Sorry for the lack of email this week. It's a really busy/extremely stressful week for me. Elder England is heading home. I will be staying in Kaneohe and getting a new companion. His name is Elder Hoke and he is transferring to Kaneohe from the big island.
Next week I will send a real email. It's just been very busy and I'm very tired. I've discovered that prolonged social interaction, even after being out for so long and even in the company of those I love out here really wears me out.
That's all I got for this week.
Aloha!!
Monday, September 24, 2018
Monday, September 17, 2018
"Welcome to Jurassic Park" 『ジュラ紀公園にようこそ』
So this week we had some power outages when Hurricane Olive came through. That was a lot of fun. And by fun I mean my fan turned off in the middle of the night, and I got to go swimming kind of because of how much a person sweats when the fan shuts off and it's extremely humid. So yay for me. The power is back now though so all is well I suppose.
We also did some service pushing junk cars out of some guys back yard.
The most exciting thing about the entire week was when we set Gena with a baptismal date of November 3rd, which happened after a tear filled lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Gena has a daughter with special medical needs, and as such she basically lives at the hospital for now, so she was unable to come to church this week, but seeing the light of the gospel give her hope in this trying time of her life has been a great blessing to behold, and it's adding to the growing list of miracles we are seeing in this area.
Another super cool thing is that I got to teach the gospel using video game knowledge. Remember Solomons family? The ones that like Horizon Zero Dawn? Well, I used the game itself to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ this week. The way I did that was by talking about how in the game you have to go through a tutorial like stage called "the proving" wherein you are given specific tasks to do which prepare you for the rest of the game as a whole. The point is that after going through those tasks, you have a massive game to explore, and now you have the tools and knowledge to be able to handle the rest of the challenges in the game as they present themselves to you. Similarly, we have been taught by Christ the importance of enduring to the end. The proving in Horizon Zero Dawn is like the steps leading up to baptism as well as the baptism itself. We are given tasks to help us be prepared for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and afterwards we have a lot more of the world open to us, and are better equipped to handle the challenges of life as they present themselves. The lesson went really well, and it made me really glad that I played that game.
And finally: The surprise! As many of you know, Elder England will soon be returning home to Oregon. So to give him a happy surprise before he left, I decided to take him on a surprise trip to Kualoa Ranch on his second to last p day as a missionary. In case you didn't know, Kualoa Ranch is a very famous spot for filmmaking (and it also happens to be in our area and approved for missionaries to visit), so we decided to take the movie sites tour to see it all! Most famously, it is the land where Jurassic Park was filmed, and we had a total blast!! They had added a lot of new stuff since I was last there as a tourist, so it was exciting to see the sights of Kualoa with Elder England.
That's about all for this week, see you next time!
Elder Rogers
So this week we had some power outages when Hurricane Olive came through. That was a lot of fun. And by fun I mean my fan turned off in the middle of the night, and I got to go swimming kind of because of how much a person sweats when the fan shuts off and it's extremely humid. So yay for me. The power is back now though so all is well I suppose.
We also did some service pushing junk cars out of some guys back yard.
The most exciting thing about the entire week was when we set Gena with a baptismal date of November 3rd, which happened after a tear filled lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Gena has a daughter with special medical needs, and as such she basically lives at the hospital for now, so she was unable to come to church this week, but seeing the light of the gospel give her hope in this trying time of her life has been a great blessing to behold, and it's adding to the growing list of miracles we are seeing in this area.
Another super cool thing is that I got to teach the gospel using video game knowledge. Remember Solomons family? The ones that like Horizon Zero Dawn? Well, I used the game itself to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ this week. The way I did that was by talking about how in the game you have to go through a tutorial like stage called "the proving" wherein you are given specific tasks to do which prepare you for the rest of the game as a whole. The point is that after going through those tasks, you have a massive game to explore, and now you have the tools and knowledge to be able to handle the rest of the challenges in the game as they present themselves to you. Similarly, we have been taught by Christ the importance of enduring to the end. The proving in Horizon Zero Dawn is like the steps leading up to baptism as well as the baptism itself. We are given tasks to help us be prepared for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and afterwards we have a lot more of the world open to us, and are better equipped to handle the challenges of life as they present themselves. The lesson went really well, and it made me really glad that I played that game.
And finally: The surprise! As many of you know, Elder England will soon be returning home to Oregon. So to give him a happy surprise before he left, I decided to take him on a surprise trip to Kualoa Ranch on his second to last p day as a missionary. In case you didn't know, Kualoa Ranch is a very famous spot for filmmaking (and it also happens to be in our area and approved for missionaries to visit), so we decided to take the movie sites tour to see it all! Most famously, it is the land where Jurassic Park was filmed, and we had a total blast!! They had added a lot of new stuff since I was last there as a tourist, so it was exciting to see the sights of Kualoa with Elder England.
That's about all for this week, see you next time!
Elder Rogers
The first picture was taken after dinner at a member's house, the rest are at Kualoa Ranch
Monday, September 10, 2018
悲しみ物と神業
Well, if there's one thing I've learned on a mission it's that a lot can happen in a week. This week in particular was extremely eventful, but before we get to that, I wanted to share my thoughts on something not missionary related for a bit. I already made a Facebook post about it, but I wanted to put it in the email as well just to further relay my thoughts.
So, Japan. I'm not sure how bad it is, or what exactly is happening or has happened beyond what members in my ward told me, but from what I understand at least 11 are dead and a great deal more injured in the biggest typhoon in 25 years which slammed and destroyed central Japan. In addition, the days that followed contained around 3 major earthquakes, which added to the damage and death toll substantially. This... is horrible. I was completely crushed by the news and it was a very scary moment for me as well considering the many friends I know who either live in Japan or have family living in Japan. I fasted for them when I heard, and I pray every night that the people of Japan will be able to recover quickly from this tragedy. It hurt a great deal to hear of a people I've grown to love and care for so much having to endure such hardships. Any extra prayers on their behalf would help.
And there's still another hurricane, Olivia this time, coming through Hawaii this week, as if Hector, Lane (or lame as you might recall), and Norman hadn't caused us all enough excitement for the summer. Well Olivia, the Hawaiians are getting pretty sick of you and your hurricane pals causing shenanigans all the time, so allow me to tell you nicely to back the heck off. Trust me, you don't wanna mess with fed up Polynesians. It never ends well. So if Olivia shows up this week next week's email is probably going to be even more interesting than this one is, so hold on to your banana stands folks. (there's always money in those you know)
Well anyway, you were promised miracles this week, and hoo boy can I deliver! The Lord rewarded our hard work this week and man! It was so cool! Of the many great number of things that happened, the coolest one comes first, because it's the most relevant. And also because my ability to write emails with professional-grade pacing and suspense in them is inversely proportional to the amount of excitement I feel about this topic, so to heck with the build up to the climax thing, this week you get to eat your cake and bake it later! Guess what boys and girls, on Sunday, Bro. Finau came to church. Yes, he actually came, for real. If you feel like you're struggling to contain your excitement fear not, because you are not alone! I have been trying to get Bro. Finau to come to church since April, and yes, I was still in this area back in April. But he caaaaaaame!!!!!!! Finally!!!! *shoots off confetti canon* *blows one of those party blower things, you know that curl up and then uncurl and make that weird celebration noise? yeah one of those things*
But wait! If you thought that was the biggest miracle this week, well, you wouldn't be wrong but....ok I built this up wrong. The point is there's another miracle on the same level as this and I'm going to talk about that one now. *party blower thing sound again* So for the past 2 weeks Elder England and I have been playing phone tag, for lack of a better term, with this potential investigator named Solomon. More specifically, it's his kids that are investigating, not him, he's just less active. Anyway, we finally managed to get a time to meet up with him and his kids for a lesson in person (that's what we were playing phone tag about) and it went much better than expected considering how frustrating it was to get the dang lesson set up in the first place. We taught them the Restoration just to begin with. And now all three of them want to be baptized, and do you want to know what the secret is? This entire family loves these four things in this order: Horizon Zero Dawn, Playstation, Anime, and comics. Now, it just so happens... that I also love all four of those things, not necessarily in that order, but still. Horizon Zero Dawn threw me off, as I loved that game a lot when it came out. I even posted on Facebook about it when it came out. Glad to know even that was part of God's plan, and it's just so crazy to think that all of those experiences getting excited for the game and buying it were all part of the plan to help me connect with this one specific family I needed to teach on my mission. God is definatley not a poor planner, let's get that out there. We teach them again this Tuesday, and I was able to strike up such a friendship with them that they actually said they couldn't wait for the next lesson. This my friends, is what we in the biz call: "pleasant".
Oh, and that's not all either, because we have 2 more new investigators to talk about this week as well! Lucky you! So much to read... So little time... *a third party blower sound, quieter this time, as though conveying the exhaustion of 47 straight hours of celebratory dancing* One of the two is Gina, who we met because a lady in our ward has medically challenged kids and so does Gina, and Gina wanted to know God's plan ASAP. We taught her 2 lessons this week, back to pack. (backpack). The Restoration on Thursday, and the Plan of Salvation, which was very emotional and spiritual by the way, on Friday. Assuming Olivia the poopy hurricane doesn't ruin everything, we will be visiting her again this week to discuss the gospel of Jesus Christ. She is super into it and it is amazing to see the light in her eyes when we teach her the gospel. The other new investigator is from Aiea. She simply came to church saying "I want to know how to get close to God" and now we're teaching her and she wants to be baptized, which is pretty cool.
So that was this week. Oh and our ward mission leader went to China so we taught gospel principles class on short notice and it was awkward. That's not even a joke. He just said "I think I'll go to China this week" two days before church and come Sunday we get a text from him saying he's in China. At this point I feel like I should be asking questions but I feel like the answers are the kinds of things that the FBI would need to hunt me down for if I knew. So I'll leave things be for now.
Have a good week. Don't try to shave with a cheese grader. (it doesn't do what you think its going to do, trust me.)
Until next week!
Well, if there's one thing I've learned on a mission it's that a lot can happen in a week. This week in particular was extremely eventful, but before we get to that, I wanted to share my thoughts on something not missionary related for a bit. I already made a Facebook post about it, but I wanted to put it in the email as well just to further relay my thoughts.
So, Japan. I'm not sure how bad it is, or what exactly is happening or has happened beyond what members in my ward told me, but from what I understand at least 11 are dead and a great deal more injured in the biggest typhoon in 25 years which slammed and destroyed central Japan. In addition, the days that followed contained around 3 major earthquakes, which added to the damage and death toll substantially. This... is horrible. I was completely crushed by the news and it was a very scary moment for me as well considering the many friends I know who either live in Japan or have family living in Japan. I fasted for them when I heard, and I pray every night that the people of Japan will be able to recover quickly from this tragedy. It hurt a great deal to hear of a people I've grown to love and care for so much having to endure such hardships. Any extra prayers on their behalf would help.
And there's still another hurricane, Olivia this time, coming through Hawaii this week, as if Hector, Lane (or lame as you might recall), and Norman hadn't caused us all enough excitement for the summer. Well Olivia, the Hawaiians are getting pretty sick of you and your hurricane pals causing shenanigans all the time, so allow me to tell you nicely to back the heck off. Trust me, you don't wanna mess with fed up Polynesians. It never ends well. So if Olivia shows up this week next week's email is probably going to be even more interesting than this one is, so hold on to your banana stands folks. (there's always money in those you know)
Well anyway, you were promised miracles this week, and hoo boy can I deliver! The Lord rewarded our hard work this week and man! It was so cool! Of the many great number of things that happened, the coolest one comes first, because it's the most relevant. And also because my ability to write emails with professional-grade pacing and suspense in them is inversely proportional to the amount of excitement I feel about this topic, so to heck with the build up to the climax thing, this week you get to eat your cake and bake it later! Guess what boys and girls, on Sunday, Bro. Finau came to church. Yes, he actually came, for real. If you feel like you're struggling to contain your excitement fear not, because you are not alone! I have been trying to get Bro. Finau to come to church since April, and yes, I was still in this area back in April. But he caaaaaaame!!!!!!! Finally!!!! *shoots off confetti canon* *blows one of those party blower things, you know that curl up and then uncurl and make that weird celebration noise? yeah one of those things*
But wait! If you thought that was the biggest miracle this week, well, you wouldn't be wrong but....ok I built this up wrong. The point is there's another miracle on the same level as this and I'm going to talk about that one now. *party blower thing sound again* So for the past 2 weeks Elder England and I have been playing phone tag, for lack of a better term, with this potential investigator named Solomon. More specifically, it's his kids that are investigating, not him, he's just less active. Anyway, we finally managed to get a time to meet up with him and his kids for a lesson in person (that's what we were playing phone tag about) and it went much better than expected considering how frustrating it was to get the dang lesson set up in the first place. We taught them the Restoration just to begin with. And now all three of them want to be baptized, and do you want to know what the secret is? This entire family loves these four things in this order: Horizon Zero Dawn, Playstation, Anime, and comics. Now, it just so happens... that I also love all four of those things, not necessarily in that order, but still. Horizon Zero Dawn threw me off, as I loved that game a lot when it came out. I even posted on Facebook about it when it came out. Glad to know even that was part of God's plan, and it's just so crazy to think that all of those experiences getting excited for the game and buying it were all part of the plan to help me connect with this one specific family I needed to teach on my mission. God is definatley not a poor planner, let's get that out there. We teach them again this Tuesday, and I was able to strike up such a friendship with them that they actually said they couldn't wait for the next lesson. This my friends, is what we in the biz call: "pleasant".
Oh, and that's not all either, because we have 2 more new investigators to talk about this week as well! Lucky you! So much to read... So little time... *a third party blower sound, quieter this time, as though conveying the exhaustion of 47 straight hours of celebratory dancing* One of the two is Gina, who we met because a lady in our ward has medically challenged kids and so does Gina, and Gina wanted to know God's plan ASAP. We taught her 2 lessons this week, back to pack. (backpack). The Restoration on Thursday, and the Plan of Salvation, which was very emotional and spiritual by the way, on Friday. Assuming Olivia the poopy hurricane doesn't ruin everything, we will be visiting her again this week to discuss the gospel of Jesus Christ. She is super into it and it is amazing to see the light in her eyes when we teach her the gospel. The other new investigator is from Aiea. She simply came to church saying "I want to know how to get close to God" and now we're teaching her and she wants to be baptized, which is pretty cool.
So that was this week. Oh and our ward mission leader went to China so we taught gospel principles class on short notice and it was awkward. That's not even a joke. He just said "I think I'll go to China this week" two days before church and come Sunday we get a text from him saying he's in China. At this point I feel like I should be asking questions but I feel like the answers are the kinds of things that the FBI would need to hunt me down for if I knew. So I'll leave things be for now.
Have a good week. Don't try to shave with a cheese grader. (it doesn't do what you think its going to do, trust me.)
Until next week!
Elder Rogers
Not much in the way of pictures this week, but I fixed my shoes with flex glue, and I drew a Pop Team Epic of Dead End, which I colored, because.... I'm 19 and I can do what I want with my life now. I'll take some more interesting photos next week. I promise. The tie pic is to show that I too love Playstation, and will be wearing it next time I meet with Solomon and his epic fam.
Not much in the way of pictures this week, but I fixed my shoes with flex glue, and I drew a Pop Team Epic of Dead End, which I colored, because.... I'm 19 and I can do what I want with my life now. I'll take some more interesting photos next week. I promise. The tie pic is to show that I too love Playstation, and will be wearing it next time I meet with Solomon and his epic fam.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
14.9
Ugh
Sorry about how late this email is, I'm so tired I can barely walk around. Sunday night the district leader surprised us with an exchange which I was absolutely not prepared for at all. Monday was an empty day, and our district leader is extremely diligent. Not that being diligent is a bad thing, he's just the kind that takes it to the extreme, and he's either very impressed with your work or he's very disappointed in you and he tells you about it, so I had not a lot of time to develop a plan to stay busy all day. I planned the best I could but I wasn't feeling great about the plan I made so I desperately prayed and said "I did the best I could and I'll work as hard as I can, I need you to make up the rest today". Our day got off to a rough start. The District Leader was very upset because we left at 10:01am (missionaries leave the pad at 10:00am every morning) and his exact words were "We were 15 seconds away from having the spirit with us today! Now it's going to be a rough day Elder, I hope your ready for that." And he wasn't even being sarcastic about it. I'm usually very good at getting out on time, but I don't think 10:01 warranted as much backlash as I got from it. When we got in the car to start the day, our district leader spoke up again. He said, "Man, I almost felt like a real missionary there for a second. I feel like we have such lazy missionaries who use the car too much"
That was when I snapped. I didn't say anything to him, or fight back because why would I, but I did turn off the car. I said, "You know what? Let's walk then."
And we didn't use the car the whole day.
14.9 is the title and I'm sure you all want to know what it means. We'll, that's how many miles I walked on exchanges yesterday. In church clothes.....with.... a very annoying district leader. It was lovely. I figured by the end of the day he would be humbled somewhat. I mean, I would have been. I walked through my shoes at last yesterday, I sweat through my church shirt, and my pants too, I was almost vomiting by the end of it, and my feet hurt. But I'm proud of it. I will say that the Lord pulled through for me and enough people talked to us that somehow the time was filled. It's just that Mondays before temple day are usually the most empty days of the week, and we never really have appointments on those days so it was very hard to have a planned out, good day. But I worked my tail off and I woke up at 5:45am instead of 6:30am this morning, so I'm barely awake, honestly speaking.
That said, hard work pays off!! We set up so many return appointments and saw so many small miracles, but above all I'm just glad my companion is Elder England!
My lesson learned is take care that your diligence in obeying the Lord does not prevent you from loving the Lord's children or being willing to accept others. Love one another, judge not, that ye be not judged.
Ugh
Sorry about how late this email is, I'm so tired I can barely walk around. Sunday night the district leader surprised us with an exchange which I was absolutely not prepared for at all. Monday was an empty day, and our district leader is extremely diligent. Not that being diligent is a bad thing, he's just the kind that takes it to the extreme, and he's either very impressed with your work or he's very disappointed in you and he tells you about it, so I had not a lot of time to develop a plan to stay busy all day. I planned the best I could but I wasn't feeling great about the plan I made so I desperately prayed and said "I did the best I could and I'll work as hard as I can, I need you to make up the rest today". Our day got off to a rough start. The District Leader was very upset because we left at 10:01am (missionaries leave the pad at 10:00am every morning) and his exact words were "We were 15 seconds away from having the spirit with us today! Now it's going to be a rough day Elder, I hope your ready for that." And he wasn't even being sarcastic about it. I'm usually very good at getting out on time, but I don't think 10:01 warranted as much backlash as I got from it. When we got in the car to start the day, our district leader spoke up again. He said, "Man, I almost felt like a real missionary there for a second. I feel like we have such lazy missionaries who use the car too much"
That was when I snapped. I didn't say anything to him, or fight back because why would I, but I did turn off the car. I said, "You know what? Let's walk then."
And we didn't use the car the whole day.
14.9 is the title and I'm sure you all want to know what it means. We'll, that's how many miles I walked on exchanges yesterday. In church clothes.....with.... a very annoying district leader. It was lovely. I figured by the end of the day he would be humbled somewhat. I mean, I would have been. I walked through my shoes at last yesterday, I sweat through my church shirt, and my pants too, I was almost vomiting by the end of it, and my feet hurt. But I'm proud of it. I will say that the Lord pulled through for me and enough people talked to us that somehow the time was filled. It's just that Mondays before temple day are usually the most empty days of the week, and we never really have appointments on those days so it was very hard to have a planned out, good day. But I worked my tail off and I woke up at 5:45am instead of 6:30am this morning, so I'm barely awake, honestly speaking.
That said, hard work pays off!! We set up so many return appointments and saw so many small miracles, but above all I'm just glad my companion is Elder England!
My lesson learned is take care that your diligence in obeying the Lord does not prevent you from loving the Lord's children or being willing to accept others. Love one another, judge not, that ye be not judged.
And of course: Be NICE TO PEOPLE!
Even if they are different from you or live a different lifestyle than you do. People are people.
I'm spending what little p day I have left sleeping off those 14 miles. It was a long day. Worth it though.
Even if they are different from you or live a different lifestyle than you do. People are people.
I'm spending what little p day I have left sleeping off those 14 miles. It was a long day. Worth it though.
*Mom note: This week we had a visit from Elder Durrant who has completed his mission and is now starting fall semester at BYU with his brother Seth. It was fun to talk to him and hear stories about his mission and his time serving with Caden. They spent 4.5 months as companions which is the longest Caden has served with any one companion so far. We are very grateful to Elder Durrant for being a great friend and companion to Caden especially during Caden's headaches and eye problems. Thanks Elder Durrant!!
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