haven't said much about it as my Mom keeps reminding me so here's some
background. My area is huge. I'm talking you can't bike to the end
of it unless you're planning on staying the night. It's bigger than
some zones in this mission. It is mostly mountains, hills, and rice
fields. There are occasional cities, which is nice. There are a lot
of beaches so it feels a little more like home. When we bike places
it's always uphill and always against the wind. I'm serious, I've
been here for like 8 months and the wind is always pushing against us.
This area has a lot of famous high schools, lucky us, so there are a
lot of young people to talk to. My previous areas have been almost
exclusively ancient people. It's nice to see some young people
because that's who will talk to us and we're supposed to talk to them
because they're the future. So anyway, on to the week's events.
This week was really good. We went down to Tateyama and biked
into the mountains to visit a less active. She's less active because
it's really hard to get from her house to the church but she's still a
good member. We did some garden work for her and then I got to know
her a little bit. She gave Elder Purba a referral right before I got
here and we're planning on working together to teach the referral.
When we left her house (she lives in the middle of the mountains and
they're really steep) we went back down the steepest, longest mountain
ever....at 40mph! It was so fast. Then I thought about a random
trivia fact I knew, race horses can run that fast. How can an animal
go that fast!? I was on wheels downhill and I barely did it. And a
cheetah can go 70! That's crazy. God made some awesome animals. Ok,
tangent over.
We made a lot of special flyers with a schedule on it for all the
classes we teach, and then went down to the Eki to hand them out. We
went right as the kids were coming back from school so it was perfect
for talking to sweet spot. They just came in a never ending stream
for 4 hours! It was awesome. We handed out nearly 200 flyers and
some of the kids were very excited about it. I never thought it would
work and personally didn't like doing hand outs. I actually told
Elder Purba that I didn't want to continue after like 10 minutes of
people saying no but he felt like we should wait a little longer and
that's when we started finding people!
And now for the big miracle. Yesterday we were going to go out to
a popular beach area and go finding there. It was about an hour and a
half bike ride so we stopped by a convenience store on the way to get
some drinks. Out front there's a teenager sitting on a mamachari bike
and he looks like a punk. But we're finding so we talk to him. Turns
out he has interest and was eager to meet with us. Elder Purba
invited him to come with us to the beach area for finding and he said
yes! So we stopped by his house and he ate fast (I'm talking 4
minutes) and then we headed out for the beach. He rides pretty slow
but it was ok because we got to talk to him on the way. We learned
about his family and what he wants to do with his life. We taught him
a lot on the way, pretty much a first and second lesson overview. We
learned he got hit by a car, broke all of his ribs, was in a coma for
a week, and is completely fine now. That's such a miracle. We went
the wrong way and ended up back at home so we just took him to the
church instead. We gave him a tour and he found a Book of Mormon. We
talked to him about it and gave him one. We probably spent near 3
hours win him so we decided to take him home and, plot twist, he's a
member! Elder Turley baptized him about a year ago and he became less
active. He's read the Book of Mormon before and is ready to come back
to church. It was such a miracle that we were able to meet him.
Yesterday was fast Sunday and I was fasting that we could find a
new investigator....and it worked! We went finding and a 17? year old
kid named Takahashi said he was interested and that we could call him
on Monday night. So he became a new investigator. Then as we were
coming home is kid rode his bike up alongside us and started talking
to Elder Purba. They had talked before when I wasn't here and the kid
was super interested in church. He wants to learn more and is trying
to make time to meet with us soon. Yup, this area is full of miracles
And lastly today. Today we had zone P-day. It was my first ever
because my previous companions didn't want to go. So today I got to
go to the beach with like 24 missionaries! How cool is that! Chiba
is the biggest zone so we had an awesome day. We played volleyball on
the beach and it was super fun. We also ran around the beach without
getting in the water. I almost did a front flip on the beach due to
peer pressure (Elder Hipps, love him) but couldn't quite land it.
Then we played a missionary version of Mafia and it was super fun.
The apostates (Mafia) looked like they were going to win for a while,
but evil never wins, not even in a silly game. We took a picture
together, sorry I don't have it, and then sang the national anthem
because it's the 4th of July. Sadly some of us didn't know it because
they're not American and as for the Americans who didn't know it I
could only shake my head in awe and disappointment. I got to see
Elder Furniss again, I missed him so bad. He's the most interesting
man I've ever met. Absolutely crazy, but cool. Today it was
ridiculously sunny and hot.....for most of the day. While we were
grocery shopping we heard thunder. We ran out to check on it and it
was just bucketing rain like the 2nd coming or something. There was
lightning all over the sky and the thunder was intense. It shook the
whole...everything. Luckily it cleared up after about 15 minutes and
there was even a double rainbow. It was cool and we didn't even get
wet because we just waited it out.
That's about it. This week was pretty awesome, lots of good
things happening. Let me know if there's anything you want me to
write more about. I try to cover everything but sometimes I leave
things out. If there's any aspect you want to hear more about, let me
know. Seriously.
Love you all,
Elder Rogers
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