Ups, Downs, Dunks, and Cockroaches

Aloha!

This week in the life of Elder Rogers, I had a horrible experience that scarred me for life. It was in my shoes. Oh yeah kids, it was in my shoes. I went inside to talk to some people, and came outside, and looked down, and saw the monster. There was a full size cockroach. IN MY SHOE!!!! AAAHUSDigWGYDWGUDWUGDBWYGDWygDY!!!!!!!!!!!!! FULL SIZE ROACH IN SHOE!!! HEEEEEEEELLLLLLPP!!!!!

I will never just put a shoe on without checking again. Never.

So, I'm sure the big news this week is going to be that we had a baptism. Yup! So that's fun. His name is Brother Curti. The Wailua Elders have been teaching him for a while, so it was amazing to see him baptized on Saturday.

We went on something called exchanges this week with the Zone Leaders. I got to stay in our area with Elder Klaasen, and we did really well together. I was really nervous talking to people, because I'm still awful at being social, but then Elder Klaasen gave me some really good advice. He said that the Lord called me here to be me, not to try and fake it to convert people. That people needed to hear from me as me. After that we found three new potential investigators, so it turns out he was right. It was a really great confidence booster, but of course we can't have happiness and confidence out here in Hawaii, that would be too nice and effective. So life has to push it's way back in and crush all your hopes and dreams. I didn't want to talk about this next part, but it was a big part of the week, so here you go:

Tyler. Tyler Ramos. I know you're all praying for him, but even so, he's getting deployed on October 10- just 5 days before his baptism. He won't be here for his own baptism. Which means, we were going to have to move it up to the 7th. This was really exciting! He was going to be baptized you guys! But then, this week, he didn't come to church. His wife did though, and that's how we learned that Tyler Ramos has relapsed on chewing tobacco. Yeah, really. It's really sad. We have to move his baptism until he gets back from deployment because of it. It broke both of our hearts to hear that he had relapsed, but it's OK. The Savior's atonement will cover it. Sorry there's not more to say today, but this just happened yesterday, so I'm still a bit crushed by it all.

Aloha friends at home. Pray for Tyler. He needs it.

Also I found this road, and I thought Zac would appreciate the name. It's pronounced just like it's spelled. Yes, really.

Aloha, Elder Rogers.

Elder Klaasen and I 

Hey everybody! It's me! Kunadon! (Just kidding, it's just Elder Rogers again)

I've got a lot of fun new things to talk about today, so let's begin! Back in the real world, people are talking about the new "IT" remake. Apparently it's pretty scary, and I'm excited to see it in 22 months.

In our little world though, here's the sitch homies:

I can't recall if I spoke concerning the Vickers family in my email from last week, but I'm pretty sure I did. Just in case you missed it, or forgot about it, or I forgot to tell you about it, the Vickers family consists of one less active member, and a family of 4 non-members, but for the last two weeks they've been coming consistently to church, and they're excited about doing it too. I absolutely love teaching them, but guess what?! Last time we taught them, I invited them to be baptized, and they said they'd love to!!! Yes, that's right, 2 of the 4 non-members want to be baptized! (We're still working on the other 2). They're all set for baptism on October 7th, 2017. That's just one week before Tyler Ramos' baptism on the 14th! That means in the space of 2 weeks, Elder Campbell and I will get to see 3 of our investigators baptized! How super exciting is that news?! I'm super pumped about October, especially since we learned at transfers that we'll still be here to see them happen! WOOO HOOOOO!!

Here's some less exciting, but still super cool news about the transpiring events of this week. Elder Smith's companion, AKA the anime friend I had, is gone now. He got transferred out of my area to train some new guy. Elder Smith is training a new guy too, but don't get excited, because it's not Arash. His name is Elder Hayes, and he's really cool. He's pretty normal, he likes music and movies and stuff, and he's also a Paralympic athlete. Oh, yeah I forgot to mention, he's an amputee. He looks like Edward Elric with short hair and both arms, but he's totally got the automail leg thing going on and it's super cool. I took a picture just now to prove it, so yeah. He's really, really awesome!

You remember that epic toad? Yeah, well... I didn't catch one quite that big, but I still can't say that he's small by any stretch of the imagination. I was actually hoping you could do some research on what type it is. They like inflate themselves up and start leaking this poison fluid when you scare them, so I had to wear gloves when I caught him. I'm thinking it might be some kind of tomato frog relative, because they do something similar. Anyway, that's all for this week, so... yeah.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN SOON!

Can you believe it's almost October already? We're like, in the midst of fall! Back home it's probably already cold, but it still feels like it's August out here. Not just because of the weather, but because time goes by really fast out here. I hope you're all doing well. Fantastic even, but anyways....

ALOHA!!!!

-Elder Rogers

L to R: Elder Zollinger, Elder Vanshaar, Elder Hayes, 

Elder Smith, ME, Elder Campbell

Front: Elder Klaassen, Elder Sanchez

My catch

Elder Hayes

Aloha! Hello! Welcome to the end of my first transfer! Every 6 weeks all the missionaries around here receive transfer news. That is, the news about who goes and who stays in their area for another six weeks. I wanted to let you know some stuff about this week, and included are a few interesting updates that might clue you in on the happenings of the Hawaii Honolulu Mission.

First off, the big worry this week was my hand. I was doing service cutting some trees with a motorized buzz saw at a farm and my hand slipped. I sawed right through the glove and sliced into my finger a little ways. My reflexes are pretty fast though, so I stopped it before it cut my thumb off. It was pretty scary though. It's doing a lot better, so that should bring you some comfort at the least, but the problem now is the skin is healing in a kind of weird way, so it looks like my hand has gills. I don't have to wear a bandage on it all the time anymore either, so that's good. It still looks pretty nasty though, so I try not to look at it whenever possible. Because of the way the skin is healing it will probably look weird for something like a month after it's completely healed, but that's OK. I'm fine, and not in constant pain anymore, so I should be able to draw and write and stuff again either today or tomorrow without it making me hate my life. Hooray!

Second thing I wanted you to know about is transfer news. All those peeps that like anime are getting transferred. As for me, I'm staying right here. It's a nice blessing because I want to stay to see Tyler Ramos be baptised, and since I'm staying for another transfer, I should be able to see that happen. Me and Tyler get along really well, so I might actually be the one baptising him, and you aren't going to believe this, but after our lesson on the commandments and the word of wisdom, Tyler Ramos has given up drinking. Not only that, but this is his 2 week anniversary of being clean from chewing tobacco. It's been amazing to see his life change for the better because of the gospel, and his house seems so much brighter and more full of joy that I can't even hardly describe it to you! But wait, that's not all! We have been looking for the Vickers family since I got here, because despite being what you would call "Golden Investigators", they're very busy and never home. This week an appointment cancelled on us, so we went to check the Vickers house one last time before dropping them, and we found that they were home. Rubin (the Grandpa) brought his entire family to church, including grand kids. This is huge, because it's a part member family. That means we have somewhere between 3 and 5 new investigators this week. All of them loved coming to church and it was wonderful to see the spirit they all had. Elder Campbell says we're going to invite them to be baptized next lesson, and that I'm the one who will extend that invitation. I'm nervous, but excited. Things right now are going great!

There's a downside though.

I'm sure you all remember the Jellins family, but try as we might, they just aren't responding well to the gospel messages. I love them dearly, and they've become great friends, but this week, we decided that they are no longer progressing, and we had to drop them. This means that I will no longer be visiting the Jellins family. Sad day, I know. Bro. Wayamau is also slowing in his progression. He's stopped reading the scriptures, and he's not coming to church, so I hate to say it... But we might have to drop him as well. (Sad face).

The other day I saw a MASSIVE toad. He was chilling out back by the water heater, so I took some pics for you. Bet you didn't expect to see one this big yeah? Yeah. Me neither. I love toads but this one caught me off guard for a sec. That's pretty rare, but seriously this dude was freakin' huge. He lives around our pad I think, so I'll probably catch him eventually. His name is Parker.

Love you all! Aloha!

Yesterday, I met with a new person while on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, so that was fun. He was very interested in anime, and specifically Danganronpa was his favorite show/game ever.

Anyway, while we were on exchanges I tried tracting for the very first time. We were actually pretty successful, so much so that we ended up having no success at all! I've now had doors slammed in my face, but I've also had a lady open the door holding a butchers knife pointed at us, so that was a fun day. Today is Labor Day in Hawaii, and that means we don't actually get as much P-Day as we normally would, because people are more likely to be home on a holiday. So we have to work extra hard on holidays to spread the gospel as far as we can. It's not all bad, I love teaching lessons and although it's hard work, it really is worth it.

A lot of our appointments cancelled this week, so not much happened. Sorry for the lack of details. :/ It's just sort of been one of those weeks...My exchanges were just about the only thing interesting that happened this week, but I learned a massive amount from it, and it was a surprising amount of fun! The Zone Leader I exchanged with was named Elder Zollinger. He leaves for his homeland of Virginia in October, so he's a lot more experienced than I am. By experienced, I mean that he spends about an hour planning for the day. I kind of zoned out while he was doing it too, but then he noticed, so he said, "Well Elder, who do you think we should visit today?" Then together we looked through the Area Book, and any name I picked was fair game. It was actually a joy to plan because I felt involved and important, and I felt like I was actually doing things. When me and Elder Campbell plan, we're usually pretty quick about it, but I think maybe we ought to slow down a bit, because it's much more rewarding when you do it the slow way. First, we went to visit Domonic (the anime fan I spoke of before) And he was SO AWESOME! After that we walked over to some apartments. Elder Zollinger referred to as "the sketchy Micronesian apartments" I asked him why, because I thought the apartments we were walking through were pretty nice, and then he turned to me and said "No, Elder. These aren't the sketchy Micronesian apartments" Then he pointed over at a building I thought was abandoned and said "those are the sketchy Micronesian apartments" At this point I was very afraid, but the lord is on our side as missionaries, so I said a silent prayer, and then we said a vocal prayer together, and then away we went toward what I figured was imminent death. (See Helaman 6:40 for an accurate description of my thoughts about what we were doing at that exact moment) Anyway, we made it out alive, but not without some guy asking us about a lost machete of his. I keep the details here out, because much like the building's exterior implied, nobody was home at the sketchy Micronesian apartments.

After that, we went to the rich people area of our area, and he parked the car and we both got out. Then he had us walk out toward the houses and he said to me: "Pick a door, and then we'll go knock on it and see what we can teach whoever opens it" I said "wait, what?!" And Elder Zollinger just said "Yep. Go get em" So I did. It was really fun, even though nobody really wanted to hear what we had to say. Now, I know you all want to hear the knife story, so here we go. Yesterday, Elder Campbell and I went walking because all our appointments fell through, and we walked up to a certain house. It was dark out, and it was raining, and this house looked like a mad scientist’s house. Elder Campbell just looks at me and says: "I've been here a couple times, I'm pretty sure it's a drug house so I want you to knock on the door and ask for Robert." Then I knocked and the door, which looked like someone had taken an AK-47 to it, opened slowly and this middle aged woman just opened the door holding a kitchen knife in her hand and not really wearing much of anything. She wasn't naked, but she wasn't fully clothed either if you know what I mean. Anyway she looked us up and down for a second, probably deciding whether or not we were feds, and then she said: "What do you want" I said, and these are my exact words mind you, "We want Robert. Is he home?" She just looks over at the wall and goes: "Lemme check". I'll spare you the long silence which we spent outside in the rain and dark because she was holding a knife and if she became aggressive we were going to have to run for it, so yeah. Anyway, Robert wasn't home, so we left. So there you go. You guys don't actually have to worry about me you know, I wouldn't give this up for anything. I love and miss you all! And I hope these details suffice. (Elder Zollinger likes Pokemon BTW, so we got along great, and Elder Campbell is still awesome, so no worries)

Oh! and you remember that green lizard we saw when we were in Hawaii? Guess what? I CAUGHT ONE! I have pictures of me holding the pretty little dude, whom I named Jeff. I had to get a picture, because I want you to see my victory! You said on our vacation I would never be able to catch one, but I DID IT!!! HAHA!!!

ALSO, CONNOR'S GOING TO OREGON!!!! YEEEEEEAAA!!!! Anyway, I'm super proud of him, and thanks for the video. He'll get to play Mario Odyssey before he leaves, so I have some envy, but not much. That game will still be awesome when I get back. Just like ARMS, and Breath of the Wild, and……

I forgot, we also did service at Pearl Harbor this week. I got to work inside of the USS Missouri. So I guess all in all it's not been that bad of a week. Thanks for your prayers and worries! On a mission, all days are worth it, sometimes hard, sometimes poopy, but worth it. I'm not coming home til it's over. Watching the Death Note movie will feel twice as good that way.

Much Mahalos and Alohas!
Love ya!

-ELDER ROGERS

P.S. Tell grandpa Happy Birthday for me!!

We had pad inspections today, so that's why it's clean.  Usually it's a dump- sorry to say :/ 

(We do try to keep it clean....usually)

Jeff the gecko

Dippin' Dots after our service project at Pearl Harbor