6 Months

Well today is the 1/4 way mark of my mission. It has gone by so fast I've learned so much but I still have an immense amount to learn.

This week was a different week. On Sunday after church I felt terrible. My head felt like it was going to explode. So I called the nurse and she told me to rest. Which I did. Then on Monday I felt the same pressure in my head. Same thing on Tuesday. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to go to the doctor. He told me I had bronchitis and sinusitis he got me squared away with some medicines then I began resting. I rested all day on Wednesday and Thursday. I have another appointment with him today and I hope things will be all good so I can go out and work. I don't have the pressure in my head anymore which is really good. I had a cool experience while I was eating lunch. I was with a member. This man is very poor and very very humble. On occasions he comes by our house on Sunday nights and knocks on the door. He tells us that he just wants to say hi and see how we're doing. Then he'll almost always ask us for something to eat for dinner. So I give him some crackers and bread. I believe this man was born with a cleft-lip and he had a surgery to fix it but it definitely left it's scars. He is generally rejected by the people here. So here I was sharing my lunch with this man and the words to the hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" came to my mind. 

1. A poor, wayfaring Man of grief

Hath often crossed me on my way,

Who sued so humbly for relief

That I could never answer nay.

I had not pow'r to ask his name,

Whereto he went, or whence he came;

Yet there was something in his eye

That won my love; I knew not why.

2. Once, when my scanty meal was spread,

He entered; not a word he spake,

Just perishing for want of bread.

I gave him all; he blessed it, brake,

And ate, but gave me part again.

Mine was an angel's portion then,

For while I fed with eager haste,

The crust was manna to my taste.

And when this came to my mind I felt a great love for this man who is so often rejected by the world. I felt something special and I thought of the last verse of the hymn.

7. Then in a moment to my view

The stranger started from disguise.

The tokens in his hands I knew;

The Savior stood before mine eyes.

He spake, and my poor name he named,

"Of me thou hast not been ashamed.

These deeds shall thy memorial be;

Fear not, thou didst them unto me."

With that I felt like it was a great honor to be sharing my "scanty meal" with this man. I believe I felt a portion of the Saviors love that he has for that man.

Thank you for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

Then I got Bronchitis. Ain't nobody got time for that.

I don't know if I actually have Bronchitis but I have got something nasty. I've got a pretty bad cough and I feel tired all the time, but I went to the Doctor and she gave me some medicine so I'm on the track to recovery, hopefully. She looked into my nose, my mouth, and my ears. When she looked into my ears she said, "tranquilo." Then she reached something down into my ear and took out a ball of earwax the size of a marble. She did it to the other ear as well. It was pretty nasty. Once she did that my hearing increased by 200%. I could hear the slightest of sounds. It was crazy. Anyways...

This week was a good week. We had a finding activity here at the chapel. We were hoping to bring a ton of people. There were quite a few that came to play soccer. We were able to get a bunch of names and numbers. What was really good was this guy and his three kids came. His name is Nestor and his children are named Jairo, Gerson, and Ezequiel. We found him in a bus stop and we set up a visit with him in the chapel and we also invited him to the activity we had. He didn't come to the vist. At that point I kind of dismissed him as a potential investigator. But he came to the activity and we invited him to come to church with us the next day. We weren't able to pass by his house in the morning because we didn't know where he lived. We were sitting in sacrament meeting and he hadn't come. Then half way through he came with his kids. He said he really liked the meetings and he really liked everything. We have been visiting him and teaching him. He is super positive as well as his three sons. He loves them very much and in our first visit with him he told us that his sons are going to be the future Elders, sharing the gospel. That was pretty awesome. 

President Cordón invited us to go to his house for dinner on New Years Eve. We had some really good turkey and salad and tons of good stuff. I also got the chance to meet his son Oscar, who came back from Taiwan. He showed us a bunch of stuff from Taiwan and told us all about it. If you think learning Spanish is hard Mandarin looks a million times harder. Here New Years is a bigger deal than Christmas. They like to blow up stuff.  I was walking in my area and these guys and these kids started running towards us. I could see some sparks off in the distance. They told us to not go any farther because of the firework. So we waited a couple of seconds and then it blew up. It was box about the size of a small trashcan just full of gunpowder. The explosion was huge and loud. They were blowing up things all night long. Once again it sounded like a war zone. 

Thanks for everything, your emails, your letters, and everything, have a great New Year and a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

Joy to the World

Well this week was a good week. It was Christmas. I got the opportunity to do some fun things. On Christmas Eve we as an office got the opportunity to go to President's house and have dinner. That was really nice. We got presents. Also we made cool ties as an office. I apologize for this letter and the fact that is poorly written. We had a Christmas activity today and I've been trying to write the whole day but I've had to do a bunch of stuff. After the dinner we went out and sang some Christmas carols and gave out little stockings with some little things for kids. That was fun. My companion then talked to his family. On Christmas I brought my presents that I got to the office and I opened them with some other missionaries. Then I made pancakes. I got the opportunity to talk to my family which was cool. Later that day we worked like it was a normal day. One thing that was interesting is that here everybody likes to use fireworks. They are basically firecrackers but they are huge. It sounded like a war zone. 

    In the time of Christmas we have the opportunity to remember our Savior and we are more willing to do things that we might not have done before like serve at a homeless shelter or something. We should keep that attitude throughout the year. We also are coming up to the new year. Lets make a goal to be better, to be nicer, to be more loving, to be more like Christ. To bring Joy to the World. 

Thanks for all your emails. I may not have had time to answer all of them but I will do it in the coming weeks. 

-Elder Rowberry  

Also random funny story

So here in El Salvador there are a million dogs. They all are malnourished, skinny, and filthy. It's actually quite sad. Anyways one of these dogs got into the area of the chapel that the office is in. All of the chapel's here are surrounded by gates and fences and this dog got in. I guess it was trying to get out through a hole in the gate. A hole that was very very too small for it. Anyways with the help of two random dudes that happened to be right there, water, and a lot of lotion we helped it get out. I guess that story isn't really that funny. You had to be there. But yeah... So have a great week and don't get your head stuck in a gate.

I'll be home for Christmas

if only in my dreams.

What's up everybody? I hope you all had a good week. I want to thank everyone for everything that has been sent to me. A special shoutout this week to Grandpa Kent and Annette for the big box of candy and beef jerkey. That was really nice and I was really happy to get that. The week before I had been thinking, I could really go for some chocolate. They don't sell a ton of that here. And then I got a box full of it. Thanks very much. Also another shoutout to the Highland 13th ward and all the nice notes that they wrote me and the Christmas banner that they made. It's hanging up in my room. Also to Sister Nyman for that awesome Christmas book. That was really special to read that.

This week was a good week. We were having some troubles with our investigators. It felt as if they were slipping out of our hands. But we were able to teach them again and help them feel good. Alma who has a date but didn't want to get married now wants to get married. We have this exact same problem with three investigators. We could put three more real dates if they said they wanted to get married. Patricia is another of them. She is struggling with the idea of marriage. She told us that she wants to change and she wants to get baptized. Daniel is another. His "wife" wants to get married. For some reason he still doesn't want to. But if he can understand the doctrine behind it he will get married and baptized. He has been coming to church for months now. This seems to be a very big problem in this country and this culture. The people just live together for years and have kids and everything but they just don't want to get married because they are afraid that they will fight with their spouse or that everything won't go well or something like that. Alma has been living with her "husband" for 13 years now and has two kids. Patricia has two kids as well and has been living with her "husband" for eight years. It's the same with Daniel.  They obviously don't understand the fact that when someone gets married their relationship is stronger and much less likely to fall apart. They also fear that their companion is not the right one. Which then brings us to the root problem which is the lack of personal responsibility and commitment. People here fear to make commitments. I've heard "No puedo decir sí porque si no puedo entonces no quiero ser mentiroso." It's good that they don't want to go back on their word or fail a commitment but the problem with that is that they end up not committing to do anything and they end up not doing anything. I'm going to try to start teaching this principle more. We learn from Preach My Gospel that the only way for people to progress and repent is to keep the commitments which we extend to them. Here is a talk that is about our personal commitment and I invite all of you to look at yourselves and see how your personal commitment and responsibility is. http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/04/a-personal-commitment?lang=eng&query=commitment#watch=video I am going to continue to work as hard as I can so that I can bring souls unto Christ. Thanks for everything. 

-Elder Rowberry

Here Comes the Sun

How are you all doing in your own little corners of the world? I hear it's bitterly cold over there in Utah. Here the sun is out all day. Also the fluorescent lights of the office are out all day too.

I hope everybody got a chance to watch the Christmas Devotional. It was really good. If you didn't go watch it and remember what Christmas is all about. Also Gilberto who we baptized like three weeks ago, is the assistant ward mission leader now. We had a correlation meeting and we were all writing down the names of our investigators and we looked back in the notebook a couple of pages and his name was there. It was pretty cool. The picture is of Gilberto, his dog Luna, and us this was the day that he got baptized.

This week was good. We've been working with our investigators Emisela, her son Carlos, Alma, Daniel, Ernesto and Patricia and some news that we found. Those six either have a date or a very close to having a date. Emisela, Carlos, and Ernesto all have a baptismal date. Daniel and Alma have accepted a specific date but need to get married. Patricia is really positive and we've only had one lesson with her but she went to church and accepted the invitation to be baptized but we haven't had the opportunity still to put a specific date.  We only found Ernesto and Patricia (Ernesto is the dad of Patricia. Ernesto is around 65 years old and Pati is 25ish) on this last Saturday. We were walking down the road in El Bambú and we saw her pass by. And she went into her house. We were on our way to another appointment but  we had the feeling to talk to her. So after the appointment we went bac We found Ernesto and Pati. We talked to them and taught them a short lesson and invited them to go to church. They said yeah that's great we'll go. And they actually went. Then Ernesto went to the Christmas Devotional. He is reading the Book of Mormon and he said he'll get baptized. The date is for the 28th. He has questions about whether he can get baptized a second time. We are going to teach him about the authority and why the ordinances must be performed with the proper authority.

 

Elder Morán and I are getting along really well. He is quite different than Elder López and we have less in common but we get along and we are trying to work really hard. I am learning from him and he is learning from me. I am still learning a lot in the office. I am always looking for ways I can improve because I have a lot that I can improve. Anyways thanks for everything. I hope that you have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

How I wish you were here.

How's it going family and friends?  How is this Christmas season treating you? This Christmas is going to be different but I only get two Christmas' in El Salvador so I am going to try to enjoy it. Anyways:  This week was a good week. We have been working with some investigators that have a baptismal date. Emisela and her son Carlos have a date for the 15th. Alma has a date for the 22nd. We have been having Family Home Evenings in the house of a recent convert. This last week we brought 8 investigators. We watched some Mormon Messages, which are really powerful and a great tool, and we played some games. We were able to get Marielos to come. She is the cousin of Hermana Lorena, whose house it was. The problem with Marielos is that she drinks and she drinks a lot. It is hard to teach her. I know she wants to change but the problem is we hardly ever find her. It is really sad because she has two little kids and she is hardly ever there to take care of them. It is the same with her sister Estela. Estela is always drunk and she has 3 kids. They just leave all the kids with their mom. We have been working with the mom as well, Vilma. She is positive but the problem with her is she can't go to church because she has to tend a bunch of kids. This home is a sad place. Vilma is always sad, with good reason. The kids are always running around without boundaries. Emisela and Marielos are always drunk and can never help. I want to help this family so bad. I think we are starting to get to Marielos. She has a boyfriend, Carlos, who is always excited to go to activities including church. I think he may be the key. I want to see this family, that has been broken and torn apart by alcohol, change and be a strong happy family.  We are going to work hard to see this happen. 

Thank you for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

Mi Casa

We went to eat at a really nice breakfast place today. When I say really nice I mean Kneaders nice or a little bit less nice bur for here it's really nice.