Wednesday, March 30, 2011

March 28, 2011 {Email}

This week was really good! It started off with Juliet suddenly becoming very excited about our message. She even came to church when she was sick yesterday. It was awesome. She is slowly starting to allow herself to go with what she knows is true. I'm very excited for her. Our two baptismal candidates John and Charles weren't able to come to church this week so we are postponing the baptism again. I think that is good because maybe if all goes well Juliet could join them!

We also met the coolest little boy this week! His name is Phillip and is only 13 years old. He came to church by himself after we had invited him and some other people around him. After the service he was saying how happy he felt in the church and he wanted to be baptized and become a teacher. Ha it was so cool . He is really smart too! He memorized our phone number we gave him within a day. He's like a boy genius i swear. After teaching him a couple discussions he came to church the next week but this time he brought his whole family! It was the coolest thing! They all loved it too. Elder Yapo and I made it a goal to baptize a family before he went home. It would be hard to baptize them that quick and everything would have to go nearly perfect, but it could happen! I'm really excited about this family!

Today we finally played full-pitch football again! We had President Sabey doing the refereeing so that made it fun and fair. I'm still not getting any better but i'm trying ha. It's a good thing all i do is play defense so i can rely small on my basketball instincts. That is my only chance ha. It felt good to finally run around again and try to burn off some of my newly acquired fufu belly ha. I wish we could do that more often!

Well it's been great here in Abuakwa. Elder Yapo's days are dwindling very quickly and it is sad. I will miss him a lot. It's been really fun to work hard with him and to learn from him. 

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

Elder Rogers

Monday, March 21, 2011

March 21, 2011 {Email}

This week has been pretty fun. This greenie Elder Japhet is really something ha. He has been waking up every morning at 4;30! I don't know why, but he is pretty loud and always turns on the light right outside my room so it's right in my eye. Ha I guess he just really wants to get the day going fast fast. Tonight i am going to put some duct tape on the light switch and write do not turn on until 6:30! Ha 6:30 is early enough, I can't be waking up at 4:30 every day or i will not make it ha. I have had the opportunity to go and teach with him a little this week since Elder Yapo wasn't feeling too well. This guy has so much energy! He just wants to walk and walk and walk some more ha it's sweet to see that energy. Sometimes i would get worn out so I would have to say slow down big guy ha. I have been introducing him to what it's like to walk with an "obroni" (white man) ha it was shock to him at first when i got attacked by twenty little kids. He got used to it though and thinks its pretty fun, which it is. I love the little kids!

Every night this week there has been huge thunder and lightning (kacey, the thunder LOOKS so cool! haha love ya sis) but really i could watch that all night, the lightning is more powerful than i have ever seen.
Another thing i have been doing is trying to learn the Twi language. In my studies i have been trying to read the book of mormon in Twi. It's not easy but i can see it helping me small small. It's been quite a frustrating but fun thing to do. I hear that is how everyone else learns their languages on mission so i thought i would give it a try. We'll see how it goes.

The work has been going great too. Elder Japhet really helped us this week with some of our progressing investigators. Charles will probably be baptized on the 2nd as well as John who has been preparing for a long time. We are still working really hard with Juliet, when i see her i just want so badly for her to overcome her challenges and do what she knows is the right thing.

Today for p-day we went to one of our members house and guess what i did??? I mowed the lawn!!! Yeah, ha i thought i wouldn't have to do that for two years, but that thought was spoiled today. It was actually really fun to do it again and of course i made it look like a baseball field. They do tend to let the lawn grow a little too much but we were able to get'r'done! After we had some amazing fufu with some light soup so right now my belly is very satisfied!! Gotta love Ghana! Have a great week everyone!

Elder Rogers

Friday, March 18, 2011

March 14, 2011 {Email}

It has been another great week in Abuakwa! We added a new face to the apartment, his name is Elder Japhet. He is also Nigerian, just like Elder Mbong who left. So same situation for another transfer. It is really sweet to be living with these guys! Elder Japhet has that amazing greenie spirit and loves the work. It is cool that he is on mission, this guy is 25 years old and was baptized in 2009. Yeah, he is basically a recent convert but you wouldn't know it if you didn't ask him about it. Pretty inspiring to see what a strong testimony this guy has.

Our mission acquired 11 new missionaries Wednesday. All of them are African, 4 of them were supposed to go to Ivory Coast but came here because of the problems there. Our mission will be very young within the next few months. The work has been great. We got a lot of member referrals this week. There are 3 girls that are sisters that are really fun to go and teach. Their names are Diana, Juliet and Gifty, all around the age of 25. They are so smart and they really put us to the test with some questions about the principles we teach them. They enjoy our discussions though and are progressing very well. I heard this week about the tsunami in Japan. I'm very relieved to hear all the missionaries are ok because i was extremely worried about my good friend Elder Ovard. The Lord really protects his missionaries. They are all in my prayers as i'm sure they are in yours. 

I love you all so much!

Elder Rogers

Monday, March 7, 2011

March 7, 2011 {Email}

Well, looks like its one more transfer in ABUAKWA!!! We just got transfer news today and Elder Yapo and I are still together and i'm stoked! Everything has been going great for us lately and it will be neat to be with him when he finishes his mission. We do have a change in the apartment though, Elder Mbong is going down to Cape Coast and now Elder Marsan will be training a greenie haha. Its going to be fun to be around someone that is younger than me on mission, i haven't been able to experience that yet. We don't know who it is or where they are from yet, chances are its another African since there is only one new American coming. Who knows though!

This week was great for work! FINALLY Juliet came to church! I was so excited when i saw her walking towards the meeting house with Emanuel. We have been working on this girl for like 3 or 4 months now and she kept making excuses not to come, but she also kept saying how everything we have taught is true. But she came finally, ha and i'm pretty sure she liked it. Hopefully she will continue to come so she can be baptized before Elder Yapo leaves.

So today at P-day i basically made a big fool of myself. We were playing football and everything was going great, i even had an assist! But after that assist, when i was on Cloud 9, they kicked the ball towards our goal and i saw it late so i went to kick and ended up kicking it right in our goal.... Yeah, just when i think i'm getting good at this game it knocks me flat on my face again ha. It's not easy though.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Rogers

February 28, 2011 {Email}

Another good week!

Everything has been going really good for us and also time is flying! Next monday is already transfer news. It seems like Elder Yapo just got here and all of the sudden he only has one more transfer to go home. He has been pretty nervous about going home with all of the trouble going on in Ivory Coast and mostly his hometown. I can't imagine what is going on in his mind right now. It's not easy thats for sure. Today i heard that we now have acquired 3 new missionaries from the Ivory Coast mission. It's getting that bad there that they have had to ship them out. It's too bad. Why can't all of Africa be peaceful like Ghana! I'm very thankful that i am in this country, what a blessing to be able to serve with these people in Ghana!

This week we were able to get a baptismal date out of Charles! He his the father of one of the families we are teaching. We were planning on doing it this week and then working on the wife because she is not so interested but he didn't come to church so we will have to postpone it. I think it will be better because we should get a couple others to join him and hopefully the wife so we can baptize a family! This week we were expecting Juliet (Emanuel's sister) to come to church but once again she wasn't able to come... I guess her grandmother isn't going to let her come as easily as she allowed Emanuel to come. It's ok though, i know it will all work out as long as her desires are to come! As for Jennifer, we have been trying to find her! Everytime we go to her place she is not there and her phone is always off. We will continue to try and try again. Hopefully this week we will see her!

Well, this week marks my 6 month mark! not that i'm counting or anything haha jk i think every missionary counts! ;) crazy how fast it has gone so far!

Hope everything is well back home! Also i hope the Jazz will be able to do well with their new team :) AND GO BYU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haha love ya all!

Elder Rogers