Howdy,
It was a pretty good week. We had some fun experiences. A lot of our crazy things happened in relation to one member - Hermana Castro. She's been here from Costa Rica for the last few weeks. She is an awesome member missionary and has brought some of her friends to church. We had a lesson at her house on Tuesday and she invited two of her friends to join us. The lesson was awesome, she shared her conversion story and her testimony. After the lesson, she gave us some food. What she didn't tell us is that there were peanuts in said food. After I took a bite my tongue and throat began to swell up. It was not pleasant. Luckily for me, I have kept some allergy medicine in my bag since this spring. I tried to be discrete as I handed away the food and popped in some pills. I did not feel comfortable and did my best to get us out as soon as possible, at which point I tried to spit everything out and try to stay alive. Luckily I did stay alive, even though I was a little uncomfortable.
On Saturday we were scheduled to go back to Hermana Castro's house to teach her friends. Earlier that day I had ordered two hamburger meals for dinner, so I was pretty full. Then we got to our lesson with Hermana Castro. She prepared us a huge homemade meal of pasta salad and rice with meat which she then piled on our plates. I was full when we began the lesson. I was praying that I would be able to finish the food, even if that meant that I threw it all up later. Luckily we all did finish, as painful as it was. The food was very good. That night I couldn't sleep very well because I was so full. I woke up thirsty in the night but I couldn't drink any water because my stomach was too full. So my mouth was dry and I just couldn't drink. It was an interesting situation. I bet I ate less than 1000 calories on Sunday.
Other exciting events included a guy running down the street screaming after us (it turned out pretty great and he and his whole family went to church at the English ward), smashing a huge cockroach, plunging the shower, and seeing the gospel bless the lives of our friends.
We were a little frustrated because over the last 6 weeks we've had 10 unique people come to church, but only 1 of those people has come more than once (and he told us he's catholic and doesn't want to meet with us anymore). We were wondering what we needed to do to help our friends to have better experiences at church to help them want to keep coming back. While I was pondering about that this morning I was reminded of a quote from page 9 of Preach My Gospel: President Dallin H. Oaks said: “We do not preach and teach in order to ‘bring people into the Church’ or to increase the membership of the Church. We do not preach and teach just to persuade people to live better lives. … We invite all to come unto Christ by repentance and baptism and confirmation in order to open the doors of the celestial kingdom to the sons and daughters of God. No one else can do this." This helped me to realize that I need to change my outlook and remember the end goal of everything I'm working towards. Whether it's finishing a plate of rice or helping someone get baptized, when we pray for help Christ will help us on our way. I've got a lot of work to do and I'm excited to continue learning and improving. "Did He move every mountain, did He part every sea? Yes, He did, so Yes, He can."
Keep Striving,
Élderito Rogers
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| Us in the car |
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| Elvis |
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| Firetruck and ambulance |
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| Frogs on exchanges |
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| Frogs - we got permission to take this picture |
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| We got lost and found this |
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Elder Bloomfield and I are on Google maps (I'm on the right) |
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| Fox |
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| LeBron James |
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| Smile, It's Skyline time on exchanges |
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| We had to throw away our comfy chair during exchanges |
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