23 August 2011

Well, another week has passed by. They honestly go so fast. I want you to know that I'm doing really well. I'm working hard and I'm certainly improving, although not as quickly as I would like. (But I have had a thought about that, so I'll get around to that.) So I think I have three weeks left here. That's hard to believe. I need so much more time to prepare. But I'm trying not to let that fear overcome my faith. So it is fairly likely that I will be temporarily reassigned, which would be such a great blessing. If that  happens, I should find out in about two weeks where I'll be sent. It's like opening another mission call! I'm very excited for whatever happens. The only downside I can possibly think of to being reassigned is that my thin base of portugues might suffer while I'm in the states, but I know that I'll be in Brasil when the Lord wants me there. If he needs me somewhere in the U.S., I'll do everything I can to figure what I supposed to do and learn while I'm there. I want to have the attitude of Ammon when he met King Lamoni. He said that he had intentions to possibly live out the rest of his days among the Lamanites. So if I end up spending two years in this country, maybe I'll find a King Lamoni. I guess the bottom line is that I have no idea where I'll be going in three weeks, I could even spend an extra week here, but whatever it is, I will be happy and I will work hard.

 

Dad, thank you for sending me your testimony. I asked for it because I thought it would give me strength, and it definitely did, and still does whenever I read it. I thought of you the other day when someone at lunch was talking about hunting and they wanted me to tell some stories from my hunting experience. You know what I said. "What happens in the woods stays in the woods". Mom, thanks for teaching me how to sew a button. I do it about once a week haha. You asked me about typing up my written letters for the blog, and if you think it's a good idea, go for it. I trust you completely. Mig, thanks for the little notes you send me. They make me laugh hysterically. I appreciate all of the letters I get from you. I don't think I can tell you how much they mean to me.

 

So this week started out with an amazing experience. On Sunday nights, after the fireside, there are several videos played on campus that we can choose to watch. Elder Powell and I went to see a replay of an MTC devotional that Elder Bednar gave on "Becoming A Missionary". It was an incredible message. It has really changed me and Elder Powell. He said it might be the turning point in his mission after hearing it. And I thought to myself, this could be my turning point too. And then I thought to myself, I'm going to make this my turning point. God made me to act, and not to be acted upon. I'm not going to waste any of the Lord's time waiting for a turning point to come anymore. I'm taking this one by the horns. I can't describe how powerful that talk is. I hope I get to see it again. The first point he talked about was that we should all "Become missionaries, and not merely 'go on a mission'". I love that. Mom and Dad, you both told me on seperate occassions that one of your favorite words is "become". You've helped me to see the importance of that word. I'm really trying to "become a missionary". I'm trying so hard to be perfectly obedient, and I really need to work on maintaining focus and listening for and recognizing the Spirit. Oh man, just thinking about this reminds me of all the things I need to work on. But that's the miracle of the Atonement! We can change. Sempre podemos melhorar. You know I'm a worrier (and yes, I spelled that right. I didn't mean warrior.) And you might think that this massive list of improvements to be made would make me worry. Well sometimes it does, but when I'm feeling the Spirit, I don't feel worry. I feel confidence in the Lord's ability to make something out of me, something way better than what I am. And I don't feel worried, I feel humbled, and very, very grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. As I've been thinking about the process of becoming, I was reading Alma 17 verses 2 and 3. I've heard these verses a lot, a ton. But there was a word that stuck out to me this time that I never paid much attention to before. Look for the word "waxed". It describes the sons of Mosiah, and I think it gives us a clue into the process of their becoming. Mom, have I ever made a candle? I can't remember. But maybe I've seen Ricole or Violet make one, because I know it starts with a string. And you dip the string into melted wax right? The first time you pull it out, it probably has a little film of wax on it. But it doesn't come out a candle on the first go. So you dip the string over and over and over, and each time the string collects a little bit more wax. Between dip 12 and 13, you might not see a very big difference, but the patient accumulation of wax turns a string into a candle, ready to hold a flame. I think my becoming process is a lot like that of a candle's becoming process, because sometimes I want to study the scriptures, pray, fast, work, and I want to become a candle right away. But that's not how it works. And sometimes I might be doing all of those things and I might not even notice a difference. But that's where faith comes in, because I know that if I'm giving my all and doing all that I'm supposed to, God will make a candle out of me. And maybe, just maybe, the flame of  Christ will be able to abide with me, and hopefully some hearts will be softened, and the they will be able to see the glories that God has extended to His Children. I'm out of time, family. I love you so so much. Thank you for everything. I might not be able to write a long letter today, but I'll try my best.

 

Love,

Elder Rogers

16 August 2011

Hi Family!

 

I love hearing from you! Thank you so much!  Thanks for the goodies! So I have some news. I might have mentioned it a few weeks ago, but in our branch, the District Leader position is only for 4 and a half weeks, and you might know this, but four and a half weeks was this weekend. So I was released, and you know Elder Ortega, the one I mentioned before? Well he's our new district leader, and He is soo awesome. I'm learning so much from him. The very first meeting we had as a district, I was blown away by him. I wish I could've learned from him before, I would've been much better if I had his example to follow. I am so grateful for the blessing it was to be the district leader. I learned so so much, so much that I don't think I will even start to mention it right now. I will say, however, I really believe that the Lord knew that I needed some specific lessons, and He wanted me to learn them sooner rather than later.

 

Good luck with the Dirty Dash! I hope it goes well! Let me know please!

 

Hey I got an email from Travis today, but since I'm so crunched on time, I don't think I'll be able to respond to him through email. Could you get me his address por favor?

 

So as you know, every P-day we go to the Temple. I woke up today with this weird stinging in my neck, like I slept on it wrong, I think you know what I'm talking about. Well it was quite a nuisance, but I didn't think much of it. That was until I went to the Temple. I started thinking about pain, and a thought came to me. My eyes were already wet, but when this thought came, it came with a feeling of assurance. There is a lot of pain in the world. We all know that. But you know what thought came to me today? It was something like this. Pain has a purpose. Our loving Heavenly Father doesn't want us to suffer any more than we have to, any more than will be for our good. Is there anything better at bringing us to our knees and bringing us to our Heavenly Father than pain? (This is frustrating to me because I can't think of how to describe this as hard as I try. Maybe think about it on your own and you'll feel what I felt.) God will not make us suffer more than the precise amount that will make us turn to Him. 

 

Don't let the questions about how it works stop you from enjoying the blessings that come from the fact that it does actually work. There will be pain, but that's how we grow. That's how we recognize how much we need help, and how much we need Him. Pain isn't entirely bad when we accept it as a reminder. There will come a day when we will be able to rest from pain and despair and sorrow, all of the thorns of this prickly world will be removed and we will be overwhelmed by the joy and the love that will come to define our lives hereafter. I love and think about D&C 121 all the time. I so glad we were able to visit Liberty Jail. My son, peace be unto thy soul. Jon, this too shall pass. I think of those verses often. God has promised us amazing things, and He will keep His word. His promises are absolutely real, and on the other end, our need for compliance is just as real.

 

Family, I love you so much. I think of you often and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for the prayers, God is answering them. I wish I had time to tell you how much I feel strengthened by our Heavenly Father. Miracles have not ceased. I love you.

 

Elder Rogers

One month out!

My Dear Family,

How is everyone doing? I think about you all and I am so grateful for each of you. It's so great to get your letters and emails and all the other things you send, thank you SOO much! Thanks for the brownies, the district loved them! The Vasquezes also sent me a package. I sent them a thank you, but will you thank them again for me? I've realized that I'm usually pretty bad at answering questions and replying to things you say, so I'm going to not write a sermon, but obviously being here, much of my life is about spiritual learning.


Dad - Seu portugues e muito bem! I'm jealous of your tri-lingualism. I don't know if I ever told you this, but one of the many reasons for which I was excited for my mission was so that I could learn another language. To be honest, I really hoped it was going to spanish. I remember on numerous occasions when I would get to see you use your Spanish to help an old lady in the airport, or a struggling man at the turtle liberation camp. I've always loved Spanish, and always hoped that I would be able to speak Spanish with the person I look up to the most. But, The Lord needs me in a country where they speak portugues, and at first, I was a little less excited than I should have been, but now, I absolutely love portugues. I love it. It's so fun to learn and to study and to speak. I've learned something else about my mission through portuguese. I always wanted to learn a language and be fluent, and I thought that a mission would be a way of accomplishing that. But you know what I've learned here? The Lord isn't teaching me Portugues so that I can be fluent in Portugues. He's teaching me portugues so that I can teach, serve, and bear my testimony to people in Santa Maria. It was a tough realization at first, but I want nothing more now. Sometimes I really feel like the Lord is teaching me the language. Almost as if when I sleep, He's putting vocab into my head, because sometimes I only look at a word once, and I'll remember it when I'm teaching. OR all of a sudden, I'll remember a word from high school spanish and i'll say it, and it turns out to work in Portugues. The language is one of the obvious ways that I am seeing the hand of the Lord in my life. That's too bad about S2S, but good luck on the dirty dash. I can't wait to run with you again!


Mom - Your story about the magazine seller really touched me. You are quite the missionary! Something I'm starting to learn is that sometimes I felt like I would have to convince people that the Gospel is true, but that's not really the case. I teach people about the Gospel, and Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost convinces them.

Mitch - your portugues is also coming along! I'm so excited for you, irmao. You've got a great year coming up for you. Brother, I want you to know that I pray for you every night. (Mom, Dad, Violet, and Ricole, I pray for you too, but I'm speaking to Mitch for a moment :)) Ringold and Workman will be awesome teachers, and they will help make your senior year great, but you have so many other things going for you that will make your life awesome. Brother, I love you so much. I wish we could serve together, I could really use you here. Don't let any of the worries and disappointments that might come your way get you down for too long. I know that's ironic, coming from me, going to you, but the truth is that life's too short. Mom and Dad told me that all the time, I wish I understood it like I'm beginning to. I hope you enjoyed replacing that fence post with Dad. I am 100% honest when I say that I'm jealous. I wish I could have been there. Some of my favorite memories of my whole life were when I was working with Dad.


Do you all remember my lucky-life saver necklace? Well when I was in the Spokane airport, I read in the Miss. Handbook that we're not supposed to wear necklaces, and I didn't want to be disobedient right off the bat, so I took it off and put it in my backpack. And I really really missed it. I started thinking about it more and more and I thought it would be okay to wear it, so I asked my teacher, and he said it was fine. I was so anxious to put it back on again. It's jsut a little necklace. An agate and some leather. But to me it means so much more. To me it means family and love. The truth is, I do cry here sometimes. But I'm never sad. When I think of the people I really care about, the tears come, but the tears are just a symbol of love, a reminder that love is power, love is real. When I feel how strong my love is for all of you, It is a testimony to me that God lives, that Jesus is our Savior, and that there is life after this. How could a feeling as strong as love be felt by anything that wasn't created by an all-powerful, all-loving Heavenly Father. That's one of the first things we tell people when we teach. God is our Loving Heavenly Father. I know that He is. Have faith, and He will lead us through all things.


I love you all so much.


Elder Jonathan Todd Rogers

Just a Pic

We took this pic on my cell phone just as we were leaving to get Jon set apart.  I literally could not look at it for the first 2 weeks.  Only recently did I look at it, and now I can do it without too much pain!  haha

He is so amazing.  : )

Happy Jon Day! aka Tuesday : )

Minha Familia,

First of all, thank you so much for all of your support. I love every single letter and package that I get. Will you tell G.G. thank you for the box of Laura Bush's she sent me? haha They are delicious, and of course, they're individually wrapped. I love seeing the pictures of Henry, thanks for sending them in the emails. I don't know how, or if I can print them off. And I don't have time to try and figuire it out really. Mom, haha don't worry about the hangers, I got some here. People just leave them around. And don't worry about the Peanut Butter, it's a sacfrice I can make. Plus, I don't know if I can afford the weight in the luggage.

Well, to be honest, there aren't a ton of really spectacular events that go on here, except for all of the spiritual growth, of course. But most days look the same, and so I don't have many awesome stories. I did however, have an interesting encounter with an Elder. I was in the bathroom and so was he, and I read his nametag. Elder McLaws. I thought, what are the chances? Well, turns out it's Bishop McLaws nephew from Oregon. Once we figured it out, I recognized that he looks a lot like Jace. I see him all the time because we're both Brazil, so our classrooms are near each other.

Alright, maybe I lied about the lack of interesting events. Every week we have one fireside and one devotional, and they are always really moving. This last one was a speaker from the Church Missionary Dept. He spoke about love.

After he spoke, I was talking to Elder Powell, and I told him something like, "We always like talking about love, but I don't know if we ever learn much about it just from hearing words". (Something like that...) I started thinking about it a lot, and I don't think there is anything as omnipresent and as thoroughly mysterious as "Love". I don't really know where I'm going with this but hear me out. When we talk about love, the conversation is often laced with inadequate analogies and hollow superlatives. It's true, and I'm sure I'll use some myself, and that's because love is just difficult to understand. But I think one of the most basic priniciples of love is that love is power. Have you ever thought about how love has changed you or changed someone you know? Something else happened this week, and it relates, trust me.

My class room is on the same floor of the MTC that Ricole's friend, Kristen Hatch (aka, "K$") works on. The other day I ran into her and we started talking. Fact 1: Anyone who has heard Ricole talk about Kristen knows how much Ricole loves her. Fact 2: I love Ricole more than air. Fact 3: I don't know Kristen that well. Fact 4: Kristen loves Ricole, too. With all of that in place, something really cool happened when I talked to Kirsten. Because of all of the facts and assumptions, I felt a real concern for Kristen, and I know, I absolutely know, that despite fact 3, Kristen would take care of me if I needed it. Isn't that just the coolest thing? I don't think I explained it very well, but because of our shared love for Ricole, I saw Kristen as a friend, someone who was on my side, someone who was looking out for me. And we've only met twice now! I don't know, I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense, but it was really cool to me. Love is power, and in that case it was the power to connect two random people.

A second though about love's power. When we have love, when we have charity, it changes everything about us. It reminds me of a quote from Remember the Titans. I'll probably mess it up, but I'm sure Caitlin could give you the real quote. In summer camp, Coach Boone is yelling at his players as they do up-downs, or something like that. He screams, "We're gonna change the way we BLOCK! We're gonna change the way we TACKLE! We're gonna change the way we EAT! We're gonna change the way we WIN!"

When we have love, everything changes. Maybe the nature of the things themself don't change, but maybe we only see them differently. Because of my love for the Gospel, for my brothers and sisters, and for my Heavenly Father, I'm changing the way I study, the way I read, the way I speak, the way I pray, the way I see others around me, the way I feel, the way I look at trials. I'm changing so much. Family, I'm changing so much. And I'm so grateful for it. Changing is the ONLY way I can be capable of helping with this work, and love is the ONLY way by which I can change.

And it all starts, ends, and centers around the love of Jesus Christ. I don't claim to understand every aspect of God's love. I don't think I can in this life. But I know that God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son. And Christ so loved the world that He gave His Life. Christ is the power, He is love.

If I never learn Portuguese, I hope I at least learn how to love. Elder Holland said, "If you can't teach them today, love them today, and maybe you can teach them tomorrow". God loves AND teaches us every day, in His own ways, ways that we don't always understand.

Family, I love you. I love you so much. Thank you for e'rything.

Love,

Elder Jonathan Todd Rogers