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
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