Biking for days

Dear Friends and Family,

     This week was a little bit slower of a week but I think we still
did a lot of good.  I think I'll just keep this one short, sweet, and
to the point.  We had splits with the Tsukuba Elders and Elder Nielsen
and I saw a lot of miracles.  We went up to HitachinoUshiku because I
haven't been there since the beginning of the transfer and we thought
it would be a good idea to go up there again.  On the way to visit a
less active who lives up there we met a high school student named
Hidetaka who has interest in church.  He also really likes English so
he'll probably start coming to our activities.  We also were able to
trade phone numbers with him so we can call him anytime.  Then we went
and visited a less active member, Imamura Shimai, and she was busy so
she couldn't talk.  But, luckily (or unluckily, I don't know) her mom
has cancer and so she wants to have a relationship with God just in
case she dies.  So Imamura Shimai said she wants to hear the lessons
with her mom and wants us to come back soon.  Later we saw a man that
Elder King and I talked to last transfer who had a lot of interesting
thoughts about God.  So we talked to him and he remembered me.  When
we first met it was because he left work early and told us if he
hadn't left early he wouldn't have met us, so he thought it was a
sign.  Then we saw him again and he was super happy to see us.  We
talked to him for a long time on the street and gave him a Book of
Mormon with our phone number in it and he promised to read it every
day and call us if he had questions.
     Elder O'Connor and I called Ookouchi Kyoudai yesterday and asked
if we could meet with him this week and he was like, "Can you meet today?"  I was so happy because I haven't been able to see him in over
a month.  We went over and really built a good relationship.  We
talked to him a lot and he was very interested that my dad was raised
in Arizona.  I told him about Dad's hometown, Snowflake, and he was
like, "Can we move there?  Would it be weird if an Asian family moved
there?"  Then we taught his 9-yr-old son the Joseph Smith story and he
loved it.  He cheered and clapped at the end.  We invited them to come
to church with us today but Ookouchi Kyoudai is still a little nervous
about it.  We asked him why he felt nervous and it's because he hasn't
been in a long time and thinks it might be weird.  Elder O'Connor
suggested that we bring a member to our next visit so they can make
friends and that way when he comes to church he'll be less nervous.
We're going to try to bring a new member to each meeting so he'll have
people he knows at church when he comes.
     We went over to the Combas' house right after visiting the
Ookouchis and had a great time.  We just talked to them and built up
trust for a while.  They're a really good family and are very happy.
We showed them some of General Conference in Portuguese and then the
family had a discussion about it.  It was in Portuguese so I don't
know all of what they said but it seemed good.  In the end they
committed to look for the blessings in their life and choose to be
happy now.  We told them about the Portuguese class at church and
invited them to come.  They didn't come this week but I hope they are
able to come next week.
     We rode our bikes a lot this week.  We rode approximately
(complete guess) 85-90 kilometers.  We rode a 40 kilometer round trip
to a city way out in our area.  There wasn't anything there except a
horse training facility and a huuuuuuge track.  We also rode to
Tsukuba and back for District Meeting.  And then we rode bikes the
rest of the time at a normal missionary pace.
     And lastly, we had 2 meal appointments set up for last night, one
right after the other.  The first was with the Tobe Family, they
invited Kaoru, the new Eiken student who became a new investigator.
If she had come, we would've gone too and taught a lesson, but since
she didn't we went to the Ikenagas' for dinner with the other Elders
and their investigator.  There were a ton of people there and it was
like a multi family FHE with investigators.  It was really fun and I
really enjoyed it.
     That's about all the important things for this week, love you guys.

Elder Rogers

Elder Lee loooooves College ;)

Dear Friends and Family,

     This week was pretty good.  We've been trying to do more of a
variety of dendou tactics so we can get the good news out to more
people.  We've been visiting members, investigators, less actives,
potential investigators, and everyone we can in AreaBook.  We know
that by talking to everyone we can find new people to teach and see
cool miracles.
     So this week Tobe Shimai (I can't say enough about her, she just
dendous this whole area 24/7) invited us to come to her college class
and teach the students English and share a quick message.  So we went
up and there were 50+ people!  They were all girls so we were scared
we wouldn't be able to stay.  But then we noticed ONE man in the class
so we were allowed to stay and follow mission rules.  It was
interesting though because the girls asked all of us if we had
girlfriends and which girl we liked.  Japanese girls are silly and
like Americans.  We had a good time teaching English and at the end we
all shared our own short Eiken-style messages.  Some of the students
seemed to have interest so we gave out some flyers to them.  It was a
great way to work with a member and talk to a lot of people at once.
     We met with Tajima this week and he's ready to be be baptized.
He still needs to talk to his wife though.  We're planning on just
visiting his house with a member and setting a good impression with
his wife and working from there.
     We went out with Shigematsu Choro this week to visit as many
Women PIs as possible because we can't do it without a man.  Anyway,
we went out and visited people all day and then decided to visit a
member, Kuroki Shimai, just because we were in the area.  From that we
were able to get the address of one of her friends so we can go visit
them and teach them sometime!
     We met with a less active Brazilian family, the Combas this week
and it was great.  We introduced Elder O'Connor and offered to help
them.  Their daughter has an English test coming up soon so we offered
to teach her English.  She's going to start coming to Eiken but she's
shy, so she'll bring a friend!  We think that by serving their family
they'll feel more welcome at church and start coming back.
     Last week we met a punk rocker guitarist from Tokyo on the street
and gave him a flyer and a pamphlet.  Well today while streeting we
saw him again and he has questions about the pamphlet!  He said we can
meet again to talk about it and gave us his phone number and email.
He also seemed pretty interested in our church meetings.  We invited
him to come and he said he would if he's in Ushiku then.
     We also found 2 new investigators this week!  One is a sweet spot
college student named Tega.  I asked him if he had interest and when
he said yes I was actually pretty surprised and just kind of stared at
him for a second.  Luckily I got my wits back soon enough to set up a
return appointment for next week so we can meet him at the church and
teach him about Jesus.  Our other new investigator is not a sweet
spot, she's a 40ish year old woman named Kaoru who just came to our
Eiken class for the first time this week due to a newspaper ad
by....Tobe Shimai.  So she came and Tobe Shimai and I started just
English conversation with her.  She noticed my nametag and Tobe Shimai
just took it from there.  We ended up telling her all about why there
are so many churches and the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and
how to pray.  We just taught her a pretty in-depth first lesson.  It
was really good because she had a lot of interest and we gave her a
Book of Mormon and she's going to read it and pray about it!  Tobe
Shimai shared a personal experience about how she came to know the
Church was true and it definitely helped a lot.  Kaoru emailed Tobe
Shimai and wants to meet next week to talk about it more!
     I know there can be miracles if we do our best and work our
hardest...with the members!  Love you all.

Elder Rogers

EMail!

So I wasn't really sure what to write this week so I just took some
excerpts from my President's Letter.  Enjoy!

       Me and Elder Lee found 2 new sweet spot investigators on
splits. Sadly, neither turned out and didn't meet with us when they
said they would BUT, they both have pamphlets and really seemed
interested, they just might've been shy about coming to church. If
they ever want to talk to us they have our number.
       Elder O'Connor and I have been trying to clean up our Area Book
so we've been visiting lots of former investigators. We went to visit
a former investigator who had a baptismal date from before I was even
an idea. Turns out she's still really interested and would like to
take the lessons again! She lives with her super hantai parents though
so we'll have to work to overcome that.
     We visited a less active member with the Shigematsu Fuufu and she
was so awesome! She had Liahonas on her table and her family prays
together and has FHE every week. She just had a hard work schedule...
that she recently got changed! She can make it to church now and she
came today with her kids! She expects to be able to make it every week
from now on! Awesome miracle! She has a kid that's supposed to be
getting baptized soon too. One of us may be doing that.

That's about it for this week as far as to write home about.  Sorry I
didn't email last week, I will try to come up with more to write about
next week.  Love y'all.

Elder Rogers

New Companion!

So we had transfers and I got a new companion! His name is Elder
O'Connor and he's a really good missionary, he always wants to talk to
everyone. It's awesome. We've worked really hard already and I
expect big things this transfer.
We had a BBQ with the ward and a lot of people came so I
introduced Elder O'Connor to everybody. We visited some less actives
and talked to them about families. We sang some primary hymns and
talked about General Conference and it was just a great visit. The
Shigematsus went with us because they're just super awesome senior
missionaries. We visited some other investigators but they don't seem
as cool as last time. They wanted to just talk to us and not really
listen to the lessons so we might not go back.
We had church and it was ward conference so it was a little
crazy. There were a ton of extra people there as there was even the
Kamagaya Bishop(he's in one of those "I'm a Mormon" messages and thus
he is famous amongst missionaries).
I'm going to keep this email super short and just say that this
week was good. We did a lot of good things and are planning on doing
more. Love you everybody!

Elder Rogers

I have a face for radio

Hey everyone,

     I've got another great week to write about.  So this week we had
a member invite us to be guest speakers on her radio show with her.
She asked us to help her teach some very simple English and try to
inspire the young people of Japan to believe in themselves and be
happy.  So we thought it would be great.  We were super excited.  So
we went there and as were walking in she starts filling us in on some
more of the details.  "You'll be sharing a personal experience that
can motivate others, this will be broadcasted live throughout the
whole city and tonight to the whole world, and the hostess may ask you
some questions, good luck."  All of the sudden we were a little bit
more nervous.  I didn't want to sound like a complete idiot on the
radio for everyone to hear.  But we got to the studio and put on our
headphones and listened to some relaxing music for a little bit and we
calmed down.  The radio show went well and we told some good stories,
although I only told half of my story so that was a little bit of a
bummer.  It was a good story too about overcoming fears and obstacles.
But I think everyone got the point anyway.  In the end they said we
did a good job and invited us to come back again soon and try it
again.  Which actually leads me to another important thing that
happened this week, we got transfer calls!
     The other elders are staying together in this area.  My companion
is transferring to Senzokuike, Tokyo where he will be serving in an
English-speaking branch AND a Japanese-speaking branch.  I'm excited
for him, I actually really want to go to that area sometime.  And as
for me, I am staying here in Ushiku!  My new companion will be the new
District Leader.  Since I'm staying here I'll know the area better
than my new companion and so I'll actually take the lead for most
things for a little while.  Also, since I'm staying here I get to
continue working with the members here and may go on the radio again!
I really like this area and am looking forward to another transfer
here.  Now, back to the rest of the week.
     So we got invited to a Brazilian BBQ with the less active/non
member Brazilians in the area and it was fantastic!  I have never had
a Brazilian BBQ before and believe me, it is the best way to BBQ.
They were all super super nice too.  They let me cook with them, and
help their kids with English, and talk about their lives, etc.  It was
great to have them open up to us because we have been trying to get
together with them all transfer.  We just talked about our experiences
with learning other languages (there was English, Japanese, Spanish,
and Portuguese going on at the same time) and it was really funny
talking about our silly mistakes.  Despite there being a few language
barriers everyone liked everyone by the end of the night.  Even the
mom who could only speak Portuguese (we don't speak Portuguese past a
few words) loved us and wanted us to come back soon.  We had some good
conversations about church and we're hoping to get them to come back
soon.
     We also went bowling with the youth and the bishop's son's
family.  It was really fun and I won a game!  Everyone was so genki
(it's like happy and pleasant to be around) and I really got to know
the bishop's son well.  They are amazing!  They are such helpful
people and really took care of the youth and us.  They bought us
BigMacs and Baskin Robbins.  I haven't had a burger in like 6 months
so it was like a little piece of fatty heaven.
     We had Mothers' Day calls!  It was the best to see my family
after so much time away.  They're all a little different than I
remember.  Dallin has a beard now.  Grant's trying to grow a mustache
and his voice is changing.  I didn't recognize Hannah in the pictures
my mom sent.  Scott is a little stud-muffin.  And Mom and Dad are
still some good-lookin' parents.  They teased me about my rice cheeks
and thought it was cool that I'm a radio star now.  My Momma also has
another package waiting for me that she's been holding on to until
after transfer calls.  I don't know what's in it but I'm assuming it's
a lot of snacks and home baked goods.  They think I'm starving or
something.  That or they like my cheeks at the size they are now.  I
love them.
     We had a conference with President Yamashita, he's a general
authority and he's in the Area Presidency.  It was really good and we
all learned a lot.  He told us a story of a sister who set a goal to
get 750 baptisms.  She got 350!  Every week for most of her mission
she got like 13-15 baptisms!  It was crazy.  President Yamashita told
us to raise our vision and have more faith.  If we have faith we can
all do what she did.  I know I want to be able to teach and help that
many people.  So I'm going to try to follow his counsel and go out and
find those who are waiting for me.  Baptize all the people in Japan!
     On Saturday we played Basketball with a less active and his son
and invited them to come to church with us and read the scriptures
together.  They're an awesome family and I have really high hopes for
them.  I want to see the dad be reactivated and his family getting the
blessings of the gospel.
     That's about all I've got for this week, I love all of you guys
and hope your days are bright and cheery.  Remember you can make the
path-way bright, fill the soul with heav-en's light, if there's
sun-shine in your heeeeaart.  :)

Elder Rogers

Brazilian BBQ

Bowling scores-Mine is the 4th one down. (The winner)

The guys we played basketball with and shared a message.

Mothers' Day Call

Radio Station

To the parents of Elder King and Elder Rogers;
Hi! I am Sister Tobe in Ushiku ward. Your sons are serving here in our ward and we love them so dearly. I have a ...30 minutes program on radio every week and they talked in it today. The theme of this program is "Encouragement". And they talked about how their parents encouraged them when they were young. We were impressed! You will hear some part in English. Here's the recording of it and I hope you will enjoy it. Thank you for sending such great servants of the Lord. I know how proud you are and so are we!!

今日の放送 Today's Recording
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyW1sHhQr5o

 

Mother's Day calls are next week! That and Transfer Calls.‏

Herro everybody,

So this week was pretty good.  We met a few new people with a lot of
potential.  There is a guy who works for a non-profit organization and
is always super busy, but we can meet him at night sometimes and he's
very interested.  Sister Tobe is awesome and when we have to go home
she keeps talking to them and has had really good conversations with
them.  Actually they're a lot more like lessons because she's just so
awesome.  I also met a skateboard shop owner who has been to church
before and he wants to come back sometime.  So we're really excited
for that.  Other than that we've had some meal appointments with some
members that have gone really well.  They've invited all four elders
and there have been investigators there and lessons and everything
just works out great.  We had fast Sunday and it was awesome.  To
break our fast we went to a member's house and it was just a great
experience.  The dad usually has a resting face that looks like he
hates everyone around him but while we were there he was actually
smiling!  I thought his face might crack!  It was awesome.  Tonight we
had a party with our Brazilian friend Jose and his posse for his
birthday.  We are really excited for that.  Next week is transfer
calls so I may or may not be staying here.  I hope I do stay because I
really like it here.  We also have Mothers Day Calls home, that is
something I'm really really really looking forward to as well.  I can
Skype my family for 40 minutes!  And I will have been out here for 1/4
of my mission!  Time sure flies.
Love you all

Elder Rogers