Birds flying high, you know how I feel.

This week was a good week. I guess every week is a good week even if it was a bad week. It's a good week if you are in the service of God. 

My companion Elder Flores had to go to San Salvador this week. So Ï went, again. That makes it four times in the last couple of months. Elder Flores is really cool. We get along really well, maybe too well. We sometimes get distracted during planning or study but we are trying to do better. On Friday we had a special zone meeting. We went up to Juayùa and had a zone meeting with them. President Spjut did interviews during the meeting. After the meeting President went and visited with us. I went with Elder Chigua, who is a district leader in my zone from Guatemala. We also went with President Sànchez of the Texical Branch. We went out to Carrizal in Presidents nice 2013 Toyota SUV. It was geting dark when we were teaching. Turns out that the whole canton didn't have electrity. So we were teaching in the dark. I went to read a scripture and President had to pull out his iPhone so that I could read. After we taught we left. I was a little bit nervous to be out in that canton, at that time of night with no lights, in that nice of a car but we were fine. I guess it is better to be in a nice car then walking at that time of night, which I have done. I sometimes wonder why I was ever even a little tiny bit nervous to walk outside at night at home. It was cool to be able to teach with President. Obviously he is way better than us. 

On Saturday we went to an investigators house and the kid, whose name is Eric, was out flying a homemade kite made from a newspaper and some little sticks with some sewing thread. We started to try to fly the kite with him. Elder Flores got pretty excited when he started flying it. He ran along ways and got the kite up in the sky. He also got it stuck in a tree. The string was stuck in the tree but the kite was way up high and way far away. We tried to recover the kite but we couldn't so we just left it there flying in the sky with the string attached to the tree. The kid wasn't mad that we lost his kite. I think he thought it was pretty cool that his kite was flying so high. We felt like litle kids again flying the kite. 

Thanks for everything everybody.

-Elder Rowberry

If you look real carefully up at the top left you can see the kite.

Walk this Way

From October 27, 2014

This week really was not anything special. I forgot to mention more about my companion. His name is Elder Flores. He is from Comayaguela, Honduras. He is a convert of 3 years and the only member in his family. He has one year in the mission. He's a cool guy.

 I went on interchanges twice this week. During one of them I went to two cantóns called Sabana Grande and El Carrizal. These places are far. They have transport. The transports are old trucks. The trucks are big and in the bed they have it all caged in. I'm not a huge fan of Salvadoranian public transportation. There are always way too many people and I am always hunched over because the ceiling is about as tall as where neck is. Just picture it. A tall white giant stuffed into a 1980's school bus with the ceiling at a height of 5 feet 10 inches with 200 Salvadorians. Super fun. That is one thing I will not miss when I leave the mission. Anyways on the way back from Carrizal we walked. It is a long ways. We walked for over an hour to get back to the city. 

We saw a really cool miracle this week. We left with a member to go contact a reference. The reference wasn't there. We told her that we wanted to go visit someone else that she knew. We always ask her for references but she always says there isn't anybody. But we finally got her to take us to someone. She told us that mayber her cousin would recieve us. Her cousin had listened to the missionaries before. We went and she recieved us. The second appointment was cool. We were explaining how Christ's church was lost. I asked her if she knew which was the same church that Christ set up. She said,"The Church of Jesus Christ." "Yeah I know but which church is that church," I replied. She responded, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." After I picked up my jaw off the floor I asked her how she knew that. She told us that it was because she had prayed and feels like that is the right church. So we invited her to be baptized. She accepted very enthusiastically. Honestly I am still having troubles believing that actually happened. She is going to get baptized in November. It is important to find the people that are ready and chosen. Chapter 9 of PMG talks abou that. 

Thanks so much everybody!

And a special shoutout to my sister Jane who turned 18 on Saturday! Guys, I believe she is single. 

-Elder Rowberry

Attached are a couple of pictures from a service project we did. 

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