Baby Steps

As per the norm, prior to this week's run down on what went down, here are your weekly headliners! As for birthdays, Aunt Kathy, happy happy birthday to you! Remember, you're only as old as you feel, so feel young! Or old! Or whatever makes you happy! And Justin, I hope your birthday was awesome.

The winds above the big island have begun to circle, and the ash has gotten so bad that many people within the area have been awarded with special masks to keep them safe from the highly toxic sulfur dioxide in the air. Recently, the cracks in the roads of the area began releasing methane, which is dangerous, but also really cool looking. You're welcome for that picture. (I didn't take it though) I'm on a separate island from the volcano though so there's no need to worry about any of that.

And with that out of the way, as rhino the hamster would say, let it begin.

This week, we got back into contact with Brittany. She's been very sick lately it seems, so we caught her after she had just gotten back from the hospital. She told us to come back today at 6:30pm, so we'll see how that visit goes.

LJ is doing well.

We made a huge week plan to get a lot done this week, so although nothing too major happened last week, I can say with confidence that this week is going to be a very productive one.

Sorry if it's a little short this week, I got a little scraped up on a hike and am not feeling that great, but no need to fear, it's nothing too serious!

Alright, so! Last week I issued you a challenge to name what pop culture reference the title of my email was. Since you all failed miserably and nobody guessed it, I'll inform you that 'The Odyssey of Flight 33' is in fact the name of an episode from the original run of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, in which an airplane hits a mysterious air current and vanishes into time itself.

Hopefully you'll all do a little better this week. This week's hint is that there are two very different answers. One of them is more obscure than the other. See if you can nab one of the two. If you get both, I'll draw you a special illustration to congratulate you.

Do your best everyone! Until next week!

Aloooooooha!

Elder Rogers

Methane gas from volcano

Jungle Hike with some other missionaries

The Odyssey of Flight No. 33

Ok, before I tell you about how this week went, let me get some things out of the way, happy very early birthday to Uncle Jesse! Your birthday falls on a day before next p day, so... Happy Birthday. I'm going to start wishing people happy birthday at the beginning of these things now. Adds character. Also, transfer news: me and Elder Durrant will be staying in the Kaneohe 4th ward together for at least 6 more weeks. The volcano continues to erupt on the big island, nowhere near where I am, but send your prayers to those whose homes have been consumed if you feel so inclined.

With that out of the way-here's the summary.

This week started out as one of the most powerful (and scary) of my entire mission. As you may already know, Elder Jeffrey R Holland of the quorum of the twelve apostles visited the mission on Tuesday, and for those of you that didn't already know about that.... Surprise... I guess. Anyway, he showed up, but he wasn't alone. Turns out elder David A Bednar was there too. Now let me tell you I wasn't expecting that one. See I've always loved the twelve apostles, there like the OG Jesus fan club, but I actually find Elder Bednar to be insurmountably terrifying. Why? Well, this one time long ago, about 4 months to be exact, I had this weird dream where I was running around this creepy old mansion and Elder Bednar was just in a bunch of random places in there and then he chased me all around the place. Turns out though, Elder Bednar isn't actually all that scary. He's still kind of scary, just not THAT scary anymore. Anyway, I shook both of their hands and it was a pretty cool experience. After they spoke for a bit they did this Q and A bit and I got to personally ask the two of them a question! And they answered it! I asked how to best ensure the spirit can be with you always, and Elder Holland told me about how his father would never let the gas tank in his car go past the halfway mark and he could never figure out why. "He must've had one too many bad experiences driving with less than a half tank I guess" said Holland-sensei. But then he said that with the spirit, it's always good to be full, and to never "drive on less than half a tank" so to speak. It was very inspiring to me, and a good message too! When we are constantly filling up on good spiritual experiences, we know we will have enough spiritual fuel to make it round trip! Elder Holland was just a very cool guy. Much funnier than on TV at conference. Elder Bednar just kind of ratted Elder Holland out on silly antics he's pulled the entire time. It was hilarious. He talked about how before the first time he was to give a talk in conference, Elder Holland stopped him and gave him some advice to calm his nerves. This advice was, and I quote:

"Dave, before you begin, I just want you to know that the faith of saints everywhere in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the fate of the kingdom of God now rest solely upon what you say in the next 16 minutes"

I love Elder Holland man. If I'm ever nervous, I know exactly who to stay far away from.

It's a good thing that part of the week went well, because the rest of it was absolutely awful. I think the best example of this is that right as I was about to give up on a particularly rough day, I saw something I'd never seen before. A scarlet macaw and a blue and gold macaw, fighting each other. Some random lady was trying to feed them, I guess they were her pets or something, and they decided it was time to settle some kind of macaw gang dispute, because they just started going at it like Captain America and Iron Man in Civil War. I decided right then what the door approach was going to be. I figured that I'd ask about the birds, find out in the process how one ends up with two magnificent tropical birds beating the crap out of each other in one's backyard, and then share the gospel with one of God's children. Well, we went up to the house, and aside from the unholy screams of the bird fight it was pretty quiet. I knocked on the door and got nothing so it was time to employ my secret weapon: Hawaiian greetings. I cleared my throat and said simply:

"Aloha"

And then everything went to hell so fast I couldn't even tell what was happening. All at once there were three snarling, very angry dogs making very loud noises at me, one of them was biting at the fence (he actually got through the fence and that was a nightmare let me tell you) and some angry dude was yelling 'not interested' to try and speak over the dogs. I tried to ask about the birds so he'd know we weren't there just to try and indoctrinate him or something, but he was having none of it and soon we were not only off the doorstep, but being hunted down by a massive brown barking bear as well. It was so magical and grand that I definitely did not fear for my life and wonder when I went crazy enough to sign up for this. Nope. I was feeling rewarded for my efforts in trying to be a brave missionary. That's definitely the feeling I associated with this. "It's great to try new things!"

What's the take away from this experience? Don't be curious about other people's cool pets. They'll hate you if you try to ask about it. They'll also intentionally sick their dog on you because you are a "filthy Mormon who doesn't know Jesus". WHAT. FUN.

It's not quite as exciting, but Elder Durrant and I also tried to find an old dropped investigator family named the Bossy family this week. We've never actually seen them before (I have a theory they might not exist) but their house actually had someone in it this time, so that's new! It wasn't the family we were looking for, but the interior looked like a family's home, and the guy WAS totally high on something. His name was Jimmy. And Jimmy did not live in that house. He'd also never heard of the Bossy family. He got high and opened the wrong door. I'm not even making that up. You meet the weirdest people in this line of work. (._.)

At least it was eventful, despite not being super productive with missionary work. We tried, they said no, and we kept on keepin' on. Then, Elder Durrant had a birthday. As a special surprise, I let him buy me dinner that day. I'm just kidding, I took him to breakfast at this restaraunt called the Kaneohe pancake house. And I gave him his own character in my comic, Dead End. He's 21 now, so I have to make sure he drinks responsibly. We don't want any DUI charges now (´･ω･`)

So that's it for this week. Anyone who can tell me what the title is referencing wins a shout out next week, so get on it you nerds! And remember! Try not to use Google if you can help it! This is a tough one though so just this once I'll let you Google if you absolutely can't get it. Your hint is: it's an old reference.

Have a better week than a happy go lucky axolotl!

Later Peeps! (๑>◡<๑)

-Mr. Elder Rogers Man

Elder Durrant and me at the meeting with Elder Holland and Elder Bednar

Aloha from Kaneohe, Hawaii!

Yesterday was Mother's Day and that meant I got to talk to mom! Yay!

So aside from talking to some of you on Mother's Day, I also happened to do some grand adventuring this week, so onward with the highlights!

Brittany is still a work in progress, and she's doing great. We're praying for her to be able to make it to church one of these days, but we suspect that her co-workers may be giving her a hard time about wanting Sundays off. Please keep her in your prayers. One of the best things about this week was exchanges, and exchanges went great! I exchanged with Elder Maxwell, and we were able to patch up our rough companionship in the past. I took over the area, which was a very hard thing to do because I haven't been here for very long yet. I was praying basically all day, and to be honest it worked out really well. We were able to catch a lot of people at home who Elder Durrant and I hadn't been able to catch previously, and we were also able to get 3 new investigators this week. One of them is named Tony, and we see him later on tonight. Another one is named Averill, and we were able to teach him a short lesson on the plan of salvation. We're heading back to visit him this Wednesday.

This week was also a double service day on Saturday. We started out with service on a heiau. A heiau is a Hawaiian temple, but it doesn't look like what you'd imagine it would. The Hawaiians built what you'd call temple land, where they build a foundation out of rocks and then build huts on top of it, so now that the huts aren't there anymore, it's basically just a big level pile of stones with moss growing in them, which is just as enchanting as you'd imagine a pile of rocks would be. The land around the heiau is still Hawaiian farm land, so we did Hawaiian style farm work, which means that we threw logs down a mountain for about an hour. It's because I guess they didn't want the logs on the mountain anymore or something. I dunno. It seemed legit at the time. After that grand quest we made our way to the post office and helped out with a food drive, which was a lot of heavy lifting. My muscles are like, 90% more good now or something. I have no clue how to sound cool you guys.

Anyway, that was our week in a nutshell. There's a surprise visitor showing up tomorrow, but that's for next week.

Love you all!

-Aloha-
-Elder Rogers

300 days of missionary service= 300 piece puzzle
(with a message on the back from Zac)

So......
Did you hear about that big island? Man, somebody's cranky! The volcano is still going strong with around 10 volcanic vents open around the area, the release of life threatening gas, and small scale tsunamis in Hilo following a 6.9 magnitude earthquake. Woah. Lucky I'm not on the big island huh?

I'm on Oahu, where there's a small problem with VOG in the air, but honestly things seem mostly ok. I've heard that it's going to get worse before it gets better though so yeah. Sit tight folks.

Anyway, this week we finally caught Brittany at home after trying all week. Brittany is a less active member we discovered thanks to member aid, and after trying twice and meeting the coolest little kid ever, we finally managed to talk to her in person on Saturday. She has a massive Ghibli collection, so me and Elder Durrant were able to become friends with her right away! Her son Trenton is the greatest 7 year old I've ever met in my life! He's super smart and he's got the weirdest sense of humor. He reminds me of me when I was little. We visited the duo again on Sunday, but this time we brought a member with us, and that went great too! She's working on getting a new job so that she can have Sundays off, so keep her in your prayers. I think the coolest thing is that she has a massive Funko Pop collection, which I took a picture of for proof. Believe it or not the picture doesn't even have everything in her collection in it, so wrap your heads around that. We shared a message of how crucial the Savior's atonement was, and how much he suffered for us so that we can repent. She expressed concern that she makes the same mistakes and feels like she's letting the Savior down sometimes, and let's be honest we all know that feeling. Elder Durrant and I testified even more strongly of the Savior's love, and honestly I didn't realize how strong my testimony of the atonement was until that night. I could feel the spirit working through me, and it was one of the best lessons of my entire mission.

The other noteworthy people we met this week were the Birds. Brother and Sister Bird are the sweetest couple. They have a friend that works at EA, and they have a huge passion for gaming.They were super receptive to us, and they don't have any dogs. (hallelujah) It won't be a quick process to get them to church, but for now we are easing them into the church at their own pace. They remind me a lot of the Jellins family, if you all remember them. In fact, it seems like just about everyone we've met so far has been just our type of person. Gamers, anime fans, computer nerds, you name it! This ward is just the best!

Next week is mother's day, and I'll most likely be calling home right after church. I believe 3 or 4:00pm my time, but I'm not sure. Sundays are actually extremely busy days for us over here, and often times we have stacked appointments all day long, so I'm still trying to figure out how to get a call home in between it all. I'll work on it though. 

That's all for now! Aloha all!

Also, don't worry about the eye patch, it was only there for testing purposes.

Laughing Under The Clouds (曇天に笑う)

This week's email-is LATE!!!!! OH NO!!!!!

Well, a good friend of mine has a birthday coming up, and in between getting him a package, trying to get some much needed grocery shopping done, and of course getting slammed with appointments despite it being p day, I wasn't able to get it out to you. I'm sorry. Please don't be all angry and worried at me. I'm OK.

Our main focus in missionary work has been strengthening the ward through less active and part member work. Missionaries are optimistic you see, so we call them less active instead of INactive, even though inactive is probably the better terminology. All of the people we've been able to meet thus far in the area connect with us on a personal level because of similar interests. It's weird, not even one person doesn't have similar interests to either myself or Elder Durrant, so it's very clear to both of us that we were meant to be here at this time as companions. This has been a very spiritually gratifying experience. On the flip side, there are still a lot of struggles involved, one of which was the genius idea to make every Sunday fast Sunday. And yeah, we've had more success since starting that tradition but you guys, sometimes I want to eat breakfast and lunch on Sunday and this makes it very difficult to do that.

One of the people we're working with right now reminds me a lot of mom. She has so many questions, and we've basically been reading the Book of Mormon through with her every Sunday. The biggest problem with this whole thing was finding a place to meet up to study, if you can believe it. We got kicked out of almost every room in the church because they needed to use them, so eventually we all decided to meet outside under a beautiful tree. It was a clear day, so it was a good idea in the end. Anyway, her name is Wendy, and like I said she reminds me of mom or grandma. She would get confused about who was doing what and people's relationships to one another, just like when I watched Fullmetal Alchemist with my mom, so I answered all of her questions when they came up. I got to explain to her that Lehi was Nephi's dad, and why the liahona was important, and what it meant and stuff. It was very fulfilling. I felt like watching FMA with my mom was preparing me to assist in teaching Wendy more about the Book of Mormon, as odd as that sounds. Also, fun fact, do you know why Nephi made a new arrow out of a stick when his bow broke instead of just using the arrows from his steel bow? Because I know why now, and I'd like you to know why too. You see, Nephi's old bow was made of steel, which bends very little. Nephi's new bow, which he made out of wood, was far more flexible, so while arrows for a steel bow wouldn't have worked, a custom made stick arrow would have been long enough to use. Maybe that answered a question or two within you.

Our investigators are doing very well, and as for the two of us, well, we tried to do a jungle hike, but we took an animal trail rather than the real one, meaning that we managed to get lost in the actual jungle by ourselves. It was pretty cool honestly. Eventually, after one heck of a journey, we found the waterfall, and I found a tree to rest on after our misadventure in the wild jungle. So yeah. Pictures explained.

Hope all is well back home. How was Infinity War? Did you see it? (Tanner that was a question for you because you probably did see it huh)

Anyway, that's all for this week.

Bye guys! ( ^ω^ )