Meet me halfway

Well folks, I'm halfway done with the mission. I completed a year on the 10th of July. I can't tell you how fast the time goes.  I feel young still in the mission. It's been a great year. I've learned so much. I've had so many growing experiences. I bet I'm really different than I was when I left. I know I've made changes and I am a better person but it's kind of the frog in the frying pan idea you don't really recognize it. Anyways in my last interview with President Cordón before he left he told me that I had changed a lot, starting with my spanish. He didn't mention anything specifically but that was pretty cool. I am very convinced that the mission is one of the best things that anyone could ever do. It gives you an opportuinty to refine yourself. It is not easy at all but it is the best. You learn so many valuable things, patience, love, tolerance, hard work, self control, self sufficiency and so many other things. You also learn so much about the Gospel and how it helps people. I am also thourghly convinced that the Gospel is the answer to every problem. Doesn't matter if you're dirt poor or filthy rich, happy or sad, dumb or smart we all have problems and the answer is found in the Gospel. If you have problems in your life I invite you to study the scriptures, pray, and go to church. This will help you change. We all need to remember the 5 basic principles and ordinances of the Gospel. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentence, baptism (sacrament). The Gift of The Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end (making addition covenants in the temple regular church attendance, paying tithing, service, and priesthood). If we can all follow the Gospel and repent we will be so much happier.  2 Nephi2:21 And the days of the children of^amen were prolonged, according to the ^bwill of God, that they might^crepent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of^dprobation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments 21 And the days of the children of ^amen were prolonged, according to the ^bwill of God, that they might ^crepent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of ^dprobation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they were ^elost, because of the transgression of their parents.which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they were ^elost, because of the transgression of their parents.25 ^aAdam ^bfell that men might be; and men ^care, that they might have^djoy.

 

Have a great week!

Love you all

-Elder Rowberry

It's a bugs life

This week was a good week. On Wednesday we got to go to Santa Ana for the Welcome Meeting for President Spjut and Sister Spjut (Spyut is how it is pronounced). We got to know them a little bit and to learn a little bit from what they learned at the New Mission President Seminar that they had. In that seminar all of the twelve apostles speak with them. We learned some cool stuff from that. On Friday my companion and I went back to Santa Ana for the Leaders Meeting. It was my first and the first of President Spjut as well. He was kind of nervous but it was really good. We talked about some changes that we are going to make in the mission that were taught by the apostles. 1. We are going to start teaching Lesson 5 of Preach My Gospel before and after baptism 2. We are going to start focusing more on D&C 20:37 (The requirements for baptism) 3. We are going to be in charge of teaching all of the lessons again after baptism and 4. We are going to visit the converts constantly for 3-4 months after baptism and teaching them and keep dropping by for a year to teach. All of these changes have to do with conversion and retention. We have to focus more on getting the people to the temple and not just to baptism. It's very important that they go to the temple. In the talk "Your four minutes" in General Conference by Gary Stevensonhttps://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/your-four-minutes?lang=eng he talks about something that Elder Bednar did to help his family members recieve  the essential ordinances. It's a good talk you all should read it and then think about people you know that need those essential ordinances and help them.

This week Elder Sánchez, Elder Leiva (an Elder that lives in my house) and I got sick. We all had diarrhea and I threw up in the night on friday night. We all went and took tests and turns out we all have parasites. I have E. Coli. Don't worry though because I've got pills and it's going away I feel much better. We didnt work on Saturday or on Sunday. We went to church though. I feel almost normal. It just one of those things you know?

Ha

Well have a great week!

-Elder Rowberry

Goodbye, Farewell

From June 30, 2014

This week was a really good week. We had a lot of success in our area as well in the zone. In our area we had 10 investigators in church. In our ward, Nahuizalco, we had 25 investigators. There are three companionships in my ward. The other two brought 9 and 6. So I'll tell you a little about the investigators that we have. We have the Famila Menjívar. There are four of them; Dad, Mom, and two girls that are 10 are and 13. They went to church and they liked it. They are just having doubts about leaving their old church. They live right next to some members that are really good friends with them. They are references from this member family. We are going to keep working with them so that they can get baptized. They are going to need a little bit of work but we are going to use the Book of Mormon a lot. That is the key folks. We have a mother and daughter that went to church as well. They are named Susana and Elizabeth. They are really positive. They almost accepted a baptismal date yesterday but the next time we teach them we will put the date. There is this old lady that came named Adriana. When we first talked to her she didn't seem like she was going to want anything. She has been to church twice and we hope to put the baptismal date today.  Those are a couple of them that we have. 

I am really liking Nahuizalco. We work a lot out in the jungle. I sweat a ton which means I also stink a lot. Nahuizalco is a lot different than Highland. 

This past week we had to say goodbye to President Cordón. We had a goodbye multizone which was really awesome. It is kind of sad to say goodbye but what can you do? I learned a lot from him. He was a very good president. Our mission has the reputation of being the most obedient of Central America because of him. He is now going to go work in the Quetzaltenango Temple as a administrator there.  President Spjut came and I am excited to be able to work with him.

If anyone has any question I would love to answer it. 

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

Gold on the ceiling.

From Monday June 23, 2014

In our house we have a tacuazin in the ceiling. A tacuazin is similar to an oppossum but bigger I think. It looks like a rat the size of a small dog. It likes to run around in the ceiling at nights. Sometimes it likes to murder things and fight with things up there. Yesterday we were trying to get it to come out so we could kill it. It didn't come out but we'll get it.

This week was good. I've had better but hey what can you do? We had two baptismal dates fall. Two people were going to be baptized this last Sunday but they couldn't. One of them was a kid who is 18 named Francisco. We went to his house to make sure that he was all ready to get baptized and he tells us, "Brothers I have decided that I am going to stay at my church." That is the worst to hear that. Then we asked him if he knew that the Book of Mormon was true. He said yes. We explained to him that if that book was true that the Church was true as well. It seemed like he understood. I think he does understand but he doesn't want to give up his church. It reminded me of the young rich man in the sciptures. Matthew 19:16-26

16And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

18He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

19Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

20The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

21Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

22But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

23Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

24And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

25When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?

26But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. 

Here is the link to the video https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/christ-and-the-rich-young-ruler?lang=eng

Anyways this kid, knowing that what we taught was true decided to stay with his church. The other date, named Jesus, who is an old guy was sick so he couldn't get baptized but he will don't worry. 

I invite you guys to look at your lives at look at your "riches" and see if they are getting in the way of you getting in to the kingdom of God.

Thanks for everything!

Have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

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