Christmas and My Last Week in Melo

December 29, 2014

            So Christmas was awesome. We watched fireworks and had an asado.  We also played some games with the other missionaries in the house and we ate ice cream and drank some Coke.

            Yesterday was changes and I found out I am going to the city Vergada in the zone 33. The zone 33 is a ton like Melo; they are both very calm places and are smaller towns. I found out that Vergada is a very small town, and I don`t know a ton about my companion but I do know he is from Chile.

            I will try to send a picture of the Pelaez family next week (my sim card is giving me troubles).  The Pelaez family is super awesome. We helped get them reactivated into the church. It is going to be hard to leave them actually. When I was saying goodbye to them, they gave me a tie so I could remember them.

            Elder Ashcraft (my last companion) is staying in the area and is going to be training a brand new missionary. He is really excited.  In our mission it is like a privilege to be able to train, so he is super-excited to be able to train.

            I hope you all had a great Christmas and I hope you have a Happy New Year!!!!

Elder Rogers

 

Christmas is Coming

December 22, 2014

            So.... Christmas is next week; that is so crazy. The time is just flying by this year. It doesn´t feel much like Christmas here probably just because it is so hot, haha. 

            So for Christmas it is basically just a normal work day for us except that we get to skype!!! The parties and stuff are on Christmas Eve here. Christmas Eve is a lot bigger here than Christmas. 

            So for Christmas Eve we are going to go to a family party at the house of a member at around 7 o clock then at 10:30 we will be home and that night will watch fireworks until around 12:30. Here that’s what they do for Christmas Eve is fireworks.  They don´t give out presents until kings day which is the 6th of January.

            This week we had a Christmas Conference that was really good/ For the Christmas conference every zone on the mission prepared songs to sing at the Christmas conference. Some of the zones sounded really good. Our zone sang a Christmas song, I thought we sounded pretty good. 

Write you next week,

Elder Rogers

The Holy Ghost Changes Lives

This is a picture of me and my campanion Elder Ashcraft. 
We took this picture in front of the church. 
The church that we go to is the stake center, so it is really big church for Uruguay

December 15, 2015

Hello Everybody

            How has your week been? This week has been pretty crazy for me, but by the end of the week it was nice and relaxing.

            This week we got a lot of less-active members to go to church it was so awesome to see them there at church. We also had a really cool experience with an investigator. So this investigator doesn`t really like the church that much and she goes to another church, but her brother in law (who is a member) made her promise to go to church just once. So she said she would. She said that she would about a month ago and so we thought she wasn`t going to go anymore. But this week she came.  Me and my comp were so excited and we asked her about the church after and she said that she really liked it and she felt peace and so now we are going to start teaching her. 

            It is so amazing how much we can feel the Holy Ghost in the church and how once people go to church they can feel that peace and love of God. 

Have a great week!!!!

Elder Rogers

Here is a picture of just some clouds here in Uruguay.  Here the sky is so

awesome it is so big and really blue. The sky looks a lot bigger because there

are no mountains and there are no really big buildings where I am at, so

the sky looks so much bigger than it does in Utah.

 

 

It’s Hot, Hot, Hot

This is a picture of Tatiana and her mom.  She got baptized a couple of months ago. 
She is going to go on a vacation and so we took a picture before she left.

December 7, 2014

            Hey everybody how are you all doing?   So this week it is starting to get hot, hot, hot and in Uruguay it is really humid, especially a couple of days before it rains. It is supposed to rain in a couple of days and so right now it is crazy hot. 

            So last week me and my companion bought a chivito (the picture is at the bottom) they are really good.  It is basically like a giant hamburger; it has lettuce, tomato, mayo, meat, and bacon and all of that good stuff, haha. 

            Me and Elder Ashcraft (my companion) are doing really well.  We are getting to know each other a lot better and a couple of things that we have in common are we love sports, especially football and basketball, so we talk about that a lot. He has 17 months on the mission and is from Nampa, Idaho. 

            So an interesting thing about Uruguay is they love mayo, like crazy love it.  So with almost every meal people eat mayo.  For example a lot of times when you have rice and meat you add mayo to it. Or if you eat a milanesa (like deep fried hamburger or chicken) you always add mayo. So ya that’s about it for this week.  Not a ton happened, haha. But anyways..... Have a great week!!!

Elder Rogers

This ia Chivito

Are You Ready for Christmas?

Are you ready for Christmas?

December 1, 2014

            Hey how are you all doing?  So this week me and my companion have been working crazy hard and we are just always working and trying to get better at teaching together.

             This week we found this lady on the street and we started talking to her and she was speaking Portunal (Portuguese and spanish together). It was so weird because even though it is basically a different language me and my companion could understand like generally what she was saying, so that was pretty cool and my companion is going to try and learn Portuguese so it will be cool to talk with her.

            Today it is raining like crazy the streets are flooded and it is pouring hard. Haha.  The past couple of days it has been so hot because of the humidity.  The humidity is like the water in the air and in Uruguay a couple of days before it rains it gets way humid here and it gets way hot.

            So how was everybody’s Thanksgiving.  Here they don´t celebrate Thanksgiving so it was just a normal day for us. We actually fasted on Thanksgiving haha.  Me and my companion were thinking we must be some of the only people that are fasting today, haha,

            Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, write you next week

Elder Rogers

My Christmas chain

 

Breakfast for Dinner

 

November 24, 2014

            Hey how are you all doing?   I´m doing great.  So last week was changes and I am with my new companion now, Elder Ashcraft.  It was sad to see Elder Mata go, but it seems likes me and Elder Ashcraft will get a long pretty well. Elder Ashcraft likes football and basketball and he is from Idaho and has about 16 months on the mission.

            Something really awesome that happened recently is we got basketball rims. Before then all we had was a basketball backboard, but just recently they installed rims, so me and Elder Ashcraft go and play basketball a lot in the morning. It´s really fun, but the only problem is the rims are smaller, so it is harder to make baskets and also the hoop is lower so I can almost dunk it, haha.

            We did a really awesome activity (all the missionaries did) this week.  We had breakfast (from the U.S.) for dinner. It was really awesome I taught everybody how to make pancakes. There was also orange juice, eggs and because syrup doesn´t exist here we made like a fruity topping syrup-like stuff and it was really good. Everybody seemed to like the food from the United States.

            This week has been kind of crazy. We have been working super hard and have been talking to a ton of people. I hope you all have a great week and talk to you next week.

Elder Rogers

Elder Mata and me

 

Mission Conference and a New Companion

November 17, 2014

Hello, how are you all?

 
           This week has been pretty crazy for me. We went to a multi-mission conference. It was our mission and the other Uruguay mission. Elder Christiansen from the presidency of the seventy talked. It was really good. He talked a lot about questions that missionaries have.  For example, he taught how to invite the spirit better in charlas and just a lot of questions like that.

            Also this week was changes, so I am staying in Melo and my companion is leaving.  It´s so weird to me. I don´t know. My new companion is Elder Ashcraft I have heard that he is an awesome guy, so I´m really excited to work with him but I´m also kind of sad to see Elder Mata leave. But that’s how life works, haha.

            Elder Mata is going to Parque de Plata. It is pretty close to Montevideo (the capital). He is also going to be a district leader for the first time, so that is pretty exciting. 

            Hope you guys all have a great week,

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

Playing basketball with my roommates

November 10, 2014

            So this week went by so fast it was crazy.  One thing that I did that was pretty sweet was I made some chocolate chip cookies and they were pretty good. One thing that is kind of weird here is they don´t have chocolate chips so I just bought a chocolate bar and cut it up into pieces and it totally worked, so ya, that was pretty sweet.

            One thing that was kind of sad about this week though was not a lot of people went to church this week. I have no idea why, but we are just going to try to get more people in church next week. 

            Last P-Day everybody that lives in our house played basketball together but the only problem is that it is crazy humid here and I don´t think I have ever sweated so much in my life. We had to stop and take a break like every 10 minutes because it was so hot. But it was fun to play some basketball again. Ya here like the only sport anybody cares about is soccer, soccer, soccer. It´s insane everybody watches plays and love soccer.

            It is starting to get hot here. Even though the temperature isn´t very high, the humidity makes you sweat like crazy. But I guess in the summer it is a lot hotter than now. 

            Hope you all have a great week.  I´ll prepare for the heat and I hope you can prepare for the cold. Talk to you next week.

Elder Rogers

Hola

November 3, 2014

            Hello everybody how are you guys? So this week has been a pretty good week. 

            So this week was Halloween; that just seems so weird to me.  Here Halloween is not very big at all, :( We didn´t see one house with decorations and really only the little kids go trick or treating. The sad thing about trick or treating here though is very very few houses give candy.  It is usually just stores and they only give them like hard candies that cost like a couple of cents. My companion and I tell the people here about Halloween in the states and they all say they wish it was like that here.

            So last week we had a multi zone conference. It was awesome. The president of the mission and his assistants come to our zone to share messages with us and stuff. When they came up here they focused a lot on teaching tithing and the word of wisdom, because they can be really hard to teach sometime. We focused a lot on promised blessings if they follow these commandments and it´s true. It’s weird how tithing can help us so much, we talked a lot about little stuff like because you pay tithing doesn´t mean you automatically get a pay raise a lot of times it´s the smaller things. Like less medical bills and stuff like that.

            We also talked about the word of wisdom because that´s hard for a lot of people.  Smoking is something a lot of people do here, so it is hard for them to stop, but if we teach by the spirit and let them know how much better their life can be, it will be a lot easier for them to stop.

            But anyways I hope you all have a great week and don´t eat all your Halloween candy too fast. 

Ciao

Elder Rogers

 

Voting is Over!

October 27, 2014

            So this week has been pretty awesome. One thing that I am very happy about is that vorint is over, haha. Voting here is crazy. Here it is required to vote. The presidents that run get paid for every vote they receive, so for the past month here we have heard the same music (music that they use for the candidates) over and over again. All the missionaries know it by heart because we have all heard it so much.  So I am very excited that it is over.

            So one really cool thing that has happened this week is we got some really good lunches this week I don´t know why, but the lunches have been so good. I am so glad that most of the time we get fed by members because if we didn´t our lunches would get pretty boring.

            Last Monday me, my companion, and the zone leaders that live in the same house with us all went to Acegua, Brazil. It’s so cool we can go there because that is part of our zone. Our zone only has a little town in it. To get to Acegua, it is about a 50 minute bus ride. We went to Acegua and ate some really good food, then we went shopping there (because Brazil is a lot cheaper than Uruguay), I bought stuff so I could cut my hair. I´m going to cut my own hair today so I´ll see how that works out.

            Have a great week!!!!!

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

Armando looks kind of scary in this picture but he is not scary at all (haha)

October 20, 2014

Hello Everybody

            How are you all doing this week? This week has been crazy for me.  I got to do a baptism (ordinance) for the first time. It was so cool, scary and awesome.  The man’s name is Armando and he is 67 years old.  We met him on the way to a lesson and talked to him a little bit and said we could visit him. Then when we went to visit him, he was home and invited us inside (most people don`t invite us inside, haha).  It was so awesome how things work out, but anyways Armando is a really smart guy and is really funny.

            So right before the baptism my companion and I were crazy stressed because we could not find any white pants for him. We checked in the church, in our house, and talked with the bishop but there were no pants that were his size. So that was crazy; the day before we looked for pants for hours and didn`t find anything. That night when we got home (after having kind of a bad day) I was looking for pants and in our house. We have couches and on the couches there are always blankets on top that cover the couches (because the couches aren’t in the best shape haha). So I lifted up the blanket and there was a pair of white pants that would fit him. Such a cool experience. If I hadn’t found those pants I have no idea what we would have done.

            So before the baptism and basically all of Sunday I was so scared because I have never baptized anyone and now I`m baptizing a guy who is like 6’ 2” and is probably around 220 pounds and I have to do it in Spanish as well. Here people have long names so I had to remember his full name which is 4 names. But everything worked out and it all went well.

            The last thing that I`m going to talk about is, here they are voting next week so for like a month they pay people to drive around cars and motorcycles with giant speakers and advertise the presidents and stuff and they play the same songs over and over and over again. It is crazy annoying; all of the people here are super-annoyed by it. I can`t believe how big politics are here .

            Hope you all have a great week

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

Guidelines for Sending Packages to Elder Rogers

According to Michelle, here are some guidelines for sending packages to Uruguay:

It takes about 2 1/2 months for him to receive packages.  Only mail packages through the U.S. Post Office (not FEDEX, UPS or any other carrier).  You can send use first class mail packages in your own envelope and that might be the cheapest way to go if the package is somewhat light.  Or you can send one Flat Rate Priority Mail.  The Flat Rate rates are:

$24.75 - small
$61.75 - medium
$80.50 - large

You can determine what the cost of mailing your package through 1st class mail would be by going to usps.com and "calculate postage."

Do not send any packages larger than 4 lbs. (even with the flat rate package) or more than $40 in value.  When you declare the value of the package, estimate low on the value and make sure it is not over $40 or 4 lbs. or it will be confiscated.

Do not send:
-Homemade food items
-medicine
-personal hygiene items

Dominique loves peanut butter and candies with peanut butter.  He also likes to make maple syrup with maple extract, so you could also mail him maple extract.

Mail packages to:
Elder Dominique Rogers
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis
Malvin
11400 Montevideo
Uruguay

Hola From Uruguay

October 13, 2014

Hola,

            This week has been pretty good even though it has rained a ton here. It is so weird; here it was really hot a couple of weeks ago and now it is pretty cold and wet. I am really glad that I brought some waterproof shoes because down here when it rains, it rains.

            There has been so many crazy things happening this week, it is just crazy.  But some of the things that are really good are that right now we have like 3 really good investigators and about 2 more that we are working with some more. We might even be baptizing this 60 to 70 year0old guy named Armando next week.

            Just recently we had cambios (or transfers) for this week.  We have cambios every 6 weeks. Cambios is when you find out if you are going to get a new companion or leave your area. In my mission, the average amount of time a missionary is in an area is 3 cambios so about 18 weeks. Usually you will be with a companion for 1 or 2 changes. So what happened to me is I am still in the same place, Melo, and I am staying with my same companion, Elder Mata.  I was expecting that I was going to stay because I have only been here for one change (6 weeks), and I am really happy that I am staying here because I really like my area.

            One thing that is kind of sad here is that when it rains in Uruguay on Sunday, the church attendance drops in half, it is so different than the states, ha ha.  Hardly anyone has cars and a lot of people have to walk or they take a motorcycle or moped. So when it rains they don`t want their kids to get sick from the cold and they don`t come. But we still got two investigators to church, so that was a big plus. We also had some less-active people that haven`t been to church for a while so that was really cool.

            I hope you all have a great week and don`t have too much fun.

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers 

General Conference was Awesome!

October 7, 2014

Hola,

            This week was awesome!  We had an awesome General Conference. I felt like it was given directly to me.  One really cool thing about the General Conference was that I got to watch it in English, so that was really awesome, I heard that some missionaries in my mission didn´t get to because the church they were in didn´t have it in English.

            One of the speakers in the conference was from Uruguay.  That was so cool. We were all super excited to hear him talk and it was also awesome that he went on a mission here in Uruguay as well. He actually lives in our mission in a place called Venus I think.

            Another really cool thing they did with conference was that some of the speakers spoke in their native tongue. That was really awesome for the members down here to hear a general authority or a member of the Seventy, speak in Spanish. That was so cool they did that.

            One talk I really liked a lot was Elder Bednar´s talk because he spoke mostly to investigators or nonmembers who were listening to General Conference.  We had an investigator at Conference and he really liked it.  I think he said his favorite talk was Elder Bednar´s.

            General Conference is awesome and I learned so much more this General Conference than I have in all the other ones that I have watched previously. I hope you all have a good week.

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

My First Two Baptisms!

Alison with Elder Mata and me

 September 29, 2014

How is it going everybody?

          So this week has been so crazy, we have been working crazy hard and something super awesome happened, I got my first baptism!!! It was such a cool experience!  The 

 

picture is of a girl named Alison and she is 8 years old and her mom is a member but her dad isn´t so we taught her the lessons. We had that baptismal service at 12:30 right after church, and she was baptized by the other companionship in our area because we had a baptismal service together (they had a baptism also) and it was a lot easier for one of them to do it.

          The older girl is Tatiana and she is 14 years old and she is super awesome. We have been teaching her for around a month and her mother is a member and her dad is not a member. For her, we had the baptismal service at 3 o clock on Sunday and her uncle baptized her and he was baptized like only 4 months or so ago. Super awesome experience I am so glad we could share the message of the restored gospel with her.

         So next week is General Conference!!!! I'm so excited for that; it is going to be so awesome. I am pretty positive that I get to watch it in English, so that is really exciting. It is so awesome that we have a prophet and apostles in these latter days.  It is so important to me. It is so important that we do because if we didn´t, we would be totally lost.

       Last thing:  I got to try cow stomach and it was pretty gross, I am not going to lie. It is basically like the fat part of a steak like the really chewy part and that is all you are eating.

      So I hope you all have a great week and next week my p day is on Tuesday, so I won’t write until Tuesday next week.

Sincerely,

 Elder Rogers

Families on Motorcycles and Baptisms on the Way

Me and Elder Mata

September 21, 2014

Hello, 

       So this week went by so fast I couldn't believe it. I felt like it wasn't that long ago that I was writing, ha ha. Anyways, so this week is awesome! We got some firm investigators and probably will be having some baptisms next week!!!!!! 

 
      One thing really cool about Uruguay is that everybody drives motorcycles. Hardly anybody has a car; everybody just has a motorcycle.  It blew my mind how many people you can fit on a small motorcycle. I have seen a family of 5 on one: there were 2 adults and 3 younger kids. I can't believe how people just put their 5 year-old kid on the back of one and it is just normal, like they are not even scared of them falling off or anything.

      So my Spanish is coming along. I felt like I have learned more this week than I have any other week on my mission, so that is good, but I still have a lot to learn. I think it’s funny that in so many of my conversations I have the person I am talking to thinks that I understand everything and I just keep smiling and nodding my head, ha ha.    

      I am starting to be pretty familiar with the area now, I didn't realize how long it takes to get used to an area. Here they have street names and that can be really difficult sometimes because it takes us a while to try to find the name of the street and where they live, but that is okay. 

      Have a great week!!!!!

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

All the missionaries living in our house

 

Some awesome pancakes that I made

2nd Week in Uruguay

This is me holding a machete


September 15, 2014

         So this week has been really fun.  We have been trying to get a lot more teenagers going to church. The missionarys before me started doing mutual. It's really cool, but the problem is that there are like no girls going so me and Elder Mata have been trying to get more of the girls to go. 

         So for Mutual last week we played ping pong and down here in South America ping pong is really big.  A lot of people play it. I didn't realize how much mutual can help people go to church, or just less-actives to go back to church. We actually have two kids named Julian and Lucas; they are 9 and 11. Their Uncle is the guy who is with us when we do mutual and they aren't members.  We have started to teach them and they are super cool. Most of the kids that go to mutual are 12 to 18, but since their uncle helps us we are happy to let them come, they have already been to church twice!!!

          The weather down here has actually not been that great, ha ha, It has rained for almost a week straight and it can be really cold sometimes. But it blows my mind how when it is cold no one is outside and for instance this week they canceled mutual because it was raining, I thought that was so weird because in the states that would never happen. But here a lot of people drive motorcycles or walk, so it makes sense.

         I hope you all have a great week.

Sincerely, 

Elder Rogers

 

This is my campanion Elder Mata

Uruguay Is Awesome!

September 8, 2014

            Uruguay is really awesome! The members are too.  We get fed almost every day for lunch and it blows my mind how most of the people that feed us are inactive. But we are trying to work on that, haha.

            So in my room there is me and Elder Mata and the zone leaders also live in our room. Their names are Elder Lacey and Elder Contrerras (I think that is how you spell it), Elder Lacey is from New Mexico and is going to play football at BYU.  I think he is a wide receiver. Elder Conrtrerras is from Chile.

            My Spanish has been going along so so (haha).  It is a lot harder than I thought to learn a language, but I am gradually learning. The people here speak a lot different than in Argentina.  They seem to change subjects all of the time so it is really hard to follow what they are saying because they don’t stay on the same subject.  But I am starting to get used to it.

            I have this pretty cool story.  So one day me and Elder Mata were walking home from an open church (an open church it is usually on a Saturday and all nonmembers can go inside and look around and the missionaries are there to talk about the areas of the church).  It was pretty far away.  When we were walking we saw this crazy lightning storm. It was insane, I kid you not. There was lightning going every 30 seconds just everywhere and me and Elder Mata looked and it was approaching our area, so we started speed walking and trying to get to our area. There is lightning coming down all around us, everywhere. The thunder was shaking the ground.  It was so cool, but so scary. But we arrived safely in our apartment so I thought that was pretty cool.

            Have a great day!!!!

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

I’m Here in Uruguay!

September 1, 2014

Proverbs 25:25

            I made it to Uruguay safely, ha ha I cannot believe that I am actually here; it is super cool.

            So I am in the city Melo it is pretty decent sized not too big and not too small.  The people here are really nice. Melo is like 5 to 6 hours away from the capital, Montevideo, so I am kind of out in the boonies ha ha. But I like it a lot. I am near the Brazilian border.  It is super awesome. Most of the people that live here have lived here their whole lives.

            The food here is good.  For lunch I think I have had noodles and meat or soup with noodles and meat almost every day. But I like it, so I am good with it.  But there is one thing that I have a problem with here—they don´t eat dinner!!!!  I thought that was crazy, but they will only have like a really small meal or just a snack. But the lunches are big, so that definitely helps.

            The weather here is good.  When I first got here in the night I thought I was going to freeze to death, ha ha.  But now it is starting to warm up. The afternoons are really nice, but the nights can be pretty chilly.

            My new companion is Elder Malta; he is from Orem, Utah but his parents are from Mexico, so when we got put together I thought that he didn´t know any English and I was kind of freaking out a bit. But he speaks perfect English and Spanish. He told me before the mission that he was already fluent in Spanish.

            In my mission, we don´t have cars or bikes—we walk, ha ha, I like it though.  It is really good exercise. I never realized how much missionaries here walk.  We walk a lot, everywhere and our area is pretty decent-sized.

            Well I hope you guys all had a good summer and for all those of you who are going to school right now, good luck.

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

Last Full Week at the CCM

 

August 21, 2014

            Last week we just got some new awesome Latinos in my room. One is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese (I never know what he is saying because it is quite different from Spanish) and the other is from Peru and he is an amazing beat boxer; he is so good.  They both know like only a few words in English so it is pretty good practice. 

            When proselyting, we stopped at a little bakery. It was super cool.  We went inside and there were some cakes and a bunch of treats and stuff. So I bought some of these chocolate-covered caramel mini pie things.  They were so good and they only cost like 60 cents (U.S. dollars), and in the U.S. I bet the same thing would have cost at least $2. When it comes to food, at least from what I have seen, the food is cheaper here. I was also talking to a guy from Uruguay at the CCM and he told me that the Argentina food is a lot like Uruguay.

            This week all of the Elders got haircuts, so there is a guy at the CCM that can cut your hair and it literally takes like a minute and a half and he basically does the same hair cut for everyone, but it´s crazy how fast he could do it.

            I leave for Uruguay this coming Tuesday at like 4 in the morning. So I won’t be able to email until next Monday and from then on my P-days will be every Monday in the mission field.

            I hope you guys all have a great summer and thanks for all of the emails. 

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers

Huge Proselyting Success This Week

August 14, 2014

        This week at the CCM has been pretty fun.  When we went proselyting last week, we started talking to this guy and we asked if he had time to listen to our message and he said he couldn't because he was going to a game.  We asked if we could walk with him and talk at the same time. He said sure.  We were walking with him and telling him a little bit about the gospel and then we got to this building and we walked in and there were all of these 11 year-old kids that were playing indoor soccer. They were so good and there were around 30-40 parents watching the game.  We later found out from the guy that took us there that his brother was the coach of the team. It was crazy; everybody there was so into it.  They were screaming and yelling; it was so fun.

        With proselyting we had some awesome numbers this week we got 46 contacts, 13 references, 9 lessons and 2 baptism invitations.  People were really receptive of the gospel today and we have learned how to listen better to the investigators and try to get them talking more. I'm starting to understand them (their Spanish) a lot more. Over here in Argentina people say that they speak Castellano (basically Spanish but they use Vosotros and pronounce things differently).

        The group of Latinos left Tuesday. My Latino roommates were Elder Rojas (he was from Chile) and Elder Ruiz Diaz who is from Argentina. They were super cool to meet and with the group of Latinos we got to talk to some guys from Uruguay and ask them how it was. They said it is a lot like Argentina but it is more humid in the summer and colder in the winter. All I have at the CCM is 2 weeks left for my mission. It’s crazy, how time goes here; I feel like I haven’t been here very long but I also feel like I have been here for a long time. I hope you have a good summer (it is crazy that is almost over).

Sincerely

Elder Rogers

P.S.  If you want to send me anything my mission home address is:

Elder Rogers

Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis
Malvin
11400 Montevideo
Uruguay

Proselyting on the Streets of Argentina

August 7, 2014

            The time here is starting to go by faster than the previous weeks, It’s weird here; the weeks feel like days and the days feel like weeks—that is the best way I can explain it. 

         So our CCM lets us go proselyting after 2 weeks at being at the CCM.  We go every Saturday and so last Saturday was my first time.  So how proselyting works is we take about a 30-45 minute bus ride to a certain area and we knock on doors and try to talk to people for about 4-5 hours. They give each companionship a certain area on the map and a lunch and basically say go at it. We got a total of 31 contacts (we tell them we are missionaries and talk with them a little bit). We taught 8 lessons (we give them one of our lessons about the gospel), 1 baptism invitation, and got into 1 house. 

         So at right when the bus drops us off, we go outside and start trying to find our area. We were definitely in the lower income area (kind of sketchy), every house had a big fence right in front of their house and so a lot have doorbells and others don’t but with the ones that don’t have a doorbell you have to clap in front of their house (kind of strange).  So we start ringing some doorbells and really nobody answers or they don't want to talk to us, but then we meet this guy and he was around 25 and he had a Mohawk and he was missing some teeth, but he was super cool and really nice.  But the only problem was that he was speaking like 100 words a minute (and we can barely understand Spanish) so we just nod our heads and said yes a lot. I could pick up a few of his words every once in a while. 

          So after that we kept on talking to other people then a few hours later we met Patricia, Patricia owned a clothing shop, and we walked by her and asked her if she needed any help. She said no but we just started talking to her and she invited us into her shop. So we went in and started talking to her.  She seemed really interested in the gospel.  We explained the Book of Mormon to her and she understood what we were saying, then something amazing happened.  While Elder Udy started looking for a scripture, Elder Wilson started bearing his testimony and she started to cry. She told us that she has gone to a lot of churches and she hasn't felt the spirit in them but she was feeling it now. It hit me like a bag of bricks; the spirit was so strong in there. She told us that she is going to go to church and that she will read 3 Nephi:11, but she didn't understand that we weren't going to be there because there was a big language barrier so we couldn't explain it to her, but I think everything will work out.

          I know that the God has people that are ready to receive the gospel and that we just have to go and find them and through the Holy Ghost the spirit can touch anyone.

Sincerely, 

Elder Rogers

 

2nd Week at the CCM

July 31, 2014

          It has been a pretty crazy week, all of the missionaries except the ones in our district left Tuesday. So our district was the only district left. So for about two days there were only 12 people in the whole entire CCM. All of the new Americans and Latinos come tomorrow. All of the Latinos are only here for 2 weeks and they usually go to Argentina or somewhere close.

           I got to use a bidet that was pretty life changing haha. A bidet is the toilet that squirts up water and you use it instead of wiping. It actually is not that bad; I guess a lot of people from Argentina use them here.

           The temple was really cool even though I didn’t understand most of it because it was ALL in Spanish! But it was still pretty cool, we go to the temple today, we go every Thursday. Starting Saturday we get to start proselyting every Saturday. I’m really excited for that I guess they drop us off at the someplace for like 4-5 hours and we either do street contact or go knocking on doors and try to get references for the missionaries that are serving here.

           I think our district is learning Spanish pretty well for only being here for two weeks. All of the teachers [are natives] here so that we are a lot farther along in Spanish than any of the other American groups that they have had. It is a lot different learning Spanish at the CCM than it was learning it at school, because here everything is gospel related and when I was at school all I knew was a lot different vocab. So I think now I have gotten the religious vocab down, which helps a lot. I can speak Spanish pretty well, but listening, that’s a different story because the people here slur their words together and we just shake our heads and tell them we know very little Spanish. Then they slow it down a lot and then we can understand them. It is really fun talking to the local people that are walking by the CCM when we are playing futbol during our break. Everybody here is super sad that Argentina didn’t win the world cup. Soccer is huge over here everybody loves it. I’m glad I know a little about it.

Elder Rogers