April 21, 2014

Dear Family,

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We got treated really well here by members and had 2 easter dinners with two of my favorite families in this ward so it was a pretty fun day. We taught Brayden again this week. We taught him the plan of salvation and his future mother in law(she's a recent convert)  joined in with us in the lesson and bore a strong testimony of  the plan of salvation and how that by itself  made her want to be baptized. Brayden committed to be baptized on June 28th during the lesson, which is two weeks after his wedding. Im pretty excited for him. That was definitely the highlight of the week. I've been working with Brayden ever since I've been in the area but the whole time I was trying to get to the opportunity to pass him on to the missionaries in the sacramento mission but now that he's moving into our ward its working itself out. 

We had interviews this week with our mission President. We'll be getting a new mission President in about 2 months so that will be kind of weird. We ended up doing a bunch of service this week. We hauled and dug out cement blocks and built of a wall out of them in the people's garden. It actually turned out really well. Its been getting extremely hot especially being on a bike and its only going to be getting hotter. haha To be honest not much else has happened this week we are still working with people who I've mentioned in past weeks. We're praying for miracles and we know that if we keep the faith we'll continue to see them! Thanks for your support. Love you guys and have a great week! 

-Elder Rosenbaum

April 14, 2014

 Dear Family,

So we received transfer calls and I'm staying in the area. Everyone
thought I was gonna be getting transferred since I just finished
training my greenie. To be honest I was kind of shocked that I was
staying. Haha but I'm glad and grateful for an additional 6 weeks in
this area.  Elder Johnson will be the longest companion I've had since
my trainer.(I was also with him for 3 transfers) Hopefully with me
staying for another transfer I'll be here long enough to see Frankie
get baptized. Frankie was sick this week so we didn't have the
opportunity to teach him this week which was kind of weird. So we did
a lot of hard work this week and had a lot of success from the fruit
of our labors. We picked up 5 new investigators this week. We're
pretty excited about it. We oym'd(street contacted) this couple who
were holding tennis rackets and they were walking to the park to play
tennis. I told them that I'm a huge tennis player and we automatically
connected and had something in common. We talked about that for awhile
but we ended up tying it back to the gospel and he had so many good
questions. We taught them on the street and we we're going to begin
teaching them! We might even go play tennis with them which would be
pretty sweet.

So we are teaching a recent convert's fiance. Once he's married he'll
be living in our ward boundaries and he wants to be baptized in our
ward. So in June he'll be able to get baptized. Its been a huge
blessing to be able to teach him. The guy is a stud! His name is
Brayden and he's been coming to church every week!

So I haven't told you guys about this guy name Gary yet. He's one of
the most interesting people I've taught on my mission so far. His
girlfriend is a member and it seems like all he wants to do is just
bash with us in every lesson. And you never know whats going to happen
going into a lesson.  Well he keeps every commitment we give him and
he goes to church every week so I guess in a sense he's progressing.
Well we retaught the restoration to him and emphasized authority and
we soft committed him to be baptized. We'll see where it all goes.

Love you guys!

-Elder Rosenbaum

April 7, 2014

Dear Family,

This week honestly flew by. I can't really remember a lot to be honest. haha Weeks are starting to feel like days, its really weird. I'll start off by talking about Frankie. Frank was originally planning on moving out to a different apartment to get baptized but his girlfriend, who is less active, talked with the bishop. It sounds like they're now planning on getting married, which is the better option in my opinion because they already have one kid and another one on the way. They haven't chosen a official date day but it sounds like it could happen next month so Frankie should be able to get baptized soon! Frankie's family took us out to dinner to Claim Jumpers this week and is still progressing really well! Hopefully it stays this way until his baptism!

Conference was amazing! We we're unable to get any investigators to watch it with so we went over to different members and watched it with them and had lunch with them. I feel super uplifted and edified from conference. Overall Elder Hollands talk was my favorite!  I felt like these 4 things were the main messages of conference. 

1. Defend/live your faith

2. Obedience to the commandments,

3 Trust in The Lord

4 Families 

. I'm so grateful for a living prophet who's called of God to lead this church!

We had a referral for a hungarian family who speaks very little english and we just happened to have someone in our ward return home from his mission from Hungary  so we had the opportunity to teach them this week. Although I couldn't understand what was being said I could still feel the spirit. It was a cool experience. 

Well thats all for this week! We ended up doing a lot of finding this week and actually had a good  amount of success! Until next week! Love you guys!

-Elder Ben Rosenbaum 

March 31, 2014

Dear Family,

Its been another great week. I just want to start off and say I love
the people in this ward and the people I'm teaching in this area. We
have transfers in two weeks and quite frankly I hope I stay here.
I've gained such a strong testimony that the church is the exact same
no matter where you are though.  I know this is only my second area
but everywhere I go I feel right at home.

So Elio got baptized on Saturday! Elio is a freakin stud, I'm super
proud of him and all the adversity and everything he had to go through
to enter the waters of baptism. I taught him for awhile in this area
but then he moved and it was close enough I had the privilege to be
able and go to it. It was super spiritual. When the people you're
teaching actually get baptized it makes it feel like its all worth it.
Its an amazing feeling. I'll make sure to include a picture of the
baptism.

So Xochil called us this week and she said that she wanted to push
back her baptism. She's very sensitive to the spirit and I think she
feels like she's not worthy enough or prepared or just ready in her
mind. She said she had a beer and she knew if she was going to get
baptized that was something she knew she shouldn't be doing. I
think we just need to give her some time and everything will work
itself out.

Frank is doing awesome. He's in the process of getting moved out into
separate apartments and is really progressing well. He still invites
us over for a lesson almost everyday which is awesome. He's a stud.
He's so close to baptism and he wants it really bad so we're excited!

There's a recent convert family in our ward and everyone is baptized
besides Omar, the husband. The daughter is engaged to this non member
and we began teaching him. His name his Brayden and we taught the 1st
discussion to him and the whole family including Omar. It was awesome!
Brayden is planning on getting baptized after they're married in June.
We're now meeting with Brayden every week.

We taught this couple named Ken and Kim this week. We taught them the
first discussion and they both soft committed to be baptized. We're
excited we'll see what happens from here with them.

We're having a lot of success and I feel like The Lord is really
blessing us. The Lord truly is hastening his work. I know this Gospel
is true with all my heart! Have a good week! Love you guys.

-Elder Rosenbaum