Elder Tanner Rogers: "*Goodness* You've Gotten Fat"

Howdy,

This week was pretty legendary. Our biggest struggle in the Spanish branch has been to get in contact with the members and having them talk to us. We've been trying to ask the branch president and the bishop what we can do to best help them out and we wouldn't get any responses. Two weeks ago we cornered Cristhian (Elders quorom president) at church and asked him what we could do to help. The only thing he brought up was that they play soccer on Friday nights. We told him our mission president told us no, but that was the only thing he would bring up. Besides the fact that President McGuire told us no they play fútbol during prime proselytizing time, so we were hesitant to go. We talked to our leaders about it and said that they only thing they wanted us to do was go to the Friday night activities, and so we were given the green light to go play. It was one of the coolest things ever. They are all super good (kind of a flex but I did score on them though), and I realized why Cristhian wanted us to go so bad - there are way more people that come to fútbol than come to church on Sunday, and it was a good way to get to know them. So we had a lot of fun, they had us both speak at church on Sunday, and now we are talking with a nonmember friend of one of the youth who we met playing on Friday. I guess it worked. The next day every muscle in my body was super sore, and I tore through my old shoes so I guess I'm going to go get some futsol shoes today so I can go be a real jugador.

While out finding on Friday we felt prompted to turn around while driving and go to a different appartment complex rather than the one we had planned on going to. After knocking for 5 minutes we found a super awesome guy named Luis who seems super interested. I was grateful we listened to our prompting. On Saturday we felt prompted to go to a certain area to find. When we got there a train came and seperated us from our car. We were having no success, but each time we thought about leaving a train would come by and so we had no option but to stay. Eventually after being in the neighborhood for a long time we found a man who said he was interested in our message and we had a nice conversation with him. At the next house there was a large group of latinos that were open to hearing our message. God put us in that area and kept us there so that we could talk to those people.

This Sunday we had an ecumenical Easter Celebration and a lot of missionaries, Elder Moeller and myself included, sang 'This is The Christ' as a choir. It was really cool. As part of the service a Presbyterian Reverend gave a short talk. While she was talking she said that she was so excited for the time when Christ will come to restore all of His lost truths and restore His church to the way He intended it to be. We all had nice grins on our faces when she said that. Unfortunately she said she's a Reverand and wouldn't be interested in hearing our message. I feel like after a transfer here my spanish is getting much better. When I first got here it felt like at least one of us could understand what was happening most of the time, but now I feel like both of us understand most of the time. I love being in a spanish area, it's so incredibly fun.

As I've been studying the life of Jesus Christ and His atonement this Easter season I was lead to a talk by Bruce C Hafen entitled The Atonement: All For All. This is a quote that specifically stuck out to me: "So if you have problems in your life, don’t assume there is something wrong with you. Struggling with those problems is at the very core of life’s purpose. As we draw close to God, He will show us our weaknesses and through them make us wiser, stronger. If you’re seeing more of your weaknesses, that just might mean you’re moving nearer to God, not farther away." I'm so grateful for a Savior and a Loving Heavenly Father who use me as a vessel to share the restored gospel, and for the knowledge that through Their grace my weaknesses can become strengths to bless the lives of others.

¡Seguir Luchando!

Elder Rogers