1/21/19

Hey Family and friends,

This week started out with driving out to Brownwood to go to the Comanche District Council. That was good and great to be able to see all of those missionaries out there. We don't get to see the missionaries that live outside of Abilene at all so that makes things hard. 

This week we had an exchange with the missionaries here in the 1st ward. I went with Elder Jensen and had a great time. He is actually from Weiser, Idaho. He is a good guy and was able to help me out a lot this week! ON our exchange we were able to teach some good lessons. We also went to see this former person that was taught and the was a WILD experience. HE was a very nice guy but had some bizarre beliefs. Defiantly wont forget that one!

This week we gave Kele and Amos Alma chapter 32 to read. Which talks a ton about faith. She really loved it and  marked up her Book of Mormon, had lots of questions and was craving to know what we wanted her to read next. It was a great lesson.....all until her eardrum ruptured mid-lesson!! That kinda threw everything else after that off, but she came to church and we have a lesson and dinner coming up with them this week!!

Love y'all and hope that y'all have a great week!!!

1/14/19

Hello family and friends,

This week started with a xray. A while back I got kicked in the foot really hard playing soccer with a bunch of missionaries, and last pday we were playing some soccer again and me and someone else kicked each others feet. It was hurting quite a bit the next day and definitely didn't look the best ha so the mission nurse wanted me to get an XRay. Luckily the bone in my foot is just bruised, and should be good soon if I dont get kicked ha! 

This week we had some sweet lessons with a couple of the people that we are teaching and we also were able to find some new people to teach that are pretty solid. We were also able to go on an exchange with Elder Mann( the assistant we are working with) it was a great exchange. 

This week we were able to teach Plan of Salvation like 5 times. A couple to people we are teaching, recent concerts, and a member family. This week my testimony has really been strengthened of Gods plan for us. I know that the Plan of Salvation can apply to each of us individually. The most important part of the Plan of Salvation is our Saviors Atonement that he performed for us. Through it we can find peace, comfort, be cleansed from our mistakes, and the most important part is we can live again. I am grateful to be out here and be able to teach people about Gods plan and about our Savior's love for us. 

Love yall and hope everyone's week is good!!👌

Much love, Elder Rose

  

Pics

1. Elder Mann XChange

2. Wipe your feet

3. The cure for my toe......the Mission Nurse gave me permission to buy some tobacco so I totally did. 

1/7/19

DALE. He's a beast!

Hi friends and family. 

This week started off with transfers on Tuesday. I sent off Elder Henderson about 9 that morning and then I was left to hold down the fort here in Abilene. I went on exchanges with a bunch of the other missionaries that stayed in my Zone and waited until Elder Thornblad got here. He rolled in a lot later than expected to, but got here in time to unpack and get to bed on time!!

The next day we drove out to San Angelo for District Council and to deliver a couple bikes and a dresser. On the way there, there was about 10 wrecks on the road cause it was pretty cold and wet....ad slick. But we made it safely. 

The next couple of days were full of trying by former investigators, teaching member families, and trying to find new people to teach. 

This week we went by Kele and her husband Amos to introduce Elder Thornblad. They had a very drunk friend there that made our visit pretty entertaining. They are doing great and slowly progressing in the gospel. They are feeding us dinner this week again. Keep praying for them because the prayer make such a big difference. This week they actually also bought me a pair of new shoes because they saw my very sad pair of worn out shoes that have holes in the bottoms. Ha and No matter how many times I told them no, they would take it for an answer! They are awesome!:)

The highlight of my week was that I was able to go over to Lubbock on Friday!! So we drove over there Thursday night. Ha and instead of making it easy on ourselves we accidentally missed our turn and started driving to Midland instead.... made us an hour later... lesson learned is sometimes a GPS is necessary!! But we got there and got to spend the night with Elder Terry and Elder Pollock. And a bunch of others, but it was sweet to catch up with them. We had a MLC that was good and helped have some new ideas to keep our mission moving forward. After the meeting they scheduled a session for us to go to the temple. It was great. After the temple I went and stopped by AB with Elder Pollock. His reaction was great and he was so surprised. It was great to see him. And after AB I went to see Dale Keyser. I was so good to see him and see how much he has changed since i left Lubbock. He has been to the temple and passes the sacrament every week now. It builds my testimony seeing how much Christ has strengthened him, since when I first met him.

Thank you all for the prayer and support you show me. I truly an grateful for it. Hope you all had a great New Year and haven't jumped of track for your New Year goals quite yet;)

Have a great week!!

 Much love, Elder Rose❤

Goodbye to Elder Henderson and Wood

All the Mission Leaders that came out with my group.

Elder Terry and Elder Wood

Elder Pollock

AB, Amoni, and Arianna

2019?

Howdy everyone and Happy New Year. Crazy that is is already 2019. The past year has flown by.

Also this will be another short email. Don't have tons of time today!!

Christmas was great. Mostly cause i got to see my family. Love them. 

Got our transfer calls last night and I found out that I will be staying here in Abilene and getting Elder Thornblad. And Elder Henderson will be going back to Midland. I came out with Elder Thornblad, but don't know him at all. I will be training him to be a Zone Leader. It will be a good time. Out of the 9 companions that i now have, i came out with 4 of them! Pretty sweet.

This week Kele ,a lady we are teaching, had us over for dinner and a lesson. She spoiled us and got us some nice Christmas presents. She is doing great and progressing very well in the gospel! Keep praying for her!!:) 

Thank you all for the emails, love and support. Hope yall had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!

 Love,

Elder Rose

12.24.18 ~ Merry Christmas🎄☃️

Hello everyone!!

Today has been busy. Played a round of golf, played some indoor soccer with all the missionaries in Abilene, and other just regular Pday activities...so Don't have much time for this today.

This week may have been the fastest of my mission!! We had a couple of exchanges with the missionaries in San Angelo and a set here in Abilene. I went with Elder Broadbent and Elder Dickinson. I took both of them back to the area that I am serving in right now. I am finally getting used to navigating myself around Abilene. Exchanges were good and we were able to have some good lessons and it was good to get to know both of them better.

This week we were also got to take a trip over to Lubbock to do a temple session. It was great to be able to go. And great to be back in my city for a while. Just going to Lubbock made me miss it a ton and threw me into some crazy flashbacks. Ha it was a great time though!! 

Sorry for the short one today, but hope yall have great Christmas and are able to remember the Savior this great holiday season. 

Love,

Elder Rose

Golfing

 Elder Broadbent

Bro. Burton's wild Xmas suit 

Our temple trip

Elder Dickinson 

Merry Christmas

12/17/18

Hello everyone,

This week was a busy on. Started out with Zone Conference on Tuesday. It was awesome. There were some great instructions that we were able to listen and learn from. Our mission lately has been killing it on the numbers of baptisms compared to past years. So there was lots of hype about all of that and we hope to carry that on through out these hard winter months.Elder Henderson and I gave an instruction on have effective Studies and really just making the most out of what you study. In preparation for that I was able to learn a lot and it defiantly has blessed me and helped my studies be more of a time to receive revelation. For Zone Conference Me, Elder Henderson and 2 sisters to preformed a musical number. As far as I know nobody complained but I doubt they let me ever sing again;)

This week I was also able to go on a couple of exchanges. Right after Zone Conference i went with Elder Mann, and later in the week Elder Wood and I were able to go on an exchange. My exchange with Elder Wood was great. We were able to reflect on a lot and talk about how our missions have changes us for the better. It was cool to see how far each of us have come by serving the Lord out here. I was able to learn a lot and reevaluate myself and set some new goals to continue to improve. 

I'm sure a lot of you saw that I invited you to like a Facebook page and hope each of you took a minute to go on and look at it. Elder Henderson and I made that page this week and are going to be keeping it going and hopefully get some good stuff up on there. Other missionaries in our mission have found success with doing it in other places and we hope to have good things come from it as well as new people to teach. It has been cool to be able to look at the page in a business/Christ centered mindset. We want it to be able to reach as many people as possible. And so I invite you all to go onto the page ( Come Unto Christ - Abilene, Texas) and to share a post on there,a whether they live in Idaho, Texas or Russia it doesn't matter. Also keep your eye out in about a week. We have a sweet video coming soon!!

Love y'all and hope everyone has a great week.

-Elder Rose

12/10/18

Hello everyone,

This week was really good. Had a snow storm that rolled through. Had a ward Christmas party. Went on an exchange in Comanche, Texas, that was an experience😅 had a Video call Missionary Leadership Council last night..... all good stuff. Made the week fly by for sure. 

This week we were able to teach Kele again at the Ellis families house. Which was super good. She is so solid and excited to learn which is awesome. It also helps that we have the Ellis family to be there with us cause that already helps her trust us more. 

#membermissionarywork

We have seen huge blessings with working with our members lately and hope see more miracles soon. 

Recently me and Elder Henderson started the Book of Mormon and are trying to read it before Christmas. We read for companionship study and before we go to bed. This is the fastest that I have ever read it and I have taken more out of it this time than any other time. The Book of Mormon is so powerful and can bring great peace in our daily lives. The stories in it can be directly applicable to what you are going through. And by prayerfully studying we see answers to our prayers and growth in our testimony. Hope y'all remember the importance of our Savior this time of year and sacrifice a little time to read either the bible or the book of Mormon with your families. You will find peace and find hope. 

Have a great week. 

Love,

Elder Rose 

1. ❄☃️

2. The Webb's from Comanche

3. Being festive🎄

12-3-2018 ~ Almost Christmas

#tejas

This week we were able to get a lot done. Since I have been here in this area we found a new lady that we have ben teaching. Her name is Kele. The first week I was here a member told us that she had a friend that was interested in learning more about what we believe, so we had a meeting with Kele and the Ellis family in their home. Ever since that Kele has been on fire. She is reading the Book of Mormon, coming to church, and already giving up coffee. Everytime we have met with her she has been so accepting of everything and lives the spirit that she feels when she comes to church. Her husband is actually a member already. His name is Amos Moses Smith by the way (isn't that wild)? But he was baptized when he was 14, was active for about 5 years and just slowly fell away. But he is all in now and wanting to get back. The lessons that we had last night he was helping us teach Kele on the things that he did remember. We are excited and are expecting good things to come soon with Kele and her family!!

This week there was a huge Christmas parade in Downtown Abilene. We heard there was over 60,000 people there and I believe it..... There were Tons. But for the parade we worked with all the youth in our ward and the other missionaries here in Abilene. We asked members for the past couple weeks donate us some candy canes. So we bought lots and lots of candy canes, tied some Light the World pass along cards on there, and us, the the other missionaries, and all the youth in our ward went out before the parade started and were handing out all the candy canes. It was awesome and a great activity to go and be out with the youth. 

This week we also had the opportunity to do a little bit of service on Saturday. Our ward did a big service project where we went to Downtown Abilene and picked up as much trash as we possibly could. And unfortunately we saw lots of those Light the World cards😅 but it was fun to be out with the ward helping clean up Abilene.

Last night we were also able to go to the Eastman's (a member In my wards home) and eat dinner with them, play a couple games, and then watch the Christmas devotional. I loved being able to hear from our Prophet last night. He gave an awesome talk on centering our desires that we have towards our Savior and becoming like him. I know that as we align our desires and thoughts towards the Savior that we feel more peace and happiness. As we act as the Savior did, including forgiving those that have offended you, we will feel our testimony of our Savior strengthen and be able to feel of our Father in Heavens love for us. I invite you all as Christmas season come closer to think of this gs you can improve on to be more like your Savior. Whether it being more patient, humble, or simply forgiving others. I promise you will be happy and know that Our Savior happy for you also.

Love y'all and have a great week.

Big ol Texas dust storm(on bike day)

Bowling w the missionaries last pday

Elder Jones (now Jarod) visited Abilene.

Sneak peak of the xmas card

Sneak peak of the xmas card

11-26-18 ~ Abilene for Thanksgiving

 Hello Family and Friends,

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and were able to have full hearts and full stomachs. This past week has been a good one. It has felt like me and Elder Henderson have been on a week long exchange. Hasn't hit us that we are actually companions yet. He is a great guy.

To start out our week we went to a District Council in San Angelo. Elder Nabrotzky (a previous companion) is actually the district leader out there. It was a good time. On our drive back we were cruising through this very small town and I saw someone that I recognized. It was Bro. Adams. He was in the ward in Lubbock that I just came from. Very weird to see him and his family again after just seeing them on Sunday.

We had a great Thanksgiving. Started it off with a very competitive Turkey Bowl with a bunch of different ward member here. We all came out injury free and in one piece so that was good!! ;) we were sore for a good few days after though. It was fun to play some good ball. That afternoon we went and had a HUGE Thanksgiving meal at the Gale's house, (a member family) that was great. After that we went to the Eastman family, also ward members, and we played games with their family up until the end of the night. It was a great day. Much different compared to my last Thanksgiving and spending it with a drunk guy!!

Abilene is a highly "religious city." they have the most church per capita out of the whole country. Very crazy. There is literally a church on ever corner. What I have heard is that it is illegal to even build another church here cause there are already so many. We actually went to a Nondenominational church yesterday before we went to our ward. The church was twice the size of my high school. It was a interesting experience and made me so grateful for growing up in this church and knowing God's plan for me. We are. So lucky to have the knowledge we do. 

The Fulfer Family

This week we also started teaching 2 new families this week that will hopefully be pretty solid. It is still weird adjusting from Lubbock to here but I live it here so far. 

I also got to go and participate at a baptism for Trason Jackson's uncle. It was a very cool experience and awesome to see their family come closer together!! 

Hope y'all have a great week and are enjoying the snow and cold weather at home (this week it will be 75 a couple days here)

Much love, 

ELDER ROSE🌷

The apostate Church

Dale

McPhee's

The Barnes

Jorgensens