-D with them and they drank like half so I had to ration it for the whole week but it's fine, they needed it more than I did.
     On Tuesday we had zone conference where a ton of missionaries all get together and talk about our goals as a mission with our Mission President and then we have lunch, so that was a fun day and I got to meet a lot of Elder Myers' old friends or companions that he's known on his mission so far.
     The rest of the week was pretty slow, since we live right in the Bible Belt most of the people are super religious in like the Baptist or Methodist or Catholic or whatever other religions there are out here so nobody really wants to give us more than a sideways glance and we get a ton of doors closed in our face, actually we have yet to meet a single person who is interested in what we have to say. But eventually we will find somebody and it'll all be worth it.
   So now for the part everyone's been waiting for, the part where I talk about all the crazy things we've seen and heard out in the mission. I'm sure you all know but Texas is in the South which of course means that there may be some racism, so basically we were out walking and knocking on doors and somebody had like a KKK scarecrow on their porch. Like I thought it was a guy all dressed up in his Klan outfit just standing on his porch, so we avoided that house. There was this one guy we met who is an Anglican Priest, his name was Father Eric. He invited us into his house and basically asked us all the historical questions about our church, like dates and stuff and why we thought we were Christians and stuff like that. He was kinda weird but definitely an interesting character. Sometimes we do our morning studies in a Whataburger or a Dairy Queen and in the Whataburger we had a guy who talked to us as he was leaving basically asking if we believed in Jesus but he left before we had a chance to tell him all our beliefs but it's whatever. Apparently DQ is the place to meet up with all your war buddies because we saw a group of about 6 WW2 Vets who were talking about like their grandkids and church and stuff, and one of them out of nowhere started singing like a church hymn and then the others joined in and it was actually super cool but not something you would expect to see.
     Once Friday hit we finally had Elder Myers' bike fixed and a member from one of our wards let me borrow his bike, which meant we had to use them and boy we did just that. We started that day by going over to the church which is about 2 miles away but like 5 miles up in hills (I'm exaggerating but you know what I mean). Those hills were absolutely massive, especially since I hadn't ridden a bike in months, but we made it to the church without anybody dying too much.
     That night we had dinner with the Nahoolewas (pronounced nah-ho-lay-vuh) and they're from Hawaii, hence the name. Brother Nahoolewa cooked us the best brisket I've ever had in my life, he made it just because I had never had Texas barbecue and he started me off at the top. I probably ate about too many pounds of the stuff and then they sent us home with a ton of it so that was awesome.
     Oh and yesterday was fast Sunday and we were at church from 9am to about 6:30 pm because we had to show up to meetings before both of our wards that we cover and let's just say it was a long day. But of course we made it through and it was all good. During Testimony meeting though one of the recent converts, her name is Connie, went up to bear her testimony. Now Connie was raised in a Baptist background so she pretty much didn't even need the microphone for everyone to be able to hear what she was saying. Then we saw another recent convert who's name is Cordelia and she's from Nigeria, like born and raised. We visited her one day after dinner and she gave us so much food and we just couldn't say no. She's like the sweetest old grandma ever and her accent is seriously the best.
     That was about our whole week and I hope you all enjoyed.

Just a reminder that if you want to email me back please hit "Reply" and not "Reply All" just so you aren't emailing everyone else. I love you all and really enjoy hearing how you all are doing.

-Love Elder Rogers

Week 1 of The Mission

     So this has been a fun week. I started off thinking I was going to be underprepared and undertrained and I was spot on with that prediction.
     The plane ride from Norfolk to Dallas took about three hours so I just took a nap so nothing too exciting. Even when I got to the airport things were going smoothly and I didn't lose any of my bags which is always good. I was told that people would be there to pick me up and that there were like 17 other missionaries coming in at the same time so I should see them and be fine. Like an hour and a half later I finally find a phone and called the Mission President and he thought I was at a different gate on the other side of the airport, he was all, "You're at gate 37 right?" And I briefly looked up and saw a 2 so I said, "No 27" without giving it any more thought. Well about twenty minutes pass and I realize I'm at gate 26 so I freak out a little bit but a nice old lady lent me her phone and everything turned out fine.
     So we eventually got all like 20 missionaries together and we had dinner at President Dalton's house, we're all pretty sure he's a millionaire so his house was huge, but all the houses here are, I mean it's Texas. Then we split off Elders and Sisters and went to our apartments for the night.
     The next morning we went back to the church for orientation and to meet our companions that we will be with for at least the next six weeks. My companions name is Elder Myers and he's a pretty cool guy.
     That night a member family took us to a pizza buffet which was fantastic, and afterwards since I hadn't received mission funds yet they took us to Sam's Club and bought all our groceries for us which was incredibly nice. That's basically how all the members are here and it's wonderful. A different member feeds us dinner every night so we just have to take care of breakfast and lunch.
     Our apartment is basically in the hood. It's safe but it's in the low income side of town, which is funny because there is seriously like one block of the town that isn't filthy rich so that's fun. Rich people almost never want to hear about our religion so it makes my job out here just that much harder but it's okay, I welcome the challenge.
     I'm sure you all know this already but TEXAS IS HOT!! We are either walking or biking all day and I haven't seen it drop below 102 degrees. Luckily our apartment has so much AC so that's beautiful and quite the blessing. It's thundered like twice but there was no rain with it so that was pretty disappointing only because Okinawa has so much rain.
     So we have an investigator named Chris and apparently he was Spec Ops or whatever so he has a ton of cool stories to tell, unfortunately it makes him really hard to teach because he always has something to say and isn't very good at listening so we might have to drop him soon but hopefully he will start coming to church.
     Speaking of church we cover two wards so we go to church from 11am to 6pm every Sunday. So of course they asked me where I was from and I said Japan so I had to tell the story about that like five bajillion times but it's cool. I've met two people who have been to Okinawa so...small world right?
      But yeah that's about it for the week, I hope you all are doing well and remember to pray. BYEEEEE

Farewell

     I'm off to my mission.  We arrived in Virginia a few days ago and haven't found a house yet.  We are staying in a hotel.  My mom called a friend that lives here and got a number for her stake president.  He set me apart as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints last night. 

I Love to See the Temple

     Today I went to the temple for the first time.  My brother Tanner was my escort.  My mom, Grandma Olsen and a lot of my friends came to support me.

Missionary Pictures