I can see clearly now the rain is gone

From May 25, 2015

Oh wait no. Rainy season is starting up and I've gotten soaked in these last couple days. This week was a normal week in the mission. We've just been working hard trying to reach our goals. What is really weird is that I only have four weeks left. I'm going to work hard. I know that this is the most exciting letter ever but sorry. 

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

The long and winding road

From May 18, 2015

This week I had a very awesome experience. On Thursday Elder Peck, my ZL, called me and told me I had to go to Jujutla to take out a birth certificate for the other mission. Jujutla is a little town that is 45 minutes away from Apaneca. You have to take a long road on a bus that only passes by a few times a day. Technically it is part of the Branch Apaneca but it is far and the transportation is difficult and there are only 6 members there so they have their own small sacrament meeting every week. I remember seeing that number 6 every week on the weekly reports when I was in the office. My old friend Elder Wiser, who finished  a long time ago, always told President Cordon that he want to go open up Jujutla. It never happened. I was pretty excited to go get this birth certificate and see Jujutla. Elder Peck and I went of Friday morning. When we finally got there at 11:30 after much waiting for the bus and the drive we made our way to the town hall. We found out that missionaries from the other mission had already taken it out and that the bus going back wasn't going to leave until 1:30 instead of 12:30. We decided to go look for the members. We had no idea where they lived or anything all we knew was the ladies name. We walked around and asked some people if they knew any mormons and they said no. We were sitting in the park wondering how we were going to find this lady. Then a drunk guy comes up to us and asks us if we were gringos. We told that yes we were. We asked him if he knew the member. He said yes but he also said that he knew a ton of other people, so who knew really. We decided to go with the drunk guy to look for her. We said a prayer with the drunk guy and then we set off. The drunk guy started taking us all over the place and he was asking everyone if he knew this lady. At first people said no, but as we got farther and farther people started giving us the direction for the lady who has a very common name. So picture this we are following a guy who is chronically drunk, in a town we have never even seen, looking for a lady who may or may not be the member of the church. Elder Peck leans to me and says, "If this bolo (drunk guy) takes us to her house, the church is true." After walking for awhile we aproached a house and we hear "Hola Hermanos!" I about died. I could not believe it. We found her and it was the first house we approached. The Church is true. God answers prayers. We found out that there is some potential to baptize some people there. We will see how it goes. It was awesome though.  So Elder Wiser I'm opening up Jujulta!

Thanks for everything!

-Elder Rowberry

I'm on a payphone trying to call home

From May 11, 2015

This week was a really good week. It was good to call home for the last time. It's crazy how fast time goes by. 

 We had a baptism yesterday. His name is Javier. He's a good kid. He's crazy as heck though. He had a baptismal date a year ago with some other Elders but he didn't pass the interview but this time he did and got baptized finally. He is an orphan who lives with his old grandparents. He's like a jungle boy but with more love from the members of the branch and with more teaching I'm sure he'll calm down a bit. I really pray that he can one day go on a mission and pull himself out of the poverty that he is in right now. That is what the Gospel can do and will do to someone if he or she lets it happen. I just wish people would understand that. 

I also went on interchanges with Elder Peck. He is my Zone Leader. He is from Lehi. So we had a pretty good time. 

Everything is going pretty good in Apaneca. We are trying to work hard and work well with the members. I only have 6 weeks left. I am going to work as hard as I can to do as much as I can to have success in these last weeks.

Thanks so much everybody!

-Elder Rowberry 

Some nights I stay up, cashing in my bad luck

From May 4, 2015

This week was a normal week. We have just been working hard and trying to find people. We have had the worst luck when talking to people. We talk to a ton a families in the street and...nothing. Some walk past like we aren't even there, some greet us but start making excuses or that they go to a different church, and some sound enthusiastic about having us come over. Those people that say yes give us their direction and we set a time when we can pass by. Then we go to their address and we start asking people for the family. The people that live around that address say that they have no idea who that person is, which means that one, the family lied to us, or two, that everyone else is lying to us, or three, we are just horrible and finding houses. So yeah that's fun....

 The Mendez family from Atiquizaya invited us on Saturday to go eat at a nice restaurant that is in our area. They are the owners of the missionaries house in Atiquizaya. They are really cool people. It was really good. 

 In my studies of the Book of Mormon this week I was reading in 1 Nephi 13 and I was reading about all of the prophesies that have to do with the United States. It's pretty cool. That's just another testimony that the book is true. 

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry