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

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!

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

November 25, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has probably been the most successful week of my mission so far! We saw so many miracles it was crazy. I'll tell you guys about 3 of them. I was on exchanges with the zone leaderson Tuesday. We just got done visiting this less active women named Myna and we were about to leave when we both felt like we needed to talk to the guy across the street. His named was Steven and he is about 30 years old and has really had it rough. He is a recovered drug addict. He was really depressed and we could tell so we asked if everything was okay. He explained that he had a couple family members past away recently and that he had really been struggling. He was curious why there were so many religions and he really wanted to know which way God wanted him to take in his life. We were able to teach and testify to him of Eternal families and of the restored gospel. The spirit was so strong and we challenged him to baptism and he accepted. He said he would prepare his wife and his 8 year old son to be baptized as well. They are preparing them to be baptized towards the end of December. It was an amazing miracle. Sadly he's just outside our area so we passed the family on to the missionaries in 3rd ward. They are currently being taught right now.

Another miracle we were able to experience this week was a new investigator we were able to pick up named Deanna. They is this young women in our ward named Brooke and she just got her call to Mexico so I challenged her to extend the invitation to her best friend to take the lessons from us so she could see the process of how everything works as a missionary. She did and we were able to meet with Deanna on Saturday night. We taught the restoration and the spirit was super strong. We extended the invitation to be baptized and she accepted. Brooke provided solid fellowship and everything worked out great. She's the golden investigator we always pray for as missionaries. She's going to be baptized on December 21st.

Remember Dennis I used to always talk about? Well we've been still teaching him and he's been wanting to meet more as of recent. We were able to have a really spiritual lesson with him as well. We decided the talk about the gift of the holy ghost. It was a great lesson and he wants to be baptized again so we were able to set his baptismal date for December 21st as well. 

We had a fireside in Chico on Thursday and Elder Stanely G Ellis came and he talked on the Book of Mormon. We were able to get our recent convert Elaine to come and a couple of less actives so it was a really great experience. All the missionaries in our zone sang a musical number the Army of Helaman. It was a great experience. On Friday we had Zone Conference and we were able to once again hear from Elder Ellis of the Seventy and from our mission president. It was fun to see a bunch of the missionaries that I haven't seen in awhile. 

All in all we had a great week this past week. For thanksgiving we have plans to go to the Bakers(a less active family), the Critsers, and the Petersons in our ward. They are all families so it should be a good time. We were told that Thanksgiving will be a full proselyting day and that the missionaries won't be having a turkey bowl so we were a little disappointed but it will still be fun! Hope you all have a great week eating turkey and know I'll be thinking of you all. Love you all.

-Elder Rosenbaum 

November 18, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

We had a crazy week this week. We spent a lot of time Saturday at in the Hospital. The Campbells, one of the families were teaching, had two children one in the E.R. and the other one in the ICU. They have several different things happen from kidney stones, to bladder infections and it was a really scary situation for the whole family. We were able to show our support and be there almost immediately and perform a blessing for them. It was a really spiritual experience for all of us. I was amazed at the love and the support the ward was able to show them during the couple of days they were at the Hospital. While they were still in the hospital we surprised them and went and did a bunch of service at there house and racked leaves, cleaned her gutters, etc. We had a lesson with them on Monday before everything went chaotic and taught the restoration and it went really well. Hopefully Marie will be able to get baptized before I get transferred. 

We were given a referral from a member of our ward to go visit a lady in the Hospital. He told her we would go by and give her a Book of Mormon, visit her, and see how see was doing. We went by and she was really receptive and we taught her the restoration while we were there and she invited us to come by and see her after she gets out of the hospital so we're going to go bytomorrow and teach her again. It was a great lesson and you could tell the spirit was just super strong. Its moments like that why I love being a missionary. She seems like of the more solid investigators we've picked up in awhile so we'll see what happens.

I went on exchanges this week and got to do some work with Elder Schaefer and we had an awesome day. He was born with this disease(I can't remember the name) and he was told he wouldn't ever be able to walk and we were meeting with our investigator Kim and we were talking about miracles and Elder Schaefer shared the story about his condition and how he would pray everyday growing up and ask Heavenly Father to be Normal and to be able to walk. He explained how it took 14 years until he was able to walk but that God answered his prayer and he told how much faith it took and patience. The spirit seriously punched me in the gut when he told this. It made Kim realize how real God is and how he can bless our lives we if make an effort to have daily prayer.

Elder Stanley G. Ellis is coming this week and he is going to be speaking at zone conference! whoo! It should be an awesome experience. He's even putting on a fireside for our stake Thursdaynight and a bunch of our investigators are really excited to hear him speak. The missionaries are performing a musical number at it so we'll see how it goes. We have exchanges with the Zone Leaders tomorrow so that should be fun!

All is well in California! I think and pray about you guys everyday! My testimony of this Gospel has grown more than I could have even imagined! God lives, He's real.

-Elder Rosenbaum

November 11, 2013

Dear family and friends,

We had a fantastic week this past week. Me and Elder Walton have been doing some good work. I'm thinking my time here in Paradise is short probably only 4 more weeks until I get transferred so I want to make the most of it and leave this area in great shape. We picked up a new investigator this week named Kim. A couple of days ago we were going around and visiting a bunch of potential investigators in our area book and we both decided randomly that we need to stop what we were doing and knock on this one door. A lady named Kim opened the door and was very friendly. We introduced the restoration and the Book of Mormon and she accepted to read it and was very excited and even invited us back. The was the craziest miracle and it came out of nowhere. Its amazing how the Lord prepares his people. It was a neat experience because me and Elder Walton were able to recognize the prompting of the spirit and were able to act on it.

Do you remember Jacob my first baptism back in the beginning of August? He spoke in Stake Conference! How cool is that? He spoke about his conversion story and the spirit was so powerful. It was a great experience. We had a couple of really spiritual lessons this past week. We met with Dennis and we talked about Gods amazing love and he was feeling really alone at the time. We shared a story with him and he started crying and the spirit was so strong. We were than able to testify of the truthfullness of the gospel with the spirit present. It was great! Its amazing to see the tiny miracles that we experience every day.

We did a lot of service this week. Stacking and splitting wood still happens pretty regular. And we helped a less active member move. I had a great Birthday on Monday. The Reeves had us and the Campbells, the family were teaching, over for dinner. We had a great night. There's a picture on facebook if you want to see. The whole zone ended up sing happy birthday to be at our p-day activity so it was a fun day. 

Everything is going great! I love being able to reach out and help so many people every day. Tomorrow I'll have been out for 5 months! Its gone by so fast! I feel like I've really grown so much in that short time and I've loved every minute and I know it will only get better! Thanks so much for your support it helps me out a ton! love you all! I hope everything works out with Kathleen she's definitely been in my prayers! Have a great week!

-Elder Rosenbaum

November 4, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

So we had a crazy week. My new companion got here Tuesday afternoon. His name is Elder Walton and he's from Canada. Me and Elder Harper both got companions from Canada so that was pretty cool. He's a really solid missionary, really obedient, and likes to work hard. We should be able to do some good work this transfer. My companion is the district leader. So we moved into a different member of our ward on Thursday. Brother Reeve was frequently gone a lot with work and that left us home alone a lot with Sister Reeve and that's against the rules so President decided to move us and the new member we're living with is Brother Sypherd. He's an older man about 80 and his wife is passed away so its a good opportunity for him to house the missionaries so he's not so lonely and he's super excited to have us in his house. He's an awesome guy one of the most Christ-like people I've met so far. We spent most of Thursday with Elder Bell building our beds and moving in. We're all settled in and its been really good for the couple of days we've been there.

Awesome news! Remember Anne I told you guys about in the past? Well we decided to reteach the Restoration to her so she could feel the spirit and we were able to recommit her to baptism again! Its scheduled for November 23rd. So that's super exciting. Tim's baptism is for now still a go for December 7th. We seem to have a good amount of investigators and we're keeping really busy. With transfers most of Tuesday and moving in on Thursday we were still able to teach over 20 lessons this week.  So its been a crazy week. So far I haven't really had a problem taking over the area. I've been here for awhile so I know it pretty good.

Thanks for all the Birthday wishes! It means a lot! Dad, I meant to send you a birthday letter on Saturday but I missed the mail man so you should be receiving a birthday card sometime this week. So I hope you had a great day yesterday. I hope everything works out with Kathleen's surgery I'll be praying for her!

Love and miss you guys! Have a great week!

 

Oh and by the way the members house we moved into their basement flooded last night... we spent most the night helping him clean everything up. crazy stuff!