Weekly Update 2-24-2014

Wonderful baptism day!

Nauvoo Temple with Rachel.

HEELLLLOOOOO my wonderful family and friends!!!
I just want to start off this email by telling you that I love you ALL so so so much! Each of you... individually. I love you and I can't adequately express my gratitude towards all of you. You make me happy.

This week felt like 6 years... LITERALLY! It was long, but man was it dang worth it!!!!! I am so humbled and blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior who is Jesus Christ that care about us intimately as individuals!!

Let's start with 

Monday... PDAY... we did nothing.

Tuesday... MLC!! or Mission Leadership Council as we call it! It's a meeting with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders in the mission. We meet from 9 am to 430pm with the Assistants and President Jensen. It's a truck of a meeting! Anyways... it was awesome!! Learned a lot and gained a lot of insights and knowledge of what I can do as a leader to help the missionaries I am over. We talked a lot about learning by faith! Such a good principle!! Afterwards, we all went out to chili's and ate... SO GOOD! I got to see Sister Murphy and Sister Pratt again... man I love them:)

Wednesday we worked here in Keokuk.. we took P to the font and showed her exactly what would happen on Saturday. The guy that was going to be baptizing her was there and showed her everything. It turned out great!

Thursday, Sister Alston and I were in Quincy for a Zone Training Meeting. We gave a training on Sacrifice. It turned out pretty good! It was a little rocky but thankfully the spirit took over and did the teaching!

OH... quick sidenote... This Friday is zone conference.. I am singing with Sister Alston at it! We are singing because I have been given much. And then I am also singing that song in the 2nd session of zone conference that Sister Alston wrote the music to. YIKES! A lot of solos for Sister Rogers here lately. haha but don't worry that's not all.. I am also singing at stake conference in march. haha But I like it... its fun!

Now on to Friday... CRAZY DAY... but not the craziest... just wait. Friday, we went to Burlington to give another training to the Nauvoo Zone. That was awesome! The spirit totally took control of our training and it was incredible. It was such an amazing experience to be used as an instrument and vessel for the spirit. Humbled. After the meeting we got out and I checked our phone... 15 notifications on our phone. Nobody ever talks to us so to have 15 was a huge deal. Basically the jist of it all was that P, who was supposed to get baptized the next day was refusing to get baptized. She contacted our branch president and told him she wasn't getting baptized so he told everyone else in the branch that the baptism was cancelled and it was nuts. So we called a few people and were like "HOLD ON... let us talk to her and don't cancel anything yet!" haha So we made phone calls all day and talked to P and went and visited her and got everything worked out. Baptism BACK ON.

Come that night, we got permission to go to the temple!! So we went and did a session and get out of the temple and we get a call from a member saying she's not sure if P is going to get baptized. 

NEXT MORNING... Saturday... my 9 month mark...We get a phone call about 7 am... Baptism cancelled. P had a dream that she hit her head on the hand rail in the font and so she took it as a sign she shouldn't get baptized. We reassured her that it was Satan putting those thoughts in her mind. She didn't budge... so the baptism got cancelled. We get a call about 8am from her close friend who is a member and has been working very very closely with us in this process. She tells us to come visit P with her. We do and talk to her... P says that she still wants to get baptized just not in the font. She said earlier that morning she had another dream of her being baptized in the pool at the YMCA. So we said okay... lets go talk to the YMCA. So sister Alston and I take a trip to the YMCA and ask if we can do a baptism there. they said yes. SO we said great lets do it tonight! Baptism back on. but then we found out that P wanted to do it the next day. Baptism still cancelled for Saturday. So we talked to the aquatic lady at the YMCA after waiting an hour and she said we could reserve the pool for the baptism either right before open swim or right after open swim. open swin was from 1pm-4pm. Our church doesn't get over until 1, so we decided to do it after open swim at 4pm. We called P and the guy that was going to baptize her and worked it all out. We talked to the branch president and president Jensen and they were all okay with it. PERFECT! BAPTISM ON FOR SUNDAY AT 4PM AT THE YMCA. Crazy... I know. So we go on the rest of our day... get another phone call from the members that are going to baptize P and tell us that they can't be in Keokuk at 4 because they have an important meeting in Nauvoo.... BAPTISM OFF. Seriously at this point I wanted to just give up haha I have never felt so much opposition from satan before!! Anyways... AFTER MANY PHONE CALLS.. we get the YMCA to swith our pool reservation for sunday at 12:30 instead of 4pm. The next morning we go to church... still not knowing if P is getting baptized or not. We talk to our branch president and he is fine with her getting baptized at 12:30 at the YMCA on a Sunday in the middle of church. SO.. we called her she was still planning on being baptized. BAPTISM BACK ON. SO to make this long story short... at 12:30pm on sunday... P was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was well worth the fight against the adversary. She will be confirmed next week! Glorious day.

 

That's all Ive got for now. I love you all. And just want you to know that God is real and He loves us so much!! Have a wonderful day and know that I love all of you! I KNOW the church is true!

Love Sister Rogers