PB-Dippers Inc.

Welcome everyone to my weekly email! This was a great week, for real! The miracles just keep coming, and so is the joy in the mission field. There were so many good things that happened this week, and probably the coolest thing yet on the mission happened this week. 

As far as the crazy stuff goes, it went from snowing like crazy to being 80 degrees outside all week. It was so nice to be in the sun finally. My companion and I do all our studies outside and sit in the sun. My companion tans so easily, but I, on the other hand, just burn, so that's a loss. To translate for the older people who don't understand my lingo (mom and dad), you gave me horrible genetics where I am super white and only burn, so it sucks, haha. Love you, mom and dad.

Also, my companion and I got almost 6 hours of service in this week. I was taking, on average, two showers a day because we were working hard, haha. Also, my new dad, Brother Almendariz (Pa), taught me an incredible way to eat PB&J's. The key is to dip them in milk. It's definitely an acquired taste, but it's pretty good, haha. We're going to make a company out of this after the mission called PB-dippers (patent in progress, so you can't steal the idea).

Also, our vehicles have a device called TIWI that tracks our driving. If you ever drive too fast or too aggressively, it screams at you until you slow down or stop what you're doing. If you get too many aggressive driving incidents, like 10 probably, you can't drive anymore for the rest of the mission, especially since this is my first transfer driving. Well, I have 33 right now in my first five weeks of driving... it's not my fault, though, haha. We are in the mountains, so every bump in the road or sharp turn gives us one. Luckily, they don't count in our area, so I'm good. I didn't know this until this morning, so all my stress over this was for nothing, haha.

Something else that's crazy is that transfers are in nine days, and I will be out of training. We've told people in the ward, and they all have the same reaction - they're all super sad and are trying to put us on their dinner calendars in case one of us leaves. Sadly, one of us will probably leave, so the goodbye is going to be hard if I end up leaving. I am truly in a great area, and the ward members love us, and we love them!

Now, miracle time! We started teaching four new people - let's go! This is a miracle because it's been hard to find people in our area. I won't go through all the people, but my favorite one, and the one I'm most excited for, is Isaiah. He's 15 years old and has a rough background - no father figure, and his mother is barely in the picture either. Right now, he's living with his grandma in our ward. The Spirit led us to her house; she didn't set this up. He has a lot of questions about if there's a God, and he's super excited to be taught by us. We're building a great relationship with him, and he's loving our conversations - let's go!

The next miracle is that our friend Marci is on date for baptism officially for May 26th! She's progressing so fast and has so much faith. We call her almost every night to read the Book of Mormon and also meet at her house two to three times a week to teach her. She loves us so much, and we love meeting with her. She has so many trials in life that no one should face, and we know that the gospel and Jesus Christ can help her!

Finally, the best part of the week (drumroll)... we got to take our friend Adam, who was just baptized, to the temple for the first time! This was seriously one of the coolest experiences I've had. I got to baptize him, but even better, he got to baptize people too. It was so cool to see him baptize people and continue to make good choices after going through all the trials he has gone through. He also brought his own family names to the temple. When he was confirmed, he said, "Happy birthday, grandpa and grandma." It was both of their birthdays that day, and he got their temple work done that night. Truly such a cool moment. He said that in the temple, he felt the Spirit so strong, and he loved going.

Another highlight was that we had a general authority come and speak to us at zone conference, so that was super cool. He spoke to us for eight hours, and we got a ton of good information and direction for how to be better missionaries.

Overall this week was a good week. It's so cool to see all the miracles each week, they are all around us, you just have to pay attention. The church is true and so is the Book of Mormon PERIOD. Thanks for all the responses I love them, have a wonderful week y'all!

Elder Rosenlund

Address for those who are asking: 

8267 Deseret Ave, Fair Oaks, CA 95628