POWERED UP!!!‏

Well everyone i am just doing great. Elder Appiah and i just took off our first week together and taught 40 lessons and found 13 new families to teach. It feels so good to just work hard and not have to worry about anything else. We are having such a great time together and we are just working diligently and we have been so blessed to be able to find these new families. And today was such a sweet day... got to go play football (soccer) for the first time in about 4 months. I've missed competitive things so much! But now every Monday i'll be able to enjoy that. Also this week i've started going running on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. I go with my companion and Elder Halterman, a missionary from the great country of Utah. This weeks is very short cuz honestly not too many things happened this week other than teach teach teach. I love you all and hope that your week went great!!
-Elder Rogers 

Finally not a white man!!‏

Well transfer news came and both of my companions left. Elder Maxfield to Makeni and Elder Khumoetsile to Bo. I'm stuck in town.... but i received Elder Appia... A Ghana man!!! Finally someone who isn't white! So this transfer President Ostler is doing something different. He has given a special calling to 8 missionaries (4 companionships) and here are the qualities he was looking for...
-2 Missionaries close in mission age.
-Missionaries who have a desire to work hard.
-Missionaries who aren't afraid to talk with people.
-Both of them will not have any leadership so they can 'put their shoulder to the wheel'
-Can speak Krio
-Have a desire to find, teach, and baptize kingdom builders and families.
We have about 180 missionaries in our mission so of course there aren't only 8 missionaries that would qualify to do this. There are many that are capable. Elder Appia and i have been chosen to serve together as one of the 'Dream Teams.' I hope that i don't sound boastful because that's not how i feel. It builds my testimony when i look back and see how the Lord has taken my weaknesses and made them strong, and now i have been chosen to do this. I'm very grateful for the opportunity that i have to serve with Elder Appia. I've been waiting for a companion that is from a country other than Utah. (Yes Utah qualifies as its own country). I'm excited because he works hard and is a great man. One thing about my new companion is he loves. to. laugh. Boku boku one! It's gonna be a sweet transfer and i'm pretty sure i'll be with him next one as well but we'll see. 

Now to the bittersweet news. Just before emailing Elder Appia and i went to the mission office to say our last goodbyes to the missionaries that are leaving today. One of them being Elder Sumrak. It's tough to see your trainer go but i know that i'll see him when i get home. I will forever be grateful to my Father in Heaven and to President Ostler for putting me with the trainer that i had. I learned so much from him and he showed me how to be a great missionary. I'll miss him but it reminds me how short time can be on mission. We'll thats all for this week! Love you all!
-Elder Rogers
oh and Elder Gherkins, my other trainer, is now an AP. I was trained by some good guys.

Life here is an adventure

World Cup‏

Hello everyone and welcome to the only sporting event that matters outside of America.... Football... with your foot. Not gonna lie everyone.... i wish i had tried it cuz it's pretty sweet if you're good at it... and it's not like we watch it because that's against the rules but this whole country revolves around football so everyone watches it... when electricity permits it. So almost every investigator we have is watching it when we go to visit them... yes its third world but they do have tv's. I'm missin sports right now.. and did you know that the USA is in the world cup? By the way we aren't the best at that but world cup is full of surprises so maybe we'll be able to beat Ghana tonight... if we do... i'm calling every Ghanaian that i've been in an apartment with. It'll be a huge win.. but i'm not here for that. This week was a very interesting week... it was so long. So much adjustment and so much change... but i am enjoying being back in the west. Today i went to Quick Takes and had a hamburger and fries... it's been a long time since i've eatin that. We went to celebrate Elder Sumrak hitting his two-year mark.. next week he'll fly home. So crazy. Well anyways transfer news is coming this week and also we have a baptism on Saturday. A father and son. They are some way sweet people but the mother isn't too supportive of it... but small small... she'll hopefully be joining them shortly. I love being in the West because i get to see all the people that i had left behind when i transferred to the East. I've seen so many people from when i was in my first area. It's so good to see them... its a bittersweet thing serving a mission so far from home. You meet all these amazing people and you work with them and build a strong relationship with them and you just love em so much and then you're on your way home. But that's not gonna stop me from having a good time and meeting some sweet people. I wish you guys could see what i see for even just an hour... you'd see a very destroyed country with some of the sweetest people inside. I love this country and the lessons that it teaches me each day... some of them are very frustrating and hard to learn but when you do get someone who does embrace this gospel it makes everything worth it. I love Sierra Leone. I love my mission.
-Elder Rogers

Welcome back Elder Rogers‏

Well everyone transfer news came in the form of an emergency transfer this time. Transfer doesn't end for two weeks but Friday night i received a call from Elder Bogh (my ZL) and he told me i'm being transferred back to the West!!! So now i'm back to where i started from. I'm sittin in the same internet cafe and i got to see Elder Sumrak today. Just like i never left... not sure why i was transferred but it wasn't my fault! It was just a switch either... 7 of us got emergency transferred... strange things are happening..... so here's the benefits i now have
-Electricity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
-Supermarkets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-I get to see my converts from my first area!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Probably the sweetest reason!!!
-I can now send and receive mail every Tuesday:)
-I get to see Elder Sumrak more
I thought i had a longer list to go through but that's about it. So i'm not the DL either... i'm with Elder Maxfield and his companion Elder Khumitsile until next week Saturday when Elder Maxfield will be leaving the area. My area is the Freetown area and this is the area that i was living inside when i was born..... I LOVE the east end but coming back to the west and smelling all the familiar smells and feeling the feeling of the busy city that never sleeps... it's just like coming home.... if you forget where home REALLY is. Its kinda crappy having one of your best friends as an AP because they know everything and they want to tell you everything but they can't so they give small little clues when they talk so you have to really be ready and discern everything that they say and the hidden meanings behind them.... for example Elder Sumrak called me on Friday during the day (Friday night i received my news) and just before we ended the conversation he says "Alright buddy well i'll see you sooner then you think" I said "well if its any sooner than Tuesday (zone conference) then i don't wanna see you cuz that means i'd have to be closer to you for some reason." I really didn't think about what i was saying cuz if i had then it would've hit me... but he just laughed and hung up..... taaadaaaa now i'm in the west. Anyways i think that's about all i have to say for this email... Doing great and loving the country! Love you all!
-Elder Rogers

Part 2- The long-suffering theory.‏

All missionaries will understand this title and feel my pains after i explain. So on mission i feel like one of the largest things we learn as missionaries is how to be patient in our sufferings... and you can see this because nothing is ever totally perfect. You'll have moments of joy and happiness but there is always something that needs fixing and mending... to obtain full peace, well that's the bittersweet part... the lord will always allow us to face something. For most of missions out there it may be spiritual, your investigators, personal, or even physical. For the Sierra Leone mission it's mostly in the aspect of physical. Like for example we finally fix the water problems in the Allen Town apartment and then a dog gets thrown over the wall of the compound and of course its cute so now we have to avoid breaking the rules in the white bible so after some heartbreak we through it out (and there wasn't one missionary in that apartment that wanted to get rid of that puppy so it stayed for a few days.... we're softies). So the dog is gone.... guess what.... someone has broken our pipe again and we're out of water..... that's a long example... so long story short...er, we finally handle the problem of the spoiled stew sickness (even though that was mostly stupidity) and what comes along..... a boil... in my armpit. By the way.... boils really hurt... but it'll go away soon and something else will come... hopefully another puppy. Hope you enjoy laughing at my sufferings cuz I'm laughing harder than you can... lovin this place and all that i learn!
-Elder Rogers

A cool experience...

This week i have no idea why but i would always ask my companion a question and within the next ten minutes we had the answer come to us... like for example on Tuesday night i received a text from President Ostler (after dancing around the room and showing everyone that i was important) I read it. He just wanted to meet with me and my companion on Wednesday morning after he did some baptismal interview for some of the missionaries in the area. Well on our way there i asked my companion "Do you think that President ever has to have someone sit in on his interviews and translate from English to Krio for him?" My companion replied, "No the spirit just takes it to their heart." Good answer. But the answer is actually yes he does sometimes. And as we walked up he was trying to find someone to translate for the next interview and he asked the candidates missionaries who would be able to do it and they pointed at me..... and then i got that feeling that i used to get right before big games.... ya know the one that makes me throw up. I didn't throw up but i did get to translate and man that was a cool experience. I got to see how President does his interviews and that will definitely help me with my own. I'm very blessed for that opportunity because most missionaries don't get to see how the mission president does his baptismal interviews. Sweet experience and the meeting we had after was sweet. So also this week we were so busy that we only had 12 lessons by the end of Saturday night.... only one day left so what do we do? We go to work. Elder Tanner and i left church and just went straight into proselyting. We ended the day with 8 lessons taught... not the only thing either.. we had 5 FM's (Free Meals)............................... missionaries do not starve in Africa.............................enough said.
-Elder Rogers