Hello!

Well Hey!

This week was hectic! Oh man, let me tell you... For one thing, about half of the missionaries in our zone got sick. That was a bummer. But everyone seems to be doing better now, so that's no longer an issue!

I finished reading the Book of Mormon the other day! I can't remember when I started it, probably in February or March. A slow and steady study. As I read through it, I circled each reference to God the Father and Jesus Christ. There's no doubt who the Book is about! The new study I've started is about influences for good and evil in the Book of Mormon. Let me just tell you, that Nephi was one great influence!

This is the page that, flipping through, I think might have the most references. There's almost 100 in on these two pages. It's the account of the vision of the Brother of Jared. There was a couple of pages in Mosiah that made a strong competition.

A couple of weeks ago Rob, our ward mission leader, organized our ward missionaries into 8 companionships to go out and find and meet all of the "unknown" people on the records of our ward. These are people who we've never heard of, who haven't come to church, but who's records drifted in. There was a lot of success that night! The ward missionaries contacted about 40 of the 60 unknown members. From the results of the "blitz," Elder Rosequist and I got a list of people who the ward leadership feels we should visit. We did some of that work this week, and there's been success!

first, we visited Colette, a less-active member. She doesn't come to church because she doesn't like the singles' ward. But, we went over and visited with her, and invited her to a lesson. We said, "We are teaching a guy named Jack on Wednesday, and we think it would be good if you came to the lesson." She asked if he was an investigator. We said, "No, he's a member..." to which we got the reply, "...just inactive like me?" And we said, "Yes! Just like you." She has a good sense of humor. She came to the lesson, and it was great! We read from 2 Nephi chapter 2, which explains a lot about the Atonement and repentance. We asked them both to share their testimony of the Atonement, and they did. Both Jack and Colette agreed to come to church on Sunday, but only Jack came, and two hours late... But hey, better late than never!

The other person we were able to contact from the blitz was Jacob. He is another inactive member who lives far on the north end of our area, 30 minutes from the church building. He seems to have gotten caught up in a lot of things other than the gospel. He is really into video games. But we went to his house and got to meet him. He declined an invitation to ultimate frisbee, saying that he wasn't big into sports; but he accepted the invitation to institute on Thursday! We got a ride from one of the ward missionaries lined up for him, and he came! We always show up at the end of institute (8:30-9:00) to meet and greet non-members and less-actives, and also to talk to the members about their missionary work and to ask for any help we might need from them. So, when we were there we introduced Jacob to some of the members of the ward, and he seemed to enjoy himself. He didn't come to church, but we'll definitely reach out to him again this week!

We taught Ashleigh three times this week. The first time was kind of impromptu. She had asked if we could talk about "redemption," based on her reading in 2 Nephi 2. On Wednesday she and Shay showed up to an activity an hour early, so I told them we would come and talk about the gospel. Ashleigh loves the temple, so we met in the Temple Annex. The Annex is a small building like a mini visitors' center. As soon as we started the lesson, a member of the ward walked in and asked if he could join us. Then some teenage girls walked in and sat down. Then a family came in, followed by tons of youth, probably about 25 people in all. They were all really quiet, just whispering to each other, but we just kept right on going with our lesson. Finally we had to go, because we had another appointment. I asked Ashleigh to say the closing prayer, and she did, in front of all those people! Everyone said "Amen" when she finished the prayer. It was really funny, but also a big step for her! It's so great to see people push themselves out of their comfort zone and grow!

The second lesson we had with her was the next day. We watched the movie "The Testaments," and told her to focus on the faith, repentance, and conversion of some of the characters. She took notes the whole time on the repentance process of the main character, Jacob. At the end of the movie, she felt the Spirit big time, and cried. She got so embarrassed when our host turned on the lights. But it's awesome. She knows that Jesus is the Christ. In our third lesson, we finished studying the topic of redemption in the Temple Annex.

Speaking of people stepping out of their comfort zone, Shay is going to speak at our Zone Conference on Wednesday! Each of the three stakes was asked to have a recent convert speak for 5-7 minutes about their conversion. Shay is one of the most shy people I know, so this is huge! She also got a job working at the department store Ashleigh works at, and she signed up for the BYU Pathways program (online BYU education)! She says everything is falling into place in her life. Ashleigh also expressed interest in doing the Pathways program, and in attending BYU in the future if she can keep her grades up.

I can see the gospel changing people's lives! I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and the Savior of all men and women individually. This restored gospel blesses lives. Let's share it! Oh my GOSH it's so true!!!

Be excellent to each other and choose the right!

Sincerely,
Elder Rogers

A Whole New Zone!

Hello!

This is the first week of transfers, and we have a lot of changes in the zone! Eight new missionaries! (Not new, new, but new to us). So we had a great Zone Meeting on Wednesday to get to know each other, cast a vision for the zone, and get some uplifting. As a side note-- there is Zone Meeting, and then there's Zone Conference. Zone Meeting is planned and conducted by the zone leaders, and Zone Conference is planned and conducted by the Mission President and his Assistants. So, in this case, we planned the Zone Meeting. I think it went pretty well! 

First we talked about our vision of hitting the mission standards by the end of October. The mission standards are the standards for missionary work that the Mission President feels each area can be reaching each week (lessons taught, new investigators, etc.). Our zone is unfortunately the caboose of the mission, and we're going to change that! After that, we had an activity with the zone. We had told them all the week before (or at least the companion who was to stay in the zone) to take a comp unity picture with their new companion and bring it to Zone Meeting. As we passed the pictures around prior to a vote for the winner, everyone filled out a "Who You Be?" That's something I learned from Brother Blair my freshman year of seminary. It was a sheet with questions about people's favorite things, interests, family, and so on. 

After the pictures were judged, I read off the "Who You Be?" for each missionary, while everyone else was guessing who had written it. So, now we know each other pretty well! We ended by training on change. We did an object lesson with cookies. We had an Elder and a Sister come to the front of the room and have a competition to see who could stuff more cookies in their mouth without breaking them. Sister Johnson won, with ten cookies. Then we had an Elder come up and eat a few cookies. He was allowed to chew and swallow, unlike the other missionaries. He said he could definitely eat more than ten. Then we likened the cookies to the skills and tools we've been given to fulfill our purpose as missionaries. There have been a lot of changes in the mission, and a lot of new skills introduced to us in the last few months. We taught the missionaries that in order for them to be effective, they need to internalize the skills, and not just try to stuff it all into what they're already doing. When we internalize something, then we can move on and add something else without all the stress of "stuffing our mouth full of cookies."

Ashleigh is doing stellar! She is on top of things, and already knows everything we teach her. She asks us every day before a lesson what we're going to teach, and then she goes to a bunch of different sources to study the doctrine. She's really on top of things!

We also started teaching a lady named Pippy! We tracted into her at a blind apartment complex. I don't know why they have a complex designated for the blind, but they do. And she lives there! We taught her about the Restoration of the gospel, and the Book of Mormon. She told us she'd be interested in reading it! So the next day, we went to the mission office and picked up a Braille copy of the Book of Mormon. That's one big book. It's in six three-inch three-ring binders, in a big box. The following day, we took it to her and read from the introduction with her. It's amazing that people can read that! It's really impressive to see. She seems genuinely interested, and I have great hopes for her!

Other than that, we found a few new investigators and taught a few other lessons, which was good! If anything comes from them, I'll let you know!

Oh! And our third companion! Elder Bowler came out with Elder Rosequist, and now he's with us. It's just a temporary thing; he'll be leaving tomorrow. So we had him for one week! President is shipping him off, most likely to Craig, tomorrow afternoon. He's a really good Elder and a funny guy. I'm sad he's leaving. Oh well, nothing I can do! The work goes on!

Elders Rosequist, Bowler, and Rogers

I love you all! I know the Church is true! Keep the faith and press on! Until next week.

Sincerely,
Elder Rogers

Transfers....

This week is transfers!

Tomorrow we will go to transfer meeting. Elder Rosequist will be staying here in the Snad Creek Ward, and I will be staying also. In addition, we'll be getting a third companion! That should be fun. It's not unusual for zone leaders to have a third companion. I'll let you know who it is and how it's going next week!

We're still finding! We need to refill our teaching pool, and we do quite a bit of personal contacting. We found four new investigators this week! One of them wasn't home when we went to our return appointment, and another, when we tried to confirm the appointment, told us she'd rather we not come back. Oh well. AAAAGHH. But we do have two new investigators that have yet to blow us off. We taught them the other night outside their apartments (they are neighbors). One of then, Dan, has a family, and the other, AJ, might be a young single adult! that would be pretty stellar!

We taught three lessons to Ashleigh this week! She's doing great. She has made friends with Shaylan and a couple of other members of the ward. Shaylan is such an awesome example! A great member missionary. She's also doing great with her new calling, Gospel Principles Class President. Her responsibility is to conduct the Gospel Principles Sunday School class. But anyway, about Ashleigh; we're still looking forward to her baptism on August 16th!

With transfers, basically every companionship in our zone has someone leaving. So we're gong to have a whole new zone tomorrow! It will be fun. President Murdock is asking the zone leaders to really step up their game and push this mission to its potential. He told me and Elder Rosequist that the Brethren are urging the mission presidents to put the pedal down! So we're doing a lot of planning and work to get our zone up to speed. That takes up some time, but I like being able to do it. we had a mission leader council in Vail on Wednesday, and we learned a lot and shared our vision and goals for our zone. On our way back from the council, we were driving in a big 12-passenger van. It started hailing like CRAZY! We made it through, but Bertha (the van) has a few dents from the adventure. The weather in the mountains is always crazy!

Lots of growing, lots of changing in the mission. things are moving forward, and the work continues to hasten! Don't sleep through the Restoration! I know that this is the Lord's Church, and it is His Restored Gospel. I'm blessed to have this opportunity to teach the wonderful people of Colorado about it! Hoorah for Israel! Choose the right, and have an excellent week!

Sincerely,
Elder Rogers

4th of July!!

It has been a good one!

As for updates on Ashleigh-- She is doing great! We taught her the Plan of Salvation on Monday, and then she went to FHE. On Thursday, we taught her again, and set the date for August 16th for baptism! We had had a huge concern that she works on Sundays and wouldn't be able to come to church. But she told us that she talked to her manager, and was able to get Sunday mornings off! So that's a huge step forward. She went to Institute following the lesson, and had a great time. She texted us during the week and told us she had taken August 16th off of work for her baptism! That's going really well.

On Tuesday we went on splits with some guys in the ward, Jake and Isaac. Jake and I went tracting in an apartment complex in the area, and talked to a lot of people. We didn't teach, unfortunately, but it was still good! Jake served his mission in Barcelona, Spain, so we jumped at the opportunity to talk to a Mexican family when we heard them speaking Spanish! That was really fun.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges with the Assistants. I joined Elder Whiteley in their area. We taught quite a bit and did some good contacting. I learned a lot, and that was a good day. In our area, Elder Rosequist and Elder Jacobson taught 5 lessons tracting with the survey!

The Fourth was a big planning day for us. Fridays are normally our weekly planning days, and this Friday was no exception. We planned all morning for our own area, then had some lunch. After that, we drove some of the other elders to a parade where they were giving service at the Church's booth, and then got back to planning. We did a lot of planning for the Zone. We are trying to cast a zone vision and set goals to reach it. We spent most of the day doing that, and made a whole lot of progress. In the evening, we went to a barbeque at a member of the bishopric's house, then had some ice cream at another member's barbeque. At night, the city fireworks were right beside our apartment complex, so we saw them by just stepping outside! I have two ties that Elder Rosequist and I wore that day. One is red and white striped, and the other is blue with white polka dots. It was pretty patriotic, if I do say so myself...

The next day we had some great success finding! We tracted into a man named Bob who told us he was an inactive member. We exhorted him to honor his covenants in a kindly manner. Then just across the hall from him, we tracted into a girl named Karen. She was super prepared for the Restored Gospel! She told us she was looking for a Church. We taught her about the Restoration. She said she believes it could be true. She told us that if she found out it was true, she would be baptized into the Lord's restored Church. We left her with a Book of Mormon, and she was excited to read! She isn't a young single adult, though, so there won't be too many more updates on her before she's handed off to the family ward. But it was great to find her!!

Yesterday we had a great first lesson with a man named Ron. He was waxing his car outside his house, and we asked him to take the survey. All the while when he was taking the survey, he kept elaborating on his answers, explaining that there were different versions of the Bible, and asking questions like, "Why are there so many different Churches?" Of course we had to teach him. He still had a way to go before he finished waxing his car, so he was trapped. We taught him about how the Lord teaches us the Gospel through prophets, about priesthood authority, and about the mission of the Savior. He was shocked that we had the same beliefs regarding Jesus Christ and His Atonement. He had known a lot of members of the Church in his lifetime, but he didn't know we had those fundamental Christian beliefs. Glad we cleared that one up. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith and the translation of the Book of Mormon. He listened as he waxed, and asked us a lot of questions. Lastly, we testified that there is a prophet on the earth today. He said, "Wait. So-- you're telling me that there's a prophet now. 2014." I told him yes. "What's his name?" I told him, "Thomas Monson." He said he'd never heard of him. Then he stood in silence, and there was something big churning up inside his head. Finally he said, "Wow. I've-- No one has ever told me there's a prophet. I'll tell you what. What was his name?" We told him. He said, "Okay. I won't even look him up online. I'm just going to pray about it. I'll ask God if he really is a prophet. Then you guys can call me on Wednesday." I asked him why he wanted to know if he was a prophet. "Well, I'd want to know what he has to say! If it's true, it opens up a whole new door for me and my family." We testified that it would be important, and it would make all the difference in the world for his family if he found out our message was true. We invited him to say a prayer to close the lesson. He did, and it was very sincere.

A great week! I love you all and hope you're having amazing missionary experiences of your own. Choose the right!

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

A thought from Mom:

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.” ~ John F. Kennedy