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.