May 16, 2017

Hey Mom and Dad,

How are each of you? It was great to Skype you on Sunday, its kind of

funny, the one week I see you I actually have pictures lol, but here

are some, a couple at a baptism, our old Zone during zone conference,

and one with Qusay, the one in the black and a different Iraqi member.

But ya, so transfers were yesterday, I didn't get changed, but we lost

Elder Campbell, but in a weird way, he's still in the district, it was

not expected, but it's cool, because I can stay in Arabic work! So I'm

excited. Last week was crazy though, like insane, there was so much

going on, we had a baptism, transfers, remicaid, calling home, and the

sigmoidoscopy, it was crazy, so if I wasn't all there on Sunday, that

was probably why, but I'm glad its all over, speaking of the

sigmoidoscopy, it went really well, the diagnosis was that it is in

"complete remission" nothing at all wrong, so that's a miracle, he

took a few biopsies, as they usually do, and those results should be

sent to you, but those are just in case. But ya, that was a huge

relief, I was super nervous for that, but basically all those things

are over now, so I'm awesome, much more relaxed again, I don't like

being stressed, but ya, I'm doing awesome, but ya, I'll probably get

into the weekly now.

Hello everyone! How are each of you? Things here are wonderful, we had

transfers today and I'm staying in Arabic work! It was a super

surprising transfer, a lot of things changed in unexpected ways,

change is so much fun! But we lost Elder Campbell from our trio, so

now it's just me and Elder Jensen again, which is good, Elder Campbell

was here for only one transfer, and will probably be coming back next

transfer, but ya, I think I've learned a lot from him, and defiantly

grew in my language abilities, so this transfers going to be awesome.

It's also Elder Jesnens last transfer, before he goes home, so that'll

be fun, I get to make fun of him the whole transfer! Plus I get

whatever he leaves behind, lol. But anyway, this week's been awesome,

we actually had a Baptism on Saturday for this man from Iraq, it was

pretty awesome, I'm not mentioning his name and he's not in the

pictures just for security precautions, but ya, the Baptism was small,

but it was good, just a few of the people he knows in the ward and

that's basically it, but the Spirit was strong, and he enjoyed it.

It's been really cool to see the people here grow. Arabic work is

picking up, and we're all stoked, Hammed is doing good, and we'll

probably see if we can invite him to be Baptized this week, which will

be exciting, I think that he'll accept and progress, he's such an

awesome guy. There are so many amazing people that we get to meet

here, and it's not just here either, because we're some of the only

Arabic speaking missionaries in the world, we do a lot of Skype calls,

missionaries in places like France, or Sweden with lots of Arabic

refuges will meet them, but not communicate too well so we skype in,

and teach the people over there, and work with the missionaries there

to help these people. So far, we've worked with three different people

who have been Baptized over there, one we're actually going to be

Skypeing tomorrow, and we're going to be bringing one of our recent

converts, Adam, to come Skype with us, to help us teach, and share

experiences, and stuff, it should be good, we think it'll really help

both of them, they'll like each other a lot. But ya, there's a lot

going on, so Spiritual thought I had, we were teaching an English

class, which we do once a week, with a bunch of Syrian Refugees, and

there was one I was talking to, and we kind of knew him, he had better

english than most the students, but he needed practice. So we normally

teach an advanced class, and there are really only a couple people who

show up regularly, he wasn't one of them, even though we invited him a

couple times, he didn't really want to. But last week, I was talking

to him, and he was talking about his life, his family, how he had

eight kids he had to take care of, and didn't have a job because he

couldn't speak english and how he wanted to learn, and many things.

And as he talked I started to want what was best for him. I knew that

in order to progress, he had to come to the advanced class, where it

was hard. He wanted to be able to speak english, but he also wanted to

ease of the beginning class, and those are not comparable. He wanted

to reach the destiny without taking the journey. And with his

interests in mind, I talked to him about coming to the advanced class,

not so that we would have more people, but so that he could obtain,

and become what he wanted to become. Now I was thinking a couple days

later, and the Spiritual parallel is huge. How many times to we not

want to leave the beginning class, how many times do we pray for

trials to cease and good times to endlessly roll. I'm constantly

wanting everything just to be easy for everyone, but God sees that if

things are easy, they stagnate, but if plunged in, we grow. And that

is in fact, how we grow, and it is not without effort, and setbacks,

hard, even heartbreaking, times, but one thing that God promises, is

that He will always be there. Every step of the way, no matter what,

He is there beside us, anxious to put His arms around us, and carry us

if necessary, for He sees, what we can become, and knows that path we

must take to achieve that vision. And we can take comfort in the fact

that "We know that all things work together for good to them that love

God" (Romans 8:28), He has a plan, and loves each of us, it's a joy to

be able to share that with everyone I meet.

Elder Rosenbalm

Ok, well, that's it, love you both!

Elder Rosenbalm

May 14, 2017

Mother's Day

May 9, 2017

Hi mom and dad, how are you both? Things are good here, so first of all, in the checkup last week the doctor wanted to do a sigmoidoscopy I think it's called, just because he said that in recent years they've transitioned, from treating the symptoms to the actual disease, and sometimes the symptoms are gone, but the disease is still going on, its rare, but he wanted to make sure, so that's scheduled for this Monday, they said that it might cost a bit extra then the bills, is that ok? If not no worries at all, I can totally just not do it, I don't care, it's just something he wants, I think that it's basically a less abrasive colonoscopy, that only checks the lower colon. But I cant like google it so I don't really know, but ya,, the preps a lot better, you should actually be getting a paper in the mail with the instructions if you wouldn't mind sending me a picture of that, that'd be great, I have the steps written down, but just to make sure. But ya, thats that, we're baptizing someone this Saturday,  pretty exciting. 

Hey Everyone! How are you all doing? Things here are doing pretty awesome, it's the weekly struggle, I know it's awesome, but I can't remember anything that actually happened. Well we're working with a referral from a recent convert, Hammed, and Hammed referred us to his friend, and we've been teaching the, both. Hammeds been to Church ever since he first started meeting with us, and seems super interested. His friend is really interested in learning too, though perhaps a bit more, not hesitant really, wary maybe? He's a Jehovas Witness, and loves coming to meet with us, and has been reading and stuff, he's awesome, and he really likes us to cite all the sources. It's good, we basically show him where everything is in the Bible, he doesn't bash at all, never argues, just likes to know what we believe and where it says that. But their both doing awesome, it's been great to be able to teach them. Adams, our Recent Convert has been doing awesome! He got his temple recommend this week, and is going to be going to do baptisms soon, we're really excited for him. 

So it rained this weekend, it wasn't that hard, but rain in San Diego is pretty rare, and sonpeople freak out, it's so funny. Also, the drainage system here, is terrible. Just straight awful, so there are rivers just down streets and lakes in apartment complexes and it's just a mess. But we were just walking around, and my companion decided it was a good idea to kick some water at me.... so naturally I had to retaliate... that lasted basically until we went in. I had a raincoat on my upper half, so that was all dry, but by the end of the night, waist down was drenched, like, we might have well jumped in a swimming pool, just soaked completely through socks, shoes, everything, just drenched, it was so much fun! And then after we went in, we changed, and ate warm brownie cookies, it was a fun time. 

But ya, we had Koos, Hammed, and Atif all show up for Church on Sunday, as well as a less active named Suhaila, it was a fun day, but ya, that's about if for this week, have great week all,

Elder Rosenbalm 

Ok, so ya, love you both! 

Elder Rosenbalm 

May 2, 2017

Hey mom and dad, how are you two, so first of all, mom that

appointments just a regular checkup one, I've been perfectly healthy,

I ate something weird a couple days ago, but literally, other than

that, I'm perfect. Like not sick at all. We even do cross fit with a

member every Tuesday, which is super brutal, but its fun! Also, we

don't even teach that investigator in parks anymore, so you can stop

worrying, I'm fine. But ya, thats cool about your ASK job, that'll be

fun, and don't worry about it, you'll be great, you worry way to much,

just prepare and things'll work out. Do you know how long is dads

contract there for? And are you guys planning on staying, or going to

the states, or Jordan or what? That's awesome that Chris got the job,

that should be fun, I want to do that too when I get back, but

hopefully they'll have and Arabic program, so the new guys won't have

to start in the field, lol, its pretty rough, but still awesome

because I'm learning Arabic! So interesting predictions, based on the

way things are working out, there's a good chance that I'll leave

Arabic work this transfer and go to English. I'd put it at about 75%,

pretty crazy, it'd be weird being able to actually communicate with

people, lol. The transfers in two weeks, so we'll what happens then.

That's cool about everyone visiting and going indoor skydiving and

stuff, there's one of those here, but it's ridiculously expensive. Ya,

you and dad have kept me up to date on Sam, I've been and will

continue to pray for him. So ya, I'll probably get into my weekly now.

Hi everyone, how are you all doing? So this week was pretty awesome,

the problem is remember what happened, haha, it seems like yesterday

that I last wrote, time's flying by, but things have happened. So

since we're Arabic speaking, we cover the whole mission, and this week

we got a couple referrals right pretty far away, so we've spent a lot

of time driving, to different areas of the mission, which has been

fun, the change is  dramatic, its crazy, like one referal was

basically on the border to Mexico, like driving there, we were across

a field from the fence, and basically everyone there was Mexican,

except for our referal, who was Syrian. Another place we've been going

to is like the definition of ghetto, it basically fulfills ever

stereotype, we saw some guys smoking crack too, its a pretty fun

place, there's also this other place we went to, that's basically

Somalia. Literally everyone there is Somalian, its kind of crazy, like

everyone, there are certain parts that you have to walk on a dirt path

to get to huge apartment complexes, like thats the only way to get to

it. It's crazy. But ya, thats been fun, other than that, really , not

much has been going on, we had three people at Church this week, Koos,

Hammed, the referral from our recent convert Adam, and Mike, another

investigator we have. All are doing great, Hammed actually introduced

two of his friends and they were all taught yesterday, so thats been

awesome. Other than that, not much has really happened, things are

still going good, have a great week,

Elder Rosenbalm

So ya, thats about it, love you both, have a great week!

Elder Rosenbalm

April 25, 2017

Hey, so first of all before I forget, I did get the new and improved

Arabic book, its been a huge help so far thanks so much! But anyways,

this weeks been really good, not too much new things, but just normal

awesome mission stuff. I've been progressing personally a lot, which

is awesome, but ya, I think I'll get into the weekly,

Hi Everyone,

This week's been great here, just doin the normal missionary stuff,

not too much happened, we've been focusing a lot on finding new people

to teach, it's been going ok, though not too much to report to be

honest. The one big thing is with Hammed. Hammed is the referral from

our recent convert, and he's doing awesome, he came to Church again

this week, and we taught him again with a member, and then for another

lesson we had, he invited his friend to join us, and we were on splits

for the actual lesson, so we didn't get to teach him, but apparently

he was interested too and wanted to learn more, referrals from members

and investigators are the best! But ya, we found a couple other new

investigators, and we'll see how interested they are, ones from Syria,

the other Algeria, they're roommates and both pretty cool. The

Algerian one is actually getting his doctorates here which is pretty

cool, but we'll see how interested they are when we go over tomorrow.

Adam came to Church on Sunday! He's our Recent Convert that referred

us to Hammed, and he hadn't been coming for a while, there's a lot of

problems going on in his life, but the Church can help him, so

hopefully he'll start coming more regularly, but we'll see where that

goes. So ya, thats about it for this week, not much else happened, my

Arabic is progressing a ton, its pretty cool to see, but ya, have a

good week everyone!

So ya, thats about it, not much else, love you both!

Elder Rosenbalm

April 11, 2017

Hi mom and dad, how's it going? Things here are pretty awesome, I

really like both my companions, and especially since we're in a trio.

It's really only been a week, but so far its been awesome, its just so

much better socially with three than just two, it's weird, but I like

it. We're also doing some awesome work but I'll probably get to that

in the weekly, ya, not much as far as the rest of the things go, so

I'll probably get into the weekly.

Hi Everyone! How'd you week go? Hope that its going well, mine here's

been great, here in San Diego, things are awesome. We had transfers

last week, and I'm still in El Cajon Arabic work, which is awesome, I

love it here, and want to stay, but we added a companion, so now we're

a trio. I'm with Elder Jensen (We've been together for two transfers

already), but we added another missionary named Elder Campbell, which

is awesome, they're both super different, but both super awesome, so

it works out well. Elder Campbell was in Arabic work before for about

a year, and following the recent trend, was kicked out to English work

for about six months, but is not back in Arabic work, presumably to

stay until the end of his mission in six months. So he's already

pretty good at the language, Elder Jensen goes home in just two

transfers, and so he's still the best though. But anyway, ya, we've

been having a ton of fun, trio's are awesome. I was in a trio at the

MTC and loved it, and I'm in a trio now here, and it's the best, we're

all super excited for this transfer, it's going to be good, there's a

good chance that it will be my last transfer before I get banished to

English work, and after some time my inevitable, epic reentry. That's

the way things are looking, but who knows I could stay here a lot

longer, it really just depends, there's a lot of options. But ya, this

week, not too much changed. We started teaching a guy named Atif, he's

from Iraq, and was taught a few months ago, but moved back to Iraq for

a time, but he's here now, and so we started teaching him again. He's

an awesome guy, he's an older gentlemen, super nice, and pretty

interested too, we met a guy another Iraqi a couple months ago, who

was asking us which Church we were from, so he's like "Catholics?"

"No." "Protestants?" "No." "Jehovah Witnesses?" "No..." (Now this

exact, word for word conversation [though in Arabic] has happened,

hundreds of times, I'm not kidding, its ridiculous, but they just

don't understand that there are more than three Christian Church's,

but then he goes) "Mormons?" We're like "Yes!" And of course asked him

how he knew, because its fairly rare that they know us, and he's like

"Oh my friend Atif's a Mormon." We recognized the name, and then were

just like oh cool, but inside,

#membermissioanryworkwhenyou'renotevenamember. Lol, it was pretty fun.

Speaking of member missionary work, we've been really worried for one

of our Recent Converts that got baptized when I first came out on my

mission, Adam, he hadn't been coming to church, and things like that,

he's super busy with work and stuff, but he hadn't come in a month or

so, and we were pretty worried, and then he texts a couple of his

fellowshippers, and is basically like, "Sooo, I have a friend who

wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon, should I introduce him

to you first or the missionaries... Ya, we were pretty happy, so we

taught a guy named Hammed at the Church this Sunday with our Recent

converts and a couple other members, it was pretty awesome. But ya,

I'm basically out of time, quick thought, Prince of Peace, its the new

Easter Video that the Church put out, and it's super good, the main

video is so inspiring, and I love the war themes in it, the music's

great. But thats just the beginning, because the actual website is

equally awesome, it has eight different principles of peace, basically

showing us how we can obtain this peace. Because the video does a good

job so showing that Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace, and that He

can bring us peace. But the website gives us suggestions on how to

obtain that peace. It's done very well, I really like it, they're

principles like forgiveness, or hope, and they're amazing. They each

have a short video of an experience, of a person, go check it out its

amazing. Also, for more suggestions, there were some amazing talks on

how to call down the powers of heaven in our lives, they were so good,

so go do those things, God's going to bless you,

Love You All,

Elder Rosenbalm

That's basically it, love you both,

Elder Rosenbalm

April 4, 2017

Hey Mom, how's it going? So I decided to write this email first this time, instead of last, wired... Anyway, ya, Conference was awesome! I loved it so much, I don't know if there was one talk in particular that stood out, but all were just so awesome. But anyway, I'll probably talk more about that in the weekly. That's awesome about Andrew, tell him good job from me, though I'll probably email him later if I have time, we'll see. As far as BYU, that was kind of bound to happen, they'll be fine, don't worry too much, it'll work out. Life here's awesome! Things are great, we haven't met any Palestinians, no, well actually yes, one guy in our ward's Palestinian, he's pretty cool, he's like semi active though, but he's been here since he was a kid. It's split between the Iraqi's and Syrians mainly, it used to be only Iraqi, really only Chaldeans, but within just the past year or so, a ton of Syrians have started coming, so that's cool, their dialect is closer to the true dialect (Palestinian), though they replace the ث with a ش which is eh. Anyway, my Arabics getting a lot better, I taught my first full lesson in Arabic on exchanges this week, so that was fun, I'm definitely getting help learning the language. I got the Journal and the tie today, they're awesome, thank you, the tie looks great, I love it, I haven't gotten the Arabic book yet. You're moving back to Kuwait? That's pretty exciting, I knew that that would happen, if not Kuwait, the Middle East, the question was just if you'd take a break all being in Utah for a bit or no, guess not. Do you remember the blessing that Brother Jackson gave dad? It's going to be a huge part of your lives, the Lord is calling you to the Middle East, isn't that a joy! It's a great blessing, to be able to be a part of the Lords work in that area, it's undoubtably hard, but you'll be blessed for it, I wonder where you'll be when I come home, maybe Jordan! You know they have a branch there, in Arabic? Pretty cool right? I'm sure they have ones in English too. So as far as pictures go, I really don't take pictures, but I can start trying to take some for you. So we had transfers today, I'm still in Arabic work with Elder Jensen, which I'm super excited about, but we got another Elder, his names Elder Campbell, he was in Arabic work before, got transferred to English, and is now in Arabic again, so we're a trio, and thats fun! But because of Transfers, we have like no time, so I don't think I'll be able to send a group, but ya, have a great week, Love You!

Elder Rosenbalm 

March 28, 2017

So first of all, both are technically the correct books, the one with the more detailed picture on the front, with the people and stuff, is the newer version, and it's much better because it has the Shami dialect, while the old one only has nasty Egyptian, and nobody likes the Egyptian dialect, it's gross, so that would be the best, plus they use it at BYU, thanks again so much! But ya, that's roughly that, I'll probably get into the weekly, now, I'm kinda rushed, so it'll probably be fast, sorry, Than was saying that you like longer emails, I'll try. 

Hi everyone, how are you all doing? Things here are doing awesome, the works going great, and the language is also getting better. Arabic is so much fun to learn! It's also super hard, but I love it, I can also see the Lord helping me so much as I try, He's pretty awesome like that, He just helps you out when you're trying your best and need Him. So we're still working with Koos, he's really awesome, loves the Church and stuff, loves coming, and wants to be Baptized, but he just got a job, where he works every Sunday, which is less than preferable. It's super hard though, because there are thousands of refugees here, most of whom don't have jobs, so they take what they can get. He hates it though, and he only works Saturday and Sunday, and we're pretty sure they're paying him like half of the minimum wage, so we're going to work with him to try and get him a better job. He has a masters degree in art, so thats good that he has a masters, but its in art, which, isn't the most useful masters, but we can work with it, he also speaks english fairly well which is another plus. Basically every one of our converts and investigators needs a job, or a better one, it's so rough for them, and San Diego, is super expensive which makes it even harder for them. But at least they're in America, where where they're not in the middle of a war, and even more, we have the fullness of the Gospel! The trick is getting them to realize that, lol. So ya, I got to Baptize someone on Saturday, it was one of the sisters investigators. We double cover this ward, we focus on the Arabic people, and the sisters focus on the English people, so one of their investigators got baptized this Saturday, and I was able to do the ordinance, it was pretty awesome, I don't have any pictures, now, but next week I'll send one next week. So ya, that's most of it, have a great week! 

 Elder Rosenbalm