Well my stint in Wyoming was fun, but it's over now. Basically everyone in the mission came back to one building for transfers on Wednesday. It's cool when the whole mission gets together because I get to see the Elders from the district in the MTC. E. Powell (my MTC companion) is amazing, all of the Elders in his district don't want him to leave to Brazil, they want to keep him. So let me tell you how tranfers unfolded. The mission is split up into zones, and each zone has two desinated zone leaders. At transfers the zone leaders (standing in the parking lot) hold up a poster board with the names of everyone in their zone and their companions. So once they hold up the posters everyone runs around trying to find their name. I got lucky, mine was on the first board I saw. Guess who my companion is.............his first name is Elder.......his last name is Ramos! Sound familiar? It should, because we were in the trio together before. I'm not sure I gave you a sufficient idea of how great E. Ramos is. I couldn't have asked for a better companion. It's common for only one companion to move out of the area so that after transfers someone is familiar with the area, so E. Dodge is still in our old area and E. Ramos and I are in an area just south of that old area. I think with all of these visa waiters the have enough missionaries to spread them out a little bit more than usual, so E. Ramos and I inherited a part of two different stakes that used to belong to the other Elders in those respective stakes. I don't feel like I explained that very well...Oh and E. Ramos is still designated over the Portuguese branch. So this week has been really exciting because everything is so new to us, but we both want to work hard to do what the Lord expects of us.
It's been cool to get to know the leadership in the wards. Let me tell you a little bit about Bishop Jenne. I don't know him really well, but in the little bit of time that I've had to spend with him, he reminds me a lot of Brother Shoemaker, aka, he's awesome. I'm really excited to work with him. When I was talking to him on Sunday, it came up that I was a visa waiter, and it turns out that he works in the missionary department of the church! He told me that there are about 140 missionaries waiting on visas in the world right now. Isn't that crazy? I figure at least 10% are in this mission. And he said that when he gets the report this week about visas, he'll let me know if he sees my name. So that's pretty cool. I've been trying to fight it but I find myself thinking about Brasil more now than I did in the previous three weeks. It might be because I'm trying to speak more Portuguese with E. Ramos. I don't know what the weather is like in Spokane but it seems like it got a lot colder here right after General Conference, which is a huge blessing because we wear suit coats full time now. There is snow on the mountains and it's so fun watch E. Ramos talk about snow. He's never seen it snow, he's never touched it, he seems to be one of the few people who is really excited for winter around here. As for me, I'm loving the fall-like weather we have. Fall is by far my favorite season. It just feels so special...so good to me. And that means we have Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up!
I'm learning a lot with E. Ramos. Because it's just me and him now, I get to do a lot more, which leads to a lot more learning. It's been really cool to notice the difference between how I felt knocking doors on September 13th and how I feel now. In September, I had no idea what to say and I was on the verge of peeing my pantaloons. But now that it's October, I actually still have no idea what to say when my fist hits the door, but at least my bladder is under control now. It's really quite an adventure knocking on doors. I've learned that it doesn't do me much good to procrastinate the knocking. Whatever planning I try to do ahead of time amounts to nothing. I don't think I realized that I could be a missionary and still have normal conversations with people, even as E. Ramos and I talk about the Gospel. I don't think I really believed the promise that if I opened my mouth, I would be given the words to say. Elder Bednar gave a talk that said something about this. He said that some people get it backwards, they wait for the words to say before they are willing to exercise the faith and open their mouth. That was/is me. Just like what my beautiful Seminary teacher Mother taught me, I have to move my feet before the Lord can direct my steps. So, here's what a common doorstep approach might look like: E. Ramos looks at me, indicating that it's my turn. I turn off my brain and just knock. Then I turn my brain back on, hopefully it starts back up before they answer the door. They answer, there are many possible attitudes that could they could manifest, and E. Ramos and I scramble to show them that we are not hostile, nor alien, nor babbling idiots. It's a tough job. But it's exciting. Sometimes the contact is less than successful, sometimes people just want to be polite, and some people really seem to be interested. It's an adventure with ups and downs.
The zone leader in Wyoming told me something that I like. He told me that the people we talk to are more afraid of us than we are of them. It reminds me of what Scout leaders tell Deacons on their first campout when they are afraid to go to sleep. But I thought about what he said, and it really makes sense. A lot of the people we talk to here know exactly who we are, and it's fun to see people avoid us as we walk down sidewalks. I've had to wrestle with a tough thought. I wonder why it is so dang hard to share the gospel with people. I mean, it's true! It's REAL! It will change your life! I know that, but they might not. Why do they almost literally run away? Why do they shut doors in our faces wihtout listening to us? Of course, it's their right to do that, and we respect that right, but what the heck is so grotesque about our faces that turns them off so suddenly? I don't get it. The zone leader in Wyoming gave me a copy of a talk that Elder Holland gave in the MTC a few years ago. It's called "Teach the Atonement", it's an amazing talk. There was one or two paragraphs that talked specifically about this question that I have been having. I don't have the talk with me, but I'll try to capture the meaning, but the unique Holland flavor will certainly be lost. He said, you'll have days on your mission when you wonder why people aren't lined up on your door step in the morning, dressed in white, waiting to be baptized. He said he wondered the same thing. But he came to the conclusion that Salvation is not cheap. It was certainly not cheap for the Savior. If we are to claim that we are representatives of Him, and that we accept His Gospel, we better have some evidence of it. We better have some bitter moments of our own. Our own experiences in "Gethsemane". Make no mistake, He suffered the Infinite Atonement for us, but that does not mean that the rest of our lives will be easy. But Imagine what it would be like without our Savior. Actually, don't do that, don't imagine something that dark and awful. But there is good news. It's the Gospel. It's Jesus Christ. Life is tough, but it's worth it.
About the carry-on bag, you can send it to the mission office, which is the address I gave you before. Thank you, Mom! Also, could you post something on the blog about how thankful I am for everyone's letters? And tell them that I'm sorry that I haven't been able to respond to any of them? Today is actually my first regular p-day in the mission and it looks like I might only be able to get one letter out...I wish it wasn't so, but pois e.
Well, I just found out that we have to get off.
I love you all. Thank you so much for everything.
Love,
E. Rogers
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