One year older and wiser too?

From February 23, 2015

Well this week was a good week. I am now not a teenager. I had a good birthday. Elder Hansen made me some pancakes for breakfast. For lunch we ordered some pizza from a member who has a pizza place. We waited and waited for the pizza but it wasn't coming. Finally about an hour and a half later they showed up. They came and they brought me my pizza but they also had brought me a cake and a soda! It was really nice. In the night the first councilor in the bishopric and his father-in-law, who is our investigator, invited us over for dinner. He also invited some other missionaries over. Elder Smart who just finished the mission on Wednesday and Elder Alacán who had his birthday. We had changes on Wednesday. I didn't go anywhere nor my companion so I am going to be the last companion of Elder Hansen. That might mean I am going to finish my mission in Atiquizaya. Oh well. If that's how the cookie crumbles that how it crumbles.... I guess.  

The family we baptized got confirmed this week. Edwin who we baptized a while ago passed the sacrament for the first time this week. He's super good. We have been looking for new people all week. We have found some good people. We want to baptize a bunch. Anyways thanks for everything. 

-Elder Rowberry

P.S. Thanks Mom for the package! It was awesome!

The Good The Bad and The Ugly

From February 16, 2015

I sometimes feel like I am in the wild west because there just seems to be no rules in this country. I felt like I was in a one of those movies this week. You know how there is always a bar scene where someone walks in and everyone in the whole bar stops talking and starts staring at them. Then they slowly walk up to the bar tender and ask for a drink and then everyone goes back to what they are doing. I felt like that this week. I walked into a restaurant and everyone just stopped and started looking at us. I slowly backed out as to not start a bar fight. No I'm just kidding we just decided not to eat there but it feels like that all the time ex. on the bus, in restaurants, etc.

This week was a good week. Last week on Pday we went to some water falls at this place called Agua caliente. That means hot water. Its a river that is made up of hot water. It's pretty cool. The waterfalls are cool as well. On the way back the bus left us so we had to walk back but it's like 4 miles away so we didnt want to walk so we called a mototaxi and we went in that home but there was 9 of us that were in the mototaxi they are built for 3 people. 

We had a really good experience yesterday. We another tarde blanca. This time baptized more people though. We baptized in total 13 people and there was around 100 people in attendence. President Spjut came as well as the stake president. We baptized three of the four people of the family that I was telling you guys about. One of the teenage girls was just being rebelious and doesn't want to do anything. 

That was my week. Thanks for everything.

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes!

-Elder Rowberry

One is the Loneliest Number

From February 9, 2015

This week was a good week. It was pretty normal. But we have seen more miracles. I told you all about the family that we found last Saturday. They went to church on Sunday and then we went on Monday to their house to do a family night. We went with the primary president. We pancakes with them and then taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were able to put dates with all of them for the 15th. They came to stake conference this week. Not only did they come but they brought their family. There are some other areas in the zone that have baptisms for the 15th. We are planning to have another huge baptismal service. We didn't just want one baptism or two baptisms we will have more than 10 hopefully.  I'll let you know how it goes next week.

 We had stake conference this week and the stake leadership got reorganized so we had the visit of Elder Ochoa and Elder Duarte of the Seventy. They were really good. You can just feel that those guys have authority when they speak. It was cool. 

Thanks for everything!

-Elder Rowberry

Attached is another lame ugly photo of me and my companion at a birthday party of a member.

The Sound of Silence

From February 2, 2015

Well, right now I can't talk. I don't know what happened but I lost my voice. The little bit I can say comes out two octaves lower than normal and all raspy. It sounds like I've been a chain smoker for 40 years. But it's all cool though, you don't even need to be able to talk as a missionary... 

 My zone is getting better, we are doing so much better than we were 4+ weeks ago. We were one of the worst performing zones in the mission. Now we are one of the best. We have been working well with members and bringing people to church. We have been learning really cool stuff in zone meeting. We read a talk called "Finishers Wanted" by Thomas S. Monson that was really good. It motivated the zone a lot. 

 In our area we saw some miracles this week. On Friday we were kind of just bummed because all of our appointments were falling and from 2:00 to 5:00 it's so hot and dusty and it sucks. We decided that we needed a miracle. On Saturday before we left we asked God in our prayer for a family that would go to church and want to get baptized in three weeks. Within two hours we had found them. It's a mom and her four kids. They went to church and loved it. We are hoping to put baptismal dates with them today or tomorrow. It's the family Arana Ortiz. 

Also, personal shout out to my mom for being flippin awesome and surviving another year in this world! Happy Birthday!

Thanks

Elder Rowberry

I Love The Way You Lie

From January 26, 2015

Well this week was alright. The zone is still doing better. Which makes me happy. What doesn't make me happy is how much people lie to us. We had a bunch of people commited to come to church and hardly any came. It amazes me, just blows me away actually, that we can call someone on the phone Sunday in the morning and they will tell us that they are on their way, or we will pass by their houses that they will say, "Yes we are getting ready and we will be there." Then... they don't show up!! I hate that. Commitment and honesty bascially mean nothing to the majority of people here. 

 On the bright side of things though. We had a baptism. We baptized a twelve year old kid named Edwin. He was super ready to be baptized. His mom is inactive and also his brother, but I'm talking really inactive. We were looking for one of our investigators and we found her and she let us in. She said she doesn't go to church because it is too boring. Her son Edwin was there at this moment as well. He had gone to church a bunch of times before because his grandpa is a member. We found him Saturday night. Sunday morning he went to church and Sunday afternoon he had a baptismal date. He went to mutual on Thursday and even went to a stake choir practice. He's cool. 

  To finish up a funnyish story. So there are two other Elders that live in our house. They thought it was funny to change the time on my clock. They did it quite frequently. So one day when Elder Hansen and I were in the house alone we move all of their stuff in their study room to a room we have that is upstairs and that doesn't get used because it is hot. So they retaliated and hid my things. In the night I got all of my things back, or so I thought. Elder Alacán from Guatemala had hid some books and stuff in the microwave. I thought I took everything out. He thought I took everything out too. So he decided to make instant soup and after three minutes in the microwave it really started to stink. He called me over to the kitchen and said sorry. I looked into the microwave and I saw the box that contained my tuner, that I use to tune my ukulele. It was smoking and I looked inside and my poor electric tuner was now nothing more that a lump of hot plastic. He said he was going to buy me a new one though.

   That's all folks.

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

I fell into a burning ring of fire

From January 19, 2015

This week was a fantastic week. The zone is getting better, a lot better. This week we brought 58% more people to church and we were able to put some baptismal dates. Right now in the mission we are doing this thing called El Reto, or The Challenge. We have to work with another zone to goals of baptisms. In 5 weeks our goal is 16 baptisms and the other zone is 19 so 35 in total. We have a potential of 16 and Chalchuapa, the other zone on our team, has 19 so we just need to baptize all the people that have dates and we will get to go eat with President. 

 We went to this place called Kilo 5 with another area to have Fireside, but with an actual fire. It's really pretty out there in Kilo 5 its just really far. There was a lot of investigators. We also met this guy who makes bread who let us help him.

Everything with my companion is awesome. We are working hard and enjoying the time. 

Thanks for everything.

-Elder Rowberry

I walk the line

So. This week was an awesome week. We had changes. I was kind of nervous, like always.So in our mission we do a thing called changes meeting. All of the companionships that have  changes go to the mission office and then they show all of the changes up on the big screen. It always exciting. When my face appeared up on the screen and my comp was Elder Hansen. Elder Hansen has been my friend since the beginning of the mission basically. President has never put two gringos together as ZLs. He is really cool. He is from Orem and went to Timpanogos High School. I'm pumped. 

This week we have seen miracles. We have found a bunch of positive investigators. We found the most prepared 12 year old I have ever seen. We found him on Saturday night. His mom is inactive and his brother. He want's to go on the mission. He went to church the next day and now we have a baptismal date.

Its also pretty weird that the sisters that came with me are home. I just completed 18 months. There is a place in my area that used to be a train track and now people live on the sides it is called La Linea, or the Line. It's pretty poor and dangerous.

Thanks for everything.

Adios

-Elder Rowberry