07.22.13 | Week 15 | Fort Lauderdale

Well, I am now on week 10 in my mission. Am I the only one that thinks that is crazy? They aren't kidding when they say that time goes by so fast! This week was another great one! All my weeks are starting to blurr into one big one, but I will try and remember what happened!

Tropical storms are the most craziest things in the entire world. I think that everyone should have to experience one of those. The funny thing is, the whole time I was going through it, I was thinking, "I bet my dad is tracking this online right now, and I bet my mom is nervous." Haha sure enough, I got your emails and I was right! I know my family all too well:) We got our car stuck in mood the other day. We were trying to push it out, but had absolutely no luck. We had to walk over to these cubin men and ask them to help us. Haha it was a pretty funny experience. One that will stick with me forever!

There is one day in particular that was filled with miracles! First, we spent some time with our favorite little Columbia family, the Fernandez! Liliana, Sofia, and Manuela. We went over to check on them, and ended up helping liliana with her college classes, (well sister bean did) and I did the little girls hair. Then they asked us to go to burger king with them. I have never wanted a family to get baptized more than I want them to! Later we went Harvesting. We prayed with a lady named Amber. She cried in the prayer and wantes to be baptized. But first wants to quite smoking. She realized that the prayer was sent from God! We then crossed the street. both of us felt strongly to go to this certain apartment building. We knocked on the door and they let us in. Kay, Randy, and Jean. Kay was bawling in the prayer. She told us that everything in her life was horrible. Her boyfriend and her good friend are both really sick, and she dedicates all her time to taking care of them. She committed to church, AND BAPTISM! but we had to pass them, since they are english. Kay even left us a voicemail yesterday, telling us how thankful she was for our prayer and that she is going to be coming to church!!  We walked out of their house and realized that it was getting late, and we had a lesson to go to. We were one way from our goal of 5 blessings for that day. We both looked at each other and new we needed to get one more. We set our eye on an apartment complex, and went for it. We were right about to knock on a door, and stopped. We felt like that was not the right door for us to knock on. We had our eye set on the last door down the hallway, with the HEN in front. We knocked, no one answered, then knocked again, no one answered. Then we see someone walking towards us and she said, "Can I help you?" we walked towards her and introduced ourselves to her. Her name was Miss Karen. She accepted prayer. We walked over to her door, and I went ahead and said the prayer. The spirit was so strong. After the prayer, she said, "Hold on" she grabbed our hands and started saying a prayer of thanks. The prayer, well words cannot describe it. It was one of those moments when you realized your worth as a missionary, and that Gods hand is in every bit of the work. Sister Bean and I were squeezing each other hands so tightly to every word she said. She prayed for us to have the words we needed from God to open our mouths, and asked to bless us, the Angels and they servants. She also said, Ive been praying for this. This is my revelation. Please carry these angels on the wings of eagles. After the prayer, we explained to her how we felt promoted to knock on her door specifically. She was shocked. She explained, that she had seen us earlier that day talking to her neighbor and recognized us as angels. She wanted to talk to us but was too scared. She got back from going somewhere and was sitting in her car. She felt prompted to sit there a little longer before she went somewhere. Thats when she saw us, the two girls she recognized from earlier knocking on her own door. She got out of the car and started walking towards us. When we asked to pray for her, she knew we were sent from God, and were an answer to her prayers. She accepted church AND baptism! She couldn't deny it. She knew without a doubt that God sent us to her, and we knew it to! We walked away from that being overwhelmed by the spirit. sometimes we forget that right now we aren't just regular people. We are representatives of Jesus Christ, Servants of God, Chasers of Darkness (our districts name haha) and we have the opportunity to find those prepared people!

That was saturday. The day of Miracles! The next day, Sunday. Lilianna, Sofia, and Manueala came to church. They came in to sacrament meeting where white dresses, in my opinion, they looked ready for baptism! They committed to being baptized next week!:) We are so excited for them! Tonight we are going over to President Rocuants house to have family night with Lilianna and the Rocuant family:) We are very excited!

In my Scripture reading, I just finished Helaman, and am now into 3^rd Nephi. I am loving it so much. Every day I read, I find things that strengthen my testimony of the Book of Mormon. Like what I said earlier, in 3 Nephi 13, its says, that if we "seek God first, all things will be added unto us." I love that because it is so true. As long as we keep God in the forefront of our minds, everything will work out according to his plan that he has for all of us.

This week has been amazing. I have learned and grown so much more than I every imagined possible! I love you family so much! Thanks for all of your love:) I feel it every day! Have the most amazing week!!

Con Amor, Sister Rogers:)

 

07.15.13 | Week 14 | Fort Lauderdale

Hello once again, to my beautiful family of mine! Its so nice to be able to write you again:) I get so excited to talk to you all! This week was a little bit of a crazy one! So you know how sister bean and I eat at a lot of members homes?? Well, in result we eat a lot of weird foods...we had been getting really bad stomach aches, but were ignoring them for about 3 days. Then we finally both realized tht something probably wasn't right. We called our mission Nurse and told her our symptoms. she informed us that we had food poisoning. She Told us that we had to stop eating big diets for a couple of days, and to stay in home and rest for a day. We zonked out for 3 hours! That was so nice. I cannot even begin to explain. You know you're tired though when not even that helps you catch up on your sleep...haha it was so strange to not go out and work though. We felt guilty THE WHOLE time. But that night we got permission to go to one of our lessons, so we did and it went amazing! We are feeling a lot better now so we are all good now:) Dont worry mom ;) Then later this week we got SOOOOOOOOO much rain! I don't even think that i can explain to you all how much rain is here. Dad probably understands, but you cannot even undserstand until you are standing in it. Haha. Sister Anderson really stresses that we are careful in these storms because of lightening. So we have to count how far away it is every time we see it. We got stuck in Andreina's home for 2 hours that day. Rain rain rain. Fun stuff! Except for last night, we went and harvested in it. We put our crocks on, raincoats, and got umbrellas! It was actually really fun. You find that a lot of people let you in their homes when its raining. They also think youre crazy for it. haha. hmm..Lets see, what else is new this week. Sister bean and I got a new car! We were driving a boat of a malibu before, which was the oldest car in the WHOLE mission! haha Then we get this call from Elder Bear, the guy in charge of the cars saying that he had a  2013 Corolla with 50 miles on it waiting for us at the mission office. Ever since then, we have been rolling in style, using our blue tooth. Think we are spoiled much?? I think so! Never would I have thought i would be driving that nice of a car on my mission! MITZI AND MACEY!! I am SO SO SO excited for them! That fits them so perfectly! I actually was hoping that one of them would be coming over here to the best mission in the world, but I guess not:( You will have to tell them how excited I am for them:) Ah!

I hope that every thing is going great for you all! I love hearing about all that is going on! I am so sad that you had to say goodbye to Olivia...:( I liked having her there to take care of my fam! But soon she will be in the best state ever!! By the way, I cannot wait to come back here with all of you. Just yesterday in church a missionary that served here a while ago (sister Keller) who which by the way is basically a legend, came and sang in sacrament with her family. We talked to her after (I have pics i will send, she is the blonde) but she is now teaching at the MTC and her spanish is amazing, and she said it was so hard for her on her mission! I wanna do that so bad! how fun would it be to teach at the MTC! I hope Zack gets that job! but she is applying for the one in MEXICO! So maybe she will be maceys teacher! Sister Keller is her name:) She brought her whole family here though. I wanna do that one day! I want to show you all my friends here!! President Rocuant was actually in ST GEORGE this weekend! He had a miracle recovery. That's what fasting and praying does. We knew that he was going to have a miracle. That family is the perfect family in the world. I want you all to meet them one day. They speak both english and spanish :) Spanish this week, lets just say, it took a step up from last week! I am actually catching on!! I know its because of my companion. She is great at it. I learn so much from just listening to her talk! I went to church yesterday, and I was realizing that I was understanding everything! I wanted to jump up and down for joy. That and I have really been going hard on my studies. I can't wait till it gets easier though. I was talking to Sister Bean just yesterday about how much my mission has changed my out look on learning. I love to learn now family! My personal studies aren't long enough! and we were talking about all these good books from home, and I couldn't wait to get home and read them! I have gained a love for learning and reading! I think that you would all be very proud of me:) I know that, that is one of the biggest things that heavenly father is trying to help me with.

So S is not getting baptized anymore. We went over to teach her the other day and she said that her husband doesn't want to get baptized, and she wont get baptized without him....So we have to drop her this week. We just dont have time to keep on teaching her if she doesn't have the desires. It's really sad because we have had some really amazing experiences with Selena...We did find a family in return last night while harvesting in the rain! The last family of the night! They are Cubin and amazing! They are a family of three and their daughter is 18! we are so excited to go back and teach them:) I will let you know how that goes. 

I cannot get passed how fast that time here goes. I feel like it was just yesterday that I got here. But yet, it was another Faith growing week for Sister Bean and I.

At the beginning of the week, we were doing our daily Harvesting. We prayed about where to go and felt that this one street was the one that God wanted us to be on. As we parked and started walking, we noticed that it was a more “rich” area, but we continued having faith that Heavenly Father wanted us to talk to someone on this street. From door to door, we got doors slammed in our faces. No one wanted to talk to us. We were walking down the street wondering when we were going to meet the person that we were meant to meet. That is when we came to this door. We Knocked, and an older lady by the name of Sandy answered.  At first she was not accepting of the prayer. That’s when you could tell the the spirit worked on her, because right when she was about to shut the door, she opened it and stepped outside. She told us that she would like us to include her son that had died 5 years ago in the prayer. I went ahead and started with the prayer. From the moment on, I was not saying the prayer anymore. Those words, they weren’t mine. I don’t even remember what was said. After the prayer, I looked up, and Sandy had been bawling. Tears were streaming down her face. She looked up, and embraced me in a hug, and then embraced my companion in a hug as well. She asked, “Where are you two from?” We invited her to our church. She accepted! Then we invited her to be baptized. She with out hesitation, said, “Yes!” As we were about to leave, we asked her if there was anything we could do for her. She said, “No, you’ve done it all. My son has given me a calling.” My companion and I walked away from that harvest blessing with tears in our eyes. Then my companion begin to explain how that was not her companion back there praying. It was as if I had developed a whole different speech pattern, or as if I had a prayer memorized. It was blessings straight from our Heavenly Father, and things that her son wanted her to know. I explained to her that I knew with out a doubt that her son was standing right next to Heavenly Father as he was helping me say that prayer. It was the most spiritual moment of my mission this far. I know that was the spirit.

This week, Sister bean and I were talking about ever since we have gotten on our missions, that we understand much more fully as to why we have commandments. Before we didn’t understand the importance of them. But now, we deal with people that aren’t keeping them every single day, which leads them to unhappiness. I was reading in Helaman 5: 12 in my personal study the other day, and it talks about how the gospel should be the rock of our foundation. If we have the Gospel as the rock of our foundation, then we will understand the importance of keeping the commandments and we will not falter, or have the sorrow in our lives, that comes from not keeping the commandments. That’s what we are here to do! Help these people in Fort Lauderdale Florida keep the commandments, and build their foundation on The Gospel! I love every day of it and am excited to see the miracles happen this week!

Sister Rogers

Love you family!!!

07.08.13 | Week 13 | Fort Lauderdale

FAMILY!!

Hello, again. Is it just me or is the time going by so so so fast? It was just yesterday that I talked to you. Wow. Its kinda sad to think that my time with sister bean is dwindling. I only have five weeks left of this transfer. I know, that's a long time, but its really not! Weeks are like days here in the mission life. I'm sure that Zack can relate:) Its crazy how close sister Bean and I are though. We are so close that we are starting to see the spirit work so in sync with us. Funny story for ya, just the other day, we were Harvesting. We knocked on this door, someone answered and I went to shake their hand and introduce myself. Instead of saying “Hi, I'm Sister Rogers” I said, “Hi, I'm Sister Bean.” Then, Sister Bean said, “And I'm Sister Rogers!” That's when I realized what I had said. Haha I was trying so hard not to laugh. Lets just hope that they didn't read our name tags and notice that those weren't our names;)

We are like the dream team. Haha one of the guys in our ward pulled us aside and asked us how things were going. Then he asked us how we got along. He was like “ Cause you know, sometimes things in companionship are a little crazy!” we laughed and looked at each other and were like, “hmm...we are pretty much best friends” He told us that he could tell. Ever since we have become companions, good things have been happening in the ward. That was really cool to hear:)

Well thank you for sending me e-mails every week. I get so excited to read them:) They are always just what I need to hear. Honestly. Thank you for you experiences and your uplifting words! Means more than you know! Also thank mom for the package:) I LOVED it! You are seriously the best mom in the whole entire world. The things that you do for me, I will for ever be in debt. I love you!:) I loved the pictures. I was showing sister Bean them, and she was cracking up at how much I loved my puppies. Some of those pictures....I am a little pathetic. But I just love them so much. I can't help it!;) Speaking of dogs. Dogs here are scary. I don't usually like them. Or touch them for that matter. But last night we harvested this man with a yellow lab! Oh my goodness, it was like tripp in a laps body. I was basically rolling around on the ground with it I was so in love. It made me really miss my puppies. I will send you a picture:) But the cardigans work amazing! Everything else was great too:) Thank you all for the letters:) Tell olivia Hello for me and that I love her and am so excited for her!

I was kinda bummed that I wasn't going to transfer meetings because I wouldn't be able to see him. But my luck, we were having comp study with the sister training leaders at the church where transfers were. So after study we walked into the chapel, and guess who I saw, ELDER OVARD! We were so excited to see each other, because we thought for sure we wouldn't. It was just so weird being with someone that I knew from back home! I have a pic of that too! Ah! So great to see him!

This week was another crazy crazy week! I have been having a really hard time keep up my energy. (yes I have been taking my vitamins. 3 each actually) Every single prayer I ask Heavenly Father to give me the energy that I need to be and effective missionary. Sometimes towards 5 or 6 at night, sister Bean and I don't even have enough energy to talk to people! Being Social for 8 hours a day, well lets just say IT AINT EASY! Haha but I know that the Lord will help me. Sounds like I am not the only one experiencing heat. You think you all know what humidity is....hahaha you don't even know;) just kidding. Actually it really hasn't even been this bad. We were just asking a ward member the other day if it gets hotter than this, and what did they say? “ mmm...no not really.” YES!! Sis Bean and I looked at each other and we just gave each other a high five. If we it doesn't get much worse than this, we have got this in the bag! What were people talking about. Its totally bearable. That, or we have a bubble around us that cools us down more than everyone else;)

Crazy story for you all! The other day, Sister Bean and I were sitting in Companionship study, and we get a phone call. We answered and this guy, that we didn't even know said “Hey, I wanna get baptized.” We were like “YEAH! MIRACLE!” We found out that he was in the hospital. We took time out of our day to go and see him, of course. We got to the hospital and walked into the room that he was in. To our lovely surprise, we saw this little Latin guy sitting up in his hospital bed, holding his IV that was unplugged, blood was pouring out of it, and saying, “Aqui, auda me!!!” (Here, help me!) We told him we would go and find a nurse for him. We walked out of the room and looked at each other like, oh no. What did we get into here. Hahah To make a long story short, He yelled a lot at the nurse for not letting him leave his room to go smoke, and that he was old enough to make his own decisions. Once she left, We started talking to him. He basically told us that he wanted to die. But first! He wants to get baptized so that he goes to heaven. Sorry man, Things don't work that way. We had a prayer with him anways, and then we slowly said goodbye to this crazy man, on drugs. We were so drained after that, we treated ourselves to a nice smoothy. The things that we see here in Florida! Sometimes we forget that we are in America! Haha

S was supposed to have her baptism this week. We had some pretty amazing, spiritual lessons this week with her. We taught her about how our families can be together for eternity, and not just for life here on earth. We showed her a picture of the Salt Lake Temple, and she was in awh. She thought it was the most beautiful thing shed ever seen. We can her the card with the picture so she could always keep that as a reminder and a goal to work for:) She even said that she wanted to talk to her husband about getting baptized so that they could go to the temple as a family and get sealed. That lesson was so powerful. The next couple days was sunday. We went in the morning before church to check up on her and help her and her daughter get ready for church. She pulled us into her room and told us “I am having doubts about getting baptized” We asked her what doubts she had and we began to talk, explain the things to her, and comfort her. We expressed to her that the only person that does not want her to get baptized is Satan. Right then and there we asked her if she would have a prayer with us. We encouraged her to ask Heavenly Father to help her feel peace, and to know if baptism was what he wanted for her. After the prayer, she told us that she felt peace. We then, reinvited her to get baptized. She then said, “I need more time.” For the second time. That hit my heart like a pound of bricks. I was thinking in my head, “Not again...why?” She still wanted to come to church, and she got her husband to take her. As Sister Bean and I walked away and got in the car, we just looked at each other, almost as if we couldnt believe that this was happening for the third week in a row. We asked ourselves, have we done everything that we could have done? We answered with a 100 percent yes. We weren't about to let Satan get us down this time. We had so much faith that they were going to come, and they still could possibly get baptized today. We got to church, and to our pleasant surprise, S AND her husband, the one that we had been praying for to open his heart to our message came to church! It was testimony meeting, and every single one of her doubts that she expressed to us were answered in peoples testimonies. Her husband LOVED church! After church, S came up to us and said “I have had a change of heart. I want my AND my husband to get baptized next sunday. Together.” We know that this has been a hard long path, and we have had to have a lot of patience with her, but it is on the lords time. Maybe she needed to wait so that her husband could feel of this spirit, and want for change in his life too.

Well this email is long!! I gotta go though! I love you all so much! Take care family :)

Con mucho amor....SISTA ROGAS

PS. Fourth of July was just any other day for us. We didn't really do much. We now regret getting sparklers or something. But while we were driving, we did enjoy fireworks in literally EVERY direction!! It's definitely not a desert here! and nor are people safe with fireworks here! haha

They finally see each other! Elder Ovard an Sister Rogers

 

 

Kacey thought it would be fun to spend 9 dollars and send us a coconut :)

07.02.13 | Week 12 | Fort Lauderdale

Hey family:) Don't worry, I am still alive! This week is transfers week, so we had pros monday yesterday, therefore today is our p-day. Sorry, I wish I could have warned ya or something. I can't believe that I have already been here for a full transfer! Isn't that insane?? We got on a conference call last night for our zone, and the zone leaders went around telling us who was transferring and who was staying. Our whole house except for Sister Chavou is staying here. Which means that Sister smith will be getting a new companion tomorrow! I am sad that Sister Bean and I dont get to go to the transfer meeting though. Those things are so much fun! You get to see SO many missionaries that you don't usually get to see. I am hoping that Elder Ovard gets transferred into my district! I believe that he is done training now! I actually saw his companion the other day at the stake center. He was on exchanges! Everyone always relays messages for him telling me that he says hi. ONE DAY I will see him! haha Maybe he will come and be my district leader;)

Dad kinda asked me if I know my AP's. Boy do I know them! Those Elders are THE coolest elders of all time! They are the greatest teachers! They know what they are doing. Lets just leave it at that! One of them is actually going home tomorrow. We have three! Elder Gust Is leaving. He's from St. George actually! He went to Dixie:) Didn't play sports though, so you probably wouldnt know him. Ask zack if he does though, because he told me he hangs out with some of the poeple that zack hung out with!

I can't believe Eric is home! And OLIVIA IS LEAVING!!! I am so excited for her! I wrote her a letter the other day, and I just got pictures through email from her with mom, the dogs, and chloe. Oh man. I

LOVED IT!! Why is my family, and friends so dang cute? I don't even doubt that she did so well on her talk. She's a natural. I know exactly the feeling that she is going through right now. I was a wreck! Such a wreck, that I made myself sick! haha Ya know, I was thinking about that the other day, how blessed I have been not to have gotten sick on my mission. That's definitely another testimony that the lord is watching over and protecting me. Tell Connor that I say hi and that he should write me! I wanna talk to him! I feel really bad for him.....

Wow, 120 degrees. I can't decide which is worse. 120 degrees or 90 degrees with 50 percent or more humidity! haha I guess I will find out one day! I can't even remember what Its like to be dry! Its super humid here, but I'm used to it now! I'm going to be a raisin when I go back home! haha zack probably understands that! Dang, I am sorry mom and dad, that you had to be sick while everyone was in town:( That is really not fun at all. Dad, I can relate with you on having your prayers answered, when you need them to be. So, I wrote my president about whats been going on and I am gong to copy it and past it so you can know the important things that have happened and what I have learned this week:) Enjoy!

This week has been another testimony growing week for me. So many amazing things have happened in the lives of Sister Rogers and Sister Bean. I have continually seen a pattern of my scripture studies relating the to the experiences I am having every single day. My testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown so much over the past month and a half. The other day, I was having a hard time staying positive and motivated. Learning Spanish has been a little hard for me. I just want to know everything now, and be perfect at it now! I know that that's not possible, but its hard sitting in lessons, and not having anything to say, or sometimes not being able to understand the people and what they are saying. I was reading in ALMA 31 when the Zoramites deny Christ and worship with a set/memorized prayer. Alma was so sad for their soles. But Alma went and prayed to God. He asked for help and his mercy. He had so much Faith that Heavenly Father would answer his prayers. Because of his great Faith Heavenly Father did Answer his prayers. "Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith." I have witnessed this is my life this past week. I prayed to Heavenly Father asking him to help me stay confident, have a positive attitude, and to be patient with myself. My prayers have been answered. So many times have I had experience where Heavenly Father has been right there for me in times of need.

Our baptism with S and G fell through again. We were really  really sad. These two want to get baptized so badly, and they know its what they need to do. Little things are holding them back from getting baptized though. We explained to them, that right now in their lives, they are making such a good decision. They are coming closer to Christ. Satan is not happy about it. So he is going to trying and hold them back. They need to make sure they realized these things and move forward in Faith. As we said the closing prayer, G said, "Please forgive us for not getting baptized last week. Help us be able to have the strength to get through the hard things so that we can do what you want us to do." It was so amazing to really hear the true words of their hearts through their prayers. We have been praying and praying for them. We have faith they will be able to be baptized this weekend!

Lately we have been visiting a less active in our branch. Her name is M (the one mom talked to on the phone!) She was baptized in the church as a young child, but got pregnant out of marriage at a young age. After this had happened she was embarrassed  and ashamed to go back to the ward she had grown up with, with the fear that she would be judged. She has been less active for quite some time now. We have been meeting with her and her faith has been growing so much! We left the testament for her to watch. Later the next day we got a text from her saying, "Thank you for giving me the movie to watch. I feel like watching them over and over and over again just to watch the last part. My heart was filled with joy!! Man, I couldnt stop crying. It was amazing what I felt. I wish i could feel what I felt all the time. Thank you guys again for bringing back my faith. I will forever be in debt. I love you guys so much!" Then just the other day we were harvesting around her home. She pulled up, coming home from work and started talking with us. We were explaining to her what we were doing. We invited her to come with us and see what it was like! She was so nervous! We were knocking some doors. No answer. Then we looked back behind us and saw this girl sitting on the stairs. We walked over to her. She had been crying. We found out that her mother had kicked her out of the house because her moms boyfriend had moved in. She had no where to stay and didn't have a job. We asked if we could pray for her. At the end of the prayer, tears were streaming down her face. She told us that she knew we were sent to her for a reason. We testified of it. Invited her to come to church, and she was more than excited. She also wanted to get baptized! Then M, told her that if she ever needed anyone to stay with she could always come to her home. Afterwards, M said to us, "is that what you do every day? Why wasn't I a missionary??" Her faith is growing so much, we are working hard with her to bring her back to where she wants to be in her life. Heavenly Father has created so many situations for us to see how much he truly cares and watches out for us. Missionary work is so amazing. I am so happy I get to see miracles like that every single day.

That is basically what happened this week! We are praying and praying to have a baptism this weekend for S and G! It will happen:) We know it!

Family, Missionary work is so hard! haha I am CONSTANTLY tired, but I feel your prayers and your support with every thing that I do! I love hearing all about your lives and the things that are happening back home:) Before we know it, I will be able to talk to you on the phone again! Can you believe that it has been a month and a half since I have talked to you on the phone? Time flies!!!!!!! I can't say that enough. Haha:)

I am glad that mom, you got to hear from M ( also likes to go by A ) she is like our older sister:) She is amazing! She wants oils so super bad, so I gave her your number!:) She called and told me she talked to you and she said, " your moms laugh is exactly like yours! " haha its true:)  I am excited to get oils to her! All my roommates are like, man I need oils! And then I got an email from sister G from the MTC saying that she got oils! Did you work things out with her mom? Thanks mom! You're the very best! Thats what happens when you serve stateside! OH my gosh, speaking of serving state side! Yesterday this lady from our ward, Sister V, met us in downtown fort lauderdale and took us to CHEESECAKE FACTORY. yeah, who gets to do that on your mission? Oh wait, we do! We are so spoiled!

Ok, well I could talk all day long about my week, but I better go. I will send lovely pictures, that I look so lovely in! ....(not) haha I don't know what happened to me on my mission, I think I got like the ugly vale or something...  but anyways! I hope my family has an amazing week!! I LOVE YOU!

Con mucho amor y una fuerta hombroso ....SISA ROGAS!

  

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