Earthquakey People

From Monday October 20, 2014

This week was an interesting week. On Monday we went to a place called Anal Arriba. It is a canton really far away. An investigator of one of the companionships in the zone invited us to lunch. He lives in the center of Nahuizalco but has a property in the canton. He cooked us chicken and rice and we went up there and had fun. It was way out in the jungle. Attached are some pictures from there. On Monday night I was with Elder Slack and Elder Calero. We went to an appointment and the lady we were looking for wasn't there. Her daughter was though. She was by herself. I was thinking, cool we will have a new investigator. I had a feeling though that we should not go in, but I was going to have a new investigator. We went in. We were choosing a hymn to sing. I chose a random hymn but Elder Calero chose "Let The Holy Spirit Guide" The only thought I had in my mind was "leave." I thought, we are here so we have to teach something. I started teaching but I couldn't think of anything to say. I was not planning to stay long but not being able to think of anything, I just gave her a pamphlet. We said a prayer and we bounced. I still didn't feel good though. I remembered seeing, when we entered, a group of guys in a circle farther down the road. It was dark outside. I felt like we should leave as fast as possible. We did so. Nothing happened to us. When we were waiting for the bus there were two guys, I positive they were gangsters they were walking with us but the started running away I realized it was because the cops were on the other side of the road. I don't know what could have happened but I am glad I didn't find out. I felt much better after that. We got home and we were still a little bit shaken up spiritually, you could say. We found that the door to our room in our house was locked. Which was really weird. We thought that maybe someone was in there because we didn't lock it. There is window looking into this room and so we looked in and... there was nobody there, thank goodness. So we were trying to open the door and then suddenly the ground started to shake. It shook for about 20 seconds. No damage was done. It was the first earthquake I have been in. It was an interesting day.
 have a new companion. His name is Elder Flores. He is from Honduras. I am training him to be a zone leader.  He is pretty cool. I will tell you more about him later. 
Thanks for everything. 
Follow the spirit.

-Elder Rowberry

Alone again, naturally

This week was an intersting week. On Tuesday, while I was doing sit-ups, the phone rang and I looked at it and it was President Spjut. He asked for my companion, Elder Solano, so I gave him the phone. President told Elder Solano that he should be in Santa Ana in a couple of hours so that he could be the new Migration Secretary. The assistants came a couple of hours later and took him and his suitcases. So, since that point I have been without a companion. I have just been with Elder Slack and Elder Calero. Some days I did divisions with a member. It was a challenge to try to cover their area as well as mine. It was really weird be the only Zone Leader as well. I will be getting a new companion on Wednesday. That means I am staying for another change. 

On Saturday we had a wedding and a baptism. Adriana got married and baptized. My testimony of faith-filled prayers. She said she wanted to get baptized a long time ago. Her problem was that she wasn't married. Her now-husband didn't want to get married. We found that he is a member but superismio inactive. Then all of a sudden one day she told us that he agreed to get married. She said that she had been praying a lot so that he would do it. God responds prayers. It was a great show of faith to me. We are now going to be working on the husband and the daughter. 

Thank you for everything.

Have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

PS It also rained a lot and I forgot my umbrella. Attached is a photo that is directly taken from my front door. 

Blue Suede Shoes

From October 6, 2014 

Last P-Day, after writing my companion went to buy new shoes. In the store if you buy one pair you get another pair half off. We saw some cool blueish grey shoes which we bought. They are pretty cool if I do say so myself. They were pretty cheap. Based on how the ground is in this country I give them 2-3 months of life if I only wear them to church and to meetings. 

I have been in a lot of meetings lately. I told you about Elder Ochoa who came two fridays ago. On Tuesday I went to Santa Ana for the "Consejo de Lideres" or Leaders Council. There we learned a lot. We talked a lot about teach with the spirit. We also talked about talking with everyone. I have really been trying to overcome any fears about talking to people. Elder Ochoa challenged us to get up in the buses and share the gospel to everyone in the bus. That is kind of nerve wracking I am not going to lie. We did it though. No one wanted to hear more. This morning however we had a better experience. We got up and explained that we were missionaries and how we wanted to share a message of peace and hope and all that jazz with them. We passed around the bus with pamphlets and a lot of people took them. We sat down and talked to them and got a few references for other areas. Here a lot of people talk and sell in the buses. In the bus terminal in Santa Ana you can practically do all your weekly shopping while sitting in the bus. The people pass by selling everything from soap to pizza and socks to candy. People will get up and preach in the buses as well but they are weird and they always ask for money. That is what my biggest fear was. I am overcoming amy fears that I had. 

We all know that we had General Conference. How great was that? Every General Conference gets better and better. We watched it in our chapel via internet. There is a new missionary in our zone so I went and sacrificed and watched in a different, air conditioned, room in English with him. I like watching it in English because I get to hear the real voices of the apostles and the prophet. There were some really spectacular messages given and I am excited for the Liahona to come out so that I can study them. I really liked the talks of Elder Chistrofferson, Elder Jorg Klighbensmifferdorfensmorf (or something like that), Elder Uchtdorf, Elder Gavarret, and many others. All you who have your fancy smancy smartphones and tech devices should watch those talks over and over again and then change based on what you learn.

Thanks for everything folks. 

Have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

Noah, I want you to build an ark. Right..

It rained a lot this week. A lot. The street in front of our house turned into a river. I'm not going to lie it's not the funnest thing ever to be out in the jungle with a torrential downpour but hey you do what you've gotta do. 

Another interesting thing happened this week. So a block away from our house there is a bar. In front of this bar there was always a man, dressed as a women, making tortas(long sandwiches with meat on them.) We would walk by everynight and many times he would tell his friends, whom I'm sure were gangsters and drunkards, "I try to give them free coffee but they never accept." We just say hi and keep walking. Anyways the other night we were walking home and a road a block away from our house was closed off. There were a lot of people and police standing outside. We thought somebody had been shot or something but since that's not really out of the normal we just went home. We found out that the gay man had committed suicide. He apparently took his meat cutting knife and stabbed himself in the stomach a couple of times and seeing that he didn't die he slit his throat.  He was icon from Nahuizalco. He will be missed. The people here are so hardened to these kind of things that it's really nothing out of the ordinary for them. It's becoming that way for us now. Anyways on a happier note we had some great experiences this week.

On Friday we had a baptism. We baptized a kid named Diego. His whole family are members but they went inactive so we have been reactiving them and we baptized Diego. It was a really good service. Elder Slack, Elder Solano, and I sang the song "When I am baptized" from the childrens hymn book with our ukuleles. The mom was crying and could feel the spirit. It was cool. On Saturday we had a special event as a zone. We had a "white afternoon." 9 people got baptized from the ward and the branch in our zone and there was over 100 people in attendence and about 50% were in white. President Spjut came. It is something that those converts will never forget.

Have a great week folks!

-Elder Rowberry

Big Shot

From September 22, 2014

This week was a good week. I went to San Salvador again. I went with Elder Slack, so that he didn't get lost. We went all the way there which is about 2 hours in bus. We got there and the secretary hadn't sent his stuff to the lawyer. We went back to the bus terminal and we ate a hamburger in this little restaurant by the terminal. It was horrible. I'm really miss my dad's hamburgers. They haven't learned how to make hamburgers yet in this country. So we basically went to San Salvador and back to eat a crappy hamburger that was way too expensive, but we did see two really cool movies in the bus. (Not that I was watching them).

The best part of the week was a visit from Elder Ochoa. He is in the Central American area presidency. It was a very good meeting. I learned a lot. I learned about a lot of things that I have to change. He is a fantastic teacher and he can lay out the doctrine in a really enlightening way. He obviously has the spirit with him as well. I've learned a lot about repentence lately and being humble. Repentence doesn't necessarily mean that you stop doing something bad it can also mean you stop doing something good to start doing something better. We have to make sacrifices when we repent. We have to sacrifice our will so that we can do God's will. President Cordon once said, "Leaving something bad for something good is called common sense, leaving something good for something better is called sacrifice." We all have things we need to do to repent and be better. One thing I am trying to do better is to love the people more. That is essential in missionary work. Anyways I love you all. Have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

Photo-shoot Fresh

From September 15, 2014

Happy Independence Day everybody! Today the 15th of September is the Independence Day of El Salvador. One of the biggest things that mark this day is that all of the schools have their marching bands and they go out into the streets and have parades. They aren't quite as good as American Fork but you've got to work with what you've got. 

Nothing really exciting happened this week. We just keep on trucking here in the zone. One cool thing that happened is that we got to go eat with President Solis, the Juayúa stake president. He took us to a nice restaurant here in Juayúa to eat because we passed 15 baptisms in the month. It was pretty cool. It felt strange to sit down at a nice table with table cloths and to have a waiter. We plan on eating with him again next month. We have been working hard to find new investigators. We put a baptismal date with the kid named Diego. His whole family are members. We are working to reactivate them. They have gone to church the last two Sundays. We are trying to help them remember what they knew. I don't really have anything else to write and I am out of time but I love you all. Have a great week.

-Elder Rowberry

P.S. I recently figured out some cool features of my camera so me and my companion took some photos. Also there is a picture of Elder Slack and his companion. Ha. #glamourshotsbydeb

President Solis and the Zone

Viva La Vida

From September 8, 2014

The mission is awesome. You learn so much and grow so much. I was thinking about how valuable the mission is in experiences. It is priceless. If you are debating about going on a mission. Just do it. 

This week was a good week. Well all weeks are good weeks here in the mission, even if they're bad weeks because we are in the service of the Lord. I have lately been trying to really recognize the hand of the Lord in my work. I had an experience yesterday that showed me, again, that the Lord is directing his work. We left with a member to go contact references and visit less actives. We had visited a couple of houses and then we went to another house. We showed up and started talking to an inactive kid. His mother, who we intended on visiting, was not home. As we were talking to the kid his mom showed up. She was crying. She sat down with us and told us that her son had had a stroke and that he was probably not going to live. I had never seen this sister in my life. She is an inactive member. We were able to read the comforting words in Matthew to her, "[Él] No está aquí porque ha resucitado." We explained that we can see our loved ones after this life. We also were able to give her a blessing of comfort. I know that God put us there in that exact moment that we needed to be there. Asombra me da, really. I know that God loves His children and that He wanted us to visit His daughter and help her out.

I am excited to see how our new zone works. I have good feelings about this month. Our potential is not really high now but we brought quite a few people to church and we can put some dates this week. I felt this week like I have been in a slump. I realized what you have to do to get out of a slump in the mission. You have to find new investigators. That is key to make sure you don't fall into slump. We have been making plans and sharing Preach My Gospel with members to get references. We had a good amount of people in church this week, more than we had committed, which was a complete miracle. I can see us leaving this slump really soon. I believe the zone has been in the same slump because in August we, you could say, "wrang out the rag until we had dust coming out." We worked so hard with the people we had that we neglected finding news which later down the road came back to bite us. We make mistakes so we can learn from them.

.-Elder Rowberry

Attached is just a random photo that I found on this computer and a picture of the zone last change. Not a lot of differences huh?