Friday, December 27, 2013

December 23, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

We had a great week this past week. We are now officially one of the
missions testing out iPad mini's. Every missionary has his own iPad. We
all thought it would be one for each companionship but we were wrong.
Haha so it's pretty cool. We're in the process of changing our whole
area book over which is a pretty big pain but it's All good. We also
had a half mission conference this past week which was pretty fun. I
got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in forever. We just got
news that Elder Dallin H Oaks is coming to our stake conference so I'm
pretty excited for that as well!

We had a ward Christmas party Saturday night. It was a good
opportunity for me to get to know the ward since I'm still pretty new
here. I ended up carving  and serving turkey with my companion for
over 300 people. I felt like I was back at my catering job. Haha I'm
still adjusting to this area but it's gong great! So far I love the
area, ward, and my companion.

We have an investigator named Ellio and the guy is on fire. We
committed him to be baptized in the beginning of January but it's
going to have to be pushed back to February due to certain things.  He
came to church which was awesome and stayed for all 3 hours. He's 22
years old and he even told us when he gets baptized he wants to go on his
own mission. He's even telling all his family and friends about it and
getting them interested so this guy is just a stud.

As far as Christmas goes we can either FaceTime or Skype. Either one
works for me. I'm gonna say let's plan on doing it like mid morning
around 11ish or 10:30ish. I look forward to being able to talk to you
guys. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Wishing you guys all the
best. Love and miss you guys.

-Elder Ben Rosenbaum

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

December 16, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,
My first week in Citrus Heights has been fantastic! My companion is Elder Miller and the guy is a stud. He's from Provo Utah and he even knows some of the same people as me back home including Chase Ward. So I thought that was pretty cool. I kind of feel like a real missionary now being on a bike. Its crazy different being in a small spread out city to going to the big city on a bike. I love it though there's so many people in the streets that we can street contact so I've been able to talk to so many more people and I love it. We're in the very corner of our area and the very corner of our zone so we've been racking up a lot of miles on our bikes but hey at least it will get me back in shape after being in a car for so long.
We have a pretty good amount of work here in the Van Maren ward so its keeping us busy. We even picked up 6 new investigators this week which is the most I've ever gotten in a week. We're teaching the Hernandez family and the whole family are recent converts besides the husband and his name is Omar. The guy is a stud. We had two lessons with him this week. He's just kind of being stubborn leaving his catholic faith. He even said he knows the Book of Mormon is true so we're just going to keep working with him. They invited us over on Christmas so we'll go spend a lot of times with them on Christmas playing games and stuff.
Hey if you see Brother Flinders or Doctor Frandsen back home can you tell them that I met brother Ashby who lives up here. They apparently know each other pretty well. And I met a person in my ward named Kristine Dudly that apparently grew up in Payson and knows Aunt Renee pretty well.
We have a half mission conference tomorrow to get training on our Ipads. Each missionary is going to receive his own Ipad tomorrow for missionary purposes only obviously. But its going to be pretty cool. So I should be able to facetime home on that for christmas or skype. I look forward to being able to talk to you guys. Thanks for everything! Love you guys.
-Elder Rosenbaum

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

December 9, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Well we received transfer calls last night. I'm getting transferred!!! I'm getting transferred to Citrus Heights which is the furthest south as our mission goes. Citrus Heights is right below Sacramento so its going to be a huge change going from Paradise which is small, lot of trees, kind of out here in the middle of nowhere to a big city. I'm going to be in a bike area too which is going to be kind of different. I'm going to be senior companion. I've never met or heard of the person I'm going to be companions with but I understand he's been out for 3 months. Its should be a fun and exciting time. I'm definitely going to miss Paradise. I'm grown really close to this ward and they've been awesome to me. They announced in church that I would have a high chance of being transferred and everyone was treating me like I was dying or something. haha It was kind of fun. My ward mission leader will be taking me down to my new area tomorrow and w'ere going to meet up with my last companion and go out for lunch so that will be fun too! I hear the south of the mission is completely different than the north. 

We had a great week. We have an investigator who is just on fire. Her name is Deanna and she's on date for January 4th. She's the most promising investigator I've had here in a long time. She came to church on Sunday which was awesome and stayed for all 3 hours. We had dinner with her this week and with the family that is fellowshipping her and had a lesson afterwards. The spirit was so strong. We met with her twice this week. She's 19 years old and just really open to the spirit. After the lesson we went home and there was a huge snow storm which is apparently super rare in Paradise. I live in this neighborhood which has huge hills to get to it and we ended up getting stuck. We called a less active guy named Jim and he came and pulled us out with some chains and his jeep. We didn't end up getting home until like 11 because of it. It was a pretty crazy experience. But we're safe and everything ended up working out.

We taught Elders quorum and young men at church so that was pretty fun. We've picked up a family that we started teaching about 2 weeks ago. We've been able to meet with them about once a week and she has like 8 kids. It was the greatest miracle. If everything works out with them our primary in our ward could really use them. 

I love you all and I look forward to hearing from you at Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

December 2, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm glad to hear that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful thanksgiving as well. We ate with a huge family in our ward and there was a lot of people so it was a lot of fun. We had a total of 3 or 4 Thanksgiving dinners including the day of Thanksgiving and the day after so the members here took really good care of us. Since the time I've been on my mission I'm close to gaining 15 pounds already. It doesn't help that I'm in a car area either. 

We got permission from our Mission President for all the missionaries in Paradise to go to a Christmas Musical thats put on by members of the church and its held at the Performing arts center. With 2 showing that day over 1000 people came to see the show from the community and the whole program was focused on Christ. After we got to pass out article of faith cards to everyone. Overall we passed out over 600 article of faith cards and it was a great opportunity to get our name out and to have people see us and realize what we do. We even got a bunch of referrals and potential investigators while we were there. So it was a really successful day!

Our investigator Deanna is really coming along well and still progressing towards her baptism. We had dinner with her and the family thats fellowsipping her this week and a lesson with her. So its been going really well. We had a total of 3 investigators at church on Sunday which was awesome. We had a lesson with the Campbell family we're teaching on Sunday night and helped put their Christmas tree up. There should be pictures on facebook if you want to check them out.

We get transfer calls a week from yesterday so we'll find out if I will be getting transferred. Its pretty abnormal to stay in an area longer than 6 months so I'll probably be getting transferred. The weather here is still pretty nice. We're wearing short sleeve shirts still but a jacket at night. I'm not missing the cold back in Utah. Love you all hope you all have a fantastic week. 

-Elder Rosenbaum