"Alright Satan..... i'll get another one."

Well this week was awesome! Silena White, our investigator, is extremely excited for her baptism coming up on the 22 of August and we're excited for her. We love going to teach her cuz she understands everything and she just soaks it all in like a sponge. She's got so much fire already and she's not even a member. The ward had a temple trip and she was super bummed cuz she wants to go to the temple SO bad. She's looking way past baptism and setting her focus on the temple which is something that i wish every investigator could do. She goes down to Gainesville, FL, quite often for treatments and she is always sharing the gospel with everyone. It's not uncommon for us to get a phone call from her as she's riding the bus down there. She'll be having a conversation with someone about the church and when they ask a question that she doesn't know the answer to, she'll give us a call and hand the phone over to the person that she's talking to. She left her Book of Mormon on the bus one time and when she got home she called the bus driver and asked her where her Book was and the driver said she didn't see it on the bus and doesn't know where it is.. What was Selina's reply? "Alright Satan..... i'll get another one." She's super funny and so awesome! Life is all good in the hood in Tally. Sunday was probably the highlight of the week! We went to church and guess who was visiting the ward before us?? Elder Dube from the First Quorum of the Seventy. He's from Kenya and he was part of the West Africa Area Presidency when i was there. So between their sacrament meeting and 2nd hour i was waiting outside the chapel and he walked out so i shook his hand and got to talk with him about Sierra Leone a little bit. Being around someone from Africa and talking about Sierra Leone was so sick... it made me so Africa Trunky all day. That was definitely the highlight of my week!
This weeks "sermon from the keyboard" is a little different. It's an activity that i learned from one of my companions almost a year ago and has helped me so much on my mission. Here's how it works. You'll need a piece of paper, a pen, and an envelope. On the piece of paper you write down something that is distracting you from your goals or something that is becoming a burden that is to "heavy" to carry... example for a missionary would be: "I'm worried about my family back home,"or, "I don't know what i'm going to do for a career path when i get home." I don't have a great example for a normal civilian cuz i'm not there yet.:) But find what is holding you back from becoming better and write it down on the sheet of paper... it can be one thing or it can be many things but write at least one down. Once you've written that down fold it up and put it in the envelope. Seal the envelope. On the envelope write the words "In the Lord's hands now." By doing this you are putting whatever is holding you back or whatever you are struggling with and you are putting it in the Lord's hands. For him to take care of. Tape it up on the wall, use it as a scripture bookmark, or place it somewhere that you will see it daily. When you see it you'll be reminded of what's inside and what you are leaving up to the Lord to take care of. Also do this prayerfully so that you are letting the Lord know what you're giving him. Once you put it up do everything in your power to leave it to the Lord. It's a hard activity to explain over email but it works! You don't have to share what is inside with anyone either.. you can if you want but i would advise keeping it to yourself. This activity will help you trust in the Lord and you will see that the Lord is in your life and supporting you and helping you through the things that you are struggling with. Try it out! 
-Elder Rogers

20‏

I am no longer a teenager everyone... i'm feelin the age pains in my back and my knees are stiffer than usual when i wake up in the morning but i haven't had to rely on my walker just yet! My birthday was pretty fun! We ate dinner at the Knudsen's which was super fun! Brother K took us for a ride in his 2008 Shelby GT500 (its a really nice really fast car). We helped some people move into the ward and that pretty much sums up the day. This week we taught a new investigator of ours, Silena White... who is not white:) she is golden! She has been coming to church and telling the members that she is getting baptized and that was before we even had the chance to sit down and talk to her about it. She has met with missionaries before and she knows pretty much everything she just needs a little refresher but we did get the chance to meet with her and she asked us when she could be baptized. So we said yes of course and the 22 of August is the day! We're super excited and she is too so it should be a really cool experience for all of us!

Alright this weeks keyboard sermon comes from 1 Nephi 7:17-18:
 17 But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.
 18 And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet, and I stood before my brethren, and I spake unto them again.
Notice how Nephi didn't just pray for the circumstance to change. He prayed and asked for the strength to change the circumstance. The Lord rarely will step in and change everything to the way that we want it. If he did that we would never grow or learn. However, the Lord is more than willing to help us in ways that are even greater than what we could reach on our own. This is called the "Enabling Power of the Atonement." Christ's atonement allows us to go beyond our own capacity and reach to new heights but we have to be willing as Nephi was to change our circumstance. So this week pray for strength to overcome trials and change your circumstances! 
-Elder Rogers

Me and Cameron Locke. My convert from 5th ward.
He's living in Orlando at the moment.

Transfers!‏

Hey everyone! Transfers was this week and that was the biggest event! Elder Jorgensen is now an Assistant to the President (not even a little surprised by that) and I got a new comp! His name is Elder Moss! He's from Albuquerque, New Mexico so Grandma and Grandpa Ellis you'll have to let me know whereabouts you served cuz you might have met his family. He's been out for 14 months so he'll probably be my last companion and he's a good one to end on! We get along super well. Elder Browning reminded me a ton of what it would be like to serve with Tanner. Well Elder Moss would be the equivalent of serving with Tommy so you can only imagine how we get along! The Transfer meeting is always extremely nerve-racking but i made it through. This week we found a lot of new people. One lady that we've been meeting with came to church for the second time in a row and hopefully we can get her to progress to baptism... we're in the early stages of her investigating but we have high hopes and she has great potential so we'll see where it goes! It's crazy to see so many of your missionary buddies going home! It seems to creep up every 6 weeks and then pow they're gonzos! I got to speak in church on Sunday (i almost made Elder Moss do it but i didn't wanna start our companionship off bad by making him speak.) I spoke on the topic of understanding and relying on the spirit and that is a topic that you could speak on and study for many many hours! To make a long talk short.... if it's a good feeling that is prompting you to do something good then its most likely the spirit and the only way to find out is by following it! So follow you're feelings! Love you guys.
-Elder Rogers

Work‏

Hola familia! This week... and the last 6 weeks have gone so fast! Another transfer down. Elder Jorgensen is being transferred so he'll be leaving on Wednesday and i'll find out who my new comp is then. Whoever this next guy is will most likely be my last companion! Time is a crazy thing.... well this week was awesome as well as fast! We taught some lessons to some people who are interested in the gospel! One of them is Yolanda Cowley! She's about 40, black, and super awesome. We had talked to her previously but she wasn't interested when we talked to her on the street but two weeks ago we were teaching her son and she keep listening in and then she asked a question and we invited her to come listen and we ended up teaching her about the book of Mormon and ever since then she's progressed! This week we were going over to her house to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ which includes baptism and we wanted to talk to her specifically about baptism and when we got there she asked us "Do i need to be baptized?" uhhhhh...... yes:) Then she went on about how she was "saved" but she wasn't sure if that was the right way to be saved and she wanted to know if there was a right way out of all the different ways that people claim to be saved! It was sick! The only problems we'll run into with her (that we can openly see) is she smokes a lot... which can change, and she doesn't have a car which makes it hard to come to church... but we have a member that lives in the same complex and gets to church somehow so we're gonna involve them and see what happens. 
President Smith's birthday was yesterday so "the pound" (the six of us missionaries that live together) made ties for each of us and then we made one for him and they're all matching. Then we went over to his house for dinner last night and gave his to him. It was really fun to have dinner with President and Sister Smith! They're good people and its so easy to feel the spirit in their home, there is such a peaceful, happy feeling in their home. 

This week's "Sermon from the Keyboard" comes from something that i read on a Minute Maid carton this week. On the side of the carton, it says "Put Good In. Get Good Out." Further down the carton underneath that slogan, it was "All because when it comes to life, we believe what you believe. The effort you put in is equal to the good you get out." That has got to be one of the best things that i've seen on a carton.... ever. Some times that's not how life goes but its true that the more effort that you put in, you are more likely to get good results out. This can be applied to anything. School, work, missionary work, exercise, relationships, and many other things can be changed to something better by the amount of effort we put in. It's extremely easy to see the perfect parallel into missionary work. The missionaries who work hardest most often have more people to teach than the missionaries who don't give an honest effort. My invitation to everyone this week is if you find that you aren't getting out what you want from something then ask yourself "Where can i give more effort?" There is always more effort to give and areas of improvement. I as well will be looking for ways to give more effort to missionary work! That's all i got this week! Love you!
-Elder Rogers

My newest tie.

Check this picture out:) Elder Singley and i went to Crawfordville
to do a baptismal interview and found this on the side of the highway:)
Elder Singley said,
"a wise man once said that if missionaries stand in front of a billboard that says "We love you Jesus",
it is the essence of 'Pimpin aint easy'."

Motivation.‏

What up what up!? This week was super awesome! We were able to teach quite a bit and we were able to find a lot of people. It was a fast week! This Sunday we find out our transfer news again... freaking again! It's going sooo fast! Well this week Elder Jorgensen and i taught in a zone training about how to be motivated and what happens when we are and when we aren't. We had our zone gather into a circle and pass around 4 dodgeballs... 2 of them were full of air and 2 of them had no air. We passed them around and tried some bounce passes with the flat ones and then we talked about it. We discussed how the 2 balls with air in them represented "pumped up" missionaries, who are effective because of being motivated, and we discussed the other balls, which were flat, and how they were the opposite. It was fun and hopefully the zone got something out of it. We taught about 3 main things that help us to build our motivation... 1-Build confidence through gratitude and focusing on the blessings in our lives instead of looking at our weaknesses. 2-the next step is focus. If we aren't focussed on what we want then we won't be able to get there... we can often focus by setting a short term goal. 3-Direction. In Alice In Wonderland there is a part where she has a conversation with the Chesire Cat and it went like this....
Alice: "Would you tell me which way please, i ought to go from here?"
Cat: "That depends a good deal and where you want to get to."
Alice: "I don't care much where."
Cat: "Then it doesn't matter which way you go."
When it comes to direction it helps to stop every so often and ask ourselves "Do i know where i want to go?" and following that question should be "Am i walking the right path to get there?" Direction is HUGE when it comes to motivation. You can't be motivated if you don't know where you wanna get to! Well that's about it for this week! If any of you guys that read this are struggling with motivation try these things out! 
-Elder Rogers

4th of JULY!!!‏

Wassup wassup! This week was a lot of fun! It went by lightning fast! Monday was a normal p-day but we played some basketball and that's always fun. I love me a little 2 vs. 2 to start the week off! Tuesday was crazy! Elder Jorgensen and I were at the family history center from 2-9 pm working with people on their family history. It was good too cuz at about 5 pm two tornadoes touched down in Tallahassee and did some work on the trees over here. It wasn't really bad. No one died and the only damage that was caused came from falling limbs. A house down the street from us had a nice hefty limb through the roof and a couple cars got crushed but hey everyone's good here. That night however there was no electricity in our duplex. It was just like Africa... coming home to no power! So remember the love shack that i wrote about a couple weeks ago?? Well they are hooked to a different street for electricity and that street had power so all 6 of us missionaries slept in this 1 bedroom 1 bathroom shack for the night. There's a bunk bed there but that is for the companionship that stays there so they were in the bunk... the other 4 of us threw together 2 mattresses and built some unity throughout the night! It was an experience to never be relived:) 
Wednesday was MLC in Crestview Florida and that was super awesome as usual. President and the others that taught did a great job and we felt very instructed and uplifted by the end. The best part of MLC was being able to chill with my boy Elder Browning! We even got to sit next to each other which never happens when you want it to! 
We were road trippin hard on the way there and back... we took a van from tally to Crestview and picked up some companionships about halfway so there were about 10 of us missionaries packed in a van just having a good ol time singing songs and telling great stories.. it was so much fun! The rest of the week was nothing really too much out of the ordinary other than our sick 4th of July party over at the Knudsen's! We ate dinner and just chilled with them for a little and had the best time! We also had lunch at the institute with the campus district and all the senior couples and that was a blast! We had a steller week and had a lot of fun! 
This week the big lesson that i learned and wanna pass along was something that President Smith said in MLC. He was teaching us about praying and helping our investigators to pray and he told us this about the position in which we should pray, "On your feet or on your knees but never in your seat." I thought that was super interesting especially when i thought about it.... if you were in front of a king you would kneel and speak respectfully to him... you wouldn't sit back and talk to him like a homie. Yes He is our friend and He loves us but our language and even our position shows an amount of respect for our Father in Heaven. We should always try our best to be the most respectful to God... after all he is the one that gives us EVERYTHING. So this week i wanna invite everyone to focus on saying kneeling morning and night prayers. Also if you have a hard time staying focused while you pray, go into a separate room and speak out loud... it's weird at first but it helps you stay focused and you feel very satisfied with your prayers when you're done! Have a great week!
-Elder Rogers

Shout out to the World Cup Champions the U.S. Women's soccer team! #america

Elder Dalley.
He is the bomb.com.
He's my favorite senior missionary of all of them.
He's in the FSU institute so he was in my first district when i came from Africa. He's awesome

                                         Dueling sparklers