Hello Captain!

Sounds like things are going great at home! I'm sorry to hear about Coach Cardoso's wife, that's truly a tragedy. But this has been a good week. Still a lot of opposition but it has been amazing all the same. We are teaching a woman named Sam and she is just amazing. When we found her she just said she was looking into Christianity recently and we thought, great! We gave her a Book of Mormon and she just devours it. She is almost done with 2 Nephi! She accepts everything we teach and even though she was really nervous she came to a baptism. She said that as soon as she got into the building she was at total peace, she loves church and said that this is where she thinks she belongs! Its so exciting. The craziest thing is that last time we went to her house she was watching Charlie, now I thought she had looked it up as a Mormon movie after we started teaching her but she said no. The movie was what got her started thinking about Christianity in the first place! She didn't even know it was a Mormon movie. We told her that God is a God of miracles and that there are no coincidences and yesterday we got a text from her saying, "I've decided to stop drinking tea and went out to buy some fruit teas instead" What a miracle! Another thing that happened this last week is I am beginning to fall in love with reading the scriptures. I used to hate it and up until now I just felt overwhelmed by what I needed to do. But this last week everything has exploded and I can't get enough. I wish we had more than just an hour in the morning! Its been amazing and I've noticed that I learn and remember more of what I've read. What a blessing! Well I've got to get on, we still have a full days work left for us. But mom I love you so much and am so greatful for everything you do for me. Keep the post coming and I'll send more pictures next week. Love you loads.
Elder Rowley

Sounds like everything is as crazy and normal as it always was. Thanks for the pictures, its funny I still have both of those pictures on my camera except I'm in them. We are even standing in the same places (grandma and grandpa sure do love parking in front of the fire hydrant). Well this last week has been a long, tough, and good one. I'm started to actually feel like we are working and it makes me feel great! This last Tuesday and Wednesday all the leaders in the mission went down to Leeds for leadership training so I got to spend 2 days with Elder Pass! He is from California and has been out one transfer longer than me but when you serve with him it feels like he's been here a lot longer! He is amazing and truly talks to everyone, it was the most fun I've ever had on my mission. He gets so excited to talk to anyone and we even yell to people from across the street. It makes me smile to just think about it, he likes to greet people by saying, "hello Captain, how are you?" Its so funny and there was even one man who responded, "Not to bad, how about you soldier". When you approach people with that much enthusiasm and love they respond similarly and their hearts are opened. Working with other Elders gives me such a great idea of the missionary that I want to be, its all because one of the letters you wrote to me about asking myself, "what can i learn". Well there was a miracle on Tuesday as I worked with Elder Pass, apart from finding 8 new investigators we had decided to knock a street. Now I had prayed about a street to go to and when we arrived we had half an hour. The funny thing was that there were only 6 houses on the whole street, oops. Me and Elder Pass looked at each other and said that it had been prayed about and that there was someone in one of these houses who needed to hear the Gospel. We knocked on the first 4 and nothing. We came to the 5th door and someone opened and we were sure it was the one but nothing. We came to the last door and this woman named Amy opened up. As soon as she opened the door we felt the Spirit, it was the strongest I've felt the Spirit at someone's doorstep! We started talking to her and she didn't seem very interested because she was already a very spiritual person but she accepted a pamphlet and as Elder Pass was writing our information on it I told her about eternal marriage. Her face changed a little and she started asking us questions about our religion, not specifically temple marriage but just general questions. One of her questions was, "Can you see the fruits of this work?" She specifically wanted to know if we had witnessed healings or anything like that. I took the opportunity to share with her your experience and bore testimony that I had definitely seen fruits. After this she asked if she could have a copy of the Book of Mormon and of course we agreed. We then asked if we could pray with her and she asked if she could say it. Wow, someone taught her to pray! It was powerful and even though she has moved and we won't be able to teach her I know that the reason we needed to be on that street was so she could have a copy of the Book of Mormon. It was quite a miracle. So today I'm on exchanges with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Black, who goes home at the end of the transfer. He's from Salt Lake, wanna go to his homecoming? I've lived with him my whole mission so far and we've gotten pretty close. Not sure exactly when it will be but I thought I'd bring it up to see if you wanted to go. Good luck with the truck, I really wish I could come home just to try and fix it. Maybe I'll ask President. ;) I'm trying to get to know President Lindley more like you advised me to and I know that we will be close, I've heard that the President always likes his first transfer best! Haha, well its time to get to work. Thanks for everything. I know I say this every week but I especially love all the pictures.
Love you loads,

Elder Rowley