September 22, 2014

Dear Family,

A lot of good and bad things happened this week so we'll start with the bad to get it over with. Do you guys remember Mark Childers? Mark is the man that we got baptized about 7 weeks ago and also my greenies first convert on his mission. Well he had terminal cancer and overcame smoking and everything. One of the coolest stories throughout my mission. Well we gave him a call to go visit him on Saturday and his daughter answered the phone and informed us that he had passed away from his cancer(age 52). She invited us over to go spend sometime with their family that day and go to a bbq with them because she knew how much we meant to Mark. It was a great opportunity to meet them and hopefully a good way in with them. The funeral services will be this Wednesday morning and either me or Elder Blomquist will be giving a talk during it. Mark meant a lot to me and we became really close and spent a lot of time over there. I know he's at peace now though and free of all mortal pain. Mark had expressed to his mother how important and how much it would mean to him if he could go to church with his mother. His mother was originally planning on coming down to Redding from Oregon anyways but she just so happened to come down the week he passed away. Talk about perfect timing. His mom insisted in coming to church with us and told us that she knew that Mark would be there in spirit at church. All in all I know everything will work out. 

We're teaching a couple named Robert and Shannon. There a couple that we were able to find through a member in the area. Robert and Shannon are a couple with mental disabilities but are just so sweet. Robert is getting baptized this Saturday which is super exciting. He already had his interview and everything is ready to go. Shannon his wife doesn't feel quite ready so she wants to hang on for a little bit so she is going to be getting baptized on October 11th. Robert and Shannon have been the coolest people, its been a huge blessing to teach them. 

This is week 6 of the transfer meaning this Sunday night we find out if I'm going to be getting transferred or not. I feel like its about 50/50 whether or not I will get transferred. I've now finished training Elder Blomquist but I've only been in my area for 3 transfers and I've been in my previous ones for 4. 

Dad, as far as the fires go, both the north and south of my missions are being affected by it, not so much the central. The North where I'm at there seems to be a new fire every couple of days, its kind of crazy. The most recent one has been in a city named weed. Redding is fine, just the air is really polluted which makes biking a little bit harder. 

Love you guys! You're all great! Hope you have a great week! 

September 17, 2014

Dear Family,

Its been another great one! First off, p-day is today instead of
Monday this week so hopefully you didn't freak out when I didn't write
earlier this week! We had a half-mission conference which was awesome!
Elder Nielsen from the first quorum of the seventy was there and
addressed us and he had some great things to say. He said come June to
expect more missions around the world to be announced. Someone asked
if our mission was gonna be split and he said no comment. I guess
we'll see what happens. The biggest thing he talked about is how we
need to connect people to heaven and the key to doing that. He talked
a lot about grace and our weaknesses and how sometimes we all think
we're insufficient in what were asked to do. What he had to say was
great. He basically told us not to tract. He told us to go visit every
less active in the book before we tract. The reasoning behind it is
that he explained that most the time active members are only friends
with active members but when we visit less actives they surround
themselves with nonmembers which gives us a better chance of getting a
referral and a lot of the time less actives have nonmembers in there
family.

I honestly can't remember a lot that has happened because I feel like
its been so long since I've emailed but we had some amazing miracles.
We're teaching a 17 year old young women named Taylor and we had a
super spiritual lesson with her. She soft committed to be baptized
which is awesome! We had a investigator named Josh and Taylor is
Josh's ex girlfriends sister.(hopefully that makes sense) So it was
kind of interesting how we were able to find her. We've been teaching
Taylor for about a month and its been sweet!

We found a total of 3 investigators this week which is awesome. We're
not teaching as much as I would like to but sometimes the works seems
to do that, it always goes up and down and you just can't control
peoples free agency.

We did have one cool miracle. The sister missionaries in the ward next
to us are teaching a couple that are committed to be baptized on
September 27th. Well they moved to our ward so they will be passing
them off to us tomorrow so we will have the blessing and privilege to
teach them. I feel kind of bad that they did most of the work but
we're all on the same team though.

Love you guys hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Rosenbaum

Here's some pics of the half mission conference and some caves we hiked.

September 8, 2014

Dear Family,

Well it has been another good week here in Redding. I'll start off with our highlight of the week. Ralph was baptized! It was such a good day and the spirit was so strong. It's so amazing to see another child of god become one with the saints and enter into Christ's church and most importantly receive that saving ordinance. The Lord seems to be so good at preparing his people and making it truly a wonderful time to be a missionary.  I had the opportunity to be the one to baptize him so it was a special day. 

The day after his baptism we were able to find someone that seems pretty promising. We visited a less active lady that we were referred to by a member and she was a foster mom and she just barely was able to adopt her daughter named Cheyenne who's 15 years old. She wants us to start the discussions with her which is super awesome. It kind of came out of nowhere and was such a great blessing!  

With a lot of the investigators we've been teaching they've slowing been dropping us or are just kind of flaky or not progressing so we did a lot of less active work this week which was great. We're gonna be in a lot of finding mode these next couple of weeks I think. Jeremiah our 12 year old investigator is super close to baptism! His parents are divorced and he was scared for the longest time to ask his mom for permission but I guess he finally did and verbally she said it would be fine we just have to get it on paper and he can get baptized. We've taught him all the lessons and we still go over there every week so it would be super cool if we could see him get baptized before I get transferred. 

Our mission President was in the area on Saturday and called us and took us out to dinner which was super cool. It was nice to be able to talk to him on a casual basis like that. 

We're hiking lava tubes/caves I think for p-day which should be rather cool. I'll send pictures next week probably. Have a great week! Love you guys!

Elder Rosenbaum

September 2, 2014

Dear Family,

Sorry this email was late. We went on a zone hike and climbed a mountain named Black Butte yesterday. It was a good time. I was told the vertical climb within the hike was around 2000 feet, so it was a pretty good hike. We ended up not getting back until a couple hours later than we originally planned(thats was why I wasn't able to email yesterday) because a sister missionary ended up spraining her ankle really severe at the top of the hike, so going down didn't make it very easy, especially since it wasn't the easiest hike. There was lots of rocks and stuff we had to climb. But we all made it out safely. haha Since none of us were gonna make it back to our areas on time for dinner we got invited to go to a barbecue with some members up in the area at Mt. Shasta. It was a good day and a great way to spend Labor Day. God's creations never cease to amaze me. All things really do donote that there is a God.  Labor Day obviously had me thinking about Grandma and Grandpa Rosenbaum and how we would always spend the day there. It's weird when traditions like that change but sometimes change is what is needed. I miss them but I know they're at peace and with one another again. 

Another week has come and gone. It's weird how fast time goes sometimes. So Ralph's baptism will be this Friday! Its super exciting. He feels like he's ready now and he can't wait. He's even been telling everyone at church. I've been asked to perform the baptism for him so that will be pretty cool because that doesn't happen very often. Pray for him, that all will go through and work out! 

Mark, our recent convert that was baptized a couple of weeks ago is doing awesome. He met with the bishop on Sunday, so he'll be able to receive the Aaronic priesthood. It's super cool he's progressing and continuing to grow in the Gospel.

We were suppose to meet with our mission President just real briefly because he was in the area and wanted to see us. Well, last minute he had to cancel because something came up. Its weird though how The Lord will put you in certain places to find and talk to certain people. While we were there waiting for him we found a man who was just intrigued with who we are and what we teach. We talked with him forever and taught him the whole first lesson on the street. It was amazing to have someone just come to us. We're going to begin teaching him now! 

So much to write about but not enough time. Hope you guys are all doing well! Have a great week! Love you guys.