Tuesday, May 26, 2015

May 25, 2015

Dear Family,

Once again its been another good week here in Gridley! We had a zone
conference this past week down in Yuba city. It was super good and I
really learned a lot. It was good to see some former companions and
former missionaries I've served around. I also had the opportunity to
speak at the zone conference to give my departing missionary
testimony. I remember going to my first zone conference and seeing
those missionaries giving their departing testimonies and I thought
that day would never come but it did. This past week we also had the
opportunity to travel down to Antelope to our mission office and had a
trainer/trainee meeting with our mission President. I had the
opportunity to meet with President Marston afterwards and get a temple
recommend interview.

As far as the work goes this week we saw a couple of miracles! Before
I was telling you guys a lot about Brendall who was on date and
preparing to be baptized. Well he moved and didn't have a cell phone
so we lost contact with him and hadn't seen him in awhile. Well we
were tracting this week and out of all the houses we could have
knocked on we happened to knock on his house and find him again. Its
amazing how the Lord can put you in certain places to find and teach
certain people. He moved into his friends house and we even picked up
his friend as an investigator as well.

We're working a lot with a part-member family named the Fui's.
Chrystina the wife is a recent convert less active who we're working
with and we're teaching her Husband and her 11 year old son named
Dustin. Dustin is on date for June 20th and preparing to be baptized.
The only problem that we might run into is getting Dustins
Biological dad to give him consent. But we randomly ran into Dustins
real dad this week and we explained to him what we do as missionaries
and asked if we could come over and explain and show what we're
teaching Dustin. Hopefully we'll be able to soften his heart and he'll
let Dustin be baptized because if the rumor are right, he's in favorable of
him being baptized.

We're working with a good amount of other people. The biggest problem
we are having with everyone right now is just commitment. I look
forward to seeing you guys soon! I'm having a lot of mixed emotions as
my time is coming to an end as a missionary. I'm just trying to work
hard and finish on a good note! Hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Rosenbaum

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

May 18, 2015

Dear Family,

Hello its been another good week here in Gridley and Biggs. Its
definitely been a lot different this past week being that we have 3
Elders in our companionship now. Teaching, finding, door approaches,
and just all aspects of missionary work are a tad different but we're
figuring things out and making them work. Elder Sanborn, the
missionary that me and Elder Hudson are training, is from Boise Idaho
and a super good guy. He has a lot of fire and is far beyond what I
was when I came out into the mission.

Gridley had what they call Red Suspenders Day similar to what Fiesta
 Days is to Spanish Fork. So on Saturday we had the chance to go to the
city's parade and go to down town Gridley and just street contact
people for the longest time. It was actually pretty sweet. My whole
mission I've never really had the chance to just have so many people to
talk to. I've never picked up so many potential investigators in one
day before. Since Gridley is such a small town and we're basically out
and around talking to people every day it was crazy to see how many
people there I knew. But all in all it was a pretty good day.

We also had the chance to volunteer at a community event in Biggs and
we got to barbecue for everyone at the event. It was super sweet and
just a chance to get us out in the community and for people to see us
and a good chance to just talk with a lot of people.

I think our biggest thing we're struggling with right now is getting
our investigators to church. Our teaching pool is doing pretty good
and just trying to get them to progress. I'll try to share more about
them next week but time is short!

My time is nearing and being that I have only a couple more weeks I'm
definitely feeling a lot of mixed emotions but I'm definitely excited
to see what the future has in store!

Have a great week! Love you guys!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

May 11, 2015

Dear Family,

Although I already said it skyping I'll start off by saying Happy
Mothers day Mom! Hope you had a fantastic day! I appreciate all you've
done and continue to do for me and the love and support you always
show me!

A lot of what I say in this email might be a little repeat from what I
said skyping but thats okay. I got pretty big news! On Wednesday we
got a call from our mission president saying that the next day he was
gonna be in the area and wanted to meet with me and Elder Hudson. So
we weren't quite sure what to expect but he informed us that there was
a new missionary coming into the mission midway through the transfer
and he wanted us to train him and there would be 3 missionaries in our
companionship. President was pretty sincere and said he did a lot of
praying about who should train this new missionary and our names kept
coming up. Elder Sanborn is his name and he's a super cool guy. He was
originally suppose to be come out a couple of months ago but went home
from the MTC because of sickness, anxiety, and depression. But he's
been cleared to come back out so he got off the plane Saturday and we
went and picked him up! This will be my 3rd time training so it will
be a good way to finish my mission. We had our baptism for Duo Lin on
Saturday at  2 O'clock and it was an amazing baptism! The spirit there
was tremendous. Seeing someone enter into the covenant of baptism and
go into the waters makes everything worth it. It was definitely a good
day. Right after the baptism we took the road trip and headed down to
the mission home. It was kind of weird, it was the first time in my whole
mission being at the mission home. President always gives the trainers
some training when you pick up your greenie, so we did that and than
had dinner with the mission president and his wife. We had to work out
the logistics and find another bed and dresser for our apartment but
everything worked out and Elder Sanborn is now settled in. Being a
trainer always gives you that extra faith and motivation because you
want your companion to be successful and have a good start to his
mission, so there always seems to be good things that happen.

Well thats about all for this week! The work is continuing to move
forward and we're working hard trying to find the elect and get the
members involved. I'll try and tell you more about the people we're
teaching next week! Have a great week!

Elder Rosenbaum



 

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

May 4, 2015

Dear Family,

Well its been another week and a lot good things have happened but
we're still fighting through a lot of sicknesses. This week
fortunately was good for me compared to last week but my companion got
the worst of it this week. We spent some good time this week on
exchanges and taking turns babysitting Elder Hudson so we could hit
all of our appointments between our area and the other Elders area.
But we were still able to get a lot done this past week and work hard.

Good news! Duo is still good to go and will be getting baptized this
Saturday at 2 pm! We taught her twice this past week and will be
having dinner with her family tonight and another lesson tonight and
her interview for baptism will be tomorrow. Duo is pretty excited. Duo
even told us this week that when she comes backs to the united states
to go to college she wants to go on a mission. We've been so blessed
to just teach someone so golden and so prepared! Its been super cool
just to see her progression and see her being able to connect with
heaven.

We participated in a lot of service this week. We have what they call
mormon helping hands. Its basically when the ward finds a service
project somewhere in the community and they try and get involved. Well
the project that we did was at some community hall performance center
place we  basically painted all the inside of it. It was cool and a
good time just to be with everyone and be able to serve. It looked a
ton better afterwards

Our teaching pool is doing alright. It seems we have the quantity its
just it seem we need better quality. The only people were teaching
right now that will come to church is Duo and Bailey. And Bailey
didn't receive permission from her Father to be baptized.  We've had
to drop a few people which I hate doing and find some new people we
teach. We found a investigator the other week named Austin. He's a
senior in high school and we just talked with him while he was playing
basketball outside. Well we've had a couple of discussions with him
now and we went back to visit him and his mom answered the door and it
turns out that she's a member! What are the chances of that? Anyways
Austin is doing pretty good and we're pretty excited about him
hopefully he can continue to progress.

My time out here is short but i'm continuing to work harder than ever.
Knowing that it eventually has to come to an end I don't want to go
home with any regrets. There's no greater calling than being a
missionary!

Love you guys I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Rosenbaum
Sent from my iPad