PENTECOSTAL PREACHER BUSY FOLLOWING GOD'S MESSAGE TO `GO SEEK SOULS'

The Rev. Rosemary Cosby, pastor and founder of Christian churches in Salt Lake City and Indianapolis, and founder of a regular radio broadcast in Indiana, says she has hardly begun to spread the word of God.

"I want to spread the gospel throughout Indiana and, someday, to many other places," she said this week.The Rev. Cosby was in Salt Lake City to officiate at the fifth annual convention of the Faith Temple Pentecostal Church Inc., which ends Sunday.

More than 500 people, including ministers and church officials from throughout the United States, are attending the convention, and most, if not all of them, are in Salt Lake City to meet and hear Cosby and her husband, Bishop Robert C. Cosby.

"During this week, I've shared my testimony about the Bible and about God and his son, Jesus, and held Bible classes for convention participants," The Rev. Cosby said.

Once the convention is over, she said, she will go back to Indianapolis. She and her husband divide their time between the Faith Temple No. 2 there and Faith Temple No. 1 at 1510 S. Richards St.

Listening to The Rev. Cosby, nestled on a couch in her comfortable home on the east bench near Sandy, it is difficult to imagine her as a young mother struggling to get from Indianapolis to Salt Lake City in 1961 with four small children and little or money.

The Rev. Cosby says God brought her to Salt Lake City and, during the past 27 years, has helped her build a congregation of more than 500 in Utah and more than 1,000 in Indianapolis. More than 3,000 correspond with her because of her weekday broadcasts in Indianapolis.

She and her husband are teaching scores of people to become ministers through their ministerial organization, Contenders of the Faith of Jesus Christ Inc. She said they expect to certify and license more than 100 ministers this year.

Soon, she said, with the help of her family, her congregation and these ministers, she expects to open more churches all over Indiana. "It is what God is telling me to do," she said. Eventually, she said, she would like to start churches in other areas of the country.

How did she arrive at her present position? She left school in the ninth grade. "I loved school, but I became discouraged and quit. For several years I worked in drug stores in Indianapolis and at 26 was married. My husband ran off and left me with four little children to care for.

"I was baptized during this time and about two years later I had a vision while I was at my church, the Christ Temple Church, and God told me to `Go seek souls.' He would speak out of my mouth in English and when I asked where he wanted me to go, he would say, `Salt Lake City.' "