Sweet Home Alabama‏

Well everyone I've finally done it. I've been transferred to somewhere that is not the main city of the mission... and where I'm at is not a city at all. This is a town. I went from the city of Tallahassee, which is the furthest east in our mission, to the town of Atmore, Alabama, which is almost as far west as you can get in our mission. It's a 5-hour drive and it felt like it. Anyways I'm in Atmore, Alabama. This is a small town... really small. My new companion is Elder Riddle. And it is the craziest thing that we never met before our missions. He's best friends with a lot of my friends from Junior High and he graduated in 2013 from Northridge. He's from Layton. We are almost the exact same person. We have the same likes and dislikes... we're so alike that it's a little weird sometimes. We both just got put together in this area so that means we are whitewashing which is a term that is used if you are taking over an area and you are both brand new to that area. We are having so much fun! We haven't had a dull moment yet and we are killin it out here in this small town. Saturday we attended a baptism in our building. You could fit the whole building into the cultural hall of the stake center back home and that isn't an exaggeration. Sunday night we had our Branch Christmas party/dinner. It was really pretty fun and it was great for Elder Riddle and i to be able to meet all the members... all 45 of them.... and introduce ourselves. It's kinda nice to not have a giant ward cuz you can meet everyone and get to know everyone really well. Funny story for the week... So Sunday morning at about 3 a.m. i wake up cuz i drank a ton of water and have to use the restroom.. well I'm in a new apartment and I've been in it for about four days at this point and its setup is similar to the one i came from except for when you're in my room the bathroom is outside of the room and there are two walk-in closets instead of one walk-in closet and the other door is the bathroom (that's how it was in Tally). So i get up and we had previously put bedsheets over the windows so that it would be really dark in our room and its so dark that your eyes don't adjust to the amount of light coming in cuz there is no light in the room... not a single ray. So i get out of bed and its dark and I'm disoriented so i head to the door that i think will lead me to the bathroom.... and i walk in and feel the walls for the light and i can't feel it and all i can feel is clothes which was super confusing but i still felt around and so i thought maybe there is another door in here that leads me to the bathroom so I'm feeling around for a knob and i can't find one and i can feel that the back wall is maybe 3 feet from me and i was so frustrated cuz i had to go BAD and i can't find the stupid door to get out of the room so I'm panicking as well (keep in mind that its 3 in the flippin morning). So anyways i am just so annoyed and frustrated cuz i can't find the way out and I'm trapped in my room... so i go lay back in bed and that's when i realize that i had gotten up and walked to the wrong wall and i had walked into my walk-in closet looking for a way to the bathroom... so i got back up and went to the bathroom no problem... so that's it... i stood in my closet for 5 minutes or longer trying not to wet my pants.. moral of the story.. there is such thing as "too dark." Well if that wasn't funny then sorry... that's how it is round these parts uh Alabama... gots ta laugh at the dumb stuffs. I want you all to know that this Christmas i have learned so much and my testimony has changed so much. I have felt a deeper gratitude for our Savior and what he went through for us. He is our Gift and he brought us The Ultimate Gift. Love you guys! Merry Christmas!
-Elder Rogers
New Address-
710 E. Laurel St. #206
Atmore, AL. 36502