SOOOOOOO i didn't think the day would ever come that i would be saying this but.... i think my hair.... is thinning... every time i wash and dry my hair off... there's like 30-50 hairs chillin there.... nothing makes me more angry.... maybe i'm just shedding:) Lets just think positive!
Anyways life here is sweet! The East isn't so bad i guess but it's definitely not the West:) So this week we went as a zone to Bureh Beach and sorry i can't send pictures in the East but you'll see it eventually! But wow was it beautiful! I could've stayed there for the rest of my life!
So Tuesday was zone meeting and i got the opportunity to share a journal entry and man was that fun! I shared this experience... So Elder Sumrak and i always teach this one woman, Fatmata. She decided to cook for us tonight so she cooked FuFu. Which is just rotten cassava that they boil and it turns into like a playdough type substance.. you don't chew it.. you dip it in sauce, throw it in your mouth, and swallow.... so its gross. And the sauce she made for us had so much pepe in it that it would burn your skin! So long story short i was wiping my face with frozen water sachets to try and cool my face down cuz you don't use spoons so the sauce was all over my face... man it was hot. So that was my experience but man it was so sweet! I'm so glad that i keep a journal!
The other day we were chillin there and this giant spider crawls into the room.... so what do we do.. spray it with some superbug spray! That'll kill it! What we didn't realize is that it's gonna take at least a minute to die and during that minute... it's not gonna be happy. So we spray it and honestly it felt like a scene from Aliens vs. Predators with those spider things... that thing was chasing me around the whole apartment until it finally died. And it wasn't just running.. it had acquired the black trait of being able to jump... very far. So it was running jumping and trying to kill me... So why didn't i just throw my football at it??? Well... i tried that but something i realized is throwing a football at a large spider is... if you throw it you better hit it or it's not happy... Learned that one the hard way as well... but that way is even more fun because you get to really test your accuracy... and you have to throw it hard too... just a toss and the spider can catch it and throw it back (not really but they are fast enough to dodge it). So that's all for my hunting experience this week.
So our new investigator is such a sweet guy! His name is S. and man does he have one of the craziest stories ever! He accepted a baptismal date but he hasn't come to church for 2 weeks so we stopped by to see what's up... well he has a car and nice clothes and we always wondered where his money was coming from... we found the answer to both questions. We asked a woman by his house where S. was and she said at church.. Which church?? Yaway Earthly Ministries.Oh so when will he be back? When he's done preaching. Huh? Ya he owns three churches and they're called Yaway Earthly Ministries. In my head this is what was going on.... "Are. You. Freaking. Kidding. Me...... Well i guess he's about to baptize and donate his 3 chapels to the church cuz i'm not stoppin till he's baptized!!!" So that was a real bummer to hear but we're prayin and bein positive about it. After all... he does have a baptismal date:)
With love from Africa,
-Kaenahoovay Rogers
So i forgot to tell you guys about Big Joe! Big Joe is a tiny little gecko that hangs around our apartment and man he's cute. He just walks around on the walls and when you look at him he just freezes where he is and when you look away and then back he'll be like a foot closer to wherever he's headed. He's a stud. He eats all our spiders that are medium to small and we kill the big ones to protect him and he eats those too. Ya it's random but i thought i'd just let you know about our pet gecko. Til next week!
So this week went by so fast!! Elder Barrick and i are having the funnest time here! Not too much fun though... we know when to be serious! I am growing and maturing... slowly... but it's still coming! This week we had some crazy experiences... this one man we are teaching has been stealing from his company for quite some time so that he could get enough money to support his family. It's hard to tell people to stop because then they won't have any money and... ya you get the picture. So this man would always take care of writing checks for his company when they would buy things from other companies and every time he would write the check he would take 10,000 leones ($2.50) extra out of his companies account and take it with him... so after confessing this to us we told him to stop, and pray that when he tells his boss he won't fire him... so he did and he goes to tell him. After telling his boss his boss hangs his head and says "That's alright we're even... I've been keeping 10,000 from your checks each time." BOOM! We just helped two people follow the commandments... when he told us this story we were laughing so hard.... so a few months ago i told Jess about something that was squirming around in a pile of like soapy hair and dirt in the shower drain... that was in my last apartment and i never found out what it was... this apartment has shed some light on this one.... The other night I'm washing and something is squirming around in the soap that is making its way down the drain.... i just stop and watch it for a second and then what comes crawlin out of the soap... a centipede.... and like the spiders here they are way freaky... this one was multicolored with like neon colors.... oh and it was 6 inches long...... it was like a crawling sausage.... i screamed like a ten-year-old girl........ it was freaky. So that's my adventurous story for today. Something about my apartment is the view... so amazing... it looks over a river that winds through the peninsula and what is around the river.... the jungle.. it's so crazy! I just stand and look out over it...... none of it has people living there either... it's really the jungle. So beautiful. Anyways this week was sweet.. on Wednesday Elder Barrick and i went out at 10:30 to have our first appointment and we got bounced... so did the next 3 appointments... so we went to the apartment at noon and ate lunch and then we went back out at 12:45 and returned at 6 with 6 lessons taught! It was so sweet! I'm loving this transfer so much! I've loved all of them so much but this one is going so fast... Anyways i was studying the other day and i was reading in 2 Nephi 10:3-4 and as i was reading i just bust out laughing... Coach Hawes voice just flashed through my mind saying, "Jews......... Yall Serious!!!???" Read it and you'll see what I'm talking about... Chad will be the only one to understand the full effect but man it was funny. I'm currently learning 6 different languages and can greet in each one of them. They are Limba, Timini, SoSo, Kissi, Krio, and Mendai. I can speak Krio and i can almost bare my testimony in Mendai. I love learning and languages are probably the coolest things to learn.. everyone says i won't be able to speak them before i go home but i'm determined. So anyways that's all for this week! I tell you guys all the funny things but just know that spiritual things are happening and the reason i don't share them is because most of them are just really special to me so i tend to not share them but i'll start to add things about my studies and such. Keep reading those Books of Mormon!! Mallowai!
-Konokwao Rogers
The streak... meaning my streak of not throwing up has now come to an end.. not because i've been nervous and not because of anything other than... i got something not sweet. So Monday i arrived in Allen town and it wasn't a bad day........ the apartment is the sweetest and i had a lot of time to chill inside it this week.. Tuesday i had the runs so bad... like when i would drink water.. it would come out in 5 minutes and even sometimes when i would go to wipe.... BOO! ... all over my hand.. not sweet.. anyways that was Tuesday and Wednesday so we couldn't go out of the apartment... Thursday we gave it a shot.. we went out and my body was feeling fine and then out of nowhere around like 4 o'clock in the evening it all came rushing back... this time with nausea... so Thursday night was full of throwing up in a bucket while sitting on the toilet and .... you get the idea..... anyways Friday we stayed inside and then finally Saturday we went out and had a normal day... thank goodness. So throughout my sick days i read a book that elder Barrick let me borrow... it's called The Brothers and it's from The Great & Terrible Series. It was written by a Mormon writer and it is the sweetest! Mom, i would love it if you could find the whole series of 8 books and send them to me just one in each future package! And buy another set and read them! They are sweet! Elder Barrick is a way sweet companion and we are enjoying our transfer so far........ we had a ton of bonding time this week so it was nice! He is a very kind loving companion and he does a lot of things for me.... without me asking.. don't get the idea that I'm bossing him around... i've left my old ways:) The apartment is sweet the companionship is sweet... the area is suffering a little because of a Mormon who went anti-Mormon... so we're working on it... but hey life in the East really isn't so bad! Mallowai!
-Elder Rogers
Well transfers came and as they came i was just thinkin in my head.. please not eastend please not eastend.... "Elder Rogers will be going to the Allen Town apartment and the Allen Town area.... in Eastend." So i was sent to the red-headed stepchild.... hopefully its not so bad. I'm really missing King Harmon and I'm really missing my Belliar Park area... This area that I'm going to is not easy... and my companion is Elder Barrick from Idaho! He's from my MTC which is super rare.. 9 out of 10 missionaries don't serve with someone from their MTC so I'm blessed there... We are both fresh out of our 12 weeks of training... and he doesn't know Krio... thankfully i do.... kinda... Its gonna be super interesting! Our area is tough is what i hear... My last area i had 12 baptisms and in the same amount of time he had 3 so we have a ton of work to do!! I really don't like switching so many companions though... Elder Barrick will have been in this area for 2 transfers after this one so he is most likely gone so i might be getting another companion after this transfer.... i dislike switching companions so much.... it makes it very hard because just as you start to really enjoy and it starts to go by so fast then you get a new one and have to start all over again... its not so sweet.. but hey this transfer should be pretty fun... I really love the apartment i am going to be staying in.. it doesn't get as much light but it has so much more room! And it has such a sweet view of the ocean and it's up on a mountain (ya i left one mountain.. for another one) so it has a pretty sweet breeze! Anyways that's all i can think of for the moment so ill catch ya next week with more stuff about the area and about how the first week went! Mallowai!
-Elder Rogers
So Christmas has come and gone. I love Christmas here... you only get homesick for like 1 day because it feels like its August 25th here and there is not a lot of decorations and obviously... no snow, so that means nothing to make me homesick except for the call home! The call home was super awesome! It was so nice to talk with all of you and hear your voices. I can't believe that it's been almost 3 months now.... time does go by fast if you live in the day.. meaning you don't look forward to the end and you don't look back into the past. Its a very hard thing to do. But small small. So mom you were asking if i wanted anything to come in my package. Things i want are.... some more pens (but i think i already told you that) and some blueberry muffin mix that i used to get from Winco! Other than that you can put whatever you want in it and surprise me! Thank you for the Christmas package! I am definitely enjoying it and i love the football! Elder Oyetola is from Nigeria and he is in our apartment and he plays with it like its a rugby ball and i really think he thinks its one because he's never seen a football... im just not gonna tell him and we'll see if he ever figures it out. But the football.... is awesome... in fact i've already created a game with it. It's called "Kill Ball!" So pretty much what you do is you take the Kill Ball (football) and you earn points by throwing and smashing spiders, flies, mosquitoes, giant spiders, rats, champions, and....... cockroaches! Spiders are 10 points, flies mosquitoes and champions are 25 points, giant spiders and rats are 50 points, and cockroaches are worth 100 points cuz they are frickin fast! So that's Kill Ball and my evening entertainment.
So one of the opportunities that the missionaries that serve in Sierra Leone is to build up a very strong ward. And that's exactly what Elder Gherkins and I have really been targeting this transfer. Last Sunday was a missionary Sunday.. which means the missionaries do everything in church... talks, teach investigators class, elders quorum.... and guess who didn't get told that it was a missionary Sunday until 5 minutes before church... the missionaries.. so pretty much it was a day of chastisement and we really kind of unleashed on the ward how ridiculous it was and how crappy elders quorum is... sounds like we are horrible missionaries right? Wrong. Nothing worked better than this... Because before this we would have our investigators go home and skip elders quorum because they never taught out of the manual and they never had a lesson prepared.. at the beginning of class the teacher, whoever it was that stood up cuz the elders quorum presidency was never present, would ask what the class wanted to discuss today and then another man, Bro. Samba would stand up and talk about how many miracles he's seen in his life.... back to the story. We chastised and then after church we had a closed meeting with Bishop and we discussed what we needed to change so that church would be a better experience for our investigators as well as the members. Our Bishop is a great guy! He served in the Enugu, Nigeria mission and he knows all the problems with the ward but one man is just not enough to flip a ward around... so we set some rules for Elders Quorum. 1- We need manuals 2- Every person must sit within the first three rows 3- Bro. Samba isn't allowed to teach 4- The Elders Quorum President must be present and either teaches the class or assigns someone THE WEEK BEFORE to teach the class. So this Sunday... was awesome! It worked. Elders Quorum was awesome! It was definitely a place that we would want our investigators and it was just like back at home... kinda. But it was way sweet!
During elders quorum i saw that Paul Sesay's freakin awesome son Abubakarr was sitting outside alone. So i went and carried him into elders quorum and we sat in the back and i gave him my pen and a sheet of paper and taught him how to trace his hand... it was way sweet til he attempted to trace inside the hymn book. So that was my sunday... next week church time changes to 8:30 in the morning..... sweeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttt............. Anyways transfers are just around the corner.. we find out this week if we stay or go (hopefully stay).
So ever since i started teaching Paul i've just kind of been drawn to his and Abubakarr's relationship and i could never find out why. Paul and Abubakarr are ALWAYS together.. you never see one without the other even though Paul is 54 and Abubakarr is 2. They always are talking and laughing together and whenever paul is gone abubakarr has this very down look on his face. So i could never figure out why i thought that their relationship was so sweet and for some reason i felt drawn to it.. then one day it just hit me... their relationship is almost exactly how my relationship is with my dad! Its so crazy... from what i've always been told about how i would follow dad around and cry when he would leave and i would just hang out with him... this was exactly what it sounded like! So anyways i thought i'd just let you all in on that... Other than that there really wasn't anything else that was to crazy this week other than the usual stuff! Love you all! Mallowai!
Elder Rogers
So this week we had a ton of meetings with Christmas coming up. We also had 3 baptisms this week and they were so stressful but so sweet!!!! So
Grandma Ellis sent me a dear elder the night before i left for the MTC and i was there for 11 days so the dear elder came to my mission before i was there and before anyone knew who i was yet so they sent it to Liberia and i wasn't in that mission so they sent it to Johannesburg, South Africa.. guess what... i'm not serving there either. So finally it returned to the correct mission and i received it..... last week:) It was sweet tho! Thanks Grandma! And thank you to all who have sent me letters... and to all those who think they should send me one... it means you should so get on it!! You probably have one coming your way right now... so anyways as far as the call on Christmas goes... we're going to attempt to Skype.. ya that's right... Skype! So the schedule will go like this and you will have to sacrifice small but hey its okay cuz you all love me and would sacrifice your sleep and your Christmas for me right? Right. So we will be following this schedule...
---- at 1:00 (6:00 your time) I will be on for skyping and that will last for as long as the internet is good and this also might not happen because of it being Christmas and the cafes might not be open... so anyways you can still expect a call at 6:00 a.m. from me tho regardless because that's when i will tell you if we're gonna do it or not!
---- around 6:00 (11:00 your time) i will be calling and that will be our actual call call.. and the thing is president really wants us to talk with our families so Christmas is not a proselyting day and i can call you so that you guys can pay for it:) and i'll explain that when i get to talk with you and we can talk for .......... AS LONG AS WE WANT:) Which is way sweet! So i will be calling you guys and then i will tell you to call me back.... and also since i'm like 6000 miles away the phone conversations lag.. so if i just start talking and you start and i just keep going i'm sorry i'm not cutting you off i'm just trying to make sure that we make the most of the time that we have.... also i want you guys to write down any questions that you guys have that you want to ask me... one story i will tell you is about my spider story... it was a gigantic spider.... So tonight we have a dinner that the stake is putting on just for the missionaries so i'm way excited... well that's all for this week.... sorry its not full of stories and experiences.. love you all!!
- Elder Rogers
Ya that's right. They definitely fly but its kinda fun cuz they aren't afraid of you so they just fly at you so what you do is roll up a sheet of paper, step up to the plate, and bat away! They are invincible tho! You hit a home run and they go flying into the wall but they just get up and run away so you stomp on them cuz they run at you and if you just step they won't die.. you have to STOMP on them... like almost send your foot through the concrete floor... its so much fun! unless they get on you... that one is no fine! They bite and that is not cool.
So on to the week. I created this chart that helps us to see our goals and its so sweet cuz it worked so well this week for Elder Gherkins and i that we're trying to get it to become a zone-wide and eventually a mission wide thing! IT IS SO HELPFUL!
So I thought i would inform you of my most favorite food ever that i would eat over anything back home! Its called Nikki Soupwie if you're mendai but you're not so its called Ground nut soup and it is the most delicious thing ever! Can't wait to make it for you guys when i get home.... in awhile:)
So this week we had such a sweet baptism. Paul Sesay is his name. He is a 54-year-old man and i love this guy so much! I got the honor of baptizing this amazing guy! So everyday Elder Sumrak and i would walk past this man and he would greet us every day but we never felt like we needed to go talk to him... one day when we were walking past we just felt like... TALK TO THAT MAN! So we did. We stopped and shared the message with him and during the lesson this is what he told us..."Just the other day i was telling my wife that we need a new church, the one we were attending was not the right one." she replied with "Wait small" and then two days later.. BOOM!!! There we were! It was so sweet! He told us that if we hadn't come greeted him and told him about the message he was going to stop us and ask us what we are always doing walking past him... I got to baptize him and it was probably the sweetest thing ever.... after i pulled him out of the water he shook my hand and just clenched his fists in front of him just kinda with that "YES! FINALLY!" look on his face. After the service was all done he walked up to me, shook my hand, hugged me super tight, and told me that he will attend this church and his family will attend with him til the day that he dies.... i could see the light in his eyes! His spirit and joy of the gospel is so contagious! It is impossible to not feel the spirit when you are around this man...
I just want to finish up this email by saying to anyone who is considering not going on a mission... if i never had gone on mission i would never have met such a great man and he may not have been baptized.. you never know what could have happened but that joy that i saw in his eyes after his baptism is the reason that i don't want to go home... Its the reason i am here... just a white 18-year-old boy walking the hills of Sierra Leone to be a mouthpiece for the Lord to share the gospel through. And this is a message that will change lives and bring joy in such an amount that you will not be able to contain it, inside investigators as well as yourself. I can't stand to think about missing out on the experience and blessing of meeting and helping Paul to realize the amazing spirit that this church has. If you are thinking about not going.... go and thank me later! and with that, i will have to say Malloway
- Elder Rogers
Goodbye in Krio
Me i geh fo go sum sai just now. I day go na me oose. Buh we go see back on, i feel say, nah next Monday. Tomorrow!
I will translate/explain. So as you can see its just super bad English and the trick isn't so much in speaking it its a lot more difficult to understand when it's spoken to you. So pretty much what i said is "I need to go now. I'm going to my house. But i will see (email) you next Monday." the tomorrow at the end is something you just say... it's kind of like goodbye but honestly it's just something you say. If the person is somewhat educated then you don't say tomorrow cuz they actually understand...
