November 22, 2010 {Email}

Well, this week has been another great one! Even though like all of us had a false alarm Thanksgiving ha we now know it is this week not last week. We are so out of the loop here in Ghana. At least we still know when Christmas is! We have been doing really good though. Elder Harris and I are starting to get some new investigators and a few of them seem pretty promising as of now. One of them even came to church after we met him on Saturday! I'm really excited to get to know these people more and i really believe the gospel will have a major impact on a couple of them. I love seeing the people when they are actually interested! It makes teaching so much more easier and allows the spirit to be there.

One sweet thing that is happening is Tony will be baptized on Sunday!!! Finally, this kid has been so ready for so long. He is such a great kid as I have said many times. I'm way excited for him to be baptized as you can tell. He is probably that first person that i have actually grown to love and i will miss him when i leave this place.

Well during this time i have been thinking about all that i am thankful for, which i now know is soooooooooo much! Everything back home, my family, friends, leaders and sports! All these people, have been such a good impact on my life! Thank you so much for all you do, i love you all so much! I am also very grateful for american food, i am counting down the days to my next chicken nugget with bbq sauce ha.

I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! I will be eating some great pizza by the way so you should all be jealous hahaha not really i'm way jealous of your turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, pumpkin pie and cookies and everything else! I'm killing myself ha ok love ya all! have a good one!

Love,

Elder Rogers

November 16, 2010 {Email}

Well, it has been another great week, but crazy week in Abuakwa! We are really starting to get busy here. For example, we were out in that Akropong village to see our one investigators, but she wasn't there. We were in an awkward situation because our next appointment wasn't for another 3 hours in the same village so we didn't want to go back to Abuakwa. Also it is almost impossible to do much in a village that you don't know so we decided to wait for a while in the shade by her house. It was kinda nice relaxing for a bit because the breeze was coming in on us and it felt really good. After about a half hour she came around the corner! We went to teach her but she brought us to all of her family to meet them too. Sweet! She didn't keep her promise though so we weren't able to teach her further that day but we taught all of her family and friends though! We got 7 referrals that day and 3 of those are a family! I'm really excited to go back out there and see where the Lord will take us with these people. Elder Harris and I are going to be pretty busy with that. 

On the other side of Abuakwa is a village called Sepaase. We are also teaching some people there. We have one investigator named Jennifer, who is way solid and is really fun to teach. She actually thinks about what we are saying and evaluates how it will effect her life. We have taught all the way through the restoration and we will be going back tomorrow to give her a BoM. The part that frustrated me was she came to church last week, but when we invited her to come this week she said she had to go to Pastor Appreciation Day. How freaking ridiculous ha. They all go and buy clothes and food for their pastor on this day. What kind of church leader would make his followers do that?? It just frustrates me that this actually happens. Hopefully, we can have a sweet lesson tomorrow with her. She also has given us a lot of referrals. So our area is stretching a lot! It's fun though.

Yesterday we had zone conference with President Sabey. It was crazy! During it he revealed to us the plans they have for developing the church in Sunyani. Right now they have 6 missionaries and a senior couple up there with 3 meeting houses that are actually the apartments. Pretty sweet! Next transfer another companionship will be there with another meeting house. It's crazy stuff. He has figured out that if we split the missionaries so their is one companionship to each group, branch, or ward then the work will grow really fast. Rather than focusing on an area with 4 missionaries. THEN, he showed us his epic plan for Kumasi!!! Right now we have 8 meeting places which is not near enough. In 6 months he plans on having 22!!!!! This is insane!! That means there will be 12 new areas in Kumasi with one companionship to each one. His goal was to have Kumasi, Ghana become it's own mission by the time he leaves in June. This news made me way excited/nervous because our apartment is guaranteed to split soon since we have 4 to one branch. Some crazy stuff is going on here and it is way exciting to see where this mission is heading. Our mission president is so intune with the Lord and all these plans come from revelation i know.

Oh, I also got the two packages from home, which were great! Spitz BBQ sunflower seeds, oh wow they are so powerful! I love my family and friends so much! Thank you for all your prayers and support. Each and every one of you are so amazing!

Well that is just a little update on the mission. Oh, and Tony is still doing great! Should be baptized not this sunday but the next!

Love,

Elder Rogers

November 8, 2010 {Email}

So this week was a crazy week for Elder Harris and I! First we had to help Elder Vanchiere get all his stuff ready so he could be transferred on Wednesday up to Sunyani to start up a new area. That will be awesome to see how much work he will get to do there, i hope someday i can open an area like that. The worst part about him leaving is his washing machine is going with him! So now we all have to wash by hand, which I have already learned is not easy at all. I may come home with my shirts looking pretty brown unless i figure this out haha. One really cool thing is the new missionary in our apartment, Elder Marsan, is from Liberia. He is super sweet and we got talking and I asked him if he knew Elder Quinn Linde. Ha his face lit up with a huge smile! So tell Quinn that Elder Marsan says hi.

Since our week was shortened to just a few days to proselyte we were very busy on all those days. We actually had a day where we had lessons lined up for every hour, it was so sweet and only two of them failed. We have still just been teaching a lot of people, but lately we are finding out that hardly any of them are serious so we are going to have to start having to make some tough decisions on whether or not we should drop them. That is the worst thing on mission, we have done it once and it just feels so bad but there is really nothing else that can be done.

Tony is still progressing really good! He loves the gospel and comes to church every week and is ready for baptism! All we need now is to get with all of the Elders and find a good date for everyone and then it will be done. I'm so exciting for him, he is going to be an awesome member and future leader in this branch! Yesterday we finally got to listen to half of conference! Wow, it was so powerful! It was the first time I have actually put all my effort into hearing every word that each speaker said. I especially loved President Monsons talk on having an attitude of gratitude. I am going to do my best to follow his words because I know that it will help me a lot on mission.

Finally I saw some wildlife!!!! I saw with my own two eyes a living monkey!! Ha now I feel like i'm in Africa. It was sad though because the people had him chained to the bottom of a semi truck on one of those bars that hang. i don't know what they were going to do with it but being the animal lover I am I wanted to go rescue it and take it back to the apartment with me. I'm mad that I didn't try I hope it is ok though. I still think its sweet that I saw a monkey.

Today as we walked through town there was a lady selling fried bat as in like a bat that flies in the night sky. Elder Harris and another missionary purchased one to try ha and I had a little bit. It surprisingly wasn't too bad but it looked disgusting, it was still in the whole shape and all with eyeballs haha.

Everything is awesome here in Ghana! I'm excited for another great week in the mission field!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Zack Rogers

November 1, 2010 {Email}

This week has been a crazy week for Elder Harris and I. We had it so set up to be another really busy week with tons of lessons with all of our investigators. We have like 20 or so investigators right now and we continue to get more. We got another referral just walking over to the internet just barely. I love this area! Anyways, during this week we have come to find out that as of right now about 19 out of these 20 are not serious at all. It drives me nuts that they don't take our message serious, they just like to be "preached" to by white men. All that matters right now is that we have one that is serious and I am so grateful for him, he is a stud. His name is Tony as you probably know from before. But everything just keeps getting better and better with him! I love discussing with him because the spirit is always so strong during the lesson. He has committed to being baptized in the next couple of weeks and I am so stoked for it.

We celebrated Halloween last night! It was as good as it gets in Ghana ha since they don't even know what it is. We all pitched in money to buy a bunch of their little candies on Saturday and some Coke. Then Sunday night some other companionships came over to play cards and eat the candy. It was awesome!!!! ha

Today was the day we receive transfer news. My very first time experiencing this and I do not like it very much. It's like waiting to hear if you made the all-star team in little league except for most of the time you don't want that phone to ring, at least i didn't today. Our phone did ring but it wasn't for me, it was for Elder Vanchiere. He has been transferred to Sunyani where he will open up a whole new area, just as he did with Abuakwa. The apartment will definitely be different without him and really quiet. Transfers are a very bitter-sweet thing. I can't imagine being in his shoes right now and having to leave all these people that he has grown to love over the last year. I am going to have to do that one day and it will suck, but you'll always meet more people.

We had a sweet fufu party with all of the kumasi missionaries today. Everyone got some with some amazing ground nut soup! MMMMMMM! So good! I'm definitely going to have to learn how to make this stuff for when I come home. I love this food here!!!!

Well, TIPA congrats man! That is awesome! I kept having a feeling like Panama, but Honduras will be sweet! That is where my Aunt Jodie went and I know she loved it! Tyler MONKS! You're going to Chile too??? That is so awesome ha who would have guessed that! Congrats big guy!

Well I love you all and hope the best for you! Thanks for everything! 

Love,

Elder Rogers

October 25, 2010 {Email}

Alright well as usual, another great week in Ghana!

Elder Harris and I are getting so busy lately and starting to branch out pretty far. The referrals we get are so awesome. We just got one this week of a girl named Priscilla. She had gone to the church in Asoeubwa so they directed her to us since she is in our area. The thing is she lives all the way out in Akropong! That is like a twenty minute Tro-Tro ride. I don't think any of the missionaries in Abuakwa have been out there since the area opened up so we are pretty excited to be the first ones to try and do some work out there. Priscilla is a solid investigator and we asked her after our first lesson if she had anyone that would want to hear our message as well, she said YEAH! The next day we went back out there and she had 4 friends with her!!! It was sweet! I have a really good feeling about that Akropong village. It's kind of cool to be the ones who establish the gospel there.

Everything has been going great with the work. We are still working with Tony to get him ready for baptism. It was awesome the other night when we were going to teach him. At first we couldn't find him so we went back to the apartment to wait a little bit to go to our next appointment. It was late and when we went out of the apartment to go Elder Harris looked at me and said which way should we go? To go left would be our scheduled appointment, right was towards Tony's place. At first I was like left man we have it scheduled we need to go there. Then I said a quick prayer to know which way to go and I knew we should go the other way. So I said to Elder Harris lets go to Tony's. I'm pretty sure he knew all along we should go that way. Not even kidding, one minute later as we are walking, Tony walks right into us! He was going to the apartment to find us to go and teach him. I was stunned! So we went back and taught him about Faith in Christ and Repentance. He expressed after the lesson how much he enjoyed our lessons with him and he felt good inside during the lessons and when he read the BoM. Wow, that moment was so spiritual. I could feel the Spirit so strong and I knew he could too. He was gaining a testimony. We explained what he was feeling and he understood everything. Man not only is this kid gaining a testimony, but he has already helped to strengthen mine so much. It helped me to realize how we are really just instruments in the Lord's work. We need to do all we can to allow these people to be in the situation that will allow that spirit to overcome them so they can know it is all true! I'm very grateful Elder Harris had that first instinct to go right and to let me find out for myself too. That was the spirit guiding us to that investigator that needed us at that time. It was so awesome!

Today for P-day 12 of us Elders all got together to go and hike "The Mountain". Sounds pretty intimidating huh? Ha this mountain is like the only one that is in Ghana I swear. It is all the way out west past Akropong. The funny part is it is probably barely considered a hill in St. George. But it was way sweet! We had to mob going up it since there wasn't really a trail. We felt like man v. wild climbing that thing. I kept praying to see some wildlife, but all I saw was some more of those evil lizards. It was a really fun P-day though. To top it off, when we got near the apartment there was a shop that had an old Dan Marino Dolphins jersey hung up. I had to get that! We went over there and the boss asked 6 cedis for it, but I have been getting good at bargaining so I said 4 cedis. Then I pulled my 4 cedis out of my pocket and said thats all I got. Little did he know I had my wallet in my other pocket ha. He didn't like it one bit but finally gave in. 4 cedis for a Dan Marino jersey! that is like 3 dollars in America. Not too shabby.

Well thats about it for this week! I'm looking forward to another week on mission, I love it out here!

I love you all,

Elder Zack Rogers

The First Batch of Pictures

October 18, 2010 {Email}

Hello!

Another great week in Ghana!

Everything has been going great! I am finally starting to get more confident out there along with Elder Harris' help. We have been so busy this week! The area of Abuakwa is so powerful! I love it here, everyone says how lucky I am to be in this area. The spirit is just so strong over here. This past week we have picked up quite a few investigators that seem to be pretty serious but who knows with Ghanaians. They always seem to be interested at first just so we will talk to them. It is really difficult to tell who is serious, i think that is part of the reason we are so busy, we have to keep teaching them until they make it notice to us that they aren't going to do anything with our message. We have some certain things we do to try to tell if they are serious or not and that helps a lot.

Anyways, this week was sweet! We got to go on splits with Elder Thompson, Zone Leader, on Wednesday. It was awesome, him and Elder Harris are MT's so they really were having fun teaching together. It was cool for me to be a part of it. A funny story for this day:

Ok, so we were teaching these two men who are school teachers. We were outside underneath these trees sitting on our wooden stools. To start out the lesson I kind of zoned out, which happens from time to time, but they both looked at me wanting me to say something. I had nothing! I even had to admit I zoned out right in the middle of the lesson. Ha embarrassing I know. After this the lesson started going again and was flowing really good when all of the sudden I felt something on my leg... THERE WAS A FREAKING LIZARD ON MY LEG! My family knows how much I hate lizards. So I jumped up and started to try to kick it off, but this thing was insane! It was crawling around my legs and back, oh man I was going crazy! So you can just picture this, right in the middle of the lesson I am jumping up and down screaming trying to get this thing off of me. Finally, I kicked it off and then it went towards Elder Harris, who had been laughing at me the whole time. He wasn't laughing anymore ha. The lizard gave up quick on him though. Wow it was so scary though! I really thought it was going to kill me! The people we were teaching said they had never seen that happen before, of course it happens to me!

Well besides this near death experience, everything is still going great! I love you all and wish you the best!

Love,

Elder Zack Rogers

October 11, 2010 {Email}

Elder Rogers with President and Sister Sabey

Wow, time is flying by here in Kumasi and I am loving every second of it! I really think I am starting to adjust to this lifestyle. My comp. even said today that my Ghanaian accent is starting to come ha it is so weird how when I go to talk to the Africans, my language is completely different. Its not Twi yet, but they can understand my English now. It is really fun to talk to them. The little kids are the best to! They are always just yelling OBRUNI (white man) at me ha it's quite annoying, but I would be saying the same thing if I were them because we are probably the first white people they have seen. I've been trying to teach them how to do the Pound-Explosion hand shake. Ha it is coming along but they just don't really catch on to those things cuz they haven't done anything different than what they do now.

Everything is still going good here in Africa. The baptisms were amazing! Elder Harris and I had 2, then I got to baptize Elder Vanchiere and E. Mbongs 3. So I got to do 5 total. I was pretty nervous as usual, but once I got into the font I could feel the spirit helping me through it. Baptizing Africans is actually a pretty funny. As E. Vanchieri says it is like "trying to put a cat under water" ha they hate being in water. I imagine it was pretty funny looking seeing this white man trying to throw a black person under water. It was sweet though. I could really feel the authority as I said the baptisms. It felt so so good. We baptized that Afriyie boy, he is a stud. And his older brother was there, we have been teaching him a little. I talked to him after and asked him if he wanted to do that too, he said yes! I do! The mission is awesome!

I don't have much time today so sorry thats all I got! Everything is great here in Ghana! I love it here! And I'm stoked for the Yankees! Heck yeah baby!

Love,

Elder Rogers

October 4, 2010 {Email}

Hello everyone!

Everything is great here in Abuakwa! I don't even know where to start ha I am having so much fun. I never thought that I would be feeling the way I do so early in the mission, but my companion Elder Harris has really helped me to become comfortable here. He and all his MT's actually just hit their one year mark! Crazy, I just hit my one month mark... yeah ha. But we went out to celebrate and we ate my favorite.. PIZZA! Oh wow it was amazing! Nothing like Pizza Factory of course, but it took me back to when I was living the "high life" ha. Him and Elder Vanchiere also burned their shirts in honor of the one year mark. That seems so far away for me, but it will come. CRAZY!

I also had the opportunity to eat FUFU for the first time! It was actually really good and not even that hard to eat. Me and Elder Jaggi, my MT, downed it without much of a problem. It was just weird throwing your fingers in the soup to get the fufu out. Weird but good!

Elder Harris and I are finally starting to get into a groove. It was kind of a rough start finding people to teach since we were in a new area and the Elders before us didn't really leave us good notes to go off of. We found a great ward member that has helped us a ton and we now have 3 investigators ready to be baptized on Sunday. I have been chosen to do the baptisms this time since I'm the new guy and haven't had the opportunity yet. I'm so excited! I even get to do Elder Vanchiere's and Elder Mbongs, 4 as well. 

I feel like I have been having too much fun out here on mission, but everyone keeps on asking me what I expected mission to be like and I tell them "I thought it would be all work all the time with no breaks." I didn't realize before that missionary work is a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong it is still hard work, but it is so rewarding that it is fun!
Oh, I want to say congrats to Arie Siperly, that is way awesome by the way! You are going to be great! Tipa man keep it up, I hear your getting pretty close. Dude I'm so excited for you and to know where you are going! You guys are studs and you will love serving a mission!

Well, thats all I got for now! Thanks for the emails family, especially dad. Sorry I don't have much time here, I know you understand. But just know your emails are very uplifting and I look forward to it every week!

I love you all! 

Elder Rogers

Tell Tripp hi for me and pick him up please, he likes it :)
And GO YANKEES!!!!!!!! October time!

September 19, 2010 {Letter}

This letter was actually written before the email we got from Zack this week but it just came in the mail today.

Time is flying by! I can't believe I will be leaving the MTC in two days. It's really exciting, but also really scary. I don't feel ready at all, hopefully I'll get an awesome trainer that can help me improve quickly. Everything has been going good though. I remember one time dad was talking about when he had to go separate ways from the guys he was in the MTC with. I understand why it was hard. It's like these guys have been my friends forever. I wish I could just serve the whole mission with them, it would make things a lot less intimidating. I guess we will be seeing each other a lot since our mission only has two stakes. Oh, the booklet was wrong. The Ghana Cape Coast mission doesn't have Togo or Benin in it. Everyone's a packet was so different, some even said that Cameron was a part of it. So, I guess I can relax on the learning how to speak French. Instead I need to start learning how to speak Twi and Fanti ha they are the main tribal languages. I have learned a little bit, but not enough. The locals will get so excited when they see us trying to speak their language and it can help in gaining their trust.

Yesterday we had our first big rainstorm, it was awesome! It wouldn't stop at all, it even canceled our first proselyting activity. Who knew they had rain delays in missionary work? It worked out good though cause we got to watch an amazing talk given by Elder Holland about how we need to give it our all while we're out here. He is by far the best motivational speaker I have heard. It really lifted us up and made us excited to get out in the field.

The food has been starting to taste good! I love rice and beans...for now ha who knows how I'll feel about them later. I think I have eaten more oranges in the last two weeks than I have my whole life. And fufu, well I'm starting to figure it out, if I'm really hungry it is great! But, if I can choose something else to eat I definitely will.

I hope everything is going well at home with all of you! Especially with Tripp and the Yankees ha. I heard BYU got blown out by Air Force. That's a bummer, well maybe next year! Well, I love you guys so much, never forget that. You guys are the best family and I'm so thankful to have been lucky enough to be a part of this family. Love you so so much!

Love,
Elder Rogers

Oh, you should see my sweet comb over! :)

I just had a really cool experience during fast & testimony meeting. So, you remember Elder Ngelka, the one that kind of took my ring from me ha. Well, he was bearing his testimony in French and all of a sudden he says "Elder Rogers", but I had no idea what he said about me and all the French looked back at me. I was so confused. Later I found out that he said he was so grateful that he came across the Book of Mormon cause if he hadn't he could never have met me. Wow, it was really touching and I guess it's cool that he has my ring now. I just wanted to tell you that sweet story. Ok, bye! I love you all!