Without Me

From June 16, 2014

Well I finally left the office and Paraíso. It'll be so empty without me. No just kidding Elder Gordon will do great.

These past ten days have been great. A lot of things have happened. 

First. We saw miracles happen. I don't know if you all remember but a couple weeks ago I mentioned that we had a baptismal date with a girl named Iris. So that date fell. She wasn't able to get baptized on the date that we put because her mom did not give her permission to do it because she only is 17 years old. We were teaching her this past week and I told her that I was going to leave the area and I wanted to see her get baptized. She said she wanted to get baptized and she wanted me to do it, because Elder Paravato and I found her months ago. So we wanted to do it before I left that left us with Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. We talked to her on Friday night and she said she didn't think it was going to happen. She really didn't think her mom was going to give her permission. We told her to talk to her mom and pray to know what to say. We also committed Kathy Gochez, her member friend, to get the signature of her mom. We even did practices with her on how to get it. We had even fasted the week before to be able to get it. Long story short, we got the signature and she got baptized on Tuesday, the day before I left. She told us in a Family Night that we had with the Gochez family that she had prayed really hard with faith that her mom would sign and give permission and she got it. It was really cool because she started crying and Brother Gochez asked her if she was sad, she responded in the negative and the he asked her if she had felt like that before. She, once again responded the same. He explained to her that it was the spirit. It was a really neat experience. Her mom even came to the baptism. It was a really neat experience. That is when missionary work vale la pena. 

Second. On Wednesday we had changes. I got my new area and my new companion. It was a really cool surprise. Before I left President called me into his office and thanked me for the great job that I did. It was really cool.  I got called to go to the Nahuizalco Ward. I also had a change of assignment. I am now a Zone Leader in the Nahuizalco Zone. Our zone is the smallest. There are only six companionships in the whole zone. Nahuizalco is pretty cool. Now I'm sure none of you remember but my first area in the mission was Texical. It is also located in the city of Nahuizalco. It's cool because I get to talk to all the members and converts I had in Texical. My companion is Elder Sánchez from Mexico. He's really cool. He trained Elder Thorpe my comp from the CCM. I am really excited about this new assignment and ward. I'm back in the Jungle. 

-Elder Rowberry

Angels

This week was just a normal week. We are preparing for changes in the office. I am preparing to leave and I'm finishing up training Elder Gordon. But that's all boring stuff that you've been reading about for the last eight months. Yes I completed eight months here in the office four days ago. Feels like yesteday that it started. 

About two weeks ago Elder Hoagland, who is in the office with me, told me about a family that he had met in his area. It was a wife and a husband that came up to them and started talking to them. They were inebriated to say the least. They started talking to Elder Hoagland and Elder Tecun and telling them, through tears and obvious sorrow, that they were never going to make it to the Celestial Kingdom. They told them that they were trying to prepare to go to the temple to get sealed but that they would never make it. I imagine it had something to do the alcohol. They told Elder Hoagland that they lived in Paraíso but he couldn't get their names or where they lived. He told me that that family made him extremely sad and he just wanted to help him. About a week later we saw a family in our ward and we went and talked to them. We asked them for a reference of someone that we could visit. They told us they didn't have any investigators for us but they had some less actives. We said all right and they took us to their house. We arrive at the house and we taught them for probably 10-15 minutes about how to find new investigators in Chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel. We set up a Family Home Evening with them for the next week. We also said we would pass by during the week to see how everything was going in finding the people to teach. So we went by later, and we shared a scripture with them or asked them if they found some people. I don't really remember what but then the wife started telling us how we were angels sent from God to help them. They said that after we had came their week was completley different they had started to change and we helped them. We later found out that it was the same family that Elder Hoagland had found. The cool thing is that they invited like six people to the family night. We are still trying to help them out. 

Hearing stuff like that makes the mission all worth it. 

Right after that we went to a house to teach an investigator mom with a less active daughter and her aunt was there and the evangelical aunt totally chewed us out. We then promptly went and bought them cookies and left it on their door step saying we were sorry for bothering them. They felt pretty bad after that and wanted us to come back but it was too late at night. Fight meaness with kindess kids. 

Anyways love you all. Cuídense

-Elder Rowberry

P.S. Thats a picture of me in front of a really big tree.

The rains came down and the floods came up

This week it rained a lot. Last Saturday night was especially bad. We were riding the bus home from El Jordan, which is the boons and the ghetto of my area. All of a sudden it started raining. We jumped off of the bus at Paraíso 2, the gated community where we live and we ran straight to our house. We had to be home early that day to not get in the way of a possible gang and police war. You would not believe how hard it rains. We ran from the stop to our house in under a minute and the streets were all ready filling up with water. As we were running through the growing river in the street the lights went out. Then they flicked back on and we got to our house. They went out again. It was still an hour before we were supposed to be in the house but due to the lack of lights and the raging river in the street we decided to call it a day and study and plan. It was pretty cool you could say. Attached is a video of it. 

I am still here in the office and I am still training Elder Gordon. He's really good. He'll be just fine. However there is some stuff that we still haven't been able to cover so I believe I'll be here until the end of this change or June 11. 

Another cool thing I got to do was accompany Elder Hoagland when he had a meeting with excecutives of Alpina Agua. Alpina Agua is probably the biggest pure water distributor in the country. We have a contract with them and they give us water. We have seen some discrepencies in the numbers. Basically they have taken a little bit more money than they should have from us. So we got to have a business conference with them. Didn't think I would ever do that on the mission. But hey the world is full of surprises. 

We've been doing pretty well in our area. We are working well and bringing a good quantity of people to church and finding pretty good new investigators. We are having issues putting baptismal dates with them. That's what we are going to focus on in these upcoming weeks. Iris still wants to get baptized but her mom hasn't given us her signature so she can get baptized. I really hope we can get that and baptize her before I leave. Pray for her mom so that we can get her signature. Keep reading Preach My Gospel and don't waste any opportunities to share the gospel. 

Love you all.

Have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

I'm Yours

This week we had multi zones. We learned a ton about consecration, baptism, and how to teach to the needs of people. As missionaries we are not our own. We are God's. We need to consecrate our time and our strengths, and talents to Him. We should tell God "I'm Yours" and then do what He asks. He doesn't ask us to give a little bit He asks us to give all but then He takes us and molds us to who we should be. We need to give up our sins, our pride, our worldly appetites, and give become saints.  

We talked a lot about Preach My Gospel as well. I would like to know how all of you are doing on your study of Preach My Gospel. What are you learning? I've learned from Preach My Gospel that it really is the greatest tool for a missionary. We know also that members are missionaries as well so it will be a great tool for you. I challenge all of you members at home to invite someone who might be less active or even better an investigator to a Family Night and teach them something. There are two reasons why members don't share the Gospel 1. They are scared 2. They don't know where to start. Preach My Gospel will help you overcome both of things. I hope to hear how your Family nights went. 

Thanks so much for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

White and Nerdy

This week was a really good week filled with good things. On Saturday I got to go on interchanges with the Zone Leaders, and on Sunday as well. I was able to learn a bunch of good stuff. Sunday I got to talk with my family. It was kind of weird though. I kind of feel like they're strangers but it was really good though. Sometimes it feels like the outside world doesn't exist. It's also weird talking to white people. When I see white people in the street I think to myself "What are they doing here?" or "Gringos? Go back to your country" but then again that is probably what people think about me.

On Monday we had a really good day. We were in the office until 6:00 at night. We had planned a Family Night Attack that my companions and I planned. We had 7 family nights planned for 3 hours. We had these families bring non-members to learn. In 3 hours we had 6 lessons with member, 5 in house, 2 other lessons, 4 references received and 5 references contacted with member, 9 new investigators and one lesson to a less active. We went on divisions to do all that. It was a really good day. The Secret? Preach My Gospel. We have now been carrying Preach My Gospel around all the time. We use it to teach members and get references and help them get psyched to do missionary work. It works too. We get tons of references doing it. For all my missionary buds out there if you aren't doing that, do it. I am going to try not to knock on random doors ever again, because it doesn't work and I hate doing it unless of course the spirit tells me too. 

 On Wednesday we had the opportunity to go to the temple. It was awesome. I definitely miss being able to go to the temple every week like I did before the mission. I learned there that giving reports is something very fundamental. There are a lot of missionaries that don't like reporting numbers because they might not have done very well. Reporting what we do is important. One thing I've heard President Cordón talk about that missionaries need to do is to be able to report to yourself. After the mission you won't have a District Leader or a Zone Leader asking you what you did everyday. In Preach My Gospel, President Monson said, "When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates." If we can keep that up after the mission in our daily lives we will be better.

To finish off the good week, yesterday we had baptism. The lady that got baptized is named Maribel. She is extremely shy. Her sisters are members and they brought her to church and then we set up an appointment and we taught her for a couple months and she got baptized. She was pretty prepared and didn't really have any problems. It was a really small service. She didn't want people to come which is alright with me. Anyways it was pretty cool. I love seeing people get baptize and join the church and make that crucial step towards salvation. 

-Elder Rowberry

P.S. Love you all 

Amsterdam

I heard that song by the Imagine Dragons this week in the store. I thought is was cool especially because some of  them are from Utah. That really has nothing to do with anything.

This week was a good week. We were super busy. It's been really good being in a trio. It's actually really fun. We have been working really hard. We literally have been running from one place to another. We have actually seen some miracles with the transportation. There is a family that we have been teaching in a place called El Jordán. It is where Gabriela is from. It's super far away. Remember how I told you about that bus the 14? A couple days ago we were going to go visit that family. We left from the office a little late and we were running late. We were leaving and we the 14 pull up down the street. We ran to catch it. Then leaving the appointment we were going to have to walk a long ways but a bus was leaving on point and we ran and caught it even though it wasn't supposed to take people the driver gave us a ride. This has happened like three times now. I think God really wants us to go teach that family, because it is always exactly at the precise moment we leave that bus is there and we always have to run to catch it. That's my story for the week. We have two baptismal dates for this week. I'll tell you how that goes next week. Anyways have a fantastic week all of you. Also there is some cool videos about mothers onmormon.org. You should all watch them. Special shoutout to my Mom who is the best! LOVE YOU MOM!

-Elder Rowberry

Para Para Paradise

Well another changes meeting has come and gone and I'm still here in Paraíso. This will make 6 changes here. That's 9 months almost. But it's actually only going to be 8 ish months here. This changes meeting I got my replacement in office. I'm going to be training him for a couple weeks and then I'm going out the real field. I'm excited and nervous. I am super grateful for the opportunity I have had to be here in the office. I have grown so much and learned so much. I am now excited for the opportunity to be in the field full time. My new companion and trainee is named Elder Gordon. He's from Texas he's really cool. So right now we are in a trio. Elder Roeller is also from Texas. Elder Hoagland who is the financial secretary is also from Texas. When I leave the office will be 3/4 Texan. I was kind of hoping I would stay in for the next president but It's cool either way. One thing I've learned is that don't worry about things you can't change. Just go with the flow and be cool with everything. There is a Mormon Message called "The Will of God" which you all should watch. I hope you all have a fantastic week.

I love you all!

-Elder Rowberry