06.24.13 | Week 11 | Fort Lauderdale

Hi hi hi family! Thank you for all your emails! I love them, like usual!:) I am getting a lot of requests to talk more about my investigators. I truly am sorry. The reason that I have been telling you Harvesting stories is because those are the most amazing experiences. I am writing a letter home about more of our investigators. We have so many, so its hard to tell you all!! Ah! haha Mom and dad, I am so glad that you got to go and "Harvest" I was indeed at that world wide broadcast! We all thought that China or Cuba would open, or that sister missionaries would be able to serve for 2 years. Guess not;) It was so amazing though. All of us missionaries were bawiling the whole entire time. The whole time i was watching that, I would look down at my name tag and realize that I am a missionary! How cool is that? I am so privelaged. Its amazing.

Tell Kelsey Congratulations for me! That is so amazing. I am happy for her! I wrote Olivia today, but make sure she knows how excited for her I am. I can't wait for her to be in the same state as me! haha FLORIDA BABY! Oh! My branch president and his family are coming to St George July 8th! I told them that they need to come and see you! And they said if I have anything I want to give to you they can meet up with you! I will give them your number and stuff and maybe you can meet them. They are the sweetest people every. And yes they speak english:) I told them all the fun things to do in STG. I am jealous they are going there...haha 

Ok, so i have some big news. Our third companion went home. This has actually been quite the long process. she has felt like she needed to go home for a while now? So Wednesday morning at 6 she was off to Califorina. Sister Bean and I are really sad, but we have just been going so hard with missionary work! We have basically a whole new teaching pool! We had a  really cool experience that we had with an INVESTIGATOR ;) about 3 days ago. She lives with her husband, but they aren't married, and they have kids. (typical in latin country) so we were teaching her the plan of salvation. It was so spiritual. We were explaining the Celestial Kingdom, and how we can live with our families forever, and not just till death. She loved that idea. Her husband has been acting really strange towards her lately, and she doesn't know what to do. We were talking to her friend, who is a member in our branch, and we think he is cheating on her. We have been teaching this lady for quite a while now. We re-invited her to get baptized, but we said to her, we know that you want to get baptized, but in order to do this, you have to be living the law of chastity. She looked down at the ground, and you knew she knew that was what she needed to do. Her friend bore THE MOST AMAZING testimony I had every heard. She is a recent convert and she told her that this gospel had changed her life. They had been best friends since High school, so she could see the change in her. Her friend then said to her " I wouldn't tell you this if I didn't believe it was true. If your not ready, I understand. But if God was standing here right now, would you want him to say, sorry you cannot enter into the celestial kingdom because you didn't act on what you knew was the right thing to do. or do you want him to congratulate you for having such faith, and doing what you needed, in order to live with him again?" The spirit in that room was amazing. We asked her to say the closing prayer. In that prayer she said "Heavenly Father, please prepare my heart so that I can be baptized." We at that moment were all crying. Again, the spirit was so strong. She knows exactly what she needs to do. She has been to Church about 5 times, and we only need our investigators to come 2 times before they are baptized. They can get baptized on their second time. She's so ready, she just needs to ACT on her faith! That's a really big thing here in florida. Every one has faith, but no one acts. Its been such a blessing to see people change, and realize what they need to do to better their lives. I love missionary work! It's hard, but like I said, SO REWARDING. 

I will tell you about more as the weeks go on. If I had 3 hours to email I'd tell you about them all, but I don't :( I am sorry I have been cutting you short of this info! I didn't even realize it...haha 

I love you so much family. You're the best ever:) 

Have an amazing week! you're always in my prayers! 

Love Sista Rogers :) 

 

06.17.13 | Week 10 | Fort Lauderdale

Hello Hello! I hope that everyone is having a good day! Oh! and Dad, I hope that you had a wonderful Fathers Day:) I am glad you got my card, and the text from my ward mission leader! He came up to us sunday and said, he let me take a picture and send it to your dads! We were all for it! Well today has been a really fun day! We went to this place called the Swap Shops. It was like a big huge yard sale outside! Had a farmers market, then had shops inside too! It reminded me a lot of Seattle, but a lot lets nice, and a little more ghetto.....and hot. Haha Its getting really really hot here. Joy:) Then we went to our favorite place called La Costa and ate Honduran food called Balliadas. Ask Jodi if she knows what those are. We eat them EVERY Pday! Thanks for updating me on everything that is going on in your lives! I love hearing from you all so much:) Don't be afraid to write me letters if you ever get bored ;) I wish I had time to e-mail you all back, but writing president back takes up half of my time....i'm sorry:( Just know that I love you all so much and Love hearing about your lives!! Oh I got bitten alive by misquitoes last night!!!! I have them ALL over my legs. I am wearing a long skirt right now because I am so ashamed. I look like i have a disease. Haha no joke. If you have any oil remidies that you wanna share with me. I will take them! I have just been putting lavendar on them. but I don't know what else to do....They are horrid!

Ok...So as for my week. Woah...Where to begin. I actually had a pretty hard week to start off with. I felt like there was just so much more that I could be doing to be a better missionary! I was getting really impatient with myself, and I felt like my companions weren't as focused as they should be. Being in a tree-o is hard. It's a crowd, and sometimes really hard to focus. My emotions were all over the place. One day during companionship study, I broke. I expressed how I felt, and I then texted the District Leaders for a Blessing. We went over to the church later that day, and Elder Harris gave me a blessing. Just before I had briefly explained to him how I felt. During the blessing though, I had never felt so much peace come apon me. Things that I had been feeling in my heart, came out in the blessing. Things that I didn't even express to him about. I was bawling. It was the most amazing blessing. Since then, I have been so much better. My week has done a 180. I have really studied patience in my personal studies. It has been such a blessing. Patience is key. Especially when you are learning a language. I have gotten to the point with my spanish where I am learning more, so I am realizing all that I am doing wrong. Its really hard...So yesterday in Relief society, some lady was talking. I wasn't really understanding anything. I was just sitting there thinking to myself, am I ever going to be able to understand these people..? Then before I knew it I was getting this story from here how she served a mission, and was called to speak English. She thought that she would never be able to speak English. she was stay up crying every single night. This is when she really came to realize how much she needed to rely on her heavenly father. I understood every single word she was saying. It was like she was speaking English. Right when she was done sharing her experience, I didn't understand anything. It was the craziest thing. I knew that, at that time, Heavenly Father wanted me to hear those words, to give me hope. She then bore her testimony in English, to a lady in there that didn't speak spanish. she spoke perfect english. I know that Heavenly Father is going to help me. That was his way of telling me that he wont let me down, as long as I put my half into it. I also got my first REAL baptism! Her name is Stephanie. She is 14 and living with a lady in the ward. Her mom died 1 year ago. We were eating dinner at the ladies house and met her. We then asked if she wanted to hear the lessons from us. We taught her in a week and she was baptized the next :) It was so awesome. We got to teach her in english too! haha i love those opportunities. Except it makes you realize how little you know in english. The lessons are so much easier in spanish, because they are simpler, since we only know few words. Its really interesting actually. The baptism was yesterday:) It was amazing. So spiritual. Well family, I don't have much time, and I have to be exactly obedient, because like mom said, you only recieve blessings when you are exactly obediant. Its so true! I love you all so much, and even though I can't write you all back, don't think I don't love you! I am always thinking of you!!

Love Sister Kacey Rogers :)

 

 

06.10.13 | Week 9 | Fort Lauderdale

Hello again:)

I know I say this all the time, but how in the world has 2 months already gone by? I am already on my 3rd week in Florida. TIME!! I don't, and never will understand it. Days go by like its nothing too. But anyways, this week, has been yet, another great week:) Thank you for all of your emails. I look forward to them. I wish I could have been that that workshop thing. It sounded like it was amazing. I definietly regret taking advantages of those sorts of things. That has changed. Those things are what I look forward to now, as a missionary. Haha I can't believe that it was 109 degrees back in St. George. I really don't miss that. haha It's hot here, but in all honesty it hasn't been too bad. It rains SO MUCH! Holy cow. The other day we were Harvesting and all of the sudden out of the blue, it started pouring. We got SOAKED! There really is no point in getting ready, doing your hair, or any of that becasue you never know when you're going to get dumped on. So when I send pictures home, you will know why I look the way I do. Poor people of Florida, they  have to deal with it. haha My crocks though were the best purchase. We went to the mall last Thurs., I really miss shopping:( but we restrained ourselves and only went into the crocks store. Haha we had such a hard time buying them. Such a fashion No no. I mean, crocks, come on, who buys crocks now a days. But in my defense, they do make some decent looking ones. you really just have no other choice here. We are always walking through parking lots of rivers, so they are great:) I will send you a picture of them. I got buy one get one half off. I wear them almost every day.

I feel like I have so much to tell you! I will start off with a short funny story. Ok, so yesterday, Sunday, sister Felix and I were sitting in our seats in sacrament. sister Bean was up at the piano, since she is the only one in the whole ward that plays the piano. haha anyways. the primary sang a song for Fathers day and afterwards the branch president stood up and said something and people started standing up. So Sister Felix and I started standing up. Then all the sudden she pulled me down, and started laughing. I was like What?? She then said, they asked all the Fathers to stand up. HAHAH i was so thankful that she pulled me down before I was all the way up. Oh the joys of not understanding spanish. I embarass myself quite a lot actually. ;) That was my funny for the week haha

Well, this week was really good. Really Faith building, I guess you could say. We saw a lot of miracles, but our numbers weren't very high. We just kept asking ourselves, what could we do better to find more people. I guess our Faith was lacking a little bit. I was having a hard time motivating myeslf, I was tired, hot, all that. Then, sunday night there was a recent converts fireside at the church. President Anderson was speaking at it, so we went. It was like the one with Lisa. It was so cool. These people are so strong, and have such amazing testimonies! The same occurring story from the converts was, they were praying, lost, and lonely, then before they knew it, they got a knock on the door from the missionaries, and they knew it was sent from God. President Anderson then got up and talked about the Spirit in missionary work. He asked us "How do you think these missionaries find the people, like you, that are lost and searching for direction in their lives?" Its the spirit. The spirit of God is what directs us to know what houses to knock on, and what people need the gospel at that time and are prepared. After this fireside I had never been more ready to go out and spread the Gospel, and find those people that are ready. Us, as a companionship were so pumped to go harvesting that night. We got in the car, and said a prayer to find out where we needed to harvest. We picked and area, it wasnt very Latin, but we still went with it. We found some great people, and we also got some doors slammed in our faces. But we kept going. It was coming to the time where we needed to go. We were walking down the street, and we saw these two people walking on the sidewalk across the street. We all three, walked over to them, and introduced ourselves. Ray and Ann were their names. They were from the Philippines. Ann worked on cruise ships, and she was dropped off here in Florida because she has Cancer. She has been going to the hospital here in Florida, meanwhile, her husband and kids are still in the Philippines. Her only friend here is Ray. She told us how alone and depressed she was. She is about to go into surgery on Wed. and then for Chemo. She is nervous that she wont make it and will never be able to see her family again. We asked if we could give a blessing. Sister Bean said the prayer. It was the most spiritual moment. I looked up in the middle of it and saw tears running down Anns cheeks. I knew the spirit was not only touching me, but it was touching her as well. After the prayer, she was bawling. She was telling us how grateful she was, and that we were her Angels. She told us she wants us to come to the hospital with her for her surgery on wednesday because she has no friends or family.  As we were walking away, Ray and Ann were already half way down the street and I was already almost in my car, I got this feeling that I need to get her a book of mormon. My thoughts were, "no she is already clear down the street, and I am already getting in the car." but I ignored that feeling, hurried, and grabbed a book of mormon and started running. I looked down and noticed that it was a spanish book of mormon, which they dont speak. I ran back to the car, almost giving up and not doing it anymore. But then again, I got that feeling. I searched the car for a english one, and then ran to her. I got there, out of breath and tired, barely caught them, but once I got to her I said " Ann! I have something for you! " she said, "yes?" I bore testimony right there that I know, when she is depressed, scared, and alone, that she can read this book, and I promise that it would help her through the hard times. She couldn't stop telling me thank you, and how much she was grateful for us. As I walked back to the car, I knew that I needed to follow that promting. I am so glad that I am a tool for God to bring his children back to his fold. Such a testimony builder. He send us right where he needs us to be.

This week is a new week, and we are pumped:) Miracles are going to happen family, they are going to happen. Just you wait. I wish I could tell you all the things that I go through, but there really isn't much time ..:( I love you and think of you all the time. I have lots of pictures for you, that I can't wait for you to see! :) Thanks for being so great....you are always on my mind. Have a great week family! Your missionary loves you:)

Love, Sister Kacey Rogers

 

 

06.03.13 | Week 8 | Fort Lauderdale

Hola!

Florida. Oh man, do I love Florida. ITS SO AWESOME! Ok but really, I want you all to come here and see how pretty it is. Dad knows. Like I said, the skies are amazing. I have like five billion sunset pictures. Oh! and then after it rains, rainbows! So beautiful. I feel like I am so close to heaven. No joke. Spanish still gets to me, but I really have to step back and realize how far I have come, and that I have only been out for 2 weeks. I like to get ahead of myself sometimes. haha

So I told you a little about Harvesting. Harvesting is like the most spiritual thing. I wish every mission did it. I don't know how anyone else does it. My companionship got the highest number of blessings given this week (Harvest) we got 50! Out of the entire mission we got the most. i'm not trying to brag or anything but its pretty cool;) anyways, we have had some pretty cool experiences with this. We were in this neighboorhood walking around one day, and we see this kid on a bike. I ran him down so that we could talk to him ( haha don't ask where I got my boldness from ) We found out his name was Gary. We asked him if we could pray with him. He said yes. Then we asked him ifthere was anything in specific that we could put in the prayer that he wanted. He basically just asked for help with school, and family. What most people usually ask for. It was my turn to offer the prayer, so I went ahead and started the prayer. As I was prayer, I felt the spirit stronger than ever. Gary hadn't really given us much information about his life, but i had felt prompted to say "Heavenly Father, please bless Gary to know that his dad is in heaven right now, watching over him. He is so proud of everything that he has done. He knows its hard not to be with him right now on Earth, but he loves him so much and is always wanting the best for him." After I finished the prayer, we all opened our eyes...I looked at Gary, and he had this HUGE grin on his face. We asked him how he felt. He was like  " Wow, I opened my eyes from the prayer and things just got brighter. I am so glad that you stopped me today. How did you know that my dad died a couple years ago?" I explained that I had just felt prompted to say that, and that I had no knowledge of it. He was so happy. We invited him right then and there to be baptized, and he said " YES! Where do I need to go to do this?" Holy cow. The spirit at that moment. I cannot even explain. That experience right there made my whole week. We had to pass him off the english single adult missionaries, but they say that he is just awesome and is doing great. Things like that make missionary work the greatest.

About my companions. Yes I have two for sure now. Sister Bean is my trainer. She lives in Bountiful Utah but went to BYU for a while before her mission. She has been out for 8 months, and her spanish is flawless. She is so fun. My second companion is sister Felix from Cali. She is origionally a Puerto Rico Missionary, but since she got in a car accident, and has a bleeding disease, she got sent here. She was here for temporary, but is permanant now. It was really hard to be in a tree-o at first, but I have spent a lot of time on my knees, asking help from heavenly father for our companionship to work. He has definitely answered my prayers. Our companionship now, is a companionship of best friends. I have so much fun with them! The other two sisters in my room are amazing too. Sister Smith is a military brat, which means shes lived basically every where in the world you could even think of. She's super cool, and also the one with oil love like I have;) Sister Chavous is the other. She is from Philly. I LOVE HER. She's crazy. but so fun. Our apartment is so fun because our beds are set up in on big room. Sometimes its hard to sleep because they talk all night, when all I wanna do is sleep. haha I may invest in some earplugs;) but yes. That's my companionship and roommates:) I really am super blessed. I knew Zack would think she was cute. That's ok though. She is super cute:) I couldn't have been more lucky. 

Well, family. I love you so so much. I'm sorry I won't be able to write you indivualy but know I love you to the moon and back:) You're all the best!

Mucho Amor, Hermana Rogers