June 24, 2013

It has been a good week, started slow but picked up. We did a lot of tracting at the beginning of the week because we couldn't get people to meet with us or they would just fall through on their appointments at the last minute. When this happens we knock doors.. so there was a lot of that this week but we were able to start meeting with more people near the end of the week and had missionary meetings that took away from tracting time.  There was a worldwide missionary broadcast last night by a bunch of the apostles and the prophet talking about changes to missionary work. We are now going to use computers more. Facebook, ipads, i'm not sure on all the details but things are changing. They also focused again heavily on getting away from tracting and having the members responsible for finding the people to teach with the missionaries forcusing on being the primary teachers. I gave a talk in church yesterday! Guess who showed up two minutes before the meeting started... President Weston and his wife(mission president)! So they were sitting right behind me while I spoke. The bishop had asked me to get up and talk about myself and why I was on a mission and stuff, I spent about 30 seconds on me. then I spend nine and a half minutes on charity. We have a real problem in this ward with getting the members to do thier callings. Home teaching is at almost nothing, the elders quorum presidency was not represented at church for like three consecutive weeks, and we ask the ward council for things expecting not to get much. So I sorta took my chance to address most of the ward and spoke on what I felt they needed to hear. Introducing myself was not as important as getting a message to this ward. I started with charity and tried to keep love as the central message. I spoke about the two great commandments that Jesus gives in I think mattew 22, love thy God and love thy neighbor. I tried not to preach to them too heavily and offend anyone because they would simply reject me and my words. My goal was to change thier idea of home and visiting teaching. I think I said at noe point that the numbers don't matter, it is about lovng those people. I don't really know what  else I said no recording to listen to this time but I did my classic talk giving method - read a whole bunch of stuff about a topic (turned into a number of topics I read up on this time.. laziness, idleness, home teaching, visiting teaching, ministering, charity, love) sorta started to piece the concept together in my mind and then got up there without a single word written. First thirty seconds were a little rough with the mission president right behind me but I gained stream. Nobody seemed offended which was actually more important to me than getting a strong message to everyone, I need to get inside before I can really make any changes to the core of the ward. Mission president told me good job at the end of the meeting and was much friendlier than the first time I met him when he did not talk much so maybe I did a good job. Thats about all I have hope to hear from you soon,

Elder Robert Wesley Rogers

Email

Okay so the email subscription works great. (on the right hand side of the page) If you're interested I tested it out and it sends me a copy of the new post so I don't even have to go to the actual blog to read it. This might be of interest to anyone going on a mission who can get emails but cannot visit websites.

Ashley

June 17, 2013

So I am in the field! The real deal! New companion is Elder Hayden ( been out about 1 year). Things are better out here than the mtc. I have never been one for training really, instructions are boring just learn by doing. And that is what I have been doing. Been tracting everyday this week, met some good people, met some less good people, met lots of good people doing bad things.. I am in an area called Benson in omaha, semi-ghetto. Lots of less active members and part member families. The members have been a big focus so far, lots of them struggle with something. There is this really nice old black lady that is a recent convert that lives like a block away named lannell I think she is my favorite so far. Members are pretty good about feeding us which sorta suprises me because the ward was not very big on sunday. The strongest members are the old people and the young utah couples. Met a crazy guy on the way home last night, said he had been visited by the sisters. Thought joeseph smith lived underground in georgia haha but amid his crazyness he had a few correct thoughts about adam and eve and stuff. Me and Elder hayden share an apartment and then about five min up the road there are the ysa missionaries that we are friends with, they are cool, they have a car (Elders Bovee and Belnap) Bovee goes home in like 5 weeks. Hope fathers day was nice sorry I didn't get a letter off for it, didn't hear it was coming til about friday and I can only write on mondays. They want you to send all mail through the mission office on 11027 martha street. Maybe you should send me a normal sized umbrella in that case.. mission president is nice, doesn't talk a ton until you know him it seems, which doesn't really suprise me- he is a farmer. His wife is very friendly and I talked to her for a while the first day. That is sorta how all the couples are around here except the bishop, have not talked to him much but apparently he loves to talk a lot.... Oh and I almost forgot brother Reed! he is awesome he takes the missionaries out to eat every week and is really funny. He called you guys I think and talked to mom and savanah or T it sounded like. Every week he takes us to the same place this asian buffet cuz it is the cheapest place but it was pretty good. I catually ate at two chineese buffets on my first day out here so i think I have to find my way out of omaha to get the country food. I need some music.. oh and what are the words to come thou font I think its called. So I knew I would forget something guess what it was........... a pillow! so I  just stuffed the big blanket into my pillow case and it is working pretty well. There is a lot of government spending into this area. We have gone past some government paid for housing apparently and there are refugees here, we are teaching a few that speak english but this church that helped them get over here doesn't like that much. I forget where they are from.. I think it was burma. Dil and his son dinesh. I don't remeber if I told you but there was a sister rogers that came out in the group with me we sat next to each other on the plane though we did not talk much-still not sure what the rules are there. We don't think we are related though she is from utah but she is serving in the same ward as me! and guess what her companions name is??? Jensen haha so there are one set of sisters, elders, and senior missionaries in this ward. I have only really been a part of one lesson to a less active, nice guy, says he knows its true but has not been to church in a while he is about my age. there were some other exchanges that apparently count as lessons but they are not really sit down structured lessons where you teach them the restoration or plan of salvation etc. it has just been more faith in Jesus Christ sorta basic basic stuff but we teach to thier understanding so we try and teach the restoration by using the book of mormon to teach about faith and peace and then sorta touch on Joesph Smith sorta just name dropping and then going back to faith. So average baptisms in this mission are not very high, I think we need stronger members first which is a big focus. Also missionaries know when you are home so don't hide.. lots of people do but we learn how to recognize if people are home pretty quickly. thats about it. so you can write back and send it to the mission office which I think is 11027 matha street omaha 68144 nebraska but It was in the call packet if you still have a copy of that. Ill write it on the back of a letter I send today sometime. I need to get faster at typing so I can say more in less time.. basketball too cuz all the elders do that on p-day.

Elder Robert Wesley Rogers

June 11, 2013

The MTC is almost behind me, going in 2 weeks did not seem like enough but I think I have learned basically all they can teach me at this point. The one thing it would have been nice to learn is more about contacting but we had like a 45 min lesson on it once. It is strange but I am really just not worried about anything that I have to do too much, it all seems doable with the Lord's help so what do all those missionaries get stressed out over? Courage is not the absence of Fear but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. If I can love these people everything else will fall into place. Love is the motivation of God, it is stronger than any oposing force so if I can muster that I am set. I taught my first real person a few days ago. We were walking into a role play thing where they have volunteers come into the mtc from outside, ours was the friend of a mormon. We did not know this for about the first thirty seconds when we met him but it became apparent very quickly when he had no idea what was going on- come sit in a room some guys might ask me to pray was about what he had. Christian was his name, nice guy, little quiet, from houston. 2000 miles away and there were three texans sitting in a room talking about God. Lesson went fairly well. So I leave for the field tomorrow morning at 3am, but the real work begins Friday when I go to my first area. Wish me luck,

 

Elder Robert Wesley Rogers

June 6, 2013

Today is p-day. I am doing laundry right now, had to get here at 5:30 to get a spot on a computer. I leave the mtc next wednesday morning, I am supposed to be at the travel desk with my luggage at 3am. I have been here for a week now but it feels much longer than that. All the Elders in my district are starting to go crazy. We do a LOT of role playing here. Our investigators are mostly the other members of our district just making up a character that they play for 2-10 min while we practice a certain commitment or fundamental on them. There are also a few longer teaching opportunities to teach our teachers for 20-45 min. They are playing people that they taught on their missions. These are good and frustrating experiences. The worst thing is when you can see that they understand the principle and feel that it is right through the spirit but just refuse to change. There is a shifting moment when suddenly they take up the defensive and start building walls between you and them. The discussion is not a total loss if you play the end right but getting any serious progress sorta goes out the window and you find yourself fighting to keep them from looking back on other principles and applying that attitude to them as well. Some of the investigators have been very well versed in the bible. It is difficult to keep up with what they share because they will sometimes just mention the verse and chapter without reminding me what is in it, that is when I sorta shift into my ever favorite fake it til you make it mode. I was able to keep up with one of these investigators named mark the other day. He would do a lot of the talking in the lesson because he gave very long answers to questions but that was ok as a missionary because he was engaged and it takes some of the pressure off of us to have something to say. We got to talking about the apostasy (me and my companion were trying to make our way to joesph smith and the restoration from the bible) and I mentioned truths were lost and that now we have the fullness of the gospel. He was confused by this and asked a few questions about it. He brought up william tindale and my companion gave me a who on earth is that look. I knew who he was because fall semester I had watched a documentary called fires of faith the coming forth of the king james bible for fun one week, and everyone thought it was a strange thing to do? well glad I did now. The problem that I ran into with mark was that I could answer most of his questions but I couldn't get him to feel the spirit of what I was teaching him. Without that nobody will be converted and if they are it won't last. So it is p-day so now I get to talk about all the random stuff too or at least that is how I see it right now. The food here is decent, I have not had to cook anything myself. That walmart watch the band broke on like day two I think it was so now I just have my companion keeping track of time. He is also more interested in looking at his planner throughout the day so I just ask him where we need to be. Did our first stuff as zone leaders last night. We welcomed in two new districts that we are in over. We are now over about thirty people but we have not had to do much yet. Last night we just talked to them about the rules and companions and stuff. I think Elder Hook sorta scared them.. we hit monday this week and things started getting more unpleasant. I think it was an investigtor named john that really sorta messed up the groove that we had had going up until then. It was the first and really only time they had us "tracting" with really no help on door approach which is a large point of concern for a lot of us in the district. Anyway john was not the most polite person he just asked us why like seven times, and then shut the door. We tried again(as if we had not just done it). Second time we got in but we got like three whys and he told me I was a board. 

They talk a lot about loving the people and teaching people not lessons and finding the needs of the people through the spirit but we both didnt want to talk to john right then. It was a good lesson to learn but it sorta fried our patience with the role plays. We started noticing that we will do the same role play like three times in a row just adding a little bit each time. For example try and commit someone to church then try and commit someone to church and they say no then try and commit someone to church they say no and you find that they have a concern about a particular thing and so you try to resolve that concern and reextend the commitment. It just naturally turns out that we do the last one on the first time and so then we are just redoing things. Two weeks seemed a really short amount of time to be here when I got here but I am ready to go on wednesday.

Elder Robert Wesley Rogers

Letter #1

Minor Detail

I thought that I should point out to anyone planning to write Wesley a letter, that it would be wise to actually address the letter to Elder ROBERT Wesley Rogers. Just to cut down on any confusion if the letter should lose its way, since his legal name is Robert.

Ashley