Freefalling

From March 1

This week was a crazy busy week. President Cordón gave me a huge project to do. It took me all week to do. On Thursday we worked all the way to 9:00 at night. On Thursday we worked for over 12 hours straight in the office doing this. I had to make booklets for all of the ward mission leaders. We printed, literally, thousands and thousands of pages. We had to come in on our Pday and finish it up. That's why I get to write today, because we didn't get to have P day yesterday. 

   Last P day we went and got wings. I've been missing wings. 

    This week we celebrated my birthday in two different members houses. (Better late then never I guess.) We made Pizza at our Ward mission leaders house. The Gochez family, a recent convert family that's super awesome (when I was sick with Bronchitis I stayed with Brother Gochez for hours everyday while my comp went on divisions and worked. They now have adopted me as their son. Sorry Mom and Dad.) and they threw a surprise birthday party. It was really nice. 

     The same day as the party we went to back to a house that we had visited before. We had talked to the husband and he told us to come back. I could tell that the wife was a little hostile. We returned and the husband wasn't their. We were at their gate and I could see the wife and daughter. We said,"¡Hola Buenas!" and they didn't respond. We said it three more times and finally the wife came over and started chewing us out. She told us that she is the wife of the owner of the house and she doesn't receive Mormons. I tried to ask her why but she just told us very angrily that is would be better if we just left. I didn't convey it very well but that is probably the meanest anyone has ever been to me on my mission. I laughed at her and left. We have not returned. 

    On Sunday we had a Tarde de Hermanamiento. That is when a bunch of members and investigators get together to have a lesson and then maybe play a game and have a treat. It's basically a Family Night but in the afternoon. After that we were leaving El Ranchador. I don't know if I have explained what El Ranchador is but its a Canton that is really ghetto. Anyways we were in the street and a bus was going to pass us. I was on one side of the street and Elder Paravato was on the other. The bus passed between us and when it had past I saw something very funny. I saw some leaves rustling and then I saw Elder Paravato's head pop up from a hole that is about six feet deep. When the bus passed he stepped back and fell into a ditch. We were with a bunch of women from the Relief Society and we just all started busting up. It was hilarious. He wasn't really hurt so it's alright. 

  I forgot to tell you guys that we moved houses about a month ago. Our new house is way bigger and nicer. Both the areas Paraíso 1 and Paraíso 2 live there now. We got the big room. Our room has AC which is pretty dang sweet. I'll send you pictures of it next week. It also has a counter with cupboards. Also pretty dang sweet. Anyways one of the Elders from Paraíso 1 hurt his back. His name is Elder Brizzee. He's from Idaho. He broke his back a couple years ago but then re hurt it here. He couldn't hardly walk. He had to go home this week so now we have a trio. I hate seeing missionaries go home. However it's way better to go home for a physical problem than it is for being iniquitous.     

 That was my week.

Thanks for everything. 

-Elder Rowberry

PS You're welcome for the longer letter.

Happy Birthday to You

This week was a good week.Thanks for all the birthday wishes. That meant a lot to me. Also a shoutout to my bro Josh. He's the best. This week we found some pretty positive news. We found a really positive family. I really hope that they will progress. We have been working with this one family. The mom and dad, who aren't married, are having some relationship problems and we have been trying to help them get through those. The dad wants to go the United States to try to earn more money. She doesn't want him to go. He is not respectful to her and she really wants him to change. We had a really good lesson with them. I felt the spirit strongly. I don't know if I have ever felt the spirit like that before. We talked about what things they could change to make their relationship better. She said, "I don't want him to go to the United States. I want him to stop hitting me, I want him to stop drinking. I want him to be respectful." She then started to cry. Before this I was feeling really sad. I saw that their relationship was broken. I compared it to that of my parents and the relationship of my family. I could see their potential and I wanted to help them so much. I asked the man if he was willing to change. He just kind of smirked and smiled and said, "Not right now." That, mixed with the tears of his wife, made me very angry. This was a different kind of anger though. I feel like it was the same kind of anger that Christ had when he kicked the vendors out of the temple. I was so upset that this guy was willfully hurting a daughter of God and the mother of his children and looked at it like some kind of joke and was not wanting to change. I spoke to him very clearly that he needed to repent and so that he knew that it was not a joke. We know that families are ordained of God and are the most important thing we have here. After the lesson while walking home I realized that I felt a little bit like Christ felt in that moment I mentioned and that he was angry because the people were desecrating something sacred. I learned a little more how important families are. That was a neat spiritual revelation that I received this week.

Thanks for everything.

Elder Rowberry

I think you're crazy.

From Feb. 14, 2014

This week we went to contact a reference that we got with this member. She took us to this house and we entered. The lady that we went to visit was sitting there with a veil on. This is an immediate indicator that she is every evangelical. The Evangelical church here is huge and they generally don't want anything to do with us. So I thought well this is going to be interesting. But we shared a scripture with here, because it was late we couldn't actually teach a full lesson. Then the Sister that was with us, Sister Gochez told us that she wanted a blessing. I'll tell you more about the Gochez family another day. Anyways we put our hands on her veiled head. (Not sure if blessing work through evangelical veils.) Before I could explain anything or say anything she immediatley starts praying in a very loud way. ¡Bendito Jesús! ¡Santo sea tu nombre! ¡Quita esta enfermidad de mi cuerpo! She started getting real into it and started yelling and shaking. Then her hands started going up and volume kept going up and up. Then final Sister Gochez stopped her. And had to, with force, pull her hands down. I then told her that she needs to be quiet and listen. She did and I gave her a little blessing. Apparently she has been visited by missionaries before. She invited us over for dinner and gave us sopa de gallina or hen soup. There was some weird stuff in that soup eggs that didn't have shells but were still shaped like eggs. I'm assuming they never actually left the hen until the hen was killed. They was some other funny textured mystery meat. The base of the soup was pure vegetable oil. It was actually pretty good though. Anyways that was the interesting story of this week

This week has been a good week. We found this guy one day a couple of weeks ago. We were walking in the street and I heard Hey Elders. I turned around and saw a guy and his wife. We went and started talking to him. He told us that he was a member but he went inactive around 20 years ago. Apparently his sisters are strong members but he has returned. So we asked what day we could pass by his house. He said, "Ahh, one day." His wife however was way more receptive. In fact she told us she was very interested in learning. The man told us, "I know that she wants to learn but I don't want her to want to learn." We just thought, "Oh well but we are definitely coming back." We have gone back a couple of times. Every time the man pretends to hide himself from us like he doesn't want to talk but now it is just a joke and they are becoming more positive and positive. The man is changing and they wife is learning. That really is the beautiful thing about the mission.

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

I'm going through changes.

From Feb. 7, 2014

This week was changes week. Which, if you work in the office, means a lot of work. A lot of graphs and power points made, data and photos collected, and certificates printed. Lots of really exciting stuff for all of you readers at home. Here is a changes week day by day.

Monday: The Assistants and the Training Leaders have their meeting with President in the morning. Which means I need to take all of the numbers from the Zone Leaders. I then make reports and give them to them to analyse. I also had to have release packets ready for all the people that were going to leave. I also have a bunch of random other jobs to do.

Tuesday: All the news get here and we spend all day doing stuff with them. I had to also make sure I had all the photos of people who baptized families as well as certificates.

Wednesday: Changes meeting. I had to make sure powerpoints of success stories was ready and a powerpoint of family baptizers. We had to make sure everything was all good to go.

Thursday: Normally is just a normal day in the office. This week we had a meeting with all of the zone leaders so I had to make sure they all had reports of their areas and zones and I had to make sure all the confirmations were all correct and do a bunch of other boring things. 

Anyways it was a lot busier than it sounds. Every night we tried our best with the little time we had to proselyte to find new people and to teach. 

Thanks

-Elder Rowberry

I Come From the Land of the Ice and Snow

 I hear it's been pretty cold over there in the states. Here... it's not. It's still pretty hot. Thankfully Santa Ana isn't nearly as hot as Nahuizalco, where I was before. Also the air conditioned office is pretty nice.

    This week was a good week. We have really been trying to find news. I realized that finding new investigators is very important. Previously we have been focusing our success on a couple of investigators and when they don't progress or they don't want to keep commitments, or even make commitments for that matter, you are just left with nothing really.  We have been putting a much greater effort into finding the chosen. In our Zone Meeting on Thursday we talked about finding and we talked about what Elder Cook talked about. He quoted President Hinckley saying "If the missionaries had more faith, they would have more success." We have been trying to put our faith in the Lord more so that we can find news. We set a goal as Zona Paraíso to find 4 news a day per each companionship. I know that it is possible even though we have significantly less time to work in our area. I have been trying to increase my faith through studying about faith and trying to put what I learn into practice. One cool experience we had was when we were doing LPE trying to find news. We had been knocking on doors and getting rejected and rejected. Finally we talked to this lady in a medicine store and she had a client there. I asked them what they had heard about our church and if they had any questions. The lady told us that the Elders had visited her and her husband but due to some complication they lost contact. It was mainly her husband who was interested so she didn't want to talk to us. However, the client raised his hand and said, "If you guys have time I would really like it if you could visit me." We gave him an emphatic "Of Course!" So we walked with him to his house. We started talking and told us, "If you could I would love it if you invited me to Church." We told him that he was always invited and that every Sunday we have the meetings. He gave us his guarantee that he would come. It is nice when you find positive news. We definitely got blessed with him. I hope he continues to progress and eventually make it to baptism and the temple.

Also I forgot to mention the last two weeks that I got a new companion. His name is Elder Paravato. He's from California. My companion got changed away on emergency changes out of the office. I guess he just wasn't cutting it. 

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

I'm Freeeee Free-falling

-From Friday Jan. 24

I'm back.

I'm glad to be back in the office as well as in the field. It made me antsy to just sit in the house all day and think of my investigators. We have been working with a man named Ernesto. When we found him he seemed super positive. We found him on a Saturday and he went to church the next Sunday. He has been going to church pretty much since then. He believes that the Book of Mormon is true and he believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The man is very faithful and very god-fearing. He is really scared to get baptized in our church because he was baptized in another church and he doesn't want to offend God. And it says in the bible that there is one God, one faith, and one baptism. He told us that  if he didn't get baptized in another church he would have easily been baptized in ours. Obviously he doesn't understand the authority and the apostasy. I feel that we have taught it to him clearly and concisely many times. I honestly feel a little stumped about what to teach him. We had a real powerful experience in which we knelt down with him and told him to pray and ask if he should get baptize. We knelt there on the ground for about 15 minutes. Then he got up and said I feel this comfort and warmth. Then we asked him to get baptized. I was so sure that he was going to say yes. He didn't however. He said I'm going to keep praying.  We told him that he got his answer and I think he knew it too. I think he was just too scared to take the step. Ernesto knows the Bible really well and he will be a great leader when he gets baptized because he will get baptized. 

I am happy to be back out working and I it was a really cool experience to hear Elder Cook and see all the missionaries united as one when we had a special meeting with him. He talked all about the process of mission calls and the inspiration. He also talked about the hastening of the work. It was really cool and I learned alot.

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

It's 9 O' Clock on a Saturday

and I'm in my house studying my scriptures. 

This week was a good one. President told me that I had to stay in the house for another week to recover fully. I felt good last week and I was ready to work but he said I had to rest more. I've been feeling good this whole week.  I'm used to just working through sickness and pain. It probably is better that I had some time to rest though.  I am grateful for the time that I have had to rest and recuperate.  I gets kind of boring sitting in the house all day but I have been able to read a lot and study the scriptures as well as Preach My Gospel. I have been working on my lesson plans. I have been getting healthier and healthier everyday and I will be able to hit the ground running on Monday. I am excited to be able to get back into things and get back to teaching. I've realized lately the importance of teaching well and how there is a lack of good teaching in the mission field as well as in the church in general. I need to be able to teach the best I can so that I can give the investigators the best chance to accept the message and feel the spirit. The desire to become a great teacher has been growing in me lately and I am going to study to make that happen. I want to be a master of the doctrine and the scriptures as well as be a master of how to deliver it in the manner that the investigator, less active, member, missionary, or whoever needs it.  That's why studying is so important.  D&C11:21 Seek not to ^adeclare my word, but first seek to ^bobtain my^cword, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my ^dSpirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the ^econvincing of men.

Thanks for everything. 

-Elder Rowberry