Happy New Year!
Hope everybody had a great new year's eve and day! As I mentioned in my last year's Eve, so I am starting 2014 in a new area.
The first week here was really good. I am enjoying serving with Elder 'Iongi. We spent much of this week finding people to teach, and visiting the less-active members in the ward. We have had much success this week with people who we have talked with on the street and at the bus station. Hopefully I'll have much to report on in the coming weeks regarding those whom we found.
We have two progressing investigators here. One is a man named Paul who is Catholic. His wife is from the states. He joined the Catholic church when he married his wife. When I met him for the first time this week, we had a rather long (and deep, I might add) discussion on the apostasy, how it started, what caused it, and how/why the restoration of the gospel occurred. Thank you, James E. Talmage, for teaching me about that subject in depth. Fortunately, that was really good for Paul, as I was able to address some of the concerns he had both about our church and the Catholic chruch. He was mostly concerned about the claim to authority by both churches. Elder 'Iongi feels that now that we're over that obstacle with him that we'll be able to help him progress.
Our other investigator is a girl named Maria. She has met with missionaries in the past. On Sunday we went over the restoration with her. She said she will get baptized if she gets a witness that he Book of Mormon is true. We are seeing her tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to set a date with her.
Well, that's us here in Capalaba. I hope everyone has a great week!
Elder Rosier
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Weekly Update December 31, 2013
Hello again everyone!
Happy New Year! (Almost.) Today was our transfers and I now find myself in the Capalaba ward in the Cleveland stake. My new companion is Elder Iongi, from Auckland, New Zealand. He is my first Tongan companion. He has been out 3 months longer than I have. I am looking forward to the new area, but I am very sad to have left Toowoomba so early. I am going to miss that town.
Nothing too much to report on since I last wrote. All that has happened since then and now is heaps of tracting by me and Elder McIntyre.
I hope that everyone has had an enjoyable New Year's Eve!
Love you all!
Elder Rosier
Ross indicated during our Christmas day conversation that he suspected that he and his companion, Elder McIntyre, would both be transferred, and they were. There are a lot of Chinese students attending the University of South Queensland and there had been talk about sending Chinese speaking missionaries to the area.
Here are pictures I downloaded from the Australia Brisbane Mission website from their Christmas Eve party. Ross is in all of them--I'll just let you find him!
Kathy
Happy New Year! (Almost.) Today was our transfers and I now find myself in the Capalaba ward in the Cleveland stake. My new companion is Elder Iongi, from Auckland, New Zealand. He is my first Tongan companion. He has been out 3 months longer than I have. I am looking forward to the new area, but I am very sad to have left Toowoomba so early. I am going to miss that town.
Nothing too much to report on since I last wrote. All that has happened since then and now is heaps of tracting by me and Elder McIntyre.
I hope that everyone has had an enjoyable New Year's Eve!
Love you all!
Elder Rosier
Ross indicated during our Christmas day conversation that he suspected that he and his companion, Elder McIntyre, would both be transferred, and they were. There are a lot of Chinese students attending the University of South Queensland and there had been talk about sending Chinese speaking missionaries to the area.
Here are pictures I downloaded from the Australia Brisbane Mission website from their Christmas Eve party. Ross is in all of them--I'll just let you find him!
Kathy
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Weekly Update December 26, 2013
Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas. This has been my second Christmas away from home, and it was a rather eventful one. As many of you may recall, I spent last Christmas in Mount Isa, where my companion and I were the only missionaries for hundreds of miles and the temperature was up in the 100s. I am grateful to be in Toowoomba for this Christmas where I am surrounded by 7 other missionaries and the weather is heaps more mild than it was up there.
Our Christmas festivities in Toowoomba began last Wednesday with our district's "Christmas party" after our district meeting. We had previously assigned names for secret Santa, and at our little party we gave out our gifts. I received a hot wheels car from one of the sister missionaries. After handing out our gifts, we went carolling at a few of the retirement homes here in town.
On Christmas Eve, all the missionaries in the mission, from Bundaberg south were able to attend the mission's Christmas party. President and Sister Henderson made sure it was a good time for all of the missionaries that were able to attend. We were able to do a service activity for some foster children, we had a devotional, we watched "It's a Wonderful Life," and we were able to just enjoy the company of all the missionaries in attendance. We had a massive lunch, provided by members in the wards down around the Karawatha chapel in Logan. I was able to catch up with a couple of the members of the Springwood ward who volunteered their time to serve us. We were all very grateful for everything provided for us there. After the party was over, they handed out all of our packages and mail that the mission had been collecting for us over the last month or so. It was really nice to finally receive some mail from home.
Christmas was a lot of fun for us as well. We started the day having breakfast with the Edwards family in Toowoomba ward. They had all the missionaries in town over. Next we had lunch at the Allen's home. Brother Allen is a member of the bishopric in the ward. After lunch with them, we had a massive feed at the Ngahe's. The Ngahe's are a Tongan family, and they had quite a massive meal for us. After our time there we went to the Dixon family for "dinner." After our meal with the Ngahe's, it was difficult to eat much of anything else. Thankfully, the meal at the Dixon's was very light.
I was grateful to be able to talk to my family over Skype today. While I do miss everybody, I am grateful to be where I am right now. Thank you all for your love and support. I love you all!
Elder Rosier
Ross wanted to share the following message with family & friends. Merry Christmas!
O Come, Emmanuel
Ross wanted to share the following message with family & friends. Merry Christmas!
O Come, Emmanuel
Weekly Update December 16, 2013
Hello again everybody!
Pretty generic week this week. Elder McIntyre and I spent a lot of our time out tracting and doing service for people. This week we made up our minds that we would make it a point to go on splits with the young men, or YSA men about to serve missions at least once a week. We started this week with 2 YSA boys, Sam and Jon Poole. We took them tracting with us for 2 hours on Wednesday. It was fun working with them because they are both about to serve. Jon just received his call to serve in the Australia Perth mission. For those of you not familiar with Australia, Perth is a city on the south-western tip of Australia. Yesterday we attended the young men's class in the Toowoomba ward to invite the young men to come out with us during the school holiday. We are looking forward to working with them, since our ward doesn't have any priest-age young men.
We weren't able to have a discussion with Candice this week. The family that is fellowshipping her is doing a fantastic job though. They seem to have made good friends.
Tuesday night, the all 8 of us missionaries here in Toowoomba started a scripture study class. We had 3 members from Toowoomba ward show up for the first class. Hopefully we will start to see more people show up. We're hoping to attract less-active and non-members to the class. I think it will be a great opportunity to teach and also show how the Bible and Book of Mormon correspond with one another. I will be teaching it this week. Wish me luck!
On Thursday night, the sisters, McIntyre, and I attended the lights display in Queen's park--the main park in town--to do some contacting. It was a lot of fun to look at the lights, and a good opportunity to share the gospel. However, one of the sisters made a comment about how it reminded her of Temple Square, and since then I've felt a little homesick. I am grateful this is my last Christmas away from home! It is hard to be so far away for this time of year.
Saturday was the ward Christmas party. It was fun, and there was a lot of good food there. The 4 of us--Elders McIntyre, Palemene, Low, and I--sang "O Come, All Ye Faithful" for everyone.
Thank you all again for your love and support!
Love,
Elder Rosier
Monday, December 9, 2013
Weekly Update December 8, 2013
G'day everyone!
Busy week for us here in Darling Heights! I am grateful to continue to see miracles each day as we go out to work.
We had our first discussion with Candice on Thursday. We invited Brother and Sister Rota--two of our ward members who are very anxious to do some missionary work--to come with us. I have to admit that they are probably the best members I have used to fellowship investigators on my entire mission! We had a very good discussion with Candice about how the gospel blesses our families. We invited her to start reading from the Book of Mormon, and invited her to attend church with us on Sunday. She wasn't sure if she could make it to church. However, she and her children were able to attend the Toowoomba ward on Sunday afternoon. They had a good experience there. We are looking forward to meeting with her again this week.
On Friday, the four of us missionaries went and tracted a neighborhood together. (we called it j-dubbing since you always see them out door-knocking in packs of 4 or more). We did a trade-off, and I went with Elder Palemene while McIntyre and Pickett went together. They were let into the first house they knocked on to teach about the gospel. Elder McIntyre told me that the couple they met were very receptive, and invited us back. We will seeing them this week as well.
I am grateful for the blessings that we are receiving each week. Thank you again for all your support.
Love,
Elder Rosier
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Weekly Update December 2, 2013
Hello once again everybody,
I hope that everyone was able to have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I must admit that I really missed it this year. Fortunately for us Elders in the Darling Heights ward, we were able to have a Thanksgiving dinner with a family here who has lived in the States before and knew what it was all about. The feed was fantastic: they pulled out all the stops for us. Along with the usual Thansgiving spread we had a couple of Australian additions. It was a good time.
Elder McIntyre and I had a good week this week. We had some pretty big miracles this week. On Wednesday night, we received a call from a man named Shaun. Shaun is a less-active member from the Gold Coast, but his wife (I think they're separated) and children live here in Toowoomba. He was working for a couple of days up here when his baby daughter got really sick, so he called the missionaries in the Gold Coast for a number to contact missionaries here. He asked if we could come give his daughter a blessing. We came to where he was staying right away, and gave her a blessing. After we gave the blessing, we were able to talk to the family he was staying with. They were Sudanese. They asked us if we would bless their house for them, since we were servants of God. We did, and they were very grateful. We asked if we can return to visit them another time, and they said yes. We left them our number, and a flier for our ward Christmas party. We will hopefully be seeing them this week, if not next. We also left Shaun with our number, in case he or his wife needed a hand with anything. The next morning, Shaun's wife, Candace, called us and asked if we could help her get ready for a housing inspection she had coming up. We went over and spent the morning helping her. While I was mowing the lawn, she chatted with Elder McIntyre. Candace isn't a member of the church, but has been exposed to if for a long time. She said she would like us to come back around and teach her more about the church. The, before we left, she said she knew people who needed the gospel in their lives as well.
On Friday, the sister missionaries in Toowoomba ward referred us to a group of Sudanese refugees who said they would like to hear about the church. We saw them Saturday, and we are going to acquire some materials in Arabic for them, and then visit them in the next week or so.
Sunday night, the town had a big carol sing-along in the park. It was a blast! We went and attended with some of our ward members, and it was a fantastic opportunity to talk with people about the gospel. It was fun to hear everybody singing along to the Christmas carols. It is fortunate that religion plays such a major role here in Toowoomba. The concert last night, while it had some commercial Christmas songs, had a big focus on Christmas being a celebration of Christ's birth.
After Santa made his appearance, the program became very focused on the nativity. I honestly dont believe that would have been a big part of a program like that if it had happened in any other part of the mission. It was really awesome.
Well, that was our week this week. Love you all!
Elder Rosier
I hope that everyone was able to have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I must admit that I really missed it this year. Fortunately for us Elders in the Darling Heights ward, we were able to have a Thanksgiving dinner with a family here who has lived in the States before and knew what it was all about. The feed was fantastic: they pulled out all the stops for us. Along with the usual Thansgiving spread we had a couple of Australian additions. It was a good time.
Elder McIntyre and I had a good week this week. We had some pretty big miracles this week. On Wednesday night, we received a call from a man named Shaun. Shaun is a less-active member from the Gold Coast, but his wife (I think they're separated) and children live here in Toowoomba. He was working for a couple of days up here when his baby daughter got really sick, so he called the missionaries in the Gold Coast for a number to contact missionaries here. He asked if we could come give his daughter a blessing. We came to where he was staying right away, and gave her a blessing. After we gave the blessing, we were able to talk to the family he was staying with. They were Sudanese. They asked us if we would bless their house for them, since we were servants of God. We did, and they were very grateful. We asked if we can return to visit them another time, and they said yes. We left them our number, and a flier for our ward Christmas party. We will hopefully be seeing them this week, if not next. We also left Shaun with our number, in case he or his wife needed a hand with anything. The next morning, Shaun's wife, Candace, called us and asked if we could help her get ready for a housing inspection she had coming up. We went over and spent the morning helping her. While I was mowing the lawn, she chatted with Elder McIntyre. Candace isn't a member of the church, but has been exposed to if for a long time. She said she would like us to come back around and teach her more about the church. The, before we left, she said she knew people who needed the gospel in their lives as well.
On Friday, the sister missionaries in Toowoomba ward referred us to a group of Sudanese refugees who said they would like to hear about the church. We saw them Saturday, and we are going to acquire some materials in Arabic for them, and then visit them in the next week or so.
Sunday night, the town had a big carol sing-along in the park. It was a blast! We went and attended with some of our ward members, and it was a fantastic opportunity to talk with people about the gospel. It was fun to hear everybody singing along to the Christmas carols. It is fortunate that religion plays such a major role here in Toowoomba. The concert last night, while it had some commercial Christmas songs, had a big focus on Christmas being a celebration of Christ's birth.
After Santa made his appearance, the program became very focused on the nativity. I honestly dont believe that would have been a big part of a program like that if it had happened in any other part of the mission. It was really awesome.
Well, that was our week this week. Love you all!
Elder Rosier
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Weekly Update November 27, 2013
Just a little background to Ross' update. One of the first investigators Ross ever worked with was a woman named Sue Percival. Ross formed an instant connection with Sue, because many of the questions she had about the gospel were centered around having a special needs child. Ross was able to share with her how the gospel has brought comfort and insight in our lives, as we have traveled the path of caring for Kristen, and his message resonated with Sue. Sue's husband, Ken, was already a member and Sue was scheduled to be baptized in January 2013, but Ross was transferred to Mt. Isa just before Christmas last year, and Ross never knew if the baptism had taken place.
G'day everyone!
What a long week this one has been! the new transfer really got off to a slow start for Elder McIntyre and me. We spent most of the week out tracting and visiting with less-active members in the ward. It wasn't too bad, as we were able to find a few people who invited us back. However, the only teaching we were able to do was a brief lesson we had with the family from Papua New Guinea that we have been meeting with for the last few weeks.
Friday was the day that stands out from the rest. In the early morning, Elder Pickett, one of the other missionaries in the ward, received a phone call from a member who said she needed help. Her dog had gone into labor, and she needed some help assisting the dog. Pickett and I were the only ones who were up and dressed at the time, so off we went to help. We were there most of the day helping mostly with cleaning up after each pup was born. It was an interesting experience, but definitely one I hope I don't have to participate in again!
Saturday and Sunday were stake conference. The stake president requested all the missionaries be at the Saturday night adult meeting, and we attended on Sunday. The conference was in Ipswich, which is on the west side of Brisbane, over 120 km (75 miles) away. Despite the long drive, the conference was really good. Completely focused on members and missionaries working together. I hope that we see a lot of good things come out of it. Sadly, one bad thing came from conference.
One of the speakers was President Jon Glass from the Brisbane temple presidency. He lives in Springwood ward, my first area. He mentioned in his talk that someone int he ward had recently passed away. I was able to catch up with him after the meeting, and asked him who had passed. I was sad to learn that Sue Percival--one of the investigators I had while in Springwood--was the one who had passed. I am deeply sorrowed by her loss. I was very close with her and her husband, Ken. Unfortunately, Sue had not yet been baptized.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would just like to end this email by saying how thankful I am for a merciful and loving Heavenly Father. I know that a part of his plan includes the temple, and the opportunity for saving ordinances to be performed because God loves all of his children, and wants to afford all of them to opportunity to come unto him. I know that Sue can still be baptized, and I have no doubt that she will accept when someone does her work for her.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I love you all very much.
Elder Rosier
G'day everyone!
What a long week this one has been! the new transfer really got off to a slow start for Elder McIntyre and me. We spent most of the week out tracting and visiting with less-active members in the ward. It wasn't too bad, as we were able to find a few people who invited us back. However, the only teaching we were able to do was a brief lesson we had with the family from Papua New Guinea that we have been meeting with for the last few weeks.
Friday was the day that stands out from the rest. In the early morning, Elder Pickett, one of the other missionaries in the ward, received a phone call from a member who said she needed help. Her dog had gone into labor, and she needed some help assisting the dog. Pickett and I were the only ones who were up and dressed at the time, so off we went to help. We were there most of the day helping mostly with cleaning up after each pup was born. It was an interesting experience, but definitely one I hope I don't have to participate in again!
Saturday and Sunday were stake conference. The stake president requested all the missionaries be at the Saturday night adult meeting, and we attended on Sunday. The conference was in Ipswich, which is on the west side of Brisbane, over 120 km (75 miles) away. Despite the long drive, the conference was really good. Completely focused on members and missionaries working together. I hope that we see a lot of good things come out of it. Sadly, one bad thing came from conference.
One of the speakers was President Jon Glass from the Brisbane temple presidency. He lives in Springwood ward, my first area. He mentioned in his talk that someone int he ward had recently passed away. I was able to catch up with him after the meeting, and asked him who had passed. I was sad to learn that Sue Percival--one of the investigators I had while in Springwood--was the one who had passed. I am deeply sorrowed by her loss. I was very close with her and her husband, Ken. Unfortunately, Sue had not yet been baptized.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would just like to end this email by saying how thankful I am for a merciful and loving Heavenly Father. I know that a part of his plan includes the temple, and the opportunity for saving ordinances to be performed because God loves all of his children, and wants to afford all of them to opportunity to come unto him. I know that Sue can still be baptized, and I have no doubt that she will accept when someone does her work for her.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I love you all very much.
Elder Rosier
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