Weekly Update August 27, 2013

Hello again everybody!

Today is transfers. I am still in Deception Bay with Elder Tobe. We had a really good week this week. 

Sebastian is still progressing really well. We were unable to teach him this week, but he was participating in activities with the ward this week and I'm told he had a good time. I saw him on Tuesday night when we had trade-offs with the ward. He told me he's still reading the Book of Mormon.

Yesterday we met with a girl I found tracting with Elder Powelson a few weeks ago. Her name is Selina. She used to meet with missionaries a number of months ago. She said she would like us to teach her again, so we are going to start meeting with her on Friday. 

This week we decided we needed to work more in North Lakes, one of the towns in our area. So, after a little exploring, we found a bike path through the forest that separates D-Bay from North Lakes. It was a lot of fun! But a really rough ride! My bike as no suspension at all!! We started tracting in NL this Saturday. No success, but we were able to give out a few pamphlets. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we find some success here.

Elder Lao is going home tomorrow! I am going to miss that guy! He is being replaced by a greenie. This morning before Powelson and Lao left for the transfer meeting, I took the opportunity to quote the Best Two Years to Powelson: "I can just see this guy now. He's 5 foot 6, fresh out of the states. Weighs a buck-twenty-five, wears those thick coke-bottle glasses, talks in a high nasily voice like this, and on P-day he's going to want to, oh, I don't know, maybe play a grueling game of chess or something." Gotta love it :)

Take care!

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update August 19, 2013

This is a photograph of Ross with Elder Lao--one of the missionaries he shares a flat with. He must be scheduled to leave soon, because Ross indicated that he is going to miss him very much.

I apologize for the late email. Today for P-Day my zone went to the Alma Park Zoo and then got lunch together. It was a lot of fun! I was able to pet a Koala, and feed some kangaroos.

Another week has gone by. We are now entering into the last week of our transfer. Elder Tobe and I have been doing really well, and are starting to see some good things happening. First of all, we set a baptismal date with our investigator, Sebastian. We starting meeting with Sebastian last Sunday during church. He was looking for a church to attend, and decided to come along to his best friend's church. The sister missionaries in the North Pine ward had already taught him once, and told us to teach him at church if we got the chance. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, and asked him to pray about it. We met Sebastian again on Saturday at his friend's house, and asked him how the reading was going. He was already up to 1 Nephi 18. We taught him about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and we asked if he would like to be baptized. He said he really would, and we committed him to be baptized on 7 September. He is really excited, and so are we!

We had our first "Cottage evening" on Sunday night (bishop has asked that we don't refer to them as Family Home Evening). It was a blast! We had a really good turn-out. We had a couple of less-active families in attendance, as well as one of the Redcliffe missionaries' investigators. It was fun to be able to participate in that activity again. I really have missed the one we had every Sunday night in Mount Isa. I feel like it is a very strong missionary tool for us to use.

I am grateful for all of your love and support. I hope all is well with you back home.

With love,

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update August 13, 2013

G'day!

I really need to start by writing this email first. Because I am currently pressed for time, this will be brief.

Elder Tobe and I had a really great week this week. We experienced some miracles that we were in need of. Elder Tobe is teaching another exchange student about the church. It seems to be going well. This student is more talkative than the last one, so I'm under the assumption that he asks a lot of questions. We also have missionaries in our Zone that want to have Tobe come teach exchange students staying with members in their wards.

On Saturday night we had a ward talent night in the Redcliffe ward. Elder Tobe, Elder Lao, a ward member, and I put on a musical item. I picked up a violin for the first time in 5 years. It was just like riding a bike! A bike with training wheels...  I was very, very rusty (I still think that's an understatement), but after 2 days of practicing I got the hang of it again and did a decent job when we performed on Saturday night. That Saturday night, a member in our ward brought a nonmember friend with him who is an investigator from another ward in our stake. He came to church the next day, and we were able to teach him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. It was a really good experience. He really enjoyed the talent night, and it seemed like he really enjoyed church the next day.

Well, I think that's all I have the time for. I love you all, and apologize at keeping this so short. Have a great week!

Elder Rosier

In his letter to me, Ross wrote the following:

Elder Tobe and I had a good week.  We did a lot of the same things we normally do.  Yesterday, we had a mission conference with Elder Pearson from the area presidency.  It was a good meeting, he's really trying to do what he can to show the need to align members and missionaries together so that we can work effectively together.  I'm glad I'm already in a ward that does that.  It will be difficult to leave Redcliffe Ward when the time comes because I am going to have very high expectations of the wards and branches I serve in from now on;

Weekly Update August 7, 2013

Hello again!

We were able to attend the temple this morning, so today (Wednesday) is our P-day. It's really strange how rough it is when you don't have a p-day on Monday. You wake up in the morning almost in complete denial that you have to go out and work that day. However, I am grateful for the blessing of serving in an area where I am able to attend the temple. That was one thing I really missed in Mount Isa.

This week was a good one for Elder Tobe and me. Last Tuesday, we challenged our investigator, Rahul, to be baptized. He said he wants to be, but has to wait until after his wedding in November. Though he didn't grow up practicing it, Rahul is from a very traditional Hindu family. He is currently engaged to a Hindu girl from Fiji, and the wedding will be a Hindu wedding. I wanted to suggest that as a member of the church he would be allowed to participate in the wedding, but I wasn't sure if that was true. I worry that it wouldn't be acceptable in the eyes of the families involved as well. While sad that we will need to wait for his baptism, and I am very happy and grateful that he has received a witness that the Book of Mormon is true, and that he has the desire to be baptized.

We continue to see success with our less-active families that we visit regularly. We will be starting to have a FHE, like we had in Mount Isa, every Sunday evening to invite the ones who don't feel ready to attend church to. Very excited to do this because of how successful it was in Mount Isa.

I must admit that I am very grateful to be serving in Deception Bay. The Redcliffe ward is a really great ward to serve in. The members here are so helpful to us. I really think this ward is a model for member missionary work in our mission. They are constantly trying to do better in assisting us.

I hope everybody has a great week this week. Love you all!

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update July 29, 2013

G'day mates!

What a long week this has been!! This week Elder Tobe and I set our sights on trying to find people to teach. That meant lots of tracting and street contacting (mission lingo is GQing, or Golden Questioning). Unfortunately, our efforts did not yeild a lot of results. We're going to work a different part of the area this week, and I believe we'll find more success there.

This week was a week of miracles and unforgettable experiences! Our first miracle was with two of our investigators, Rahul and Anita. Rahul, or Ray, is in his late 20s early 30s, and is Anita's son. They are Figian-Indian. We hadn't seen them for about 3 weeks, and in our last appointment with them, we challenged them to read the Book of Mormon everyday for at least 5 minutes. We had previously given them a challenge to read the Book of Mormon, but they hadn't done so. When Elder Tobe and I arrived at their home, I wasn't feeling too confident that they had been reading. To our surprise, Ray had been reading almost every day, and Anita had read a little bit, too! We read Moroni 10: 3-5 with them, and committed them to pray about the Book of Mormon. They said they would. After the lesson, Anita left for work, and we stayed behind to talk with Ray. He is really enjoying the Book of Mormon, and enjoys meeting with us. We have previously only been meeting with them fortnightly, but he wants us to come around weekly. Our next appointment with them is tomorrow. If they have prayed about the Book of Mormon and received an answer, we're going to challenge them to be baptized.

Next miracle: About a month ago, Elder Sualevai and I were riding past the bus station in North Lakes when we heard someone shout "hey Elders!" We turned around and biked over to say hi. One of them was a less-active girl named Malekai. She is living with her boyfriend in North Lakes. We invited her to come to church. She said she would text us if she had time and needed a ride. We gave her our phone number, not feeling too confident we would hear from her. We didn't. But on this past Wednesday, I received a call from her, saying she felt very strongly she needs to come back to church. We told her where the chapel was and what time. She made all the arrangements she needed to get there on her own, and attended yesterday! She really enjoyed being there and is really excited to keep coming back. She brought her family with her to our ward yesterday since she didn't know anyone there. Her mum was very grateful to us that we decided to come and talk to her when we did. This is a miracle to us in two ways: first, that she had made an effort on her own to come to church. Second, her boyfriend--Caleb--told us he would be interested in learning about the church, but we have had no way of contacting him. Now we do!

Finally, and experience I am never going to forget. A family in our ward, the Hanburys, have a Japanese exchange student staying with them for a few weeks. They brought him to church yesterday, and then invited us over for dinner. I was able to watch as Elder Tobe and brother Hanbury--who served his mission in Japan--teach this boy about the church and the restoration of the gospel in Japanese. It was a really awesome experience! They gave him a Japanese Book of Mormon which he said he will read.

Well, that's my week. I hope everybody is doing well. Love you all

Elder Rosier

Weekly Update July 22, 2013

G'day!

I'm not too sure what to write about this week. It was rather uneventful for Elder Tobe and myself. We had a lot of appointments cancel on us this week. It was a little discouraging. I'm sure Elder Tobe just loved coming into an area that gave the first impression of nothing happening.

We spent a lot of time this week visiting with the less-activie families. Last night at one of our appointments I got a little taste of what it might be like when we have the iPads to use when we proselyte. We were visiting a less-active family when a question was raised about Christ's death and ressurrection. We borrowed the husband's ipad to get on mormonchannel.org and watched a few of the bible videos as we taught the family. It was really cool! And super handy for us to use the video as we taught. Hopefully we'll have that advantage with us all the time when we receive the ipads.

We just had about a dozen new ward missionaries called here in Redcliffe ward. Our first corellation meeting with them was yesterday after church. We're going to be trailing a program a member has come up with to help us to receive more referrals from members, and to help encourage member missionary work. The ward mission team is very excited, and so are we!

I hope everybody has a great week! Love you all!

Elder Rosier

Ross wrote the following in is letter to me: "My birthday was rather uneventful. We all came back to the flat around 7:30, and made pizza and watched the Joseph Smith movie. President and Sister Henderson called me right before I went to bed to sing happy birthday to me. We had dinner with the Costellos the night before, and Elder Tobe mentioned that my birthday was the next day, so when sister Costello brought us our cherry-ripe brownies (the best brownies I've ever had, by the way. sorry mum.) for dessert, she had stuck a candle in mine and wrote Happy 21st birthday on the plate. It was very sweet :)"

Weekly Update July 16, 2013

G'day everybody!

 

Well, the last week of the transfer flew by. I have just returned from the transfer meeting today with my new companion, Elder Tobe. His is from a city in Japan near Tokyo.

 

This last week was much of the same. We visited heaps of less-active families, tracted, taught a few people. I'm really sad that I don't have much to write about this week, but nothing too out of the ordinary happened. I guess there is one thing I can mention I was really impressed with this week. The Tapuvai family's (part-member family we found tracting 2 weeks ago) oldest daughter, Aria, came to church on Sunday. She also went to youth last week. It's really awesome to see how in just two weeks time she has gotten very excited about the church again. She told us she has a friend she's going to invite to come to youth and to our lessons with her younger siblings on Tuesday and Thursday. She's also gone out of her way at school to make sure all the LDS girls there know she's a member, too. I hope that we see such excitement from her dad and her brother--the other 2 members in the family--when the football (rugby) season ends.

 

I'm really looking forward with excitement for this transfer! We have a massive ward mission now. A brand new ward mission leader, and a dozen new ward missionaries! Good things will definitely be happening!

 

Have a good week everybody! Love you!

Elder Rosier