July 23, 2012

This week was great! Things are progressing very well in our area. The time we've been able to spend with Lucy and her family has been my favorite parts of the day, every day. They are so excited every time we come. All the kids run to get their chairs so we can sit in our big circle for the lesson. This week was the first week they all came to church together! They were well received by the ward members. I gotta brag about our ward members small, they seriously are the most powerful i have seen at fellowshipping new people into the church. Every one in Lucy's family had a friend by the end of the service. And tonight our relief society president is inviting her entire family over for family home evening! It's such a blessing to have such sweet members to work with. For Lucy and her kids, they are now praying about a baptismal date so i hope that day will be before i go. If not, that is fine as long as they get baptized! I just feel blessed to be able to have met them and introduce the gospel to them.

There has been so much success this past week with our investigators. Our rasta man is doing great! He is also praying for his baptismal date. It's been almost like instead of going from lesson to lesson, it's going from miracle to miracle. I am so excited with the way the work is going right now. We have been so blessed. I love going around with Elder Saili, we have been having so much fun with these investigators and our members. 

It's so crazy how soon i get back. I still don't think it is real and i know that day is going to come, but it still feels weird. It has been so cool to see so many miracles happening these past couple weeks. I have felt more intune than ever before. I don't want to finish my mission now that i feel so comfortable and one with the work. It's like i am getting to that peak right now, instead of the bottom. It's going to be a lot of fun to sit down and share mission experiences with all of you. We all have a lot of catching up to do, 2 years is a long time.  


Well, i hope you all had a great week too and have another one this week! I love you all!

Elder Rogers

Zack and Elder Saili playing baseball...Ghana style

July 16, 2012 {Email}

As a district today we watched 17 miracles and we all enjoyed the m&m's and skittles. That was my first time seeing that movie and it's gotta be one of my favorites! I'm also way grateful for the things to give to the ward members. I will do that in some kind of fun way for them before i go.

With the mission split things do feel a lot more focused. I know that President Shulz is very excited to see what we can do now as a mission. It definitely is weird being separated from them up in Kumasi. They gave both missions new phone numbers so there is no communication anymore, kind of sad. We had our council this week and a lot of it is just how we can better work with members and get them to do missionary work too. President and the AP's have been very inspired with the plan they have put together. We will be strengthening our members in missionary work a lot more then we have been. It's pretty cool to get these new ideas and we get to try them out on members that we already know very well. I feel so good with these members here, they are just like family. The work is going to improve even more as we put this new plan in motion.

Lucy and her kids are doing awesome!! We are hoping that they will be baptized before i go, but it's not set yet. The other night they all came to the church to watch the Restoration film with us. It was great and now the kids know a lot more about Joseph Smith. Lucy was teaching them all as the movie was going, just showing us that she has really made it a part of her life. We have been so blessed to be able to teach this family, they are so powerful.

Everything is going just great here! I hope all is well back home. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Rogers

July 9, 2012 {Email}

This week was another good one! We have been blessed with powerful investigators like Imeh (rasta man) and Lucy (the mother). Imeh came to church again and loved it. Lucy was sick on Sunday :( but she is very certain she will come this week. Both of them we are pretty sure will be baptized sometime but we feel we should let them get settled before we rush right into giving a baptismal date. I've always been the one to get so excited and just give it right away, but from the past i've seen those baptismal dates get postponed for various reasons. We want to set a solid date for them when they know they are ready for it! Hopefully in the next couple weeks we can have a date for them after they come to church one or two more times! With Lucy we had an awesome lesson on the Word of Wisdom and all of the little kids were sitting around. These little kids are smart telling us all of the things they shouldn't take ha they knew more then i did. We are having some difficulties with the older daughter because all of her friends are in another church and she wants to stay with them. She's a typical teenager ha and i can understand why she would do that.Everything is just going great here! I get to celebrate another birthday in Ghana this week so i'm stoked for that. We'll probably have a big coke and make some burritos ha i can't wait! Have a great week everyone! 

Elder Rogers

Elder Saili and me at Takoradi last week

The Cape Coast 1st ward

Victor and his family at his baptism

Our baptism on June 9th. Mankessim branch and Cape Coast 2nd Ward also joined us 

July 2, 2012 {Email}

So yeah, it is official that the mission has split. It's strange to think that Kumasi is now separated from us. Kind of weird that i served for a year in a different mission than i am in now. But it's going to be so awesome to see how both of these places can grow with having more focus from the mission presidents.

So last week i remember telling you that we were kind of having a hard time finding some serious investigators. Well, with a lot of searching and praying we have got some serious people now! One kid named Enoch Dadzie has been coming to church whenever he is back from school and he was here on sunday so we found out he will be back for a while at the start of August. So when he gets back he will be baptized on August 11th! We were so blessed to meet him and he is ready for it. We also had a rastafarian man we have been working with come to church. That was his problem, he accepted all the teachings and even had the desire to be baptized but the joining a church thing was the problem holding him back. We have been trying to just get him to come for over 3 weeks and this week he finally showed up with his sweet dreadlocks ha. I was very grateful that all the members were friendly with him there, and he loved it! We'll see where it goes from here but i really enjoy teaching this guy. 

We also had a woman named Lucy come with two of her children. Same thing, we have been trying to get her to come for a while too and finally she made it. When sacrament meeting ended our relief society president ran over to her and gave her a huge hug. I guess they are sisters! It was pretty sweet so now she has a great friend in the church! We'll also see where it goes with her! Everything is still great and now it's even better because we got some people acting upon the message. It makes the work exciting. I am thankful to be here.

Today for P-day we went to Takoradi to play football. I was so excited to go there because i have never seen any place in the cape coast mission except for cape coast itself. Takoradi is a way cool place and i wish i could've had some small time to serve over there but it's all good where i am now.

It's been a good week! I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Rogers