Family History

We had Zone Conference this week and it was cool. Then the next day we had interviews and as always it was too short. I like talking to the Naganos. We got to eat lunch with them and that was cool. Other than that I tried family history for the first time and it's not at all boring like I thought it was. There's some cool people up the line. I found quite a few kings even. See if you recognize this guy.

Other than that, Yi Shimai went to China to visit family and sent me a bunch of Chinese snacks! She's so nice. I'm glad I baptized nice people. The snacks were kind of weird and Chinesey but they tasted good so whatever.

That's about it. Love you all! Elder Rogers

I'm a samurai

This week was cool.

     We got on a train to go to a district Meeting in our Zone but there was an earthquake and we ended up just riding trains back and forth for like five hours before we were able to make it back home.
     On Saturday I went with a less active to his samurai dojo and he let me swing a real katana around and cut stuff. It was pretty fun. We brought a kid with us and he had a great time and then this less active samurai starts teaching him all about the church and how he knows it's true. I was pleasantly surprised.
     On Sunday we visited Melkio and he let us right in and wants us to come back whenever we feel like it. He came to the church with us because he couldn't find it before and now he wants us to teach his kids and bring them to church! He said he knew that God had definitely sent us to find him and bring his family to the church and he felt different now that he had met missionaries again. It was really cool to see that just meeting him made him feel different. I'm really looking forward to meeting him again!

Elder Rogers

Busy

Here's the highlight reel for the week.

     We had Missionary Leadership Council and it was cool. They told us what they wanted us to do and Elder Lilya and I had guessed the same a week ahead of time so we were way excited we didn't have to really change much. Then we gave lots of training's at Zone Meeting which actually went far better than expected. We planned it out good and had notes and things we wanted to say, but in the end I just put the notes down and didn't look at them and it went better than planned. Everybody seemed really excited and pleased with how it went anyway. Elder Lilya is a great companion. We think so much alike it's ridiculous. In a good way. We get along great.
     We took Bro. Seki to the temple for baptisms for the dead and it was great. Afterward he went straight home but we stuck around a little and met people from every one of my previous areas! It was really cool and unexpected. It was just a perfectly timed trip. I posted some pics on Facebook but the comments are in Japanese because I'm tired of translating it.
     We also went to Mormon Village for a party and got a ton of food. The members here feed us too much and I might get fat again. Oh well. That's about it.
Love y'all!
Elder Rogers

The blessings of getting hit by a car

So this week had a couple of firsts for me.

     For starters I became the area leader and my companion is a transfer 5 Zone Leader! He's way cool and such a great missionary. His name is Elder Lilya and we just get along so well. His dad is Air Force so we tend to think alike. We just can't agree on which is better: Air Force or Marines. The answer is Marines by the way.
     Anyway, I won't make you wait until the end of my email like I sometimes do. I got hit by a car. I was riding by the highway and this car was coming at me and I realized that the lady driving wasn't looking so she didn't slow down as she got closer to me. She wasn't actually going fast, she was coming to a stop. Anyway, I couldn't dodge it but it didn't look too bad so I just braced for impact and BOOM! Actually it wasn't bad at all. There was no boom. It bumped me and I just continued on like nothing happened. Nothing hurt and my bike was good so I went to check if she was ok because she was freaking out. After assuring her that I was NOT hurt at all and my bike was NOT broken she calmed down. Interestingly enough the only thing damaged was her car. It had a scratch on the front but was nothing severe. Since there were no damages done to either party we called it good and just kept going. And as we kept going we met Yamamoto. He's a mid-aged guy who was kind of interested in what we had to say so we did another first and took him to the church right then for a tour. He thought it was great when we explained that we help others come unto Christ by getting baptized and traded numbers with us. Later that night he even called us to give us his address and check our appointment!
     I don't have much time, but those are probably the only things you'd really care about. Is week was pretty good, I just left out a lot of it. I'll fill you all in sometime when I'm not a Zone Leader.
Elder Rogers