You say goodbye and I say hello. Hello. Hello.

I think this will be my last email from La Ciudad de México. Nothing crazy happened this week. No earthquakes, kidnappings, or really hot peppers. However this past week I was made District Leader. That means I get to pick who prays and what song we sing. No I'm kidding I've got to go to Sunday meetings and make sure that everyone knows what they are doing. I also have to teach quite a bit and some other stuff but I like it. I like having the opportunity to serve my district.

I got to go to the temple this week which was pretty cool. Going through a session in Spanish is interesting but I'm surprised by how much I actually know. Every time we go there, which has only been twice, we get to see some of the city. The size of the city blows my mind. It is incredibly huge. It makes me excited to get out to the jungles of El Salvador, which will be coming up here real soon. I still don't know what mission I'm going to for sure yet. I am pretty sure it will be the El Salvador Santa Ana mission though.

Teaching is tough. The Spanish isn't the hard part either. It's hard, but not the hardest. The hard part is being able to recognize the spirit and discerning the needs of the investigator and then teaching to those needs. Elder Thorpe and I have gotten much better at it then we were at the beginning. It may have something to do with the fact that the people we teach are our classmates and teachers. This past Wednesday we had something called TRC. It's where you teach volunteers from around the MTC. The first TRC we ever had we taught a teacher here. That was probably the most depressing part of my mission so far, which is a good thing because it wasn't really that bad. This past TRC we taught a girl named Samanta from La Ciudad. Elder Thorpe and I didn't have a clue what we were going to teach so we went in trusting that the Lord would tell us what to teach. It was the best lesson we've had. I felt like we taught with the power and authority that is so often mentioned in the scriptures. It was awesome. After the lesson we had a discussion about Orgullo (Pride). It was really good. We didn't talk about it in the traditional sense. We talked about how pride is a sin of comparison and a sin of not trusting in the Lord enough. I think I struggle with that because for all my high school years I trusted on myself. If I wasn't going to do it it wasn't going to get done. Now I need to trust on the Lord, but entre dicho y hecho hay gran trecho. Once I learn how to do that more fully it will be a lot easier to teach and it will be a lot more effective because I don't know the needs of the investigator but the Lord knows them perfectly. We also talked about how we need to be grateful for our weaknesses and inadequacies. See Ether 12:27. I don't know if I came up with this or it came to me through revelation but it was probably a little of the former and a lot of the latter.  Anyways here it is. If necessity is the mother of invention then Inadequacy is the mother of Improvement. Think about why people practice sports, music, art, or anything. It's because they want to get better at it because they feel inadequate at it. We need to be thankful for our inadequacies but we cannot be content with them. We cannot afford to wallow in the depths of mediocrity. If we trust in the Lord and work hard to become better the Lord will use our weaknesses, our debilidades, to make us stronger. Check out 2 Corinthians 12 and also 2 Nephi 4:17-35 for some more good scriptures on this topic.

Thanks for reading and keep up the emails. I love hearing from everybody. Have a great week. Next time you'll hear from me I'll be in El Salvador.

-Elder Rowberry

¡Levantaos del polvo, hijos mios, y sed hombres!

Another One Bites the Dust

If you want to know what it is like to sleep in Mexico City just turn on the Italian Job or one of the Bourne movies on nice and loud right when you are about to sleep. Or even more accurate just have someone play Need for Speed with the sound all the way up all night long. Then release about 30 mosquitoes that just love to party in your ear all night long. Elder Thorpe and I dedicate about 5 to 10 minutes of our night to hunting down and exterminating all of the mosquitoes in our room. Elder Thorpe has kept track of the mosquitoes he's killed. He's got 50 or 60 recorded mosquitoes. When we find a mosquito we catch it. Then we shake it up and then chuck it at a wall or a mirror really hard. You get what we call a "mount" if you can get the mosquito stuck, or mounted, to the wall or mirror. Not to brag or anything but I've got quite a few mounts. Elder Thorpe sometimes just pulverizes them with his hands and all that is left of the bloodsucking scum is a splatter of the juice of its lustful parasitic desires. How ironic. Personally I prefer to take an approach of more finesse. I use my pens like chopsticks and catch them out of the air. You ever heard of Mr. Miagi? Yeah he's got nothing on me. En broma, enbroma, I haven't actually done that yet but, new goal. 

(Whoops I just sent that out unfinished). I hear that my pal Daniel Nyman is getting starved over there in Provo. That is definitley not the case here. They give you all you can eat Mexican food, which in turn, is all you can poop Mexican Food. They feed us meat and tortillas, beans, jello, all the bread you could ever want (including Pan Dulce), rice, vegetables and gallons and gallons of juice, just to name a few things. Apparently maple syrup does not exist in Mexico because all we have to put on our Pancakes and waffles in the morning is Hershey's chocolate or strawberry syrup. It isn't bad necessarily but it does make for some awfully dry pancakes. There is also as much cereal as your heart could desire here for breakfast and dinner.

There was pretty sweet Earthquake here as well. Elder Thorpe and I were just sitting outside studying Spanish the other day and all of a sudden we hear a siren, which is nothing new. This one was louder and longer however. We see all of the security guys just running around getting on their bikes. Here in the CCM they have an early detection system, or they're connected to one somwhere so we get an advanced notice of Earthquakes. We thought that it was kind of weird that everyone was running around. Then the ground started to sway. The palm trees were moving. I could hear audible cracks coming from the concrete as well as the trees. Missionaries were scrambling to get outside to the little safety circles that are everywhere. I saw small fissures running up the sides of the buildings with classrooms. Things were falling everywhere. Thankfully Elder Thorpe and I happened to be sitting in one of the green safety circles when it happened. I sat there thinking this is nuts. In fact it was so nuts that it couldn't possibly be true. There was an Earthquake but it was too small for anyone to feel. However, the security guys did still run out of their security hut like ants and there was a siren.

This week I've been working on finishing the Book of Mormon from where I left off after Origination. I've been reading about Captain Moroni and the stripling warriors and Teancum and all those things. When I read it during personal study time I don't want to stop. The Book of Mormon is easily my favorite book. It's got some awesome, awesome stuff in it and there are people in it that are amazing examples. Moroni was the best! I love the scripture in Alma I believe chapter 48 that describes the characteristics of Moroni. It also says that if every man had been, was, and would be like Moroni the very gates of hell would be shut or something along those lines. In my room I have a picture of Moroni and it is really inspirational. I want to be just like Moroni. Same with Ammon, Helaman, Nephi, and Alma. We also heard a story about Dan Jones in one of the devotionals. He has been called one of the greatest missionaries of this dispensation. I bought a Gospel art book in La Tienda and I found a picture of him in it. Everytime I see it I think to my self you're going down Dan Jones you're going down. No I'm kidding but if I could be even half the missionary he was that would be amazing. Also if anyone could find me some stories of Dan Jones and compile them and send them to me I'd be very much appreciative of that. Everybody! Go read the Book of Mormon! Its awesome. (understatement of the year)

¡Levantaos del polvo, hijos mios, y sed hombres!

-Elder Rowberry

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin into the future.

Wow. I can't believe I'm already halfway through week four. I've got a good story for you this week.

In our branches we have to write a letter to the branch president every week. The letter was due on Saturday night to our district leader. So Elder Thorpe and  ran over to give Elder Hicken our letter. When we got there, there was around 16 people in the room. There were probably six or eight Latino elders and the rest of them were from my district with the exception of Elder Dennis and his companion, Elder Munson. After we gave Elder Hicken our letters someone said, ¡Más Gringos! One of the Latino elders grabbed me and he and some other Latinos guided me into their room. I did not know what was going on but everyone was laughing, like they knew something I didn't. Which they did. Once I was in the room they shut the door, locking Elder Thorpe outside. "Well that's not good,"I thought. All the Latinos were in the room with me. They made me lay down on the bed with my head hanging off the end. At this point I was getting a little worried and more confused. Then they tied my hands behind my back with a tie. I looked to my left and one guy put on a rubber boot. He advanced toward me then everything went black...

 

 We had a devotional this Sunday. It was a recorded talk from Elder Holland to the ProvoMTC awhile back. He stressed that fact that we should all be guaranteed at least one convert, ourselves. The whole Preach My Gospel thing is focused on the missionary not the investigator like the discussions were. They figure that if the missionary is converted and knows how to teach then they can follow the spirit and say what needs to be said at the time it needs to be said. He explained how Preach My Gospel was born. Apparently President Hinckley said that there was a serious problem with the way missionary work was being done. He could not figure out how a missionary could come home and fall away from the church. Which is what I'm wondering right now as well. I don't see how it is possible. That is when Predicad MiEvangelio was born. Elder Holland said if you go inactive after a mission you better not meet him in a dark alley or he'll go crazy. I have found that serving a mission is one of the most important things you could ever do and obviously I haven't even made it to the field yet. I'm sure that knowledge will grow exponentially when I see the influence of the Gospel in someones life who has never had it before. It's really nice to be able to study and learn and not have to worry about school or anything like that. I also have found out that I thought I knew a lot about the Gospel and I thought I had a really solid testimony of things but I've realized that is not necessarily the case. It's not that my testimony has been shaken, in fact it has grown a lot, its that I realized I don't really understand that much about the simple truths of the Gospel. It's like running a race. I saw a bend in the course, before my mission, that I though was pretty close to the end of the race. When I got here I rounded that bend and saw some more of how much there is left in the race. For example yesterday we were talking about the sacrament in our class. I realized that I have been taking the sacrament for 18 years and I really don't understand what it is or what it does for us. Sure I know that it's a reminder of the Atonement and we renew our covenants we made at Baptism. But what does that really mean? I intend to find out. I would encourage all of you that read this to also find out. Really take an inventory of your understanding of the basics and the core doctrine of the church. Find out if you really know what they're for and why we have them.    Oh you want to get back to the story now? Ok.

 

Everything went black because they stuck a bag over my head. I started yelling ¡Ayudame! partially out of legitimate worry but mostly because I was playing along. I really hoped that they were just playing. I figured they were because A: They're missionaries and B: one of them had a camera and was taking pictures. They took the picture of their companion acting like he was kicking me in the head. They all jumped on top of me and took another one like they had captured and conquered the American giant or whatever. These guys weren't real mature, if you can't tell. They apparently didn't grow up in one day like Elder Holland expects all missionaries too. I know I haven't. Finally they let me go. They tried to get Elder Thorpe but we booked it to our room in the other building. We were pretty sure that there was some rules that were being broken but it's all good. (It wasn't good that they were breaking rule, there is just no hard feelings.) When Elder Thorpe and I got back to our room, a little shaken up, these two other Latinos came into our room, whom we had never seen before, and they just started talking about random stuff. We traded ties with them and they tried to get us to teach them in Spanish. I told them we already had plenty of times to practice teaching in Spanish. One of our Latino roommates came in and brought in a box of All Bran (A registered trademark of Kelloggs. All rights reserved.) He came to me and said in broken English, "Here, this is the bomb." I said, "No that's not the bomb. That stuff is awful." Turns out that wasn't the type of bomb he was talking about and all four Latinos in our room started acting out what the Fiber loaded All Bran does to you. After that the two other Latinos went off on a rant about how rich Americans stomp on poor Mexicans. I told him that wasn't true. I wasn't sure if he was joking or not. I hope he was. So when we finally got everyone out of our room and we shut the door, we tried to climb into our beds. On top of everything Elder Hawkes and Elder Christensen, our American roommates, short-sheeted our beds to get us back for scaring them. Needless to say that was a crazy night. Definitely the craziest yet. Elder Thorpe and I now try to get into bed as fast as we can when class ends because once you start talking to the Latinos they don't stop talking and it's really hard to get to sleep at a decent hour.

Anyways its been another good week here.

Thanks for the emails keep it up I love hearing from everyone.

Work Hard, Pray Hard

-Elder Rowberry.