Hello there to all my loyal followers. Thanks for tuning in this week. Here goes for the short program once again, perhaps for the last time. Transfers are coming up this week, what are you predictions?

Things in the area are really going well. Ricardo went to church for the third time this week, and this time he was traveling and in a different city but went anyway. The Ruiz Family also went to church and we had a good Family Home Evening activity with one of their friends who is a member. And Monica Rodriguez also went to church with her two young daughters. She is a single mom we found while knocking doors.

Things are going well. Our relationship with the ward here is way good. The members love teaching with us and every once in a while we even get a phone call asking if they can come teaching with us. That is a first in my whole mission. The baptism for this week will go through so long as Ricardo feels ready and wants to do it this weekend. If not it will go through for the next weekend.

Thanks for all of your happy birthday wishes, it really means a lot, I will be talking to you next week the day after my birthday to tell you whether I have moved or if I have a new companion. I am doing well, everything is good with my health. I am writing in my journal every day faithfully so don’t think that there are lost memories by the short emails of late. Take care and I send my love to you all.

Elder Rose

Things here are going well

Hey Everyone.

How is everything going? Things here are going well. So as for me and my house, everything has been good. We do have a couple of really good investigators. Ricardo came to church again, this time with his sister. Last Sunday was stake conference. It was a really good experience. He really enjoyed it and it was his sister´s first time. He should be getting baptized the 31st.

We went to play paddle (pronounced pod-lay) today and invited him. It is a game similar to tennis but Argentine style. It was fun.

Yesterday we did divisions in an area called Monterrico. It is super tiny, like 10 x 10 blocks, but we had a good time. My junior comp for the day was Elder Rojas, a Chilean elder who has about 4 months in the mission. He's a cool kid. We worked a little bit in our area as well. The rest of the week has been super good. We had a missionary in our ward come home and he has been helping us out with visiting some people.

This week coming up we have a conference with one of the seventies in the area presidency. That should be fun. I was assigned to do a group musical number. I don´t know how that is going to go! Everything is good here. Things are good with the area and the comp.

Love you all.

Elder Jeff Rose

All is Well!

I hit 11 months in the mission yesterday; there is a milestone for you. Ha-ha. It was just a normal day. Things here are going well. This last week we had zone conference and so we had our interviews with President Northcutt and all that good stuff. It was way good. I learned some cool stuff and had a good time. Everything is going good. Then this Sunday was fast meeting since we had conference last week, I believe that is the same for all of us right?

So for the investigator situation…. We have one investigator that if he continues strong, he is on the track to be baptized at the end of this transfer. His name is Ricardo Tolaba and he is a stud. He is the kid we talked to out on his front step a couple weeks back. Then we found a pretty cool family, well a mom and a daughter at least. They lived in Cordoba before and were listening to the missionaries. Her mom recently died and so she is here for awhile and we knocked on her door yesterday and they received us and accepted a baptismal date for the beginning of November along with her daughter. Lourdes Mamani is also progressing pretty well. We had a lesson with her yesterday and she was saying how she read but didn't understand some things. So we started talking about prayer and how it helps us with the things that we don't understand and her eyes lit up and she said "so what you're saying is that if I have a question about something I can get on my knees and ask God and he will answer me?" I almost jumped for joy in that moment and that "Somebody finally gets it!!" Ha-ha, that was a pretty cool moment!

We have had some other really good lessons over the week but they don´t really stick out in my mind at the moment. But that is why I write a journal so if you want to read it when I get home, you are more than welcome to do so. Things here in Perico are going well. The temperature is kind of starting to even out to a lukewarm summer sort of thing. It still has yet to rain which is a bad sign for the people of Jujuy considering the economy is mostly based on the harvest of tobacco. We'll see what happens, personally I think that they need to repent and hurricane Fran will come back from the dead and they'll have all the water they need! Ha-ha. I like the people here. I have seen that they are a little more accepting than the people in my last area were. Or maybe I am just doing something different. Whatever it is I am enjoying my time more because we are having more success. Or at least it seems like it.

Love you all, and take care.
Elder Jeff Rose

Good times.... yep, they were good!

Hey clan!

How is everything going for you all there in the states? Hope things are going great. I think the weather here finally decided to turn to summer; it has been pretty hot these past couple of days. Thank you all for your letters, To the Jensen and McGarry families a huge hug and thanks for your support. Today was a pretty good day, (we´ll start with today and go backwards.) it was P-day and we did an activity with three zones here in the mission so all of the missionaries in the province of Jujuy came and we played a soccer championship, not much of a championship since we only formed three teams but it was super fun. After that me and Elder Gamarra went and ate pizza with a couple of elders and the sister missionaries. It was a good time and now I am here writing you guys :).

Yesterday was a normal day of work; we taught some good lessons and visited some cool people. It started to sprinkle for about 5 seconds, but then it just shot lighting about 50 miles away and Perico remains a dry state :). It has been pretty hot, up in the 90s at least. Saturday and Sunday were fabulous. We were able to go to conference for all of the sessions. We live about 40 minute away form the stake center so we took a bus up on Saturday morning (the sessions here are at 1, 5 and 9 for priesthood) and stayed the night in the missionaries apartment that live close. It was way good. I enjoyed several of the talks that stood out to me. Elder Holland’s talk was AMAZING. Then there was another one that went by so fast and I was trying to write down all the stuff that occurred to me but I didn’t have the chance and then one more I put a star next to in my journal but I cannot remember which one it was.

We had one investigator come to the Sunday sessions. I got to tell you this story. So we had talked to this one lady who said to come by her house and we passed by and said she didn't have time. So we passed by again and talked to her daughter who said she wasn’t there and then we passed by again and found her son Ricardo. First you must understand that we normally don´t pass by people that many times when they don´t give us the time of day) so we talked to Ricardo. We sat in front of his house on the curb which is also out of the norm. We taught the restoration lesson but more answered a lot of his questions we asked him to read the Book of Mormon and pray and go to conference and be baptized. And he said yes! I didn’t get my hopes up too much though because we get that a lot. But then he came to conference and asked us to come by every day that we could. That got me pretty stoked and I was way happy to be able to teach him. We talked during conference and he as really loving it. The members just befriended him so fast too.

Before I got here there had been a few baptisms, and it is known to be a fairly highly baptizing area, but one thing that I have learned in the mission is that statistics don´t matter at all. If an elder goes into an area with faith that the lord will lead him to those who are ready to be baptized, anything is possible. I’ve learned so many good lessons in the mission, perhaps too many of them the hard way but I learned them and that is what matters. so here I am in Perico Jujuy, with good members, good leaders and I am committed to do all that is in my power and I know that the Lord will help me if he calls on me to do something out of my power. I love this work; just the little things that happen that make you smile from ear to ear. I’ll be looking out for the opportunities that the Lord gives me to teach and I expect all of you guys to do the same. ¿aight chicos? Love you with all my heart.
Take care of things for me.

CHAUCITO,
ELDER ROSE

Greetings from a Frozen Summer.... brrrrrrrrrrrr...

So everything here in Perico is going just dandy. It is cold again..........., need I say more? We had about a week and a half of summer and now it has dropped almost to freezing temperatures again. Pleasant, no? haha. I’m finding my way around slowly but surely. My comp has three transfers here and you would think that he would know his way around pretty good by now but he still gets lost a lot. So it is a good reason for me to learn right? This is his 4th transfer here so probably his last.

The ward here is good. There were aver 100 people in sacrament meeting because it was ward conference this past Sunday, so that was cool. The elder’s quorum is way cool and there is finally someone that plays piano (and there is a piano... haha) so it is nice. The bishop is a stud. He is involved in the work and we have quite a few people who are willing to help us, so that is good. I think things will be going well here in a little bit. The area seems like it didn't get worked very hard the last few transfers, but we´ll get that all turned around and fixed up here pretty soon.

I'm excited for General Conference and all the good stuff that is going on here in the near future. Sorry this entry is kind of short; they might be that way while I am with my comp. I love you all. I keep you all in my thoughts and prayers and I wish the best in all your endeavors in life. Take care. Love you all. SMILE.
Elder Rose

Have you ever fallen asleep standing up?

Things here are going pretty good. The work is going alright. Like I said I am in a new area now. Last transfer with Elder Marsden and everyone there was super good and just flew by. Now I am in a different province, Jujuy, and I am in a little city called Perico. It is a little bit bigger than Pocitos, my first area was, but still a little town.

So the transfer went well; I got here all good and everything. My new comp is Elder Gamarra, he’s Peruvian. He is a cool enough kid. Perico so far is a nice place. It is cooler here which is going to be nice for the summer and it also rains a lot but that isn’t saying much considering we are in a drought. The rainy season should have already hit so it should be starting any day now. We live in a nice apartment. I’ve been lucky ever since Pocitos to have a pretty nice place to live. Of the people that I have met here, they are great people. It is always a little frustrating getting to a new area and not knowing your way around and having to depend completely on your comp, but it teaches you a little bit of humility among other things.

The first night was interesting. There was a newer elder who got transferred and got off in the wrong city so we had to go get him and take him to his area. In my zone there are a couple of elders that I have gotten to know before. Elder Vidal who I lived with in Salta is in my zone and I recently met Elder Willeitner who is from Utah and I met him once before. He is a big rock climber too so we met once in the gym. He´s a cool kid and it is cool to have someone to connect with. Today we had our district meeting and I decided we need to find a better way of getting there instead of waiting for the "sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't" bus for 4 hours. That is where the subject line comes from. I actually managed to fall asleep standing up on the bus today, luckily I have good reflexes even when I am sleeping and I didn't quite manage to fall over.

I have been getting to know some of the old investigators that were left from last transfer. There aren't very many of them. I’m thinking I want to focus on knocking a lot of doors in the next couple of weeks so that we have a good group of people that we can teach throughout a good period of time.

I’ve been getting over a little cold that I have had since about two weeks ago. I am almost all the way healthy again. Everything is going well.

Everything is going well here. I am going to ask all of you a favor though for at least this transfer. My comp doesn´t really like writing his family a whole lot, I don´t know why. But anyway, he likes going to write emails really early in the day on Tuesdays to get it over with. So here´s the favor… could you write your emails to me either early early on Tuesday or on Monday so that I can get them for sure if we go pretty early on Tuesdays for p-day, that would be super cool. I would hate not to hear from you.

Oh and the last update from Salta. The baptisms that we were hoping for in Salta didn’t go through. There were a lot of things that happened and then people just got lazy so they just kind of got put on the back burner until they decide what they want to do. It´s sad when that happens but every once in a while they get so close yet they just can´t take that last little step to get there. Elder Marsden and Elder Dommer are working hard there though so I have faith that if the investigators want to progress they will have all of the help that they need.

Everything here is super nice though. Just moving along and going through that awkward new area, new companion at the same time phase... I Love you all. Thanks for the very many things that you do for me. Take care, send pictures and think of me.
Elder Jeff Rose

This past week was very interesting...

We were very busy, but not necessarily in a good way. Well, okay, it was a good way, but not for us. So I already said how on Monday we did a tormenta blanca in the area of La Loma. Then Tuesday was p-day, not much time there. Wednesday we went down to Rosario de Lerma to see Gonzalo, he is still doing good by the way, then on Thursday we had our baptismal interviews and district meeting so that was most of the day. Friday we had interviews to go do in Güemes which is a ways away so there goes most of that day and Saturday and Sunday we had the whole days to work, so that left us with not a whole lot of time to do anything. So it was a busy week. We managed to complete with our goals anyways but we didn’t see the things happen like we wanted to. The one big thing was the baptism, that didn’t happen either. One of the girls said that her mom won´t let her even though her dad is a member and the other girl was sick. So that was a bummer. On top of that this week is what they call La Semana de Milagros. That is the week of miracles, which is a huge Catholic festival down here and nobody wants to see you during the nine days that the party is going on. As I sit here writing this email, there is a procession of catholic saints passing outside. That’s a fun one. So this week was a bit rough but we finished strong.

Yesterday was actually a way good day of work. We had some really good lessons and we saw some way cool things work out for us. Elder Marsden and I are convinced that they worked out the way that they did because we were being obedient, following our plans and doing the best that we could. We had a member introduce us to one of her really good friends. Her name is Elsa and she is a devout catholic but said that she would love to listen to us but will never change religions. As we left the house, the member who is her friend commented that she had said the same exact thing before she joined the church. It was a huge testimony to me in trusting the spirit and saying what you need to say in order to reach out and actually get to somebody and tell them what they need to hear. You know how it is sometimes when we want to tell somebody something but we hold out because we feel that it would be uncomfortable or awkward or something like that. But if we are trusting in the spirit and what it is telling us to do we really cannot go wrong. I learned a good time ago that the difference between boldness and overbearance is the spirit. If we trust in ourselves maybe we will screw up but if we trust in the Lord then that is never going to happen.

So here is the little update on what is happening here. First of all, the transfers come up in five days. I am pretty sure I am gone but who knows to where. The investigators are doing well. Isabelle and her boyfriend finally decided to get married so we will see what happens with that pretty soon. It really is quite a difficult process here. Gonzalo has his date to get married this Saturday and we will see if he can get baptized that same day. The two girls are still there. Jimena not so much because of the opposition from her family, but Rocío is still going strong. We are teaching the wife of a less active member now. Her name is Laura and in the last lesson we had with her last night she offered the coolest prayer. In this prayer she asked that God would give her an answer about the Book of Mormon and the restoration so that she could go to church and bring her whole family back into the church. Talk about starting off strong and with good goals right! I was pretty excited when I heard that prayer.

Oh, another big thing in the mission right is that the LDS Spanish version of the Holy Bible just came out. It was a big step and now the church has their own version. It has the Joseph Smith translations and all that but it is still lacking the topical guide and Bible dictionary and that stuff. That is soon to come though.

Today for p-day we kind of took it easy because of the festivities. We played a lot of soccer, went grocery shopping, went to the centro area to take advantage of all the vendors that come out for the festivities and then played some more soccer. My comp took a knee to the face and we think he might have broken his nose. He is doing alright though, we´re going to go get him all checked out. Everything here is going dandy; nothing to complain about. The weather is still super weird and can´t stay the same for more than two days in a row, but it´s alright.

Love you all. Take care and be smart and learn stuff.

Elder Rose

p.s. I tried to attach more pictures but it just wasn´t working out :)