Hello all!

So apparently people are freaking out about something called an Eclipse, which I think is kind of stupid. Oh yeah, let's all go stare into the sun until our retinas melt....... hah.... haha....stupid.... yeah.....(I really wanted to see the eclipse but we can't see it in Hawaii.)

So anyway, I don't know if you know this but Hawaii has something called a "Cane Spider", which is responsible for killing the only spider that has ever been good in the sight of God, that of course being the Able Spider. I hate these things. They're the size of a person's WHOLE HAND, and they can JUMP. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about spiders the size of your hand, THAT CAN JUMP. This is in fact, a terrible thing. I found out that they existed earlier this week at a service project. See, we went and chopped up palm tree leaves with friggin MACHETES, which was awesome and totally made me feel like the star of an action movie, because I got to cut through leaves with a machete in the midst of the jungle this dude called his backyard. Turns out though, cane spiders love palm leaves, and jumping at people. Also, the best part of the whole machete thing is Elder Campbell sees this big cane spider and he points his machete at it and goes "behold, I will slay thee" and he swung the blade and missed. Yeah. This spider went ham on this poor guy. I was laughing and crying at the same time because I was so scared. He didn't get bit, it just jumped at him is all. But DANG! Freaky...

Oh! And you know how we have roaches out here? Well guess what! We have some that can fly. Apparently, they're pretty big too, because the other Elders and Sisters refer to them as "Boing 707's".

In other news, we visited an inactive member by the name of "Waiamau" and his house is infested with roaches, but for some reason this time he got really mad at us and we didn't know why, but he was yelling about being forced into church as a child and something else about diabetes, so I have no idea what happened there. Also there was a smell in there, and I don't know what it was, but I've never smelled it before. I love Bro. Waiamau though, so hopefully he doesn't hate us now.

We weren't able to visit the Jellins this past week, but hopefully we'll be able to visit them this week. Tyler Ramos is still on track to be baptized, but we might have to move it back... It all depends on if he's able to keep clean from tobacco or not. Hopefully he is.

I bore my greenie testimony in Zone Conference this week, and during that testimony I talked a lot about Dad. Dad gave me a letter for my 18th birthday and it had the lyrics to the theme song for Pokemon Black and White. I recalled how strongly that letter had touched me, not only because it was Dad, and he was using Pokemon to tell me he was proud of me, but because of the song's focus on choices and how hard it can be to start a new journey and make new choices. It reminds me of my purpose, and of home, and reminds me that even though it's always hard when the journey begins, that there's nothing you can't do, because you've got the power inside of you.

I love you guys, and miss you a lot, but I'm working hard out here, so.... wish me luck! Alohey!

Also, a gecko got into our house, so that was cool.

-Elder Rogers

Zone Conference

The house we live in

Our little gecko friend who lives in our house

Hawaii Rain