Email Update 8-27-2013

She got to do a session at the Nauvoo Temple.  She LOVES this temple 

(I have to agree, It's beautiful inside and out).

Nauvoo temple with Sister Murphy (Sis Murphy got called to be a trainer.)

Sister Wiest, Sister Rogers & Sister Murphy after temple.

Having fun in the car making expressions for different scenarios.  

"Just saw a little person riding a horse"

"Just ran a marathon"

"Just got out of the temple"

"My dog just died"  

(That's terrible Halee.  I'm not telling Daisy about this.)

"Ate too much ice cream"

"Just got out of a rock (Motab) concert"

"Have to go to the bathroom"

"Fly up the noses"

Late night fun in their apartment before being transferred.

Brother Templeton joined the fun.  (The Templeton's are the senior couple where these Sister Missionaries have been living.  They loved them so much)

Hey hey there!!
So sorry for not emailing yesterday!! We were gone all day long! We decided to take a trip down to the temple and do a session!!! BEST DAY EVER!!! Man it was so good. We get to go once every six months so we decided to go yesterday. It worked out great cause on Thursday morning during my personal studies I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants Section 127 which discusses instructions for baptisms for the dead but in verse 8 the Lord states, " For I am about to restore many things to the earth, pertaining to the priesthood saith the Lord of Hosts." The insight I received from that verse made me feel so special to be on the Lord's errand, and made me want to go to the temple so bad!! The Lord was basically saying, "Hey I'm about to restore some very important and incredible things here, and I trust you you take care of these things." BOOM! Knowing that the lord trusts me was the most awesome feeling in the entire world. As soon as I read that verse I was like,"Okay! I'm gonna go be awesome and do work because I have the Lord on my side and he trusts me with this great responsibility!" None of that probably made sense at all.... but know that it was the best personal stud I have had on my mission and it made me have a deep rooted hunger to attend the temple. So guess what we did in monday? Went to the temple! SO AMAZING! I wanna go back. Its on my bucket list before I die to spend the whole day in the temple. Cant wait:)

Now on to the real update you have all been waiting for... TRANSFERS! I, Sister Rogers will be sadly leaving Mt. Vernon on thursday morning! I don't know where I am going yet, but I have mixed feelings! I really have grown to love mt vernon and am sad to leave everyone but I'm excited to see a different part of iowa as well. I am not training or anything so I'll just have a regular companion. Sister Lloyd and I have been praying that we will be put together but who knows haha! I find out thursday morning where I am going, so Ill let you know next week. So any mail should be sent to the mission home please:) It's been really sad to say goodbye to everyone these past few days! The branch was awesome and it was hard to leave them. But it was especially hard to say goodbye to Mitchelann. Talk about a heartbreaker. Man, I love that lady so much. She started crying when I was hugging her goodbye:( It was so so so so sad!!!! But i'm gonna still write her letters and stuff, so thatll be good!
As for Sister Murphy, she is getting transferred as well. She was called to be a Sister training Leader and is going to be opening up a  new area! She's gonna kill it!! And Sister Wiest will be holding down the fort here in Mt. Veezy! She is traing so she will have a greenie on her hands!

As for a general update on this week... we have been busy!! We have been teaching a lot and its been so great! Although, our AC in Chastity(our car) broke this week... and let me tell you it is BLOODY HOT!!!!! 95 degrees this week with like 90% humidity or something like that. Its rough. I am completely drenched by the end of the day... but hey maybe ill get skinny! WOOT WOOT! Other than that, things are going very well. Just teaching a lot!

I forgot my camera today, so i will mail home pictures that you can scan online! 

I love you guys! Keep staying awesome! And know that you are the best family and friends ever!

The church is so true its ridiculoussssss, my mind is blown everyday about how amazing this gospel is and about how blessed I am to be able to serve the Lord and preach this unto his children. 

Stay classy:)

Love,
Sister Rogers

Oh P.S. So pumped to hear about how freakn awesome Snow College volleyball is doing!!! BEATING CSI!!!!! HECK FREAKN YES!!!!! Madi Packard is such a stud!!! 27 kills! Thats crazy!!! Keep up the good work kiddo! You da boss!!!


SHOUTOUT LIST!
Emmee Rogers.... Holy cow that was the best care package I have ever received in my life!!!! Seriously it was the absolute best! You are amazing and so thoughtful! Thank you so much for that! i know you put a lot of time into that and it means so much!!! THANKS YOU!!!!

Ali... Your letters are ALWAYS rockin! I love you so much! Plus... you are seriously SO GORGEOUS inall of your pictures! My companions are always commenting on how pretty you are! HOT MONEY!!!

Amy Sorensen!!! Dude, I freakn love your letters so much! Seriously though, I get so excited when i see they are from you!!!! LOVE YOU!

Email update 8-19-13!

On their way to district meeting!

District Meeting!

Mitchell Anne's Baptism! 8-17-13

 Lunch after baptism!

 Yo Family!
Hey guys, this week has been pretty darn good. Lets start with Monday... It was P-day. holla! We got to go play some trash ball with our zone in cedar rapids and then later that night, I told you guys we had an appointment to meet with a girl who was a member referral. Her name is Kelli, and she is a junior at cornell college. She played basketball her first two years there but isn't playing this year. The lesson went great! Having a member present was so crucial! But she learned a lot and wants to continue to meet! So that's way good! More right now, she finds it just interesting to learn about and doesn't really see this as something she wants to take part in. But hopefully with the help of the spirit, we will change that soon! She's way cool! I'll have to whip out some sports analogies for sure.
I'm really glad you guys got my DVD! hope yall liked it:) I don't really think I am allowed to watch a video if you sent me a dvd.. I'll ask though! haha 
Tuesday was a normal day.... Wednesday we had exchanges with the Sister training Leaders! Sister Alstin and Sister Lloyd... It went well! Sister Lloyd and I got to talk one on one for a while and she's just awesome! She is such a dedicated missionary. We talked a lot about obedience and about how I have had the wonderful opportunity to experience first hand how obedience brings blessings and how EXACT obedience brings miracles. It was a really good talk, I needed it! It helped me appreciate Sister Murphy more, and appreciate what she does. I'm glad she is training me right, on a foundation of obedience.
Thursday was great! We had District Meeting! Sister Oler gave a training and invited all of us to make our own "Mission Statements." To help us realize what we wanted to accomplish here on our missions. It was such a good training.

On Friday all the way in Davenport was the New Trainers Meeting, Sister Murphy and I had to attend. The Davenport Zone Leaders, Elder Flint and Elder Curtis gave an amazing training. They talked a lot about becoming spiritually in shape, and coming up clutch as a missionary. One of the things Elder Curtis said really stuck out to me about how we can do that. He talked about becoming consecrated and refined, and about preparing himself to be a vessel for the spirit. So that he would not get in the way of the Lord's work. it really stuck out to me. So Saturday Morning, I studied the talk "A Consecrated Missionary" by Elder Tad R. Callister. As I studied, and have been pondering the concept of consecration in my mind for the past few days, I felt a change in my hear5t. It was a realization point. I realized that I want to be and do better that what I have been doing. So I did as Sister Oler invited us to do, and I made a "Mission Statement" it says:

My Mission Statement
Today is the day I start my path to becoming a consecrated missionary. Today is the day that I lay everything I possess on the altar of sacrifice. This is the Lord's work, not mine. I will not be a hinderance to that work. I will not let my disobedience or shortcomings affect the eternal welfare of other souls. I will be a blessing to the Lord, not a burden to His work. My soul is His. My will is His. I will be consecrated.

I am planning to put this on my new planner for next transfer so I can read it multiple times everyday. Reading this everyday will help me to remember what my motivation for being here is. I think I'm figuring this whole thing out a little be, or atleast starting to. I'm ready to fight the good fight!

Now, on to Saturday, it was MITCHELANNS BAPTISM!!!!! Ahhh it was so good! Such a spiritual experience. Earlier in the week she was honestly breaking down about her fear of water. We taught her about prayer and the Holy Ghost and she really started to see that heavenly Father could help her get through this. SHE DID IT! She was baptized, and she had such a powerful experience with it. As she came up out of the water, she started just balling her eyes out. (tears of complete joy) She said "I did it!" It was so tender. And then to see her receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday was special too. It was her 49th wedding anniversary! She called later last night and told us how wonderful she felt and how she couldn't explain it but that there was something different about her. And she has felt a change in her heart. It was so amazing!! Can't wait to get her to the temple now!!!


So that's pretty much how my week went. Its been great!:) I love you all so so so so so much!!!


Also.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! I LOVE YOU!! HOPE YOUR DAY IS FANTASTIC!!! Remember that stressed is just desserts spelt backwards. So go have yourself a QT doughnut! You deserve it!!! :) haha


Also.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CARLEE ON THE 23rd!!!!!! I LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH! HOPE YOUR DAY IS JUST AS AWESOME!


SHOUT OUT-
I forgot to mention Jodie and sam in my shout out. They had sent me a birthday package on my birthday but I didn't get it until a little while ago cause the mission office couldn't forward it. So will you make a shout out to them? I loved it so so so much! The subway card is the best thing ever, we eat there all the time so it was perfect! Also, they know me too well! Sour punch straws, beef jerky, and sun flower seeds!! What more could a girl ask for?! I loved it! Thanks so much!!!

Sister Rogers Out.

Email 8-12-13

Sister Missionary Glamour Shot- ha!

Cornfield Fun!

Hola Familia!

 

How's everyone doing!!!??? I hope good! Things have been going so great here! We have had a solid week! We taught 20 lessons and got 3 new investigators!! Mike, Jackie, and Jinda! We are way pumped! I'm pretty sure we will have mike with a baptismal date here pretty soon, but i dont want to jynx it! haha We went out tracting all morning long on thursday, and God blessed us so much! We went and visited four potentials from the area book and set up appointments with three of them! It was was so dang sweet! 

Mitchelann's baptism is on saturday!!!!!!!! Heck ya, its gonna be so good! She had her interview on friday and passed with flying colors! But theres a funny story to go along with that one. When she came out of her interview she had looked like she had been crying and she comes out and says, "well... are you guys ready to teach me more lessons?" We were shocked, and it got AWKWARD REAL FAST. Seriously, no one knew what to say. Then she told us she was kidding and i almost died. haha She's such a punk! I got dooped by a 72 year old! haha But she's getting baptized on saturday and its gonna be awesome! She is PETRIFIED of water, so thats the only thing that would be holding her back, but we will help her overcome that before saturday!   Kinda some bad news, Caleb dropped us. We have no idea what happened. He was just like I dont feel like the church is for me right now. It came out of nowhere. We've done all we can do to try to contact him, but he's avoiding us at all costs. We even showed up to his house when he was home, but he told his friend to tell us he had just left somewhere. LAME! but he'll come around sooner or later. It's just a matter of time i guess!!   Everything else has been going so awesome! We still love living with the senior couple. We actually don't want to move back at all. They even told us they dont want us to move! haha Itll be a sad day when that happens:( But we got a new car! well, its not exactly new, but its new to us. Its a chevy Malibu with the liscense plate that has XXX on it. So her name is appropriately Chastity. haha We had to switch our awesome 2013 chevy cruze with the Cedar Rapids elders, so it was super lame. But we have twice as many miles as everyone else does in our zone, so it evens out. haha   Sister Murphy and Sister Wiest are doing great as well! We started a new tradition of making dance videos on P-days, so i'll have to send yall one haha   But anyways, I hope all is going well! Thank yall so much for everything you do! 

I love you!   

Sister Rogers   

SHOUT OUT TIME

 
Nikki Mosley... Thank you SO much for your package!! It was awesome!! I really really appreciate it! It made my day!
 
Curry Family... Sorry I forgot yall on the last shout out list! But thank you so much for the birthday note and drawings! Theyre the best!
 
  

Mitchell Anne is scheduled to be baptized August 17th.  

Halee playing in a cornfield.  

Beautiful Iowa Sunset!

We were able to share with Halee this morning that her Grandpa Rogers had suffered some serious medical setbacks over the last few days including several strokes and heart arrest causing him to come close to death once again.  He was removed from the ventilator yesterday afternoon and is breathing on his own again and talking.  He truly is the ENERGIZER BUNNY (but not out of the woods)!  She wrote this sweet letter to her grandma and grandpa:

Hey grams hey gramps!!

Just wanted to say that I love you guys so much. You guys are such amazing examples to me. Grandpa, I share all your crazy sayings and jokes with everyone I talk to. They love em. I really wish I could be there with you guys right now mostly because I love you but partly because I think its funny when grandpa says funny things to the nurses:) Grandma, I hope youre doing okay through all of this. I want you to know that I love you! and that I think and pray for you every single day. I know that whatever happens, happens for a reason, but sometimes that doesn't make things easier to handle. What does make things easier to handle is the knowledge we have of God's plan. As a set apart representative of Jesus Christ, I have had the wonderful opportunity of being able to get a glimpse of what our Father in Heaven felt like as he was explaining this plan to us in the pre-earth life. I feel of that same excitement and love that our Father in Heaven has for His children as I explain to them the plan of salvation. It is the most rewarding thing I have ever been a part of!
I love you guys so much! And I hope that I've been an okay granddaughter to you guys, I've really tried, but I know I could have done better. I miss you guys and trust me as soon as I get back grandma, heather and I will be over at your house dusting your picture frames for ya!! Stay strong, and grandpa keep fighting big guy! Don't take any wooden nickels now!:)

Love you
Halee

Email to everyone else:  8-5-2013

Hey guys today is going to be a pretty short update... but this week was a long one. It seemed to drag on forever haha

Good news first! We had a lot of appointments set up this week and we got to teach a lot of people! We set a date with caleb for august 24th and we also set a date with one of our investigators clint for October 12th~ (Hes gotta get married first) But clint is so solid! We also had 3 investigators at church this week!! HOLLA! It was so awesome!

Rough news from yesterday... Caleb tried to drop us. He says he feels rushed and doesn't feel that its the right time for him to join the church.... YIKES. but we are gonna call him later today and hopefully get it worked out. I don't think he realizes how ready he actually is.

Life with the templetons is still great! They are so kind.
I'm sorry this update is so short and not as exciting as my others but I will do better next time, I promise!! I just want you guys to know that I love you and that being on a mission has changed me so much... for the better. Its for sure such a humbling experience. It is truly the Lord's work and He is not going to let anything get in the way of that. I finished mosiah this week and am officially in alma! Pretty pumped.

Anyways, I love you all!
Sister Rogers