Elder Trace A. Rodgerson
Draper Temple August 2, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
catching up with Elder Rodgerson!
Here's the email from LAST MONDAY!
Family/Mother/Father,
I hope your birthday was well and I will try my very hardest to keep in mind all the emails i received as I reply!
Everything is going great so far. i'll be completely honest, I am quite homesick. It all hit me at once just a few days ago and i'm spending quite a bit of time on my knees trying to forget about home. This is probably one of the hardest things i've ever done but I know it will be worth it. It helps when I am able to build relationships with the members and investigators. My first sunday in the ward was yesterday and it went well. I was able to meet so many people. The ward is rather large but everyone knows each other. It's a great community they have there. Everyone comes late into sacrament meeting because they were all busy socializing in the hallway. The ward mission leader is brother ashton and he is very nice. He is extremely helpful to us and is always available to come out to teach with us. We had dinner at there home this week.
The people we teach are all amazing and I was able to develop really strong relationships really fast. I love nothing more than being able to go to their homes to chat and to feel the spirit. Most of the people we teach attend the University of Salford and that is where we do most of our finding. I would love to tell you all kinds of stories about the people I teach so send me a letter if you want to hear them!
That is pretty wild that chub got baptised (they use an "s" here, it's kinda weird). good for him. Katelin sent me a picture of him with Jared and Mike it was adorable of course.
I love my family but I miss Josh pretty bad. I think about him all the time. Also Joe, I hope I will be able to work for him again.
How are zach and josh doing?
Hopefully I'll talk to you soon. But for now, cheers mate!
Trace
15 Theatre House
Langworthy Road
Salford, England
M6 7AH
I hope your birthday was well and I will try my very hardest to keep in mind all the emails i received as I reply!
Everything is going great so far. i'll be completely honest, I am quite homesick. It all hit me at once just a few days ago and i'm spending quite a bit of time on my knees trying to forget about home. This is probably one of the hardest things i've ever done but I know it will be worth it. It helps when I am able to build relationships with the members and investigators. My first sunday in the ward was yesterday and it went well. I was able to meet so many people. The ward is rather large but everyone knows each other. It's a great community they have there. Everyone comes late into sacrament meeting because they were all busy socializing in the hallway. The ward mission leader is brother ashton and he is very nice. He is extremely helpful to us and is always available to come out to teach with us. We had dinner at there home this week.
The people we teach are all amazing and I was able to develop really strong relationships really fast. I love nothing more than being able to go to their homes to chat and to feel the spirit. Most of the people we teach attend the University of Salford and that is where we do most of our finding. I would love to tell you all kinds of stories about the people I teach so send me a letter if you want to hear them!
That is pretty wild that chub got baptised (they use an "s" here, it's kinda weird). good for him. Katelin sent me a picture of him with Jared and Mike it was adorable of course.
I love my family but I miss Josh pretty bad. I think about him all the time. Also Joe, I hope I will be able to work for him again.
How are zach and josh doing?
Hopefully I'll talk to you soon. But for now, cheers mate!
Trace
15 Theatre House
Langworthy Road
Salford, England
M6 7AH
And here is today's:
I am so sorry about how short this email will be but a stupid zone activity got us to the library with about fifteen minutes to email. I do laundry in our flat, we have machines. We grocery shop at lidl, the grocery store is very different. I really love the mission president. He is very strict and old fashioned but is very likeable and very sincere. I see other missionaries quite often at conferences and trainings and mission home firesides. I have great pictures to send home but unfortunately i have no time. I will make my companion spend two hours here next monday. I wrote a very detailed letter to katelin about all the people I teach so have her explain a little bit more about what's going on with me. My companion and I are growing very close and we are actually having a way good time together. We are learning each others humour and it is helping quite a bit. We had a lesson where we watched Legacy, i had some serious flashbacks. We watched it with our investigator Deivija (dated for the 30th, woot), at the Raemons home (phillipino, hopefully they cook as well as anita parsons) with Brymo (nigerian, 18, recent convert) and the bishop. It was such a good lesson and we had such a good time. I can't remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did last night. I will send you pictures of all the good times we had. The work is moving along quite wonderfully, I really love all the people we teach. We are in a pretty big city so we spend a majority of the time street contacting and riding the bus. We teach Ebenezer and Jeremiah tonight. Two young boys from a part member family, I love teaching them because they barely know english so we just play games with them and have there parents translate. Slowly the homesickness is fading. Sorry this was so short.
Trace
P.S. I loved the package, even though there was a bunch of random stuff in there it helped me out quite a bit. The pretzel m and m's was money! My companion loves the ball that lights up, he thinks its the coolest thing ever. The glowsticks me and my companion decided will only be broken after a baptism so let's hope its soon, it's very tempting! We teach a man named brymo wells from nigeria. 18 years old and happy all the time. He writes songs and upon listening to his songs Elder Dittmer and I decided we needed to have him change the words he said. He tried to justify it by saying he only said crude things on occassion. I said "Brymo, I'm gonna make you some brownies alright? and I'm just gonna put a little bit of poop in them. Sound good?"...Thanks Mom. He received it well and decided he is going to change his songs. I had my first experience with looking the wrong way while crossing the street. My companion apparently still has the same problem because we got to the median of the street both of us swung our heads right and stepped into the street only to be honked at and nearly missed by a car coming from the other side. Oh England.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Letter #3
Yo family,
Hartford, Connecticut Temple!
Happy Birthday Mom
I got some serious updating to do so here it goes. I'm serving in Salford. It it a city that existed before manchester but as time went on manchester sort of enveloped it. It is a pretty dumpy town to be honest. It looks just like bridgeport...it's like coming home. Lots of trees and big brick apartment buildings, it's a pretty rough place. I've had a homeless wheelchaired man yelling at me trying to get me to call an ambulance for him, which we almost did, A crazy drunkard harassing us in a walkway tunnel trying to get some leaflets from us and a man who's been to prison twice, the first time for murder, the second time for murder, yelling at me telling me joseph smith is not god. I continued to explain to him that i was well aware of this. Our flat is nice but pretty small i didn't take pictures this time but next time for sure. The food aint so bad. I found a new favorite snack, crumpets with some choco-duo sauce. My companion, Elder Dittmer is from hamburg, germany and he is like proper german, as the english would say. We are both about the same hieght which is pretty nice. The problem is we don't find eachother very funny, so it can be boring at times. He's a great trainer though. He is a district leader and he's been out almost a year. He has taught me a whole lot so far, including how to walk fast. He calls it walking with purpose. We teach very well together, I finally started to figure out what teaching by the spirit is. We came out of an appointment after teaching the first lesson and in the lesson the investigator asked a pretty tricky question and referring to the prayer at the beginning I was able to answer her question. My companion said afterwards "I was going to say that exact same thing. If that's not revelation, i don't know what is." Pretty good stuff. The missionary work is hard that's for sure but it turns out to be very rewarding. Every morning I wake up and I am homesick like you wouldn't believe. I feel awful in the mornings but as the day progresses I feel better and better. By the time we arrive home every night, exhausted and sweating, I am happy and I feel great. It is this cycle i keep going through but i am told it gets better with time. We have a quite a few investigators and a transfer goal of six baptisms. we have zero so far and zero dated. Nevertheless, we will continue to work hard. We teach a lot of recent converts as well. My favorite is brymo from nigeria. He is eighteen years old and ends all of his sentences with "you knowum sayin?". It is fun to teach him and watch his progression. I am very jealous of the missionaries that found him first. It makes me realize how much of a change we can have on people's lives. We are also teaching a boy named hadrian who is preparing to serve a mission. We teach him and do lots of roleplays, it makes me feel important. General conference was great. We spent the whole day at the stake center watching all the sessions in a row. There was a point where it was raining so hard outside that the sattelite signal cut off for quite a while. That darn english weather. Street contacting is pretty scary stuff but worse than that is bus contacting, it terrifies me. I get on the bus and my companion starts chattin away and i just freeze up and sit down. I don't know why I am so scared of it. I suppose i will get over it as time continues. Plus we ride the bus everywhere. We set up a lot of appointments with people but a majority of them fall through, I think Elder Dittmer and I intimidate people into meeting with us. I met Elder Helzer at General Conference, he is in our district. He is best friends with Torsten and he speaks about as much english as him as well. For P-day today we went out to the city to do some sight seeing and I will include some pictures. Best believe I be preachin' in my wallabees! It's good to hear from everybody and i'm excited for my package! Happy Birthday Moms and you should call Jake up and say the same 801-205-9416. You have the same birthday you know! I saw one of the tripp girls in the choir at conference and a kid i went to high school with. Talk about homesick!
Peace,
Trace
Hartford, Connecticut Temple!
Happy Birthday Mom
I got some serious updating to do so here it goes. I'm serving in Salford. It it a city that existed before manchester but as time went on manchester sort of enveloped it. It is a pretty dumpy town to be honest. It looks just like bridgeport...it's like coming home. Lots of trees and big brick apartment buildings, it's a pretty rough place. I've had a homeless wheelchaired man yelling at me trying to get me to call an ambulance for him, which we almost did, A crazy drunkard harassing us in a walkway tunnel trying to get some leaflets from us and a man who's been to prison twice, the first time for murder, the second time for murder, yelling at me telling me joseph smith is not god. I continued to explain to him that i was well aware of this. Our flat is nice but pretty small i didn't take pictures this time but next time for sure. The food aint so bad. I found a new favorite snack, crumpets with some choco-duo sauce. My companion, Elder Dittmer is from hamburg, germany and he is like proper german, as the english would say. We are both about the same hieght which is pretty nice. The problem is we don't find eachother very funny, so it can be boring at times. He's a great trainer though. He is a district leader and he's been out almost a year. He has taught me a whole lot so far, including how to walk fast. He calls it walking with purpose. We teach very well together, I finally started to figure out what teaching by the spirit is. We came out of an appointment after teaching the first lesson and in the lesson the investigator asked a pretty tricky question and referring to the prayer at the beginning I was able to answer her question. My companion said afterwards "I was going to say that exact same thing. If that's not revelation, i don't know what is." Pretty good stuff. The missionary work is hard that's for sure but it turns out to be very rewarding. Every morning I wake up and I am homesick like you wouldn't believe. I feel awful in the mornings but as the day progresses I feel better and better. By the time we arrive home every night, exhausted and sweating, I am happy and I feel great. It is this cycle i keep going through but i am told it gets better with time. We have a quite a few investigators and a transfer goal of six baptisms. we have zero so far and zero dated. Nevertheless, we will continue to work hard. We teach a lot of recent converts as well. My favorite is brymo from nigeria. He is eighteen years old and ends all of his sentences with "you knowum sayin?". It is fun to teach him and watch his progression. I am very jealous of the missionaries that found him first. It makes me realize how much of a change we can have on people's lives. We are also teaching a boy named hadrian who is preparing to serve a mission. We teach him and do lots of roleplays, it makes me feel important. General conference was great. We spent the whole day at the stake center watching all the sessions in a row. There was a point where it was raining so hard outside that the sattelite signal cut off for quite a while. That darn english weather. Street contacting is pretty scary stuff but worse than that is bus contacting, it terrifies me. I get on the bus and my companion starts chattin away and i just freeze up and sit down. I don't know why I am so scared of it. I suppose i will get over it as time continues. Plus we ride the bus everywhere. We set up a lot of appointments with people but a majority of them fall through, I think Elder Dittmer and I intimidate people into meeting with us. I met Elder Helzer at General Conference, he is in our district. He is best friends with Torsten and he speaks about as much english as him as well. For P-day today we went out to the city to do some sight seeing and I will include some pictures. Best believe I be preachin' in my wallabees! It's good to hear from everybody and i'm excited for my package! Happy Birthday Moms and you should call Jake up and say the same 801-205-9416. You have the same birthday you know! I saw one of the tripp girls in the choir at conference and a kid i went to high school with. Talk about homesick!
Peace,
Trace
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