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

Last Train to Clarksville

From April 27, 2015

This week was a good week. We got to go to the temple on Thursday. It was great. The temple is such a contrast to the rest of El Salvador. It's awesome. We had to leave super early though so we had to sleep in Ahuachapán with the ZL's. We just barely caught the last bus to Ahuachapán to get there. We had to run through the whole town of Apaneca to catch it but we got it. The temple is always a great experience. 
This week in my studies I studied about church attendance and why is it so important. I read in Exodus 31 where it talks about how if anyone broke the Sabbath Day they would die. Luckily we still don't live the Law of Moses but the warning still exists but we just won't die physically, spiritually we will be in big trouble. As the Lord states in 3 Nephi 18:12-13as we partake of the Sacrament we will be safe and we will be founded upon the Rock and we will be safe from the attacks of the Devil.

We had a much better week this week. We were able to put a baptismal date with the orphan kid named Javier. He's crazy but a good kid. A member family that lives in front of him takes him to church. Just imagine the Tasmanian Devil in church and that's pretty much how it was in Primary but we're going to help the poor kid out. 

Thanks

-Elder Rowberry

Hello.......Hello.......Hello........Is anybody in there?

From April 20, 2015

This week in my studies I learned a lot. Every time I have been feeling the spirit and learning a ton. I am thankful for the opportunity to train because I get to study more. We have an investigator whose mom just died and she is doubting if God really exists. She quoted Matthew 7 that says "Ask and ye shall recieve, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." She asked that her mom would be healed but she wasn't. So I decided to study what are the conditions on that promise. I found that we will get what we ask for if we ask what the Spirit tells us to ask. If we ask for something that is against the will of God we will not recieve it. So sometimes we will get what we want when we pray with faith but if we never ask we will never recieve anything.

This week was a difficult week for us. We had so many appointments fall it was ridiculous. It was kind of discouraging and frustrating especially in contrast to how good of a week we had last week. I felt a little bit down. On Friday morning during my personal study I listened to a conference talk by President Monson that is called "Finding Joy in the Journey." In it he talks about how we need to find the joy in the journey today. We can't be waiting for something to happen for it to make us happy. in it he quotes the musical "The Music Man." It goes like this “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.” It reminded me of when Hermana Spjut talked about choosing to be happy. I chose at that moment to be grateful and be happy, always looking at the positive side of things. Then things started going better for us. 

So here is the council for this week folks. Choose to be happy. Remember "Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25) I'm surprised that I still can remember that in English. We will have joy if we keep the commandments and we choose to be happy always.

I really love the climate where I'm at. We are literally up in the clouds. I'm am walking through the street and clouds pass by right in front of my face. Sometimes I feel like I am in Pandora from Avatar. It's awesome.

Thanks for everything

Have a great week.

Also a special shout out for Spencer Rowberry for getting his call to Florida! Also special shout out to Jaden Cutler for getting his call also to Florida.

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

Our house, in the middle of our street.

This week was a really good week. We have been working really hard. I feel like this is my final exam of the mission to see if I really have learned how to work.  I know I mentioned this last week but I am in a struggling little branch up in the mountains. There is an attendance of 50 people more or less. We meet in a house. This week however we have been really getting to know the members and we have been working with them. They said that the members don't like to work but I found that to be false. If the members don't want to work with you it's not the members fault normally, it's the missionaries.  We have been able to find lots of new people that are positive. We have also been applying more fully initiatives that we have in the mission. The first is "Familia vista familia contactada" (Family seen family contacted). We have been talking to a lot more families in the street. That can be rough sometimes but it has resulted in more families found. Interesting huh? You talk to more families you find more families. The second is "#GraciasaqueElvive" or #BecauseofHim I think it is in English. We have been watching the little video with a lot of people along with one of the Bible videos of the Atonement. It has resulted in some really spiritual lessons. I've been reflecting a lot more on the Atonement this week and it really is marvelous and incomprehensible. I also finished the Book of Mormon for the first time in Spanish. I love El Libro de Mormón. It really is the word of God. I love the scriptures and I know that we can have spiritual experiences every day if we read them every day. How long should we study them for? President Spjut has given us a good council. Study the scriptures until you can feel the Spirit and then a little bit more. 

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

Attached are photos of my house. It's small but nice.

There used to be two companionships in Apaneca but now there is only one so we had to move a bunch of stuff from one house to some houses in Ataco, a town that is nearby because it didn't fit in our house. Attached is the picture of the "moving truck." #Salvadoreanstyle

La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha, ya no puede caminar

From March 30, 2015

This week was a good week. They fumigated our house this week and ever since the 22nd of February we have been keeping track of how many cockroaches (cucarachas) we have killed and we added a lot the count. We now have killed about 54. Frankly, it's gross. 

We had a baptism this week as well. His name is Gustavo. We found him a little bit over 3 weeks ago. His brothers are members and I am not sure how he didn't get baptized before. He started going to seminary before he got baptized and we didn't even know. He's really cool.

 Also they told me I have changes. I finally am going to get to train! That also means I am opening an area. Ought to be interesting. We've had a good run here in Atiquizaya. I'm excited for the new things in front of me. 

-Elder Rowberry