February 6, 2012 {Email}

I am staying another transfer here with Elder Gibson! I'm so excited to stay here to see this work continue to progress. We also just got done saying goodbye to Elder Lawton. It's crazy i probably will never see him again since he is in Australia. He is way excited to go back to his family. Only 7 more months :)  

This week was great! We had the baptism for Enoch and all went well. I got to do it this time and it is such a sweet experience to be the one performing the ordinance, the spirit is so much stronger. Enoch was so happy that day, he brought his mother and sister too. His sister Veronica will be baptized on the 25th! We have also been teaching Emmanuel's wife and they have been coming to church. She, Millicent, has accepted to be baptized as well! She loves the church. She is pregnant and we have been doing chores for her like every other day the past month. She comes to church, loves the teachings, studies them through the week and she is really praying for Emmanuel to overcome his addiction. He is doing better but is still falling from time to time. It will come, bishop is helping a lot now too. We will give her the date tomorrow and it should also be the 25th. It is starting to look like Emmanuel will also have to be baptized again because we are having no luck in finding his records since it has been so long. 

Things are moving so fast here it is crazy! Plus we have transfers to do this week, AHHH! I'm going crazy. I love it though. I'm way happy i get at least one more transfer here. OH, Elder Wheeler has been transferred to Atonsu, which is where Edmond and Judith moved to so he will get to see them again. Other than that i don't know what else to say, my mind is kind of all over the place right now. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Rogers

Enoch's baptism

Saying goodbye to Elder Lawton

January 30, 2012 {Email}

It was a sweet week again. We had the baptism for the four, Ruth (jennifers daughter), the two brothers Benjamin and Richmond, and Henry! It all went great. So many members came to support them so it couldn't have been any better. We are looking forward to another one this week for Enoch. We were planning on doing it for Patrick as well but he has some things he needs to work out. We are going to give him another four weeks at work to give him sometime to work them out. It will all be ok and he is still excited to be baptized! It's amazing how much a person is willing to change there life once they know this Church is true.

We have been enjoying this area so much. Transfer news is coming this week and we are both praying that we will stay. I would love to stay here for some more time and be with Elder Gibson and to continue with the people that we have going.

Ok now mom i'm sorry i didn't answer your question about the weather. But the Hamatan has gone now. It is back to being very humid! We did have a nice rainstorm for the first time in forever this week and were cold all day. That was nice. Ha.

So what else happened this week. OH! Emmanuel and his entire family came to church! They love it there and look so happy. Emmanuel is really improving on his addictions. His wife is very interested in the Church. We are so excited to see what happens with this family. They are awesome! Also the Africa Cup of Nations has begun. These people LOVE their football. Ghana has won their first two matches so far so everyone is way happy! We even saw a goal while buying some bread the other day. It was so awesome to celebrate with all of the people. The town blows up when they score a goal! GO GHANA!!!!

Elder Rogers

Picture from the baptism on Saturday

Oreo's in Ghana!! Yeah, be jealous haha i'm enjoying!

January 23, 2012 {Email}

So this week has been just as good as the other. Patrick came to church and is preparing for the 4th of February for his baptism. The other three are ready to go this week! We have a new sweet investigator. I may have told you about him last week my memory is terrible so sorry if i'm on repeat. but his name is Enoch and he is 26 years old, teaches at a school and loves to play football. This guy has been powerful right from the start! We met him through a gospel conversation, which has been one of the focuses of our mission right now. It's like contacting but trying to be more personal with them and bringing the gospel into the conversation. He was interested and he has since kept every commandment. He can tell us the story of 1 nephi 1-4 better than I can ha and he loves going to church. This week we gave him a big commitment and that was to not play football on Sunday. It's something that he loves to do in the morning before church. But we were teaching the Sabbath Day and we had to tell him. I was kind of worried about how he would take it, but he humbled me right away when he said well if that is what God wants then i wont play football on Sunday. He is so ready to do whatever he has to to follow the gospel. On Sunday he didn't play and was on time to church. We were so stoked when he came in and told us he didn't play. He will be baptized on the 4th of February.

Everything has been going great! It's crazy that Elder Lawton goes home in 2 weeks! I hope you all have a  FABULOUS week! Love you all!

Elder Rogers

Me with our Ward Mission Leader "Paa Kwesi"

January 16, 2012 {Email}

Things are going even better than last week! I feel like everytime i come to email i am just bragging about my area, but it's really just going good! Our investigators are awesome people that are very sincere. It's not every day that we have several people that are interested like they are. Patrick came back! We met him Saturday night and he was way excited to see us. We had a good lesson and he was still ready to be baptized. The only problem was we forgot to tell him earlier that church was at 9 now! AHH! I'm so mad at myself for forgetting that. We told him that night and he said he had a very important appointment he couldn't miss and he scheduled it in the morning because he was going to be at church in the afternoon. So he didn't come to church yesterday. It only means that his baptism will have to be delayed at least one week. We are going to see him tonight so we'll figure it out with him. Everyone else is still progressing well. I don't know if i told you but our two recent converts Jennifer and Charlotte are now serving in the Primary Presidency! They love it and are a little overwhelmed but it's going to be so good for them.

This past week the weather has changed entirely. It is now time for the Hammatan (spelling?). But the Hammatan, from what i've heard, is when all the dust from the Sahara desert blows over the top of us. So right now we basically walk in dust. It also makes the mornings pretty chilly and we become very dry. We played a football match today and i hardly even sweated. It almost feels like weather back home when it's just hot and dry. I don't know how you all survive back there ha! I'm suffering with it right now haha.

But it's been a great week! Love you all!

Elder Rogers

me at the Kakum National Park doing the rope walk ha i look so excited...NOT!

Thanksgiving Dinner

All of them are Zacks - "Z"

January 9, 2012 {Email}

This week was a great one! The work is exploding here for us in the Cape Coast 1st Ward. Seriously we suddenly have a lot of people with potential baptismal dates that we are almost overloaded. It's AWESOME!!! We are still preparing the 5 for the 28th and Patrick will be coming home this week! Just this past week we have had a few more investigators share with us their desire to join the Church. I can't explain to you how exciting it is. It's amazing to see these people and how the Lord has prepared them for this time. The Lord has really blessed us in our time here.

As i think i already told you our ward made a new goal for the next 4 month and now they are actually doing the whole planning on their own without our help. It has been so great to see them doing the missionary work and setting up how they are going to accomplish this goal. I'm also way excited to see how the work and the members improves in these next few months. We have really been enjoying these past few weeks here.

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

Elder Rogers

January 2, 2012 {Email}

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! What a great year this is going to be. I'm so excited for all of the wonderful experiences i will have as my mission comes to an end. Still plenty of things to do like you said and plenty of people to help. I hope you had a great week!

This week was good for us too. We switched our church time to 9 in the morning which was awesome. We now are preparing 5 people for baptism on the 28th of January! It's been so sweet! One of them is Jenifers (recent convert) daughter, Ruth. She is 13 and was a very stubborn girl when we first met her, but since she came to church and has been taking the teachings she is really changing. Jenifer is so happy with her now and excited for her to be baptized. She says once she gets the Spirit she will never be stubborn again haha. We are also teaching two other young boys whose sister is a member, they are 16 and 9 years old. Then we have a man, Henry, that has taken a long time to progress. He has come to church a lot but just doesn't take the the time to have lessons. This week was a big one for him. Our bishop called him up to speak in sacrament meeting ha he went up there and said some words in Fante than finished. After that he was acting as if he was already a member so we took him around on Sunday with us to meet one of our blind members and then a new investigator. He really seemed to be ready to be baptized and he has wanted it for a while. This week we hope to give him a date for the 28th. The last is Patrick, the man out on the oil rig right now. He will be back next week and should be right back into preparing for his baptism. We are pretty busy right now with these people and it has been great. Our ward also set another goal for baptisms from January through April, it will be 10. It's a really good goal for this ward and will force them to be involved with the missionary work. They seem excited about it though!

Other than that not too much else happened. We didn't do much for New Years, but all of Cape Coast are going to big beach parties today ha. I wish you all a Happy New Year!

 

Love,

Elder Rogers

This was our FHE last week with our Relief Society president Georgina and the kids
she takes care of in her compound. It was way fun!

December 26, 2011 {Email}

Christmas Eve we had fun going to a stake devotional and going around and singing to our members. We probably didn't sound very good since it was just me and Elder Gibson but we had fun and the members enjoyed it. That was a sweet experience.

We are excited for this next week of transfers. Nothing really happened in our zone except we are adding two more in the assistants area. Elder Reid from Colorado will train there so it will be sweet to get to know him better. On Wednesday me and Elder Gibson will have to take care of the transfer, scary! I hope we can do it without Elder Lawton ha who actually only has to wash his clothes by hand four more times in his life! Crazy! But i hope everyone has a great Holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Rogers

My sweet new basketball shoes that I've wanted forever! I used them today and they worked PERFECTLY! Such a good Christmas present, thank you me :)

December 19, 2011 {Email}

This week was a good week. The Christmas spirit definitely is here in Ghana. Everyone gets excited for it, but its cool because it's more because of the real purpose of Christmas, to remember Christ, instead of for gifts. That is something i have always had a problem with. I always get so caught up in the gifts and not really focusing on the true meaning. Hopefully that is something i can take home with me from being here in Ghana. These people really have their priorities right, and i think they still would if they had all that we had back in America. they are just great people.

This week we have been focusing on helping one of our long lost members overcome an addiction to alcohol. He was baptized ten years ago and stopped coming to church about 9 years ago. He is like the most popular police man in Cape Coast since he is around 6'7" tall and HUGE around the waist. ha but he is the most friendly guy i have ever met. he stopped us one day and said i have a problem and i want to stop and i want to be baptized again. So we have been trying to help him. It's definitely out of our normal routine, but it has been good. He is not having much success right now. The good part was he chose to come to church this week where he really enjoyed it! I hope that will help him to get a little more strength.

Everything else is moving right along. Patrick has gone off to his oil platform at sea so the countdown is on for him to come back. Only 3 more weeks! We had our Christmas party this week and got to watch Forever Strong. It was really sweet. President and Sister Shulz do so much for us, they are amazing! I can't believe it's already Christmas again, so crazy!!

Elder Rogers

Jennifer, Charlotte and Paa Kwesi's Baptism

Christmas Dinner

December 12, 2011 {Email}

This week was another good one. Our ward had a big change happen to them. Three of our powerful young adults went on mission! Two of them are going to Port Harcourt, Nigeria and the other a sister is going to Calabar, Nigeria. It was really cool to see them go and to see the support the ward gave them as they went. They're enjoying the MTC right now with that huge food! These missionaries were powerful in our ward, could possibly say three of the strongest members we have so it won't be easy to replace them in their callings which were institute instructor, ward clerk and sunday school teacher. Our bishop is kind of stressing right now ha. I'm way excited for them. Going on mission will help them so much and their families too.

We have a new powerful investigator named Patrick! He was a member referral that we got at the end of last week and we have only had three lessons with him but we are already through the Book of Mormon, Plan of Salvation and he came to church yesterday. POWERFUL! To top it off he has a baptismal date for next month on the 28th of January. The reason for being so long is because he is a chef on a big oil rig that goes out to see every four weeks and will continue going on four week cycles. So he will be gone for a month then back for a month. He will be baptized when he gets back! He is awesome and knows it is all true. He first learned about the church at his work from a family in Ephraim, Utah.

That is our joy right now! We are still working and hope to have one more baptism before the end of the year.

I hope all is well back home and everyone is freezing cold haha sorry! Love ya all!

Elder Rogers

December 5, 2011 {Email}

This week was awesome! It went just as planned with the baptism and all. Jennifer and Charlotte were both baptized on Saturday then confirmed on Sunday. The coolest thing was Charlotte is dating our ward mission leader Paa Kwesi and he was the one who referred her to us before he was even dating her. So they have progressed a lot in their relationship even getting closer to being married. She didn't join for him though, she did it because she knew it was true. I've really enjoyed the time we've had to teach her and see her learn more. At the baptism we had Paa Kwesi do the baptizing and they both had the biggest smiles on their faces during the ordinance. It was powerful! Paa Kwesi doesn't like to show his emotions much so of course he was trying to hide the smile and look serious the whole time, but we caught him smiling ha. He also confirmed her on Sunday. This guy just had the most rewarding week of his life! On Friday he went to the temple to be Endowed then Saturday he baptizes his girlfriend and Sunday confirms her. Can't think of a better week than that!

We have a couple people that we are preparing for baptism on the 25th but they both live in a different ward but work here in our area. It has been really fun to be the ones to teach them and then know they go to church at the other place.

Today Elder Gibson and I had an opportunity to do some service. One of our investigators has been helping a Health Service place to go around and hang free mosquito nets over peoples beds in every house. We were able to help them do it for a few hours. It was way fun! Going in and just seeing these people so happy to receive these nets so they can stop sleeping with mosquitos all night. Really humbling experience. Well, we are looking forward to another sweet week!

Elder Rogers