Squeezy Cheese and Crackers

I laughed out loud at this one :) Enjoy!

This week has had its ups and downs, but all in all it has been good! We had Zone Conference on Friday which pretty much took all of Friday between traveling and the actual meeting. The theme was "Rise to a New Sense of Commitment" which I really loved. 5 of the missionaries from my district (3 elders, another sister and myself) did a musical number for it. We sang the words of Joseph Smith's First Prayer to the music of  If you Could Hie to Kolob (try it, it works!) and it was so beautiful! I have played the piano a lot since leaving home too (especially in the MTC) and can see that Heavenly Father is helping to strengthen my musical talents for His purposes.

The mission president's wife sent us some pictures of zone conference. For your viewing pleasure:

Its good to know she's still eating in England ;)

President and Sister Rasmussen are incredible. They truly do care about all of their missionaries. They were even kind enough to let me call home this week!  My district and zone leaders are awesome too. In the 5 sets of missionaries in our ward/district we have the district leaders, zone leaders and sister training leaders. I have some really good examples to learn from!

Our investigator pool dropped this week so we will be doing a lot of door knocking and street contacting. Every time we go out I learn more about how to contact people and overcome my fears. Its like ripping the band-aid off- you just have to do it! We are going to try some new approaches to finding people this week and hopefully have more success. Most   people we meet either stand us up for appointments or give us fake numbers. Its going to happen regardless of what we do though. I am going into this week with a positive outlook!

Miracle time! We ran into this man street contacting and he wouldn't give us his contact information, but said he would come to church this Sunday. He sounded like he meant it, but then he didn't come!! While we were walking to the church this morning to e-mail home we ran into him again! He said he was sorry he hadn't come to church but he had to work. He also said that he had been studying with the South Koreans, but they all went back to South Korea and he had decided to study with us! So, after a week of pretty much no success a miracle just fell into our lap this morning! We are going to do everything in our power to not lose him and teach him and get him baptized!

Also, I decided Nephi is a beast. He is so incredibly obedient and weathers so many storms (literal and figurative haha). Heavenly Father expects us to be obedient to his commandments and give it our all and then he blesses us beyond our comprehension. Why would I not be obedient??! I have started reading through the New Testament in addition to my other studies and have loved it! Christ truly did lead by example. If we want to be more like him we must study and learn more about him!  

Random fact, if anyone thought the weather is weird in Texas, its weirder here! We were out finding and within a half an hour it was sunny, raining, hailing and back to sunny!

When I was at Zone conference I got a letter from Abigail and a Package/Letter from Macy!! I have the best family and friends ever!!!! :) Abigail is still awesome and so is Macy! :) AND. Macy knows me too well! The package had sour patch kids, chicken and biscuit crackers, squeezy cheese and pillow mints! I almost died when I looked at it!

Today is bank holiday, so tons of places are closed and we will be at home writing letters! Expect letters in the next 2-3 weeks :)

I LOVE YOU!!! I am so grateful I am here and that my family is so supportive and wonderful!

PS. still send packages to the mission home :) And maybe even letters. You don't have to, but it might be more reliable, I'm not really sure. I know that we do get fairly reliable mail to our flat though. I tried to send some pics but it didn't work, so I'll try to send some next week!

Much Love,

Sister Roscher!!

Week 3

Here's Sister Roscher's email:

"Its been fairly chilly here, but surprisingly not too rainy. We mostly get around by walking and buses (double decker buses). The work is slow in this area right now. There are 5 sets of missionaries in our ward/area. It a monster area all downtown, so there is always more finding to do! Most of the people in our area are either immigrants or lower class. And there is a surprising amount of baptisms all together. Several of the baptisms in the past while have been students from China because Aston University and University of Birmingham are in our area. 

We currently have 2 progressing investigators, so this week we are going to be doing a lot of tracting. I haven't fully warmed up to tracting yet because the people often times look unfriendly so its scary to approach them. Some wise advice from my district leader is that if I don't open my mouth and talk to them I am denying them a chance for eternal salvation. Kind of puts it into perspective haha things aren't going to be easy here, but  I know I need to work hard. I was prepared, but I don't think I realized it was going to be this hard! However, the work goes forth and I am excited to be a part of it! 

We visited a lot of less-actives this week, and on of them broke her foot ten minutes before we got there, and the paramedics were on their way. It was a good thing we were there though because her mother has Alzheimers and her son is handicapped to so we stayed til the RS president got there. "

She sent pictures too :)

This is a picture of some of the sisters after going to Azda (the English version of Walmart).

In front of the Preston temple :)

Can't wait to hear from her again next Monday! And I'll try and actually post on Monday ;) 

Free of the MTC!

Sister Roscher left the MTC today! Her first area will be Harborne, which is right in Birmingham. The mission president's wife emailed us some pictures so I figured I'd post them :)

These are all of the new Birmingham missionaries. Sister Roscher is on the far left :)

With the mission president and his wife

Sister Roscher and her new companion, Sister Miller. 

We should hear from her again on Monday and I'll post again then :)

One Week Down

Sister Roscher made it to England! After a full day of traveling (and I mean a full day- between flights and layovers it took her 24 hours to get to England) she landed and went right to work! This is Meghan's sister Allyson, and I'll be posting pictures and parts of her emails as she sends them. I promise to do as little editing as possible, but I will change some things to make it easier to read. Now, this blog is all about her adventures so lets hear what she has to say about them:

The MTC (Missionary Training Center)  is awesome! Jet lag hasn't been too bad. The first day was intense because none of us slept on the flight over to England (the long 8 hour one). It was really cramped and hard to get comfortable. Once we got to the MTC we spent the rest of the day doing stuff, so that night everyone was falling asleep during our meeting.  We all slept great!   There are 50 missionaries, 6 Districts of English speakers and 1 district of non-English speakers learning English. they've already been here 5 weeks and will be leaving when we do. About half of the missionaries here are going to Birmingham and the rest are going to Scotland/Ireland. Our days mostly consist of studying, eating and teaching investigators (our teachers). The food here has been good, nothing too weird. They do eat raw salmon a lot and they have some really cool soda.  The cooks must know we're pretty much all Americans!

 My district is great! There are ten of us. Only 3 of us are going to Birmingham though; the rest are going to Scotland. the districts here usually have 4 Sisters and 6 Elders. 2 of us are from Idaho, one from Denmark, one from England, one from Arizona and the rest are from Utah! My companion, Sister Gilbert, is great! She's from Alta, Utah and she's 21 too. The other girls we room with are both from Utah and they're SO nice!

 

I LOVE the accent and all the English people I've met have been so friendly! The Scottish accent is a lot harder to understand, but I'm not going to Scotland, so it's all good! It is so green and gorgeous and the MTC sits by a beautiful pond! Geese and ducks float on it and we can see them from our window. So far we've had 3 sunnier days and the weather been really nice. Today has been really rainy though. I've been told those 3 days are going to be the extent of our summer, but we'll see. The natives might just be joking with us.

 

Some of the words that are diifferent here are, Rubbish=Garbage, Jumper=sweatshirt, Pants=Underwear. I can't think of anymore right now, but there are tons.

 

This morning we got to go to the temple as a Zone and it was amazing! The spirit is so strong there. Its gorgeous too, and its just a short walk from the MTC! Today we get to go to Azda, which is like the English version of Walmart so that'll be exciting! I guess everything is expensive though, and the exchange rate between pounds and dollars isn't very good either.

 

I've already learned SO much just in the past week. I'm learning how to teach and to really study and ponder the scriptures. Praying before and after you study the scriptures makes a big difference. Tonight we have devotional with the Europe Area seventy, Steven E Snow, and the man who wrote the Joseph Smith papers. the more I study and learn, the more I realize how much there is to learn and how incredible the gospel is!  We watched an MTC devotional Sunday and David A. Bednar gave some really good advice on the telling whether a though is the spirit or just me. The gist of what he said is quit worrying about it!! Press forward with Faith in Christ, be a good girl, keep your covenants and be obedient and the Lord will make you his instrument.

Love you all! thanks for your love an support and prayers. I pray for all of you.  My half hour on the computers is up, so sorry I didn't respond to any of the individual ones. Everyone is anxious to email and hear from their families and there are limited computers.  'Til next time.

 

Sister Roscher

I'll update again when I hear more :)