Elder Roses email from Today!! 6-18-18

Howdy howdy everyone. Sorry about the weekly email not going through last week. Not sure what happened there, but yes I am alive and kickin!!
 
This week has been a quick one! To start out our week we drove to Portales for district meeting and then had an exchange with the Clovis Elders. I went with Elder Watts! He is from Kimberly, Idaho! We had a good time! We visited a lot of their recent converts, one of them I actually interviewed for baptism, so that was cool!! We also did some knocking! Always a good time knocking;) like the 3rd house we knocked on we found this 20 year old dude that was super interested! First thing he asked was what church we are from and then said he is all ears! So we taught him the Restoration on the door step and the Clovis Elders will be teaching him more this week! Clovis is pretty ghetto but there are some sweet people there!

This week we also taught lots of lessons and did lots of finding!! We have been clearing out our teaching pool lately so that requires pounding the pavement!! So we have done lots of tracting this week! On our bike day this week we ended up getting caught in a rain storm!! Again haha!! Don't know what it is about us on bikes, but it makes Lubbock get lots and lots of rain that's for sure! But its cool with me cause its better than biking in 107°!
 
Couple funny lesson stories of the week!
So we are teaching this older guy that lives in an assisted living place right now and we went over this week and had he his door open and we could see him sitting in his wheelchair but wouldn't answer...we finally hear him whisper hurry come over here!! And he he this weird dart gun thing.....turns out it was a "salt gun" and he was hunting all the flies in his house! It was pretty dang funny!!

We were also sitting in a lesson with a lady when all the sudden a prairie dog ran out of her bedroom and came and jumped up on my leg and then crawled into Elder Pollock's lap!! Turns out it's her pet, but I totally thought it was just a stray for a minute there😂
 
Over the course of my mission I have learned a lot about myself and what I want to become. One thing that I have learned in my lifetime is that there are people in life that obviously you aren't going to immediately connect with or even get along with. In 1st Samuel 16:7 it says
 
7 But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
 
I have learned that as we always look to the positive of things and look for the good in a person and see them as Christ sees them it is easier to love them! Whether they are your best friend or are cursing at you and only trying to get you the heck off their door step! To develop this we have to work on the Christ like attribute we lack! I challenge you all to look for one thing you can work on and to study that! I promise that you will see a change in yourself that will help enlighten your life.


One last scripture from Moroni 7:45-47.
45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.


Hope y'all have a great week!! And have success workin on those Christ-like attributes!!


Much love,
Elder Rose🌷

Elder Roses email from June 11th

Hello family and friends,

First to clarify, for those of you who have seen me on Facebook. I am not home....still have 13 more months till that happens....but my mission is now using Facebook for a teaching tool! Super exciting, it's been pretty trippy to get on but it will be a great tool to have out here!!


To start out my week I drove all over West Texas to help out with transfers. Drove for about 9 hours helping move all the missionaries to their new areas! There were lots of changes this transfer so i had some good company in the car rides....thank goodness cause the driving in West Texas is the most boring thing you will ever do!! After getting all the other missionaries taken care of we were asked to help take care of the departing missionaries also!! So I got to hang out with Elder Brower (my trainer), Elder Chicoski, and Elder Guild! They stayed the night at our apartment. It was super fun to be able catch up with them and reminisce with Elder Brower and Chicoski about the first 3 months of my mission since I was serving with them!! The only down part about that was we stayed up till about 1....and had to get up at 4:15 to drop them off at the mission home to get ready to head out for their flight! It was with it though..... nothing like running on 9 hours of sleep over the course of 2 days!

This week we had quite a bit of success. A.B has committed to live the Law of Chastity and get married on July 7th. And him and his son Amoni are still praying for a baptismal date, but it won't be long after A.B. is married!

And Brenda has committed to be baptized on July 7th. We had a really good lesson with her this week. She is literally getting a new job just so she can come to church. She is also moving because after 47 years of marriage her and her husband are splitting up. If y'all could pray for A.B and Brenda for those things that would be awesome!!
 
This week I also had the opportunity to bear my testimony of the church and also give a book of Mormon to an old classmate. It was pretty crazy how it all happened. But while talking it made me realize how important it is that us as members of the gospel live up to the standards and expectations that are set for us,  because there are people who look up to us, and how we live our lives.
 
This week we also had MLC. It was really good, and honestly probably one of the best meetings I have had on my mission so far we talked a lot about the mission and improving certain things, but there was also an instruction on the Savior. The spirit felt was undeniable. It made me so grateful for the knowledge that I have of my Savior and what he went through for me. They asked us to think back on times that the Savior has helped us over the course of our missions. And looking back I realized that he has been there for me through it all. Through the frustrations, sadness, homesickness and much much more. But there hasn't been a moment when he didn't have my back and didn't help me back up when life was rough. The Savior is capable of doing much more than we give him credit to. He didn't just suffer for our sins, but he suffered for our trials, sicknesses and our sorrows also. I have a testimony that he lives and guides this church. I know that this church is the true and is the restored church that Jesus Christ established when he was on the earth. I know that as we are obedient to the commandments of God and live like Christ lived, we will see the blessing come from being obedient to what we are expected to live. People say this to us missionaries all the time..."keep on keeping on." Life is rough sometimes but has we have a faith and realize the bigger purpose to doing what we are doing, it is easier to treasure the little moments that we have in life.
 
Matthew 21: 21-22
21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
 
Love y'all and hope you have a great week!!
-Elder Rose🌷

Twenty ~ 6/4/2018

Hello everyone,  first thank y'all for all the Happy Birthday wishes!! Never been a huge fan of birthdays,  but that brightened my day that's for sure!!!😊 probably going to be one of my most stressful birthdays.... transfers are tomorrow and we have to plan transfers a little more and then drive to Midland to stay the night for a long day tomorrow. But gonna get you ride in a corvette by a member here so that's a good present:)

This week was a pretty crazy one! We starred out the week by driving or to Clovis for district meeting.  After district meeting we decided to have a little mini exchange with the Portales, NM Elders since we never get to see them!! So that was pretty sweet to be able to go with them and get to know them more!! Had a good time in Portales also....that is a weird lil town with some pretty rude people.....getting doors slammed in your face builds character though 😉 after our mini exchange we headed back home!! We decided to take the back roads (since Tiwi didn't pick up how fast were going)🤣 but we left so late that we still got home at like 11 pm at night! And then the next morning we were up and out the door by 8 to help a member with a garage sale....man I was so tired after that!!!

This week we had some sweet lessons too!!! We taught our investigator Brenda at McDonald's twice!! One of the times there was this lady sitting behind us giving Brenda hand motions and telling her not to listen to us, but Brenda just tried to ignore her! Eventually this lady came up and started bashing on us and telling Brenda that we were "not preaching what God wanted." We were trying to get her to shut and either sit down and listen or leave, but she just kept going off ha!!! She said something and I just saw Brenda light up.....had no idea what was going to happen and all of the sudden Brenda basically bore testimony of what we have taught her and how she knows that it is true and belong her and her relationship with God and her Family. Then not very nicely told the lady to get the heck away👌 ha!! It was such a cool experience! Brenda has been prepared by the Lord to make this step in her life, but just can't get off work on Sundays!! If y'all could pray she we be  able to get off Sundays at work, that would be so sweet.

This week we also had a couple lessons with A.B.  We watched the Be One 40 yr celebration of the priesthood. He absolutely loved every minute of it. Haha he wanted  Gladys Knight to come and sing at our church!! Haha we were all singing in his house to the music that night.....it was almost like a concert ha!! If y'all get to watch it, I would suggest you do... It is awesome.

 This week we also had a couple crazy lessons......I don't know what it is about some people in the mission field but  sometimes people think that we are their pastors.....And can forgive them for any of their crazy sins!!  but really we could have cared less to hear their story..... hah we had a lesson with a lady this week that rambled on and on and on about all of the wildest stuff that happens to her and the wildest stuff that she has done..... and every time that we spoke she spoke louder and couldn't let us get a word out.....worst member lesson of my whole mission😂😂

Yesterday we were waiting anxiously all day to get our transfer calls. And here is some good news... me and Elder Pollock are staying another transfer together.  We were very relived to get that call!! We have had some good, weird and some wild times!! Love serving here with him!!  this area is awesome. Yesterday one of the senior coupe had a bday party for me and her husband! It was a party:)

Love y'all and hope that life is treating you good! Thanks again for the birthday wishes and the support you show me.

Love Elder🌷

Portales boyzzz

Fuego

National Doughnut Day

Mobile Holy Water😂

Saying goodbye to Elder Richards he is off to Costa Rica!!

Clovis DM

Exchanges with Elder Zeagler for a couple days....we were together a couple days cause his comp got called to be AP!!

102°F👎 ~ 5-28-2018

Ball so Hard....literally

More views than people here

More views

Elder Zeagler and his foot

👌

Hello everyone, this week was a busy one that's for sure. To start the week I went on an exchange with Elder Henderson. We had a pretty good exchange. Lots of contacting..... but there was kinda a down side to all that!! All of the good contacts we found we had to refer to other missionaries because they didn't really live at the house we knocked on and lived out of our area!! So that was a bummer. Also had some crazy people we found......But that's how it goes sometimes. We found these 2 guys that were so high and gave them both Word of Wisdom pamphlets ha! they didn't seem too upset so Maybe they will call us back??🤣 
Once we finished up our exchange me and Elder Pollock had a nice day full of lessons set up..... but sadly not a single lesson went through! The only thing that didn't fall through that night was eating dinner with the deacons of the ward! And boy was that a treat haha. Honesty probably the craziest meal appointment of my whole mission so far. There are some wild 12 and 13 yr olds here!!
This week we also had an exchange with the other Lubbock Zone leaders, which was super fun. I went with Elder Zeagler. And he is hilarious. We visited a less active member and Elder Z. Convinced him that he was born and raised in South Africa and to become a man he had to kill a lion with his bare hands! Glenn want very happy when he found out that Elder Z. Is from North Carolina haha!! On our exchange we also did tons of contacting too because all of our lessons just keep falling through. But we found some sweet people in the hood we met!! We had a lesson with our investigator Brenda at McDonald's where she works. Before we went in we prayed that we would be able to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon.
When we got in there and we found out that she ended up getting a longer shift and couldn't meet today..... so we were just about to head out and people just started flocking to us and just bombarding us with questions! It was madness for a minute! That day we came out of McDonald's placing 3 Book of Mormon's and having 4 potential investigators!! It was a pretty cool experience and a smack in the face to remember that he is there and listening to our prayers. 
Before our night ended me and Elder Zeagler were walking back to the truck after another lesson fell through ha. There were these young kids playing ball across the street so we decided to go show them what's up ha!! We walked over there and they instantly started swearing and us and being disrespectful. So we challenged them in a game and if we won they have to listen to our message about Christ and is they win we would just walk away......(There was eight 12-14 year old boys that we were playing with hah).... these kids didn't expect 2 white boys to be able to ball or something cause they were mind blown when we could dunk on a 9 foot rim!! So after we swatted and dunked over them a couple dozen times we had a good come to Jesus moment. It was more like a be like Jesus Christ thought and stop swearing!! Defiantly a fun time, besides Elder Zeagler spraining his ankle and going to get and xray at the ER after..... I'm good though Mom😉

Saturday we also had to take a spontaneous 2 hour drive out to Clovis to do a baptismal interview because an investigator after investigating the church for 12 years wanted to be baptized. He has super bad anxiety and said it's now or never. It was well worth the trip out there..... even though we are like 300 miles over our limit!:)

This week me and Elder Pollock also have been weeding out our investigators that arent progressing enough to waste or time on. So if y'all will pray we will be able to best help the people we are working with and also....We have an INV whose name is A.B. he is a sweet guy! We have been teaching the whole time I have been here. He come to church every week, loves learning more and more about the gospel....but there are 2 problems!! We are working on getting him and his GF married and helping him stop smoking. He also has an 8 yr old boy Amoni. He is super ready for baptism first. If y'all could pray that A.B. will be able to do that that would help him makes those stores steps faster! 

This week I have been thinking so much about the importance behind the Book of Mormon. President Nelson gave a talk in the 2017 fall session of conference that focused on the BoM. He asks in the talk what would your life be like without the BoM. And I really thought about that. I realized that without the BoM, I would not have near the knowledge that I have right now. 
I wouldn't know about the plan of salvation.

I wouldn't know that my family can be together forever.

I wouldn't know that when we are resurrected that we will be able to be made perfect and live with our father in heaven. 

I wouldn't know the importance faith, prayer, and repentance.

I wouldn't know of the things that our Heavenly Father expects out of us.

I wouldn't know that God truly does love each and everyone of us, and that I am a child of God. 

I wouldn't know that through faith, patience, and humility that Heavenly Father will bring and life us from our trials.

I wouldn't know that my Savior went through every pain, sickness, affliction, burden, and so much more, just do that we can be redeemed of our sins. And the reason he did that is because he lives us. 

I wouldn't know that this is the only true church on the earth without reading it and praying to know if it is true for myself. And I challenge you all to do the same. I know sometimes that it may seem hard to make time to do it. But the Book of Mormon will lift and bless us here in earth. It is the play book in the game that we are in. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and will help you in your life also. 

Thank you for all your prayers and support. 
Love Elder Rose🌷

Some Doctrine

My guy Elder Henderson

Me and Elder Pollock drew this....psych;)

Comp study with Elder Z. On a parking garage

Typical Texas

Got this pic in a text as I worked on Elder Rose's blog tonight :)