I guess It's easier for Elder Rosander to just type and not use any capitals! I thought I might fix it for him but you all can figure it out! :) It's great to here from him...enjoy :)











wow looks cool! costa rica...... hahah so the first day i got here i was soo confused! i couldn´t even speak or understand the most simple spanish but not because i didn´t know it but because i was just shocked how weird it is here! i really like it here though everybody is so friendly.. the first day we didn´t get our companions yet so we went with a trio in down town san jose! it was pretty fun! idk how i can describe it here. its undescribable but its just pure poverty... we tought people the first day and their house was smaller than my room. but i love it becasue they arent even ashamed they invite you in and try to give you all the food they have. all the houses have nice tv´s and the parents usually just work and watch t.vs and the kids just play in the street with no shoes on.. idk how their feet arent torn up... the first question everybody asks you is if you are a luegista or saprissa they are the two most famous soccer teams here. everybody loves soccer and if they dont they watch it and play it anyway... but after the first day i got my companion elder pratt from california. and we are in san carlos quesada its in the northern region between guanacoste and limón i think. im not really sure im still a little confused because after like 4 days with that companion we went on splits with the zone leaders and i am somewhere else now and my companion doesn´t speak english. but we are only on spits untill thursdaywhen we go to the temple im not sure why we are on splits we just are. there are allot of burrachos or drunks here and they always want my money... so i always have to pretend i don´t speak spanish and they finally leave. the members here are weird... the most active you get is like 2 times a month... usually some are more active but thats the usual. its really hard for some areas to get to the church.. they don´t have adresses here for example if you want to get to the church i would say its 50 meter arriba por colono... it 50 meters up from the popular store colono... the people in general are really nice here they are always hugging you or have thier arm around you. my trainer said he has the only baptism here for a couple months.. idk why but he says its really hard to get baptisms here because people feel like they don´t need religion. the food here is okay everyone says they get sick but its fine for me. the food is pretty expensive if you want anything good. we take busses everywhere. and they are made for latinos so i have to put my legs in the isle... because im a giant here everyone likes to talk to us so thats good also they like to practice their english with me. i tought an english class the other day. we were at this catholics familys house and i started saying a prayer and they all stood up and started repeating what i was saying... it was hard for me not to laugh. i really like it here its just really really different.. the people just leave their door open and invite anybody walking by to stop in and have a drink or some pan. the girls here love gringos so they always want to talk to me... reminds me of home..... jk haha but its hard to explain costa rica ive seen some of the most poverty stricken people in the world but i like it and everything is so beautiful when i was in san carlos it rained for four days strait. also we ahve alot of commitmets for baptisms but they cant because they are from niciragua and so they arent legal here. its really hot here and they say this is the coolest place... i hope thier wrong or im going to die.. we have a cook named sonia she is really nice. the costa rican money is really beautiful. i havn´t taken any pictures yet.. and i cant remember what ive told you and havn´t told you... because i write you and a bunch of other people but i also write in my journal so i might leave som suff out its easier if you ask me questions i can just answer them. theres two volcanos right next to our house and also the soccer stadium is less than a mile away. i need to buy a backpack. if things go right we should have 3 baptisms in january.

Sunday: we met a guy from Costa Rica and we talked for a while. It made me really excited to get there plus i've seen Meet the Mormons about 5 times here in the MTC. next week can't come fast enough!

Monday: there was one kid in our zone that was from Argentina he is leaving today. He is kinda awkward with people and I think he has some mental problems IDK he is really smart but i had the opportunity to teach him how to tie his tie and it was weird for me to meet someone that is 21 years old and doesn't know how to tie a tie.

Tuesday: me and my companion got called to the front desk and we had to speak with the president of the MTC he said we were chosen through the spirit to be two of the 15 to have a meet and eat with David A Bednar on  Thursday. Also Dallin H Oaks spoke with us today in a devotional.

Wednesday: we played volleyball today.

Thursday: we had the best lunch ever. IDK why the MTC doesn't feed us like this all the time. we got really nice food because we ate with Elder Bednar. we sat at a table with his son and sons wife and he is an accountant. and an accounting teacher at BYU.

Friday: we watched meet the Mormons again today

Saturday: massive tie trade went on today

Sunday: we had a devotional with vocal point.. they are really good. they talked about some things that we should study before our missions and they sang a lot of songs for us.

when Brother and Sister Oaks spoke on Tuesday they said, the savior wants us to deny ourselves and pick up the cross. see that we serve God with all our might mind and strength and heart so we can stand blameless. It is up to us to become usable for the Lord and it is up to Him to use us in the best way possible. As far as the Thanksgiving devotional brother and sister Bednar said we are agents to act not be acted upon. i believe i have been sent to Costa Rica or more importantly Spanish speaking because I truly believe if i would have gone English i would have no patience and tried to persuade people by the words of my own mouth rather than relying on the spirit. Spanish has been a great opportunity for me to rely on the spirit and learn patience. He also talked about a paradox that when we finally decide we cannot, there is no way, that we can do this. that is when we do it. we have to humble ourselves enough to let the spirit guide us and not get in the way. Also in Mosiah it talks about the commandments and it says we should not take the Lord thy Gods name in vain. I thought that was pertaining to people that used oh my God. But I finally realized that when we make covenants with the Savior we take upon us His name. we no longer have free agency because we are now making choices not only for ourselves but for the Lord.

I'm flying from salt lake to Atlanta to Costa Rica. I leave the MTC at 6 am salt lake flight to Atlanta leaves at 1118 and arrives 450. December 8th then Atlanta 615 to San Jose 915 but they also have flights scheduled for me in February because I will be living there with a visitors visa at first and I might have to get reassigned in February if my visa doesn't come, until my visa gets here.

 

Happy Thanksgiving from Elder Rosander

I' m not worried about my spanish at all. There are some people in my district that are loosing sleep over it but it doesn´t bother me I can hold a conversation pretty well. Even if i don´t know what they are saying the latinos are very patient and will not move on unless you know what they are saying. I don´t really like writing.. no offence to you guys but I'll do my best to list some of the stuff i am learning here. uhm we shouldn´t be like a recorder and just spit off what our teachers have told us. we need to learn of christ and gain a testimony of his expiacion and evengelio and we can better teach investigators. uhm we have had a lot of devotionals so i guess i can tell you what I wrote down from those. Darla Davies told us that this is full time service not service when we feel like it or when we are in the classroom it is all the time. The Lord tends to favor you with blessings when you search for his teachings and heed to his words. Sorry if some of the words are in Spanish I sometimes take notes in spanish to practice. so if you don´t understand them just understand it's probably spanish. oh I can recite three things in spanish try to guess what they are..


1. vi una culumna de luz mas brilliante que el sol directamente arriba de mi cabeza y esta luz gradualmente descendio hasta desconsar sobre mi al roposer sobre me la luz vi en el aire arriba de me a dos personajes cuyo fulgor y gloria no admittion descripcion uno de ellos me hablo llamondo por me nombre y dijo este es mi hijo amdo escuchalo..


my spanish typing is poor but anyway


seguira el ejemple de jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguin que posea la authoridad de sacerdocio de dios





mi proposito es invitar a las personas a venir a cristo a ayudarlas a que reciban el evengelio resturado mediante la fe en jesu cristo y su expiacion el arrepentimiento el bautismo la reccepcion del don del espiritu santo y el perseverar hasta el fin





In another devotional we learned we have been set apart to teach of christ and we will recieve help from the spirit if we do our part. We need to strive to take upon the name of christ and we should be ready to bear his name and represent him through miracles but also through the garden of Gethsemane. We are the only church where we can fully recieve knowledge by spiritual witness that the things our church teaches is true that is why it is so easy to be 18 year olds and sacrifice 2 years of my life. No other church can do this. we should not judge wrongfully or we will be judged the same way. The worth of EVERY soul is great in the sight of God. To be a good parent we should not do anything for our kids they can do for themselves even if it is the simplist of tasks and they struggle this is where they learn to lower anxiety and highten self esteem.


Do not be governed by your fears.

Here is Elder Rosander's report home.  For now he just writes what is going on but it won't be long before we will start to read about his testimony and how it is growing!  Enjoy..

 

You think it's getting cold there?  Hummmmm I don't think so..but the trees here look amazing.  we don't have stuff like this in Hurricane but I feel like I'm in the Hunger Games because at night a deep voice comes over the intercom and tells us when to do persona study and when to go to sleep and whatnot!  Yeah, Kole told me all about the football game, good for them!  That's nice you found a car for Karisa.  By the way they gave me a water purifier and a really nice one at that.  So I guess the water down there is no bueno.  The jacket Tasha sent is fine.  I know about the ipods and stuff, when you have earphones in your ears it is impossible to hear the holy ghost that is why we cannot use them here.  we do the same thing every day here.  The only reason I know the date is because of my journal.  On my pdays we wake up at 6:30 and go the the classroom and study from 7-7:45 and eat then we go to the temple from 8 or 8:30 till about 10:00 doing whatever besides we cannot do baptisms.  Then we do laundry and emails.  After that we do whatever we want I usually just read and study.  I work out and then take a shower and go back to class at 6:00 and it's just like every other day after that..pdays are kinda boring.

The days here don't necessarily go by fast they just all clump together because we do the same thing every day.  It is getting pretty cold I may need to buy a jacket .  I already had to buy sweats because we aren't to do service in shorts here for some reason.  My flight to Salt Lake was fine and Russ took me and Karisa to a buffet.  sorry I didn't send pictures sooner but the computers here are from the dinosaur era so I had to buy a converter and also because they pretty much block everything going in and out of them so it was hard to send pictures...anyway I got that all figured out but there is just not much to take pictures of.  I got my debit card today but how am I suppose to activate it?  I can't use phones!  Did you guys send my visa stuff yet?  everyone keeps joking that I will probably have to go to California for a little bit until it comes.  They didn't do anything for Halloween in fact I didn't even know it was Halloween.  They said they might have a big feast her for Thanksgiving but the food isn't that great anyway.  There are a lot of options so I am trying to eat s healthy as I can.  I see the other elders eat like 5 doughnuts and it's gross.  Everything is kinda fatty here so I usually just eat the fruit and noodles or Hispanic food.  Dear Elder is a great way to write because I can get the letter the same day.  I can't write unless it's Monday but I can receive and read letters any day of the week.  Hum you said something about a care package?  I don't think that's necessary I'm not sure what's in them but I bet it's just a bunch of useless stuff and sweets...I don't need any of those..in fact I don't need anything that I can think of...the only things I want are some more socks to match my blue suit and maybe more ties but neither is needed.  It is suggested to wear our suits every day but I only have the one suit so most of us don't.  You know I hate suits so I only wear it when it is mandatory like Sunday and Tuesdays.  The MTC kind of sucks but who would have known you just have to have a good attitude and it make things 10X better!  Although it is kinda gross here the showers and bathrooms are really nasty as well as the residence but oh well I'll be out of here in no time!

 Elder Rosanders companion

 Study area

 Sleep area

 

 study room

 District

 Elder Rosander with Elder Faustin

 New zone leader Elder Yoo.. he reminds me of home!

 My Zone

Checking out my Camera the zoom is 40X

First Week!

We are excited to hear Elder Rosander is learning already!

 

I am doing fine, and I don't need really anything... I just need to send stuff home. Spanish is coming great its not that hard.. there is just so much to learn and memorize. every single person you meet tells you to memorize something and read something else if I did that I would never leave my room so I just focus on Spanish.  I didn't get my typhoid shot yet although they are going to have me get is eventually why I am here. did you guys send my stuff in yet_ 

anyway my brain is riddled with Spanish so it is hard to communicate either way because I always think in Spanish but I cant speak well enough and whenever I try to speak English I get lost in Spanish.

 

love you too. mi companion is from barundi en africa. sometimes its easier for me to write in Spanish so you will have to forgive me. but he was born in barundi and lived in tanzania for most of his life in Africa. but he was baptized a couple years ago and guess who baptized him, or helped..... Andy Ashcroft because he moved to south Dakota about 2 años ago. our district consist of 8 members. elder Lemon from Sacramento he is going to costa Rica as well as elder Davis from desert hills Utah and we have Jacob Hamblin in our district and he is from Toronto Canada and we also have elder Page from Vacaville in California he said its in the Santa Rosa mission so maybe Sheena knows him you will have to give me her email because I lost it.. tell her the wind took it so I cant write her this week. but she did a cool thing through dear elder where I can get the letter the day of but cannot write until sunday but I like that so you should ask ella how she did it. my brain is riddles with Spanish I cant even think English anymore but I'm still not very bueño en español.  Talk to you all later love, Elder Rosander

 Jude was a big help to Elder Rosander

 Checking in....

 Waiting....

 waiting some more....

 Picture time :)  Mimi

 sister Mataya

    Mom and Dad           

 Jude couldn't wait to see the jet!

 There he goes....

 Elder Rosander and his sisters

 Families are forever!

 Karisa and Elder Rosander

 Tasha and Elder Rosander

 Sheena and Elder Rosander

 Evan and Elder Rosander

Mataya and Elder Rosander

 I'm trying to get this blog all worked out before Elder Rosander leaves on Wednesday Oct. 29th!  Here are a few of his missionary pictures.

 

I like this one because it shows

 how excited he really is :)

                               

 

 

 Elder Rosander
 loves doing

   work at the
 St. George temple!