Dig it oh oh oh dig it.

This week was a good week. I actually have some stuff that is interesting to write. We had a couple service projects this week. The first one was cleaning chickens. There is a chicken butchery right behind my house. It is run by members so one night we went over there and cleaned chickens. There is something a little weird about sticking your hand up a dead chicken's rear end to pull out all of it's organs. It also stinks, a lot. We also had a service project for this family that had two children that we were going to baptize. They live in a place called Anal Abajo and that is like a 45-60 min walk from our house. We moved a ton of rocks and also mixed concrete. (I'm glad you taught me, dad). I always like giving service even though it is hard work. On Saturday we had the wedding. It takes a lot to plan a wedding and we did not prepare very well but it went well. It was very very different than a wedding/reception, especially when you have the ward council making food and the Elders paying for almost everything. Sunday we baptized Oscar and Claudia and Joel Ortiz. Joel's sister was supposed to be baptized as well but she was in San Salvador with a sick relative at the hospital. So we only had three baptisms this week. Oscar Jeremias Sanchez Aguilar was the first person I've ever baptized in my life. That was pretty cool. 

On much uncooler terms, we haven't had water in our house for a week. We have to go to another house to shower and use the bathroom. Our eating is pretty crap here. We eat a lot of hamburgers and pizza and a lot a lot of pupusas. There is an Hermana here that has a Pupusaria here and gives us free pupusas. Also this week we we've been walking around a ton to find houses to rent because more missionaries are coming here. I went on Interchanges with Elder Anderson, who is from Alpine and went to Lone Peak. He is my Zone Leader. I looked for houses with him for a long time and with Elders named McKenna and Oliver. Elder McKenna is from American Fork, Oliver is from Canada. It was kind of weird walking around the streets and three of the four of us live with in 10 minutes of each other. 

Next week when I write I won't be in Texical anymore. I have changes and I'm going somewhere else on Wednesday. I don't know why though.

It's a nice day for a white wedding

Hey everybody.

Good news for some reason we got our writing time bumped up to 60 minutes. Therfore, I can write more. I still am not sure what to write but for people I hope to be a light. Folks here need some hope but when we try to give it to them they say nope. Alright thats enough rhyming and I mean it. But really does anyone want a peanut?  

This week we've been working with this family who is going to get baptized next week. It is a family of two. They are both eighteen and not married but they have been living together in their own house for 10 months. Like I said in a previous letter a lot of people don't get married here. This last week we've been rounding up stuff so they can get married like Identification, birth certificates and everything. We got the ward council to help up us out with stuff for the wedding like food and stuff which is good because I thought I was going to have to pay alot for it. Their names are Oscar Sanchez and Claudia Garcia. It's cool to see people accept the gospel. They know a recent convert family and when they came to church they commented to us how much they changed. They have changed for the better for sure. I know that living the gospel does change people it makes families happier it makes people happier. I just want people to understand that and accept the gospel.

I really want members to give us good references becuase that is the way it should be. It really is not that effective to walk around and contact people in the streets and knock on peoples doors. If we could get good references and have the members work with us to teach and have us teach in their houses we could have much more success. So remember that everyone. Give references and open your houses to teach investigators.

I love reading the reading the scriptures and studying and I love being able to share the gospel. Learing about the gospel and learning about this new culture is always exciting.

Everybody have a good week.

-Elder Rowberry

 

No Subject

This is from Monday September 16, 2013.

I have 30 seconds to write as much as I can. This week was good. I sincerely apologize for this email. It is pitiful. Goodbye they are kicking me off the computer. Have a good week everyone.

Spiderman Spiderman, does whatever a Spider can.

This is from Monday September 9, 2013.

Hey everybody how's it going? If I don't answer your emails every week I apologize. I haven't quite figured out how to fit all that I have to do in 45 min. I will try to figure out a better system for next week.

Anways I've seen some stinking huge spiders here. We found one in our house the other day that probably had a leg span of eight inches. It took a half of a can of raid to kill it. And there's some places that just have tons of huge spiders just hanging out. The spiders however were not the coolest part of my week. This week I got my first baptism. It was really cool. The guy's name is German (like on The District 2) I don't know him super well because most of the lessons with him happened before I got there. I do know that the Gospel has definitley changed his life. He used to smoke and drink coffee and everything. He accepted the Word of Wisdom and he saw the blessings of it in his life. The benefits to not smoking are very obvious but he said the when he quit drinking coffee he could sleep much better and he felt better. Big surprise eh? My companion baptized him yesterday. It was really cool to see his journey end and start at the same time. 

There are some big problems here. There are some serious morality issues. I swear in almost all of our investigator families the parents are not married. I'm going to see a lot of weddings I have a feeling. In fact we have one planned for the 28th. I've never planned a wedding before so it should be interesting. One of our investigators was hammered the other day. I've never seen anyone so drunk, not that I've seen that many drunk people. I also bought alcohol for the first time that same day. Our investigator came with his bottle of alcohol and we told him to dump it out. He wouldn't because he said he just bought it. So we payed him 5 bucks for his bottle then we dumped it out in the dirt. The guy was pumped he came and gave us big hugs. Then he picked up my companion and carried him around and then he picked up me and carried me around and told us to take a picture. Unfortunatley I didn't have my camera. It was kind of weird funny and sad but we're going to try to help him out. 

Anyways I'm going to try to figure something out so I can write more. 

See you all later

-Elder Rowberry

Wake me up when September ends.

Fast sunday was yesterday. Wow. You think fasting 24 hours at home is hard try fasting 24 hours here in El Salvador while walking 5 miles in the heat sweating. I didn't think I was going to make it back to my house. It was actually rough. This week has been good though. I am understanding more and more every day. It's getting easier every day as well. I'm still getting used to "Missionary Pace" which is really fast. My companion walks so fast even though he's a lot shorter than me. The work is really tiring. When I get home I am so tired. Waking up is difficult but you've got to do it, so I do it.

Me and my companion are buds now. I don't know what happened but I guess it was just shyness I guess. I've made good friends with some of the members and the investigators. There is a family here that gives us a lot of references. They have like 10 kids. They are the Nicol family of the Texical Branch. Some of the people here are so hard to understand. Especially the old people with no teeth. This sunday we have two investigators that are going to be baptized if nothing falls through. I'm really excited. I'm really sorry this letter is very short. Because there are some big knuckleheads in our mission our time has been cut to 45 min. (It was a while ago). I will write the letter prior to my computer time on a piece of paper so I can just type it. I will also send some pictures next week. Sometimes I think that 2 years is a very very long time. But by the next time I write I will be one day short of 2 months out.This letter is so scattered and crazy I apologize.

Where The Streets Have No Names

   This was the first letter Elder Rowberry sent us from El Salvador last week on Monday August 26, 2013

So I made it to El Salvador safe and sound. A ton of stuff has happened since last week. My emails will be more exciting then they were in the CCM. I am in the Juayua Zone but my area is in the city of Nahuizalco. The streets have no names and a lot of them are dirt. It's a little town in the mountains and the jungle. It's pretty sweet though. There are little shops everwhere selling cheap snacks and drinks. The houses here are pretty interesting. Our house has a tile floor and even for the missionaries it's not very nice. It's not comfortable and we have no furniture. Also its really really hot and humid here. I just sweat all day long. There is a thermometer on my clock and when we go to bed it's 80-85 degrees. Even though our house isn't comfortable and the water is freezing, compared to a lot of the other houses here it's really nice. A lot of the houses are dirt floor shacks that use corrugated tin and balck plastic to make walls and roofs. An intersting thing though is that everyone has cell phones. The spanish is coming. I'm understanding more and more Spanish everyday its much different then the Spanish I've learned. I'm super glad I took the five years though. It rains harder and thunders harder here than I've ever seen. There's a bunch of buses here that are just refurbished, jacked up, and painted. They look like there from one of those crazy car video games. One, of the many, interesting experience that I had this week was yesterday. We were going to this families house, with another family. We had to hike like 2 hours though the jungle. On the way there I ate a bunch of exotic fruit and knawed on some raw sugar cane. I drank some coconut water from a coconut that came right off the tree. On the way home there was a sound and I saw these two rats fighting. These rats were the size of small dogs, almost as big as Carmel, my cat back home. The dad of the family we were with took out his machete and killed them. He then took them home and skinned them right in front of us. I think he's going to cook them for us today. My companion is Elder Guzman. He's from Peru. He speaks zero English. So I go basically all day without speaking English. It can be frustrating at times. Especially because my companion doesn't really talk to me. I will you tell more about the missionary work next week when I know more what's going on. I don't really know anything about anything yet. Anyways I only have 45 min to write on the computer. So my letters will have to be brief and I may not be able to specifically back to everyone. I still enjoy the letters though. If you send me physical letters I will have more time to answer and read them.

Send them to Apartado Postal #142 Santa Ana, El Salvador, C.A.

-Elder Rowberry

Elder Rowberry has arrived!!

This is from the Secretary at the mission office in the Santa Ana mission. Monday August 26, 2013

Dear Rowberry Family,

 

            We are happy to announce that your Son, Elder Rowberry, has safely arrived to our mission. The night of her arrival, we enjoyed getting to know him in a dinner at the mission home, and we can tell that he is a great missionary. We are grateful for his sacrifices and your sacrifices to allow him to be here. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will pour out his blessings upon your family. We are very happy to have your Sun with us and we know he will bless the lives of many people here in the great country of El Salvador. He has been assigned to the Texical area in the Juayúa Stake. His companion is Elder Guzmán from Perú. We expect to see many miracles from this companionship.

Elder López

Secretario General

Misión El Salvador Santa Ana

Celular – 7842-9673

Oficina – 2486-6600

Elder Rowberry with his Mission Presidents

Elder Rowberry with the Mission Presidents and his companion.