Willing to sacrifice

Dad,
Well this week has been really good but its gone by really fast again.
I hope this doesn't stay forever, I need things to slow down a little
bit. But it was good. I told mum about the mission tour we had with
Elder Texiera from the first quorum of the seventy and the area
presidency. It was quite the experience. I've taken so much for
granted being in the church my whole life, so many amazing
opportunities. I love the church so much! But anyways. After that
we went to work and I really learned a lot this week from my companion
Elder Weitzel. He's so young on his mission but his is really good.
He teaches me lessons in diligence and in following the Spirit and
everything. I'm always worried when I see new missionaries because I
wonder what kind of hands we'll be leaving the work with but then I
realise that they are so much better than I ever was. I think that's
kind of how the church works isn't it, we help the next generation to
fulfill its task of taking forward the church. I love it! But ya so
we had some neat experiences this week, let me just think of one or
two that I could share.... So I told Luke about this one. So we are
teaching a massive Romanian family of seven and they are doing
alright. Pretty much every time we plan for them we say that we need
to drop them but every time we sit down in that house the Spirit tells
us not to. Its kind of neat. So we went yesterday and found out that
they have read 200 pages in the Book of Mormon. We hadn't been able
to see them that week but they had remembered the appointment we'd
made and get this, they invited themselves to church on Sunday! So
we've got to find a way to get them there but its gonna be good. The
other thing I learned there was a pretty powerful life lesson. So
there is like a law or something here and the Romanians aren't able to
get jobs, so what they do is play the accordian in the streets. On
weekends they make paper roses and sell them to people at the clubs.
They make like no money but they have very little. I have always
wondered why they would do this. They
move around a lot and do this pretty much everywhere they go. But
they are staying in Leeds and it was really powerful when they told us
why. The mum pointed to her 11 year old son and said, "I do it for
him." "He can go to school and go to university and have a good life,
I know I will never get a job in England but it is enough for me to
know that someday my son will have a job." It was so touching to see
how much they were willing to sacrifice for their family in the
future. I think about our ancestors and everything they did for us.
It was just a powerful thing to learn. So that was the epic story of
the week. That'll be all from me, I'm gonna go take a nap or
something. Thanks for everything dad, I love you so much. Take care!
Elder Rowley


Mum,
That is so cool to see Sam in Utah and in front of the
temple. That's epic! Tell her I say hello! I was thinking about her
this week and I thought it would be a great adventure for her to be in
Utah, tell her to enjoy it and maybe we can plan another trip sometime
in a couple of years! Well this week was really good but really short
as usual it seems. We had a neat experience in meeting with a general
authority on Wednesday. We got to meet with Elder Texiera from the
first quorum of the seventy, he's also on the area presidency for
western Europe. He's from Portugal too which was fun. He told us
loads of really amazing stories and I learned a lot. He talked about
referrals and how we need to be much better and seeking referrals. He
joined the church when he was 17 and it was because his uncle joined.
In fact his uncle had 6 brothers and sisters and all of them joined
the church in Portugal. It was just a fantastic meeting and I loved
it! The work this week was really good as well. We struggled to get
appointments with our investigators but we were blessed to find some
new people. We had a neat experience I'll tell you about. So we had
a day where every appointment canceled on us. It totally sucked and
we didn't know what to do. All of our back up plans fell through as
well which was just a pain. So we prayed about it and decided to try
and see a potential that lived by the institute building near town.
We got on the street and started walking up it when Elder Weitzel
says, "Hey, we should knock on that door" I was frustrated and notice
that sometimes I try and force spiritual promptings when I don't know
what to do so I asked him, "Is this really a prompting or are you just
upset about the night" He looked at me and said, "Now you're making
me all confused" So I looked at him and it was like the Spirit said,
"Duh, it's a prompting, go for it!" So we knocked on the door and a
man from France opened up and said, come on in! He's really good and
it was the person the Lord wanted us to see that night. Miracle
miracle miracle. It seems like there is a never ending supply of
miracles on a mission, I love it. There were some great other things
that happened this week but I think I'll just leave it at that for
now. Its been a great week and we'll be looking forward for another
great one. Well mum, I love you so much.
Thanks for everything! Talk to you next week!
Elder Rowley