Coincidence? I Think NOT!

 Howdy

This has been a pretty fun week! This week I was blessed to be able to use Spanish a lot which has been really fun. One of the areas in our district is a Spanish area, and I was able to do the baptismal interview for a guy named Fredy and it was really fun! We also found a Spanish family with two parents and four kids from talking to them on the side of the street. I was super happy about that, but now we have to give them away to the Spanish Elders. 

There used to be a Ninja Turtles joker playing card on our ceiling in our apartment. Playing cards are banned in our mission, but it was a legend that whoever took the card down would be cursed forever. One day I was tired of looking at the card, so I decided to take it down, and I ripped it up and threw it away. Ever since then we have been blessed with a lot more success than ever before. It looks like the card was actually the curse, and taking it down was the end. We've had more people come to church in the two weeks since I took it down than the three months previous that I had been here with the card on the ceiling. 

Our friends from Ghana needed a ride to church, and we got someone to do it, and it turns out that he spoke Ghanain and they had a great time talking together. He said that he will give her a ride again next week and he will have her over for an African-style lunch after. I was super happy about that! Our other friend who came to church was welcomed by the ward as well! She didn't have any church clothes, and so some members in the ward took some of their old church clothes and gave them to her. She was so happy, and is so excited to come to church next week!

Last week our friend Evelyn from Ghana gave us some Ghanian food and it was a little sketchy. We didn't want to eat it, but we felt bad throwing it away, so it just sat in our fridge for a long time. Then when we were cleaning out our fridge we decided we would throw it away. The problem was that it was soup, and we didn't know how to throw it away, so we just left it on the counter. This was a big mistake. It sat on the counter for many days and became very moldy. We eventually threw away the whole container because it was too gross. Then when we were going to go visit her we felt bad, so we went to grab it out of the trash so we could give her the container back. When we went to grab it out of the trash, it dropped and exploded all over the floor, sending extremely moldy soup all over our apartment. It was very gross to clean up and smelled very bad. We had to spray lots of Febreze and cleaning chemicals to make our apartment livable again, but it all worked out in the end.  

It's the last week of the transfer and everyone is super nervous and excited about the upcoming news. Have a great week! Miracles are real!

Keep Striving!

Elder Rogers

Bigfoot sighting

Capri Sun

Capri Sun with the district 

After the baptismal interview with Fredy

Zero to Hero

Howdy,

It has been a pretty good couple of days. On Friday we had my first ever experience with a tornado warning. It was one of the craziest storms I've ever seen in my whole life. The sky reminded me of the sky at the beginning of the 7th Harry Potter movie right after the Ministry of Magic falls, and the Death Eaters are destroying London. There was a lot of lighting and Thunder, and it was really fun to watch. I was supposed to go take shelter, but I was having fun watching the storm. I was sitting there watching the storm and eating my pork-flavored top ramen when a huge bolt of lightning came down, and the thunder was MEGA loud. It sounded like someone had shot a gun next to me. It made me jump so bad I spilled my ramen all over the porch. Soon after the sky turned more green, and it started raining pretty hard, so I joined Elder Brinton in our safe room (the bathroom) until the sirens stopped. Word of mouth is that one touched down in Middletown - not far from us, but I'm not sure if I believe it or not. 

We had a fun district activity playing soccer on my birthday which was a lot of fun, and afterward, they bought me some kind of orange sorbet, which was nice of them. The most exciting thing this week was that we had our friend Shana come to church. It is the first person to come to in-person church since I got to this area, so Elder Brinton and I were VERY happy about that. 

Hope that you all have a great week! Stay safe from tornados!

Keep Striving 

Elder Rogers

DLC

District Leadership Council

 After the district activity at the Dip

Me outside while the tornado sirens are going off

Elder Brinton's meme

Elder Brinton and I hiding from the tornado

Me holding black powder pistols at Jim's (apparently they don't count as firearms in OH)

Us with Papa Johns

Evangeline

 Howdy

It's been quite a while since our last P day, and MAN our pantry was EMPTY. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise though. Yesterday we were out knocking on some doors and we were on our way back when we saw a lemonade stand. We decided we would stop. When we did we started talking to the parents a little, and they asked us if we had lunch yet (it was about 1:00) we said we hadn't and they said, "Hey come in on and we'll grill up some hot dogs for you." 40 minutes later we strolled out of an awesome time with the Kidd family, who apparently had just returned from a vacation to Colorado where they had some cool experiences with the missionaries there. We snagged up their phone numbers and we're friends now. He wants us to come play basketball with him and 10-15 of his friends and said we could talk to them. Unfortunately playing basketball with people isn't allowed... Maybe we could be the halftime show. 

We had another cool experience when we called through the paper area book.  We got in contact with a man named Jim who hadn't been in contact with missionaries for six years. We had an amazing lesson with him - probably the strongest that I can remember from my mission (My memory is kind of bad though) and it was just so amazing. You always hear stories of people who are just meant for you when you go on a mission. When we met Jim I felt like I was in this area specifically to meet him. It was such a great experience. He still didn't show up to church this week though... We've been doing a lot with our other friend Jim as well. He is slowly growing closer to the Savior, and it is so amazing to see. Every inch of his house is covered with workout equipment. We have been helping him set up lots of different machines, and talking about the gospel with him. If there is a workout machine out there, he probably owns it. 

They said that now our job as bike elders is pretty much over, and they want people to start buying their own bikes again. This is bitter-sweet news for me. Because of this, we bike part-time again, which I love, but Elder Brinton does not. 

Lastly, we had an amazing mission tour Monday through Wednesday this week with Elder Bassett, a member of the 70. It was amazing and filled with powerful experiences. I'm grateful that I was able to be a part of it. It also meant that P day would be moved to my birthday so that was nice. Anyway, have a great week! The small things we do can make a big difference, go and serve someone today!

Keep Striving,

Elder Rogers

 I made Elder Brinton run in the rain with me

Us with Abdul

Suited up

 Me whining about a canker sour

Me with Evelyn

 Elder Brinton and me with Evelyn

 

A Llama? You're Supposed To Be Dead

 Howdy! 

I hope that everyone is doing well! This week has been interesting, to say the least. The most interesting thing that happened this week was that we went to an African baby shower. It was a very interesting experience. Our friend Evelyn invited us to go and said we could go and meet some of her friends from Ghana. We showed up and asked her to introduce us to people that she knew, but she told us she didn't know anyone there! So we were the only white people there, and we knew no one. We talked to a couple people, but they didn't really want to talk to us because they thought we were party crashers just in it for the food. The food was good though. We've been getting lots of interesting Ghanian food from our friend Evelyn lately. At the shower they said they wanted to open with a prayer, so Elder Brinton and I bowed our heads and closed our eyes. Apparently, that wasn't what they had in mind for the prayer. They all stood up and started singing, swaying, and dancing. We didn't know what to think, but it was fun. 

Last week we had a zone finding week. Our goal was to get 202+1 new friends. We tried really hard but didn't quite get there. We ended up finding 183 friends as a zone, and Elder Brinton and I found 12 new friends. There were a lot of amazing miracles, and it was great to see our zone come together for a common goal. I was able to meet one guy and we had a nice talk about working with travel and traffic and things. I thought it was really fun to talk about it, and he was glad that there was someone who thought he was cool for what he did for work. 

We had some really good lessons, and our area is finally starting to spring to life! We are getting more and more busy, and some of our friends are finally starting to progress. We are seeing miracles each and every day! I know that the Lord is in this work!

Have a great week! Keep Striving!

Elder Rogers

Elder Brinton with Evelyn

Me holding an AR15

A picture of our old district

 Me with our friend Evelyn

Elder Brinton and I with Panda Express

 Me holding a lizard