August 18, 2014

Dear Family,

Its been a crazy week, it seems like a lot of things have happened. On
Friday Mark got baptized, it was such a special day. Mark has probably
been one of the most incredible people that I've had the privilege to
teach on my mission. I mean the guy has terminal cancer and the
doctors told him not to stop smoking because it would be too hard on
his body. Well The Lord knew best and he was able to stop. The last 6
weeks I've basically gone over to his house almost everyday. It was so
good to see him get baptized and the spirit there was incredible. I
had the opportunity to confirm on him the gift of the Holy Ghost so that
was a great experience. Ralph was suppose to get baptized the same day
and time as Mark. Well Ralph called me 30 minutes before the baptism
saying he didn't want to get baptized. He was trying to find every
excuse not to get baptized. We at least told him to come to the
baptism so he can see how it works and feel the spirit there. Well he
came to church as well and the first question he asked me was if it
was too late for him to be baptized. So we're really grateful he could
have a change of heart. Hopefully within the next few weeks he'll be
baptized.

On Saturday I had the opportunity to go back to Paradise, my first and
probably favorite area for a baptism for a lady named Anne Mathews. It
was an amazing baptism. I taught Anne for all 6 months I was in the
area and she was on date but never went through. It was so cool to see
her again and see her enter the waters of baptism. I'll send pictures.
I had the chance to visit a few people while I was in Paradise for the
day and I got to visit my first convert Jacob. It was so cool to see
him and his companion. Well he and his wife told me that they are
going to be getting sealed in the temple in October and invited me to
come. It made my day, it was so good to hear how well he was doing. I
also went to see Elaine my second recent convert. She's an older lady
and she told me that she's preparing to go to the temple as
well and would like me to come! I've been so blessed to teach amazing
people. The Lord has just been super good to me. It was probably one
of the happiest days on my mission, being able to see everyone.

We're teaching a family right now named the Griffen family. Well
Bubba, the daughters boyfriend committed to be baptized last week, and
Amanda and Shandi committed to be baptized this week! It was so cool.
Amanda and Shandi are sisters and their mom is a less active lady. Its
been a huge blessing to be able to teach them the last couple of
months.

We're teaching a guys named Josh as well. This week we had a super
spiritual lesson with him and he committed to be baptized on September 27th. He's almost 18 and just a super good kid who's turning his life
around. I've been working with him for about 7 weeks now so its been
cool to see him grow as a person.

Love you guys! Have a great week!

 Elder Rosenbaum

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