Relief Society President

Whats up whats up? We got transfer news and i'm staying as the new district leader of the Campus District. Elder Milne is staying with me and we are training a new guy from the MTC. His name is Elder Funk. He's actually from Logan and so is Elder Milne so they know each other and they went to school together so now i'm third wheel status for sure... but hey we're having a great time! Still a ton of rejections and laughs in this part of Tally but schools about to start again so that means we'll get even more rejection but hopefully more teaching appointments as well. Elder Jorgensen was transferred out of this area. Which really sucks but hey I've still got some time that i'll most likely run into him again. Missionary work is so different here and we actually do service here! Because of school we're now able to help members move back in as they return for the semester so we're doing good all around... and we're like professional movers. We have an investigator that just moved back for school and he's gonna be baptized on Sunday September 7th. We're pretty excited for him and he's a way cool guy. He's definitely ready and he has some good fellow shippers... that's a super blessing of being in a YSA... if you have an investigator.. there is member that is like them and they are around the same age as them so they actually can fellowship and hang out and do things together. 

Do you like Jesus??‏

"Do you like Jesus?" Is one of Elder Milne's favorite lines to catch someones attention as we're walking up to talk to them... he also will go jogging with anyone that he sees jogging... he's so freakin funny. Things are a little bit different in Florida than they were in Sierra Leone. We have light.... all the time. We have a washer and a dryer and that is probably the best thing about being back in the states. We ride bikes and have a car. There are lots of rednecks and a weird accent down here. One thing that i haven't had to much in my mission until now is rejection. Not everyone here will love to hear what you have to say.... its kind of a blessing though because you can see who is serious about the gospel and who isn't. I've gone tracting for the first time in my life and man i seriously love tracting... not all day every day but tracting is pretty fun for me. You never know who you'll meet on the other side of the door and most of the time they are drunk and you get some pretty good laughs and sweet memories. Its also cool when you find someone who is interested in the gospel and recognize us as servants of the Lord. The amount of lessons that we have over here is very different than over there. We have about 5 lessons a week.... no more 30 lesson weeks but the two missions have awesome parts and not so awesome parts and you learn from both sides. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in two missions. I will learn a lot from this mission that i didn't in my last one but i learned some things (mostly how to survive) in my last mission. Here's an experience from tracting... Sunday night after church meetings and many other meetings we were going around tracting at a huge apartment complex and we see one guy outside his door and this is a man that has been contacted before. We walk up to him and he's an elderly black man and we are talking and he wants us to come in and meet his wife so no problem we go inside... while we're standing there in his living room he just starts staring into my forehead and says "this one is different" and he keeps saying things like that and he doesn't even move or blink, just stares on. He says "you guys are all special but this one is different.. I'm not drunk. Well, i had a few drinks but I'm not drunk (he was freakin wasted). This one is different.... he has 3 eyes!" Alright sir we're outta here and never coming back... There's a lot of drunk and high people here... gonna be an interesting 14 months but I'm learning a lot from this place already and it's only been one week. So i keep remembering things that i could add to this so here's another thing that happened this week... because i'm coming from Africa we had to go to the doctor to get a TB test and a dewormer. So the doctor (one of the bishops here) asks me about this dewormer and what it's called so that he can get it for me and i told him i don't know "I do know that they call it 'The BOMB' if that helps at all." He replies, "Nope that's not enough information for me to know." So what he does is he searches through all these internet sites to find out about this... he finally calls someone from the church who would know about this "BOMB." He gets a hold of the guy and asks him "So what is this dewormer that they give to the missionaries when they go home from over there?" Elder Milne, Elder Jorgensen, and I are all in the room and listening to hear the conversation and we here the guy through the phone say "Well I'm not to sure on the specifics... i do know that they call it.... 'The BOMB.'" Doctor Morse kinda just chuckled and all of us missionaries were rolling around the room laughing! Absolutely love being with these guys. Anyways well one super sweet thing is that my P-Day is on Saturday so it's kinda like I have the weekend off.. except that on Saturday evening I'm not goin on a date with a girl.... i'm going tracting with two dudes... I absolutely love my companions though.. they make this whole experience pretty fun! Love you all!!
-Elder Rogers
SLFM-->FTM

His second mission call.

He's been transferred to....

As most of you know that the Sierra Leone and Liberia missions have been evacuated and the missionaries have been reassigned. So Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were all spent inside my apartment in Sierra Leone on lockdown. Sunday we packed and paid for some taxis to take our stuff to the mission home. We were broken into three groups there. 1-Africans 2-African sisters 3-anyone not African. Due to my white skin i was in group 3 and we were sent to the lungi airport hotel to wait for a chartered airplane to come pick us up... it didn't come until Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning we all left the hotel and got all kinds of health screenings to make sure that we were not sick with anything. Then we boarded the plane and headed to Portugal. On Saturday afternoon President Ostler called each district to give them reassignments.. i was assigned to the Ghana Kumasi Mission. Tuesday night in Portugal we received re reassignments and then i was assigned to the Tallahassee Florida mission. Wednesday early morning Elder Smith (the other missionary assigned to the same mission) flew from Portugal to Madrid Spain and due to airplane problems we were in Spain all day long fighting sleep and praying that we would leave soon. Finally we leave Spain and reach Miami at about 10:00 Wednesday night. The airline put us in a super nice hotel and we went straight to our room and slept for about 5 hours. Woke up and back on a plane to Tallahassee where we were met by Elder Welch and Elder McPherson, the assistants. For the past few days we've been sleeping, playing basketball (i miss soccer so much), and hanging out with the AP's and the senior couples. President Smith has been out of town doing interviews and they came to meet us last night. Yesterday we went on a shopping spree to a mall to buy all of the things that we needed because we had to throw so many things out due to weight restrictions on the airplane from Sierra Leone to Portugal. This morning we ate breakfast with President and Sister Smith and we were taken to our areas. I am serving with Elder Milne and Elder Jorgensen (my 11th and 12th companions) and we are assigned to the Florida State University Campus Area.... I'm goin to college!!!!! I may become an FSU fan but we'll see... i'm a ute at heart. One thing that kinda sucks down here is that i've now gone from how di bodi and krio to yall and southern slang..... if i come home with that accent.. just smack it out of me. Anyways i love you all boku!! 
-Elder Rogers
Florida Tallahassee Mission

The journey from Salone to Tallahassee