I Wanna Be A Man Cub

Howdy,

Everything is going great in Liberty Township! Elder Brinton and I are getting along well, and we are working hard together. Unfortunately, a lot of our friends decided to stop meeting with us this week, but the Lord has blessed us with new friends who are amazing. One miracle from this last week that I thought I would share was our friend Danielle. I sent her a message over Facebook over two months ago while still in Lawrenceburg, but she never responded. Out of the blue, she responded this week and we set up a time to have a meeting over the phone. We taught the restoration and she loved it! The spirit was strong as we discussed the First Vision and the Book of Mormon and her voice was full of excitement. She wanted to read the Book of Mormon and said she would love to meet in person with the Elders in Lawrenceburg! It was hard to send away the referral, but we knew it was what is best for her. I am so grateful to have been able to play a part in helping her be introduced to the gospel! It is amazing to me that God is in the details, and no effort we make is wasted, even if it takes time to fully see the fruits of our labors. 

We still had a couple bike jobs which was crazy, but they should be slowing down for the next little while. It took Elder Brinton all of 8 days in Ohio to go to every single zone in the mission because of all the bike jobs we had. It was fun though. Some missionaries were running late and we were ahead of schedule so we made a stop at an Amish store. It was pretty cool! None of the Amish people care about masks at all, which I thought was funny. It was nice to be in the middle of nowhere. 

One of our favorite friends is Martha! She is too sick to leave her room, and so we've never met her in person. This week I had the prompting that we should sing families can be together forever to her over the phone even though neither of us sings very well. She loved it so much, and she said she really wants to come to church so bad, but she is too sick. We want to find a way where she can call into the church because she doesn't have a smartphone or a computer so logging in online isn't an option. 

The spirit has definitely been with us this week in our area! I am excited to keep working hard to help the people in Liberty Township! I love the Lord and I love his work! I am honored to be able to serve in the OCM! Read your scriptures y'all! Keep praying, keep trusting, the answers will come! 

Keep Striving

Elder Tanner Rogers

(No the pictures aren't all on the same day, I just wore the same tie twice this week I guess)

Us outside the Amish store 

Me with cows

I made him take a picture with me by the fire station

Me holding a goat (My tie is over my shoulder because he kept trying to eat it)

"Everyone put your honesty caps on" during the weekly ZL STL call

Elder Brinton's first experience with Skyline

 It snowed

We found some sunglasses in the apartment

10,000 Years Can Give You Such A Cink In The Neck

 Howdy!

This week was pretty great! Elder Brinton and I have been getting along really well! It's been the first week of the transfer, and we've had to do lots of bike jobs this week. We get to fix the bikes and then drive them all over the mission delivering them. We usually put in a good talk to listen to or we just talk. It's fun to see a lot of the mission, but it is sometimes frustrating because we know there are other ways that we could be spending our time. One positive was that I was able to see Elder Leavitt doing a bike job, and I wouldn't have been able to unless he needed bike stuff and I was the bike delivery guy. We spent a lot of time doing cold calls this week which was fun, and we were blessed to have some success doing it. The energy in the mission right now is very fun, and I'm very grateful to be a part of it. 

Our friend Brayan from Honduras is doing pretty well. He is really interested and really nice, but now that Elder Brooks is gone, I have been teaching him by myself. I've been trying to teach him English, and I have taught him the restoration. Most of our appointments usually end with him trying to teach me Spanish though... He is really nice, and I feel bad my Spanish isn't great, but it gives me lots of motivation to study which is really good. 

Today we went to the zoo which was really fun. I've never been and it was a fun experience to go with some other missionaries. The mission nurse has a pass and takes missionaries every week. I feel like it would get very old going every week, but I'm grateful that she was willing to take us. 

It has been a great week! I am very excited about what is to come in this area! My new district and companion are awesome! The Lord's hand is in the work, and it is so much fun being a missionary!

Have a great week! Keep striving!

Elder Rogers

Hulk sitting patiently at church

Elder Brinton and I with Cinnamon toast - not sure why but we ate cinnamon toast like crazy this week

 I'm as tall as a newborn giraffe

Elder Brinton and I with a bottle cap penguin art thing at the zoo 

At the Cincinnati Zoo

I Use Antlers In All Of My Decorating

 Howdy!

I hope that everyone is having a great week! This was a pretty good week! We had a lot of really good lessons, and a lot of our friends are finally opening up to us. The big news from this week is that we found out that Elder Brooks will be leaving for the Cincinnati young single adult ward, and that I will be staying here in Liberty and training Elder Brinton. It was really sad to say goodbye to Elder Brooks, we've become really great friends over these last 8ish weeks we've had together. Luckily he is staying in the same zone and so I will be able to see him pretty frequently which will be nice. We went to Texas Roadhouse together which was really fun. I ate a lot of rolls. Elder Brooks couldn't handle the temptation and ate two of them as well - which made him sick since he can't eat gluten. Nobody can resist Texas Roadhouse rolls haha. On our last day, we decided we would go on our longest run together. We had gone six many times, but he said he thought he was up for seven. When we got back to the apartment we were at 7.1, and he said he felt pretty good so I asked him if he wanted to go to 8. He said sure. When we finished our little loop and got back we were at 8.25. I told him that we were only 1.75 away from 10. He didn't really want to do it but eventually, I got him to do it. It was the farthest I've gone since the MTC. It felt really good, and I didn't have any problems with it, but I decided running on a mission is like eating one Texas Roadhouse roll. Yeah, it tastes really good, but you really want to eat the whole basket, not just one. I'm very grateful Elder Brooks ran with me though. It was so much fun and we made a lot of good memories. (Or at least I did - he said this was his most painful transfer yet haha - he knows he loved it)

The Spanish Facebook page is really successful here, and the page is bringing in more people than the Spanish missionaries can handle, so they gave me someone to teach by myself. Luckily Elder Brooks took four years of Spanish and he was able to help me a ton with that. Now that he is leaving I'm a little nervous about how it will go because my trainee doesn't speak any Spanish so it will be 100% on me. We were asked to give a coaching to the APs this week on companionship study which was a little bit stressful, but it went OK. Apparently, they were coaching another set of elders right after, and they copied our coaching 100% so we must not have done too bad of a job. We also had my first service opportunity this week laying mulch which was pretty fun. 

We had some fun bike jobs to do this week, and we saw a pretty cool miracle. One day we had to deliver a bike to some Elders, but the front brake wasn't working. I was trying to fix it, but I stripped the nut I was working with. I was in a hurry and so I was looking for something that would fit in a huge bin of random nuts and bolts. The first couple didn't work, but I looked up and saw a nut sitting there - outside the bin. I decided to try it and it worked perfectly! We were able to fix the bike, and make it to all of our appointments on time!

This is the Lord's work and I know that his hand is in it! I'm so grateful that I get to serve as a missionary! There's nowhere I'd rather be!

Keep Striving!

Elder Rogers

Us after running 10 miles

Blossoms

Us by a cool creek where we skipped rocks

Sending home Elder Chidister (The AP and one of my really good
 friends on the mission who I've run with a couple times)

Saying goodbye to Elder Brooks

Picking up Elder Brinton

Us at Texas Roadhouse

The District 

Seeing Elder Boren, Elder Wilson, and Elder Anderson and transfers

How To Break Into A Member's House...

 Howdy!

This week flew by as we were getting everything ready for the baptism on Saturday! It was such a great experience and I was grateful to be a part of it! They asked me to say the opening prayer and be one of the witnesses, and Elder Brooks gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. After the baptism, they gave Elder Brooks and I each a footlong sandwich from Subway, but Elder Brooks can't eat gluten, so I just ate both of them after we got home because I didn't eat breakfast in the rush to get to church and fill the font... which ran out of hot water. We took some big pots and boiled some to make it warm. 

On Friday we were going to show Trisha around the church and get her baptismal clothes, but it turns out this ward doesn't keep their baptismal clothes at the church - they have someone in the stake keep them at their house. Well - neither of us knew this. We found out and called him, but he said he was in Idaho on vacation. He said he needed to take away our Eagle Scout Awards because we weren't prepared. He told us his garage code and how to walk through his house to find the clothes. It was really weird, but we got them!

Another noteworthy event from this week is the zone leaders telling us we were having an impromptu tornado warning drill and to go to the safest part of our appt and send them a picture. It turns out it was an April fool's prank. Also, an Arabic-speaking guy randomly walked into our district council and asked us to teach him English, so the Mason Elders left and taught him.

It was a great week that flew by! Conference and Easter were so amazing and I'm so excited to study the talks and messages more deeply! I am so grateful that the Savior is risen!

Have a great week! Keep striving!

Elder Rogers

April Fool's Tornado Warning Prank

Us by some blossoms 

Us With Chipotle (Thanks to Debbie for the gift card - also Carnitas is the best meat)

I wanted a picture by the fire station

Muffins I made

 A Funny Conversation With Our Friend

Boiling water to heat the font

Baptism of Trisha Quayson

Aggressive Teeth Brushing Violation

 Howdy!

This was a pretty great week! No crazy stories, it was just a pretty solid week. Elder Brooks and I have been having a lot of fun together, and have been working hard to help the ward. We are working with a nine-year-old in a less active family named Trisha who is getting baptized on April 3, so we have been helping her a lot to make sure that she is ready. 

 

We had a lot of fun going on lots of runs this week - including a couple trail runs. We ran 32 miles, and we averaged about 7:30 pace. I miss going for long runs, but I'm really grateful that Elder Brooks will run with me. We had a lot of weird weather this week, and we kept getting woken up by really loud thunder. Elder Brooks has been worried we'll have a tornado. I think it would be cool to see a tornado, but it would probably get in the way of things. Elder Brooks agreed to be a victim of my haircutting, and I think his hair looks super good. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to give someone a haircut without leaving them with patches of baldness on their head... 

We had interviews with President this week which are always a blast, and we have been blessed to see some exciting progress in our area! The work of the Lord is real! Have a great week! Keep striving!

Elder Rogers

Us by a pretty bush (It started dumping rain right when we got there to take the picture)

Us eating at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate my six months
 (It was really good, but pricy. You can make a really good chicken and broccoli alfredo for like $4.25. It might not be quite as good, but you feel way better inside knowing you are thrifty)

After I gave Elder Brooks a haircut

Sometimes I just creep behind Elder Brooks, make a funny face, and tell him to smile for a picture.

Us making pumpkin muffins

Where Did You Go Elder Brooks?

 Howdy,

This week was pretty good! We had a zone conference which was really fun! I feel like since this was my second in-person zone conference I felt more comfortable and so I participated more and got more out of it. Since zone conference was on St. Pattrick's Day, Elder Brooks and I wore matching ties and cool hats. That was really fun. 

One of the things that they talked a lot about at the zone conference was being bold. They said that we are here to declare the restored message of the gospel, not just have feel-good Bible studies. It made me think of our friend Martha, who is old and pretty sick. We have been working with her for a week, and have been hesitant to share the message of the restoration because we didn't want to stress her out, and we didn't know what she could do in her circumstances. After zone conference, we decided we needed to be bold and share the message with her. I gave her a call and we talked for a little bit about why I decided to serve a mission and brought up the Book of Mormon. I asked her what she remembered about it from our previous calls. She said we knew that we used it and that she was very curious, wanted to learn more, and asked us if we could bring her a copy! We told her we would get her a large print one. We are excited to keep talking to her! 

It is amazing that people are more receptive to listen than we realize, we just need to have the courage and faith to open our mouths and share! I know that this is the Lord's work and that when we work, He will work miracles from our efforts! I also know that revelation is real! Our leaders at zone conference talked about exactly what we needed to hear! 

Elder Brooks and I both talk in our sleep, so we decided to put on a voice recorder two nights last week, and listen to what we say in the mornings. It has been quite entertaining. 

Have a great week! Keep Striving! The Lord Jesus Christ lives and loves you! This is His true gospel, and President Russell M. Nelson is His living prophet on the earth!

Elder Tanner Rogers

Frisch's Big Boy Statue (We didn't eat there we just accidentally pulled into the parking lot so we took a picture)

Us cutting off other missionaries

Making faces before our friends join the zoom call

Chipotle (The ultimate hack is when we make our own guac instead of paying 2.25 for theirs)

After a run in the rain that I made Elder Brooks do with me

Our matching hats for St. Patrick's Day

Zone conference (We are on the second row in the middle  - we are wearing our hats)

Build Higher Walls, Build Stronger Beams

 Howdy!

This week really flew by. We said goodbye to Elder Lawrence on Tuesday, and he actually made it to Africa this time! We are glad that he is there, he was very excited to go back.  This week we were focussing a lot on trying to build the trust of members, and a lot of our meetings canceled so we made and delivered lots of cookies which was fun. We have also been running and exploring all of the local trails. There are a lot of fun trails out here! We think with just a little work there could be a mega-awesome trail network.

One of the part member families we have been working with for about a month now gave us a bit of a sad/funny story. Apparently, the sisters reached out over Facebook and set up an in-person lesson with them on Monday (30 minutes after our zoom lesson). We were pretty surprised because they had told us they didn't want to meet in person because of COVID. The sisters were being invited over for a BBQ and were getting sent home with dinner. We got a text from the family yesterday saying that it has been a busy weekend and that they don't think they'll be able to have our meeting on Monday (probably because they will be meeting with the sisters). Anyway, it's sad because we've been meeting with them, giving them cookies, and trying to become friends for about a month, but the sisters send them one message over Facebook and they instantly get farther than we ever did. We are glad that they are still taking steps to come closer to Christ, even if they don't want us to be as involved as the sisters. But come on - white middle-aged Elders are discriminated against I swear. 😂

I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting which was really fun! One of our friends told us that she slept in, but she wants us to read the talk to her as part of the lesson this week which will be awesome! Elder Brooks and I are excited to work really hard this week and do everything we can to help our friends come to church! Any prayers for our friends would be greatly appreciated!

Lastly, Great Value frozen supreme pizzas are only $2.78. It may not be DiGiorno quality, but I'd say it's definitely worth a try!

I know that Jesus Christ is always aware of us and our situations and what we are going through! He is always there to help us and lift us up! If we will reach out to Him, we will be able to feel joy- regardless of what is happening, or not happening in our lives! I know that it is true! Spend time in the scriptures! It will change your life - I know it has changed mine!

Keep striving - True grit and faith in God brings true success

Elder Tanner Rogers

 Elder Brooks organizing some of the cookies (this is a little less than half)

A woolly worm we found on our apartment!!

The ducks that now guard my hair clippers

Me trying to take a selfie 🤦‍♂️

Us after conquering the Mauds Hughs Incline

Me jumping into the love sack at the Websters' house (They are a solid family - I hope to be like them someday!)

My onion and celery omelet

Us by an elk statue (You can tell I'm starting to put on pounds in this picture 😳)