Weekly email 8

     So as many of you know, it was my birthday this week! It was an awesome birthday too. We started off by going to the senior recreation center to do some service from 8am to 1pm. It was incredible. We were in charge of giving out some food, they had pears, potatoes, cilantro, and kale. We gave the fold to any old person who walked by and helped carry it to their cars because it was too heavy for them. Then in the middle of it I got a call from someone saying happy birthday and then they asked to speak to my companion. Then like 5 minutes later this lady shows up with a cake and doughnuts and asks for Elder Rogers (that's me by the way). It caught me totally off guard. Then everyone sang to me and it was fun. Then we continued to help out and I talked to so many old people it was great.
     The night before we had dinner with the Thornocks, which means we got to teach Nicki and her kids another lesson. It was great and the lesson went over super smooth, right at the end though the Thornocks brought out this cake and they sang happy birthday too. I hate getting all this attention but I am grateful that they got me some cake lol.
Some other time during the week a lady came by and gave me a massive pumpkin pie and I love pumpkin pie.
     Not a ton happened the rest of the week because we had exchanges and elder Pontious is super sick right now. And it keeps raining over here. This is Texas it's supposed to be a desert but it rains like every day. Once elder Pontious gets better more things will happen.
     We also got to feed some ducks the other day. And we got stuck in an underpass trying to cross the freeway and elder Pontious has decreed that we must make crazy faces in like every selfie now. And I made brownies and found an apron so of course elder Pontious said we had to take a selfie. We also went to Hutchins again and it was great. Best brisket I've ever had. I also got an antique Marine Corp gas mask so of course I had to put it on (after I cleans it of course).
     Well I love you all and hope you're doing well!
- Elder Rogers

Weekly email 7

 Hey y'all! 
     So we had transfers this past week and I got a new companion! His name is Elder Pontious. (Yes, just like Pontious Pilate). 
     The last P-day it rained cats and dogs all day so I got soaked but that's just part of life. The first day with elder Pontious someone, who's name rhymes with smontious, rode a little too close on the bikes and I slammed the brakes and fell off the bike for the first time on the mission and scraped my hands. It wasn't too bad tho but I had a rock stuck in there which hurt pretty good. 
     We found five new people this week who said that they would be interested in meeting with us so that's awesome! Usually we will find one every week or so, so five is a crazy amount. 
     We saw an armadillo the other day while we were riding our bikes back to the apartment. We went through this nature trail as a shortcut and this armadillo ran right in front of me and I didn't hit it but it got close. Oh and it also rained for like the past four days. So the lake flooded a decent amount but we still went over for our studies. I also fed a few ducks who were hanging out there. 
     I got a free drink at taco bell too. That happens a lot. Like the more miserable we look the more often we get free drinks, like we want to pay but they just give us the hand and they're like "nah man it's good" so that's always fun. We had dinner with a family and they have three cockatoos and one was $10,000! Can you believe that? I can't. 
     But yeah that's about how the week went. I hope you guys are all doing well back home!
- Elder Rogers 

Weekly email 6 The Most Eventful Week So Far!

Hey everybody!
     I hope you're all doing well because I am. This week was absolutely crazy and we got so much stuff done. I'm just gonna get right into the highlight of the week which is (drumroll please). WE GOT A MOM AND HER TWO KIDS TO COMMIT TO BEING BAPTIZED ON SEPTEMBER 29TH!! Are you excited? You should be because that's incredible. I know for a surety that it will bless their lives so much when they finally get the Holy Ghost into their lives full time. It's been such a blessing in my life and I know it will be wonderful for them.
     Also it's my Hump Day (AKA my halfway mark) so in just six short weeks I will be done with my mission. So I'm trying to get as much done with the time I have left. That's about it for the super cool and exciting stuff though. Some crazy things that happened were that we talked with a born again Christian in a McDonald's. We sat down to cool off from the 100 degree weather that is Texas and he came over to talk to us. Basically he said we're going to Hell so that was a good time. We said we had to go because it was just a bad situation. Kinda hurt my feelings but that's how it goes sometimes.
     Elder Myers is getting transferred tomorrow so next week you guys can expect some pictures with me and a new companion so I'm excited for that. But that's about it. A short email this week.
     I love and miss you all!
-Elder Rogers

Weekly email 5

Good morning y'all! 

     They call this place the Bible Belt for a reason, but you'll have to read a little farther to hear my story on that. This week is pretty much the same as always but I'm sure you'll enjoy hearing it, because it's from my point of view and I'm a pretty stellar guy. I'm just kidding I'm not that cocky. But this week has actually gone super well, like last P-day at like 9 pm we were getting back to the apartment kind of late because our ride got there late but it wasn't that big of a deal. But as we were getting close to the apartment we saw somebody who's car broke down in the middle of the street. So of course, being the good people we are, we got out and helped get his car to a less dangerous place by pushing it into the nearest parking lot. Which wasn't that close but surprisingly the car felt pretty light. So that was a miracle for us and for him because he wasn't in the road anymore, but his engine was broken or something so that stinks. 

     Oh now for the crazy part! So we had exchanges which is basically I go with a different missionary for 24 hours just to see how he does things differently, it's a great learning experience. But we were in the park just reading some scriptures and this Jehovah's witness comes over and just starts trying to Bible Bash us, trying to like disprove things that we believe to be true. I have no problem discussing beliefs with people if they actually want to learn and have a good, respectful discussion. But he just wanted to attack us and I wasn't having it, so I politely asked him to leave after putting up with it for like 45 minutes. I didn't want to be in that discussion more than 5 minutes but the other elder I was on exchanges with, his name is Elder Debrine, wanted very much to convince him so we were there for a bit. But it all worked out in the end, he didn't want to take the lessons or learn more about the church but that's his choice, we don't force anyone to hear what we have to say if they don't want to. We got wrecked by some mosquito's when we were talking to someone so that was nice. We also saw a rat the size of a squirrel rub under his porch as we were leaving. And speaking of squirrels we fed one some trail mix and got a cool picture of that. Elder Myers was freaking out because we got it to get really close to him.

     Some cool teaching stuff is that we went to visit this guy named Shawn and he wasn't home so we knocked a few other houses and didn't find anyone, and Elder Myers was getting pretty disappointed. So we started heading home and guess who we ran into. If you said Shawn then you were right, if you said any other name then I guess you were less right. (I'm trying to convey some humor here but it's hard through text) But yeah it was a miracle because we had no idea how we would find Shawn but he was just out walking his dog at 8:40 at night on that exact street which was awesome, we're working on getting to know him before we invite him to take the lessons. So hopefully he will want to learn about the church soon because he's a really great guy and I know this gospel could really bless his life. 

     So sometimes we get referrals from church headquarters like if someone goes online and requests missionaries, most the time it doesn't turn up anything, but we got one for this lady named Kathryn. So we finally stopped by her house and she said she's done a ton of research into our church and said that everything clicks with this one so she really wants to be a part of it. So we taught her the first lesson and gave her a Book of Mormon, and you won't believe this next part. We texted her two days later to see how everything was going and she said she was halfway through the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized so that's huge! Hopefully she will progress fast enough that I will be able to see her baptized because I hear that's a fantastic experience to see someone convert to the church. Miracles are abounding here in McKinney, Texas.

     Oh and I was pretty sick on Thursday I think, like I literally slept for like 36 hours, it was bad and hurt my back pretty good, but I'm mostly better now so it's fine. Like we were out doing stuff on Friday because I felt better so don't worry too much.

Well I sure love you all!

Elder Rogers

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