A baptism!

Hello!

Tayte got baptized on Saturday! Elder Brunson and I stood as witnesses. It was pretty smooth, overall. Elder Brunson and I played a medley of "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and "When I am Baptized" that we arranged. It's super simple, nothing fancy. Tayte was hoping that she would have to get baptized more than once (because she's only ten and she thought it would be fun- plus her older sister had to be dunked three times because her feet kept coming out of the water). She didn't have to get baptized more than once, but she did get confirmed twice! Her dad forgot to confirm her a member of the Church in the blessing, so we had to do it again later in private.

 

  Last Monday after I finished emailing, we went with another companionship to a supermarket called Pacific Ocean. Everything in it is entirely Asian! It feels like you've left the U.S. and walked into China/Taiwan/Japan. It even smells funny.

Chinese Rice Pops

I have a couple of pictures of it that I'll hopefully be able to send today, but I forgot my cord again... I might be able to get them to you some other way, though!

 

Weird Asian Fruit

We've been doing a lot more finding recently. Up until now, we usually just write down a bunch of names of less-active members or investigators to just drop by, but that almost never works. So, we've been planning in time to find people (by tracting, street contacting, looking through former investigators, etc.).

On Wednesday, I went to my first Zone Conference! It was awesome! We had trainings from President and Sister Murdock and the Assistants. We had three zones there. The most prominent thing I got out of the conference was the importance of finding. The Lord is hastening His work. Up until now, the "standard of excellence" for new investigators in a week was two. President Murdock and mission leadership just raised it to six!! That means a lot more finding!

We found one new investigator last week, George, through street contacting. We found another one this week on Thursday. Her name is Kelly. She has a daughter in college, so we can gauge approximate age on that. We found her by searching though the former investigators in the area. We dropped by her house and asked if we could come back and teach her. She is so nice! She was taught about two years ago by the Sister missionaries, but had to stop taking the lessons because she had a bunch of consecutive surgeries for different things and couldn't be taught because she was recovering.

She said she was open to being taught again, and we set up an appointment for this Tuesday. She called us and said she couldn't find her copy of the Book of Mormon, and she really wanted one so she could refresh herself on the 2/3 of it she had read a couple of years ago before our appointment of Tuesday. So, we stopped by and gave her a new one! I'll let you know what happens there!

We haven't taught too many lessons this week; only 15. That probably had a lot to do with us trying to find new investigators so much rather than doing drop-ins. Oh well! Work is still work!

Well! As you know, they're going to be splitting our area on September 24th. But what you didn't know is that they'll be splitting our district as well! We already have five companionships in our area, which is a lot. Most districts have three or four, and there's another area in our district covering two wards that they're planning on splitting at the same time. Aaand, they might even be splitting the zone! Right now our zone is huge, and goes far into the mountains, hence the name "Rocky Mountain Zone." They might split it and make a Columbine Zone for the area I'm serving in now.

A lot happening soon! And all because of the hastening! We will look back in 20 years and say, "Remember when President Monson doubled the full-time missionary force with two sentences?"

Help the missionaries serving in your area! Live the gospel and others will want to have what you have! Share, and love your neighbor.

Hasta lunes!

-Elder Rogers

A Thought from Mom:

“Every truth that a missionary or member teaches is only an appendage to the central message of all time—that Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the Holy Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior and Redeemer of the world; that He alone burst the bands of death and triumphed over the captivity of hell; that no one of us could ever have those same blessings without His intervention in our behalf.” –Jeffrey R. Holland