Everyone is going to love today, love today, love today.

    This week was really good. We had another baptism. This guy is named Gilberto. When we found him I thought to myself this guy is prepared this guy is awesome. He was always super accepting. The best thing I heard from him was when he thanked us for our testimonies of the Gospel and when he told us that he wants to serve a mission. That was right after he accepted a baptismal date. He finally got baptized and I asked him, when we were changing in the bathroom, how he felt. He told me that he felt a happiness that he couldn't describe. That is awesome. It is awesome when, through you, someone finds the happiness that the Gospel brings. That's the payoff right there.

I really enjoyed the activity that we had on Thanksgiving. We had a multizone about gratitude and we wrote thank you letters. One thing that I have learned here is to be more grateful. I really have been so filled with gratitude. I have so much. I have my family, my house, this Gospel, my country and so much more. I look at the people that I teach and I sit in there houses and I think, "What did I do to get so much?" I really cannot explain how grateful I am. As a missionary I obviously don't have the luxuries that I had before. Things that I took for granted before the mission I have learned to appreciate even little random things, like free time, the cool breeze in the summer while eating a snowcone at the local grocery store, the smell of fresh cut grass with the sound of a lawn mower, waking up to snow and drinking a cup of hot chocolate, talks with my dad about business ideas, dishwashers, mail ladies, trash services, cars, hot water, asphalt, sidewalks, a late night movie in the backyard of a friend, carpet, furniture not made from plastic, plastic furniture, not having fleas in a bed, and a ton more stuff. Those things seemed insignificant before the mission and I could go on all day about stuff that I'm grateful for. Really those things are insignificant in compared to the magnificence of the Gospel and the absolute power of the Atonement. This is really what I have to be grateful for. I have the opportunity to be able to repent from the things I do wrong. I do a lot of things wrong and the fact that I can move on and get better is an absolute miracle. The love of Christ is something that is available to anyone anywhere in any circumstance, whether they live in a castle or cottage a penthouse apartment or a pitiful dirt hut. This is the common thread that will bring the world together because charity never faileth. The lamb and the lion will lie down together in peace and harmony and the world will be a place of love. I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have to share this message. To help bring this love and this hope to the people that feel no love and know no hope is an absolute privilege as well as a divine calling. Sometimes I lose sight of that when the going gets tough. But when someone finds that love and finds that happiness and takes the steps the steps necessary to change and become better, and they see the blessings start to flow, is when I realize that it is all worth it. I have received so much from my Heavenly Father to be grateful for. I cannot ever even hope to pay him back but I will do what he asks and I will feed his sheep. Thank you for all that you do for me. 

-Elder Rowberry