Elder Tanner Rogers: Now That I'm Grown I Eat 5 Dozen Eggs

Howdy

It's been a pretty good week, albeit pretty slow. A lot of our time has been spent training the Speths which has been fun, but some of the days in the office can be kind of long. We have helped them get most things down, so we kind of just sit back and watch them work, help answer questions, and file paperwork. We only have to do that for one more week though. President told us not to leave during the days and to help them so we have pushed all our lessons to the evenings which means our evenings are packed full leaving no time for finding. It is pretty fun but sad to see our teaching pool diminish and not be able to go find new people to teach. As far as we know nobody will be coming to replace us as "normal missionaries" in our ward and so all of our friends we have been working with will be given to the assistants or the sisters.

We did have opportunities to go and knock on doors last night in Price Hill. The fun part about knocking on doors in Price Hill is that a majority of people there only speak Spanish. It's been fun to be able to talk to people in Spanish, even if we have to give all the people away that we find. I've been studying a lot more to try and get ready for when President will supposedly send me to a Spanish area. I've been told I'm going to a Spanish area so many times that I don't know if I can get my hopes up, but I've been practicing just in case.

We also had a lesson with a member in our ward named Kojo. He's originally from Ghana. We got to his home and talked for about 5-10 minutes and then he told us he had made drinks for us. It was hot chocolate that he put ice in. We talked some more and were getting ready to head out when he told us he made food for us. We thanked him, and I assumed he would send it with us. I was wrong. He gave us big plates of Ghanaian food and sat there watching us eat and yelling at us to eat more. It was very good food, but we had eaten a big lunch. When we were finished we tried to get out but before we could move he threw down a fruit salad dessert and in a similar fashion demanded that we eat more of it. It was very good. He is a very kind man and if was fun to talk to him. We were crunched for time though, and we're supposed to have a friend there when we eat with members. He told us to bring one of our friends we are teaching over, which we will definitely take him up on. There are lots of unexpected situations you find yourself in as a missionary, and it is an insane amount of fun.

This week while studying in my scriptures I was struck by 2 Nephi 1:21: "arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity". I thought the imagery of rising up from the dust and becoming a man was cool. I also listened to this talk by Elder Christofferson called Let Us Be Men which I very much enjoyed. A true man is someone who follows the example of Christ and who puts others before himself. I like that. Here's to becoming a man not only by definition but also in character.

Keep Striving,

Elder Rogers