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

1st Week at the Argentina MTC (CCM)

July 24, 2014

 Hey,

           I arrived at the CCM (MTC) a day late I was actually supposed to fly out Wednesday morning and get there by Thursday morning. What actually happened is we arrived at the airport Thursday morning and the ticket lady said my flight was yesterday. So they got us new tickets and flew me to Argentina and I got there by Friday morning.

            My companions are Elder Wilson and Elder Udy. Elder Wilson is from Georgia and is into computers and stuff. Elder Udy is from Idaho and likes football and baseball. In our district there are 12 people: 9 boys and 3 girls. Half of them are from Utah and the rest are from Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming and Georgia.  In our room there are six beds and so in the other three beds that me and my companions aren’t in there are three Latinos.  One is from Chile, Elder Valenzuela and two are from Peru, Elder Orihuela (reminds me a lot of Adrian) and Elder Ponte. Elder Wilson kind of has a baby face and kind of looks like Justin Beiber, so all of the Latinos call him Justin Beiber or Elder Beiber; it’s pretty funny.

            Here at the CCM we don´t stop working very often. We study for around 11 hours a day and the only breaks we get are physical time, breakfast, lunch and dinner and prep time. But physical activity is when we play court soccer and we always play gringos (white people) vs. Latinos and we win every time. We have some good futbol players here. One of the guys in my district is going to play division 1 futbol. Our district is the only people from the U.S. that speaks English and is learning Spanish. The only missionaries that go here are people that get called to Paraguay, Asuscion (city and north) and Uruguay, Montevideo (city and west).

            The food here is really good they make it every day and the chef here is really good. We mainly just have Argentina authentic food that is amazing. But every once in a while they will cook U.S. food and it is pretty gross. Like Sunday we had hamburgers and they were cooked on one side and the other side was really pink but we were all starving so we had to eat it anyway. In Argentina they eat a lot of bread so with lunch and dinner we always have like two or three pieces of bread--I love it! You just dip your bread in the food and it tastes awesome.

    
            Today is P Day and this is the day we get go to the temple. The CCM is on the same grounds is the temple; it is literally like 100 yards away. It is awesome-looking, especially at night. The Buenos Aires temple reminds me of like an elf structure on The Lord of the Rings. I am really excited to go to the temple, but the only problem is we have to do all of the stuff in Spanish and the whole entire movie will also be in Spanish. I would like to tell you more but I don´t have a lot of time so email back and I’ll try to email you.

Sincerely,

Elder Rogers