Elder Tanner Rogers: They're All Sloths!?!

Howdy,

This week was fun. A lot of our friends were busy or out of town, which lead to a lot of time out knocking doors. I really enjoy knocking doors, but it was mostly in the '60s this week, we found a couple pocketfuls of pennies, nickels, and dimes, and set up a fair amount of return appointments so that probably played a big part in why it was so enjoyable this week. Besides that, our week was quite eventful.

Sunday night as we were preparing to go to bed we found some bedbugs which lead to a search, which resulted in us finding many more. This was very sad because we thought we were past the bed bug problem. We found some on our clothes, some in the carpet, and a lot on the ceiling, which we thought was odd. When we talked to our landlord that she told us that it's possible they could be creeping down from our upstairs neighbors, but more likely is that they were climbing up onto the ceiling so that they could parachute down on us during the night while we were sleeping, which apparently is common practice for bedbugs. We've had to be extra careful, and our apartment is going to be sprayed in the next couple of weeks to kill them all. In the meantime, we've been doing all sorts of makeshift things to kill and deter them, which have been working quite well, even if it leaves our apartment looking in disarray. Luckily for us, bedbugs don't spread diseases, they are just an annoyance and a little gross and creepy.

I also had the pleasure of going to the BMV this week to renew the registration for all of our vehicles. I think working at the BMV would be rough because nobody wants to go there and doesn't really know what they're doing, so all day every day you would just have to work with confused and annoyed people. Anyway, we had everything all ready and when we got there we gave them the information and they got to work. When they finished they came back and said that the check that we had made was too big by a little over $90 because we had included the postage fee, but that wasn't necessary since we were there in person. They asked if we would be willing to donate the remainder to blind kids so that they wouldn't have to void and redo all that they had just done. I called Sister Ockerman the financial secretary to see if that would be ok, and she gave a very quick no way. Everyone at the BMV was upset and thought that we hated blind kids, but luckily for us, we could just pin it on "the finance lady" so that we didn't look like the ones willing to squeeze lime juice into the eyes of the blind children. Luckily we were able to figure it out in a way that didn't involve us having to come back and the BMV have to redo everything - they just wrote us a check for the difference.

We also found out this week that we will be getting a senior couple to replace us in the office on February 18. After that, we will train them, and then we get to go back to the world of full-time proselytizing. 🙌

At the Ohio BMV, I felt pretty cool whipping out my power of attorney signed by President Nelson saying that I could act in the name of the Church. It made me think that when we are baptized we all take upon us the name Jesus Christ. We always carry his name and are always His representatives, whether we wear a name tag on our shirt pocket or it's written on the fleshy tablets of our hearts. I hope as I enter this new year that I will be able to be a better representative, follower, worshiper, and friend to the Savior Jesus Christ.

Happy New Year! Let's make it a year of striving!

Elder Rogers