Home away from home

I'm glad you heard from Sam. I scrounged up an old letter she wrote me just before I left Newcastle and it was really good. I have to ask permission from the mission president to write to her so let her know that I might not be able too. I really liked that story you shared and it is also something I have wondered about. I can't believe Talisa is leaving!! That's so crazy. There are a couple of missionaries from Sweden here its pretty neat-o. So this last week was really great once again. Janet didn't get baptised and will take some more working with. But in time I know that she'll make it. We kind of had a slow week all around though and I felt like poo for half of it. I usually only get sick about once a year but it always seems to have to worst timing! But as they say the work must go on and we were blessed for it in the end. Yesterday we only had 2 people confirmed for church but were blessed to have 4 people there! There is a Portuguese girl name Erika who keeps bringing people to church! She brought her uncle last week and he is coming back next week and we're seeing him on Thursday. I love the people here. This ward especially. I feel like I'm at home. I just walk the halls after church and can talk to everyone about anything it is so peaceful. The best part is that it makes them all want to be a part of the missionary work we are doing! I love it. I hope I don't leave this ward in a couple of weeks! So once again our week came together in the end. I'm going to be working a lot on consistency for a personal goal. Wish me luck! I'm excited for this next week and hopefully even more people come to church!! I love so much mum. Thank you for everything, I think of you often! Love you
Elder Rowley

Ups and downs

Ya we are doing great here. Janet is scheduled for baptism on Friday and she passed her interview so things are looking good for her. The only problem is that she can't come to church very often because she works weekends but she knows its true and is ready for baptism!! Its really really exciting. Bad news though is that that guy from Afghanistan was just looking for Asylum (I'm sure Luke can explain) and wasn't as golden as we thought. I keep joking to the Leeds 2 elders that the third golden investigator we give them will actually go through since the last two haven't worked out so well... but all is well! That is really the biggest news for us right now. Our week didn't end as well as we wanted it to but I guess that just means we have to redouble our efforts for this week! Church attendance is always a struggle but hey what else is new! Things are going great over here, sorry there is not much to report! I love you mum and I'll talk to you next week!
Elder Rowley

Baptism!

Sounds like all is well back home in America! I haven't got much time so I just thought I would tell you a little about this last week. Tamara got baptised on Saturday!!! It was amazing and great and the ward took care of everything. The ward here is so amazing. I wish I had some pictures but we didn't get a chance, don't worry we're faking a photo shoot next week so I'll send some. Then while we were at the church for a meeting we came out to find a man sitting on the couch. We asked him what his name was and he said it was Izhak and that he was from Afghanistan. We asked if he was a member and he said that he wasn't but that he'd been to church before in Burmingham. Pretty much he is amazing and so prepared that he's getting baptised in 2 weeks! The bad/good news is that he lives in the other ward and there is another Persian speaker there to help him out. He is so great though, we're really excited for him. Then there is someone named Janet who is looking to get baptised on the 25th. She is great and the first time she read the plan of salvation pamphlet she was shocked because she already believed all of it! We're really excited and things are going great for us. We've been working a lot of far out areas recently and it has been a real challenge but I love it here. Take care mum. I've gotta run but I love you and I'll talk to you next week.
Elder Rowley

Gotcha!

Sounds like everything is crazy as usual back home. I wanted to tell you about my companion and our week so I'll get right into it! Well my companion is Elder David Stevenson from Orem, Utah!! You know that Stevenson Genealogy right next to Provo high? Its his Dad! Crazy crazy. He loves Lacrosse and music and we share our two favourite bands, Muse and Weezer. He is great and has been out 6 months so we've got some crazy adventures ahead of us! I decided that I haven't been doing as many pranks as I should so I planned a great big one for Elder Stevenson. One of the members we eat with is from Portugal and there are always loads of people at her house. She and all of them speak Portuguese to each other and English to us so I came up with a plan. I told everyone that was going to be there to pretend like they didn't speak any English! So we get to the appointment and everyone there (including the little kids) are going off in Portuguese the whole time! I was busting up especially because Elder Stevenson was trying to speak what little Spanish he knows the them! It was also fun because I could say whatever I wanted about the members in English and they had to pretend they didn't know what I was saying!! I was telling Elder Stevenson all sorts about their cooking and their house and their family and all they could do was stand there and pretend they had no idea what I was saying (I got an earful for it later though!). So we all sit down to eat and the mum gestures that she will say the prayer and prays in perfect English!! I was dying. We all look at Elder Stevenson after the prayer and yell, "Gotcha!!" It was perfect. He took it really well too. So that was one of the funny things that happened so far but we've also had some crazy miracles. We'd prayed that a member would bring someone to church for us cause we were having a hard time getting anyone there and we walk in on Sunday and the ward missionaries had brought there friend Susanne. She loved church and is so prepared for the gospel, she really wants to take things slow though so we'll see how that's going. It was a crazy miracle though! Also Tamara is getting baptised on Saturday!!!!! I'm stoked and it has been a long time coming but we're so excited! That was about it for the week, I'll have more stories and pictures next week! That makes me really happy to hear about Sam and I hope she visits often!! Well love you mum, better crack on with our p-day though. Ingat (take care in Cebuano!)

Elder Rowley

Baptising HEH-soos

Mum,

That's so great to hear the story about Jon. Guess what, he's gone assistant to the mission president. Who would have ever thought our Jon would be an assistant! Haha! Well transfers were yesterday night and I'm staying in Leeds 4!!! Elder Jensen is leaving to Chesterfield (no idea) and I'm getting Elder Stevenson. He's been out 6 months and I've never met him but his trainer is our new zone leader so its pretty exciting! Haha. So that has been on my mind a lot lately but I will share some of the many miracles we were blessed with this week. To answer your question Tamara has been rescheduled for next weekend which is super exciting! We also have a woman named Janet that is working for a date in February so that's equally exciting. We actually found out that Eugene has just moved into another area! Its devastating but it will all work out. Probably the biggest miracle, let down, amazingness of the week happened on Thursday night. So just before our tea appointment we stopped by a member named Erika from Portugal. We started talking to her and were planning on reading some of El Livro de Mormon with her when she said she has a friend that is interested in the gospel. We had a member coming out with us that night so we magically found another member so we could go on splits for the night. The member is 14 and speaks fluent Portuguese which is a godsend because the guy is from Angola and doesn't speak a word of English. So I went with the member and when we get back Elder Jensen is translating to this black man who is listening really intently. Elder Jensen is holding a baptismal calendar and when he catches my eye, shows me the name on the calendar. I give him a puzzled look and then go to introduce myself to this golden investigator. He stands up to shake my hand and I introduce myself as Elder Rowley. He then smiles and says, "I'm Jesus". Yup, we're baptising Jesus. He is absolutely amazing and is getting baptised on the 18th of February. Doesn't speak a word of English but it just makes it funner to try and speak Portuguese with him. But here comes the let down. On Sunday night we were talking with Erika and found out that he doesn't live in our area! Its so devastating but Leeds 2 will baptise him and it is still amazing. The upside is that there is a whole family from Brazil in that ward and the 14 year old is actually from that ward. It was just a crazy amazing miracle that we met him and were able to teach him, even if it was for so little. We were really blessed last week as well to meet so many amazing people and taught some great lessons as well. We are progressing people towards baptism which is equally exciting!! I'm excited to see what Elder Stevenson is like and find all the amazing things that he can bring to this area! I'm stoked! Love you mum, gotta run!
Elder Rowley

Exceedingly astonished

Thanks for the picture of Grandpa Dale. That's a great one! Could you post that one to me with the one of him on the bronco? That would be great. Well this week has been great and crazy and short, especially short is my time to write about it! We had a busy p-day yesterday and didnt' have time to e-mail so we had to do it today. That also means I won't be able to send the pictures from Gemma's baptism until next week, which just so happens to be transfers! I hate transfers! But its exciting at the same time. So we had a pretty good week early on but the end of it saved us and then we had some major let downs. So on Friday and Saturday we were blessed to get loads of new people to work with. They were all little miracles in themselves. I'll briefly tell you about them. So we went finding in a really posh area at a really bad time of day when everyone was at work so in was really unsuccessful. Then we got into a cul-de-sac where there was these two guys cutting down a tree. We asked him if we could help and he gave us the cold shoulder and told us not to bother the people on that street but we kept knocking. The other guy left and I yelled across the street, "Did he give up?" He nodded his head. I yelled, "How mad do you think he would be if he came back and it was gone?" The guy smiled and said, "Do you really think you can do it?" So we cut down his tree for him. The problem was that the other guy had no idea what he was doing and was doing it the real hard way, you have to thank Grandpa Rowley for teaching me how to cut a tree properly! The whole time the man just looked there and stared at us! He would occasionally ask us a question or two about who we were and such. When his wife came back with the other guy they were exceedingly astonished! He asked if he could get us a hot tea and we told him we didn't drink tea, then he asked if we wanted a coffee. We finally accepted a hot chocolate and as his wife was walking back into the house she turned back and said, "I've never made hot chocolate before!" It was really good. We are going back to see them next week. Crazy! Then we met a guy named Eugene who had missionaries paint his whole house with him 5 years ago. Too bad he's moving today, but he's gonna get baptised on the 18th of Feburary! Then we found out that Tamara can't get baptised this week because her fellowshippers will be at the temple and she wants them to be there. Oh well, gotta run but I love you mum. I'll talk to you next week!
Elder Rowley

On being stoned

The story behind the photo (which Zack failed to mention at all last week), via his companion, Elder Jensen:

January 4:

"Wednesday night we were on our way back to our flat to drop off something Rose had given us at our tea appointment. We got to the flat and I'm waiting for Elder Rowley to get the keys out to unlock the door when he looks at me and says, " do you have the keys?" We still haven't found them...... We have a replacement one for the house, but the key to the Chapel was on the ring as well. We were at a couple of different people's houses that day and spent the rest of the day on our feet so we have a couple of possibilites as to where they are. The Harlows were home so we dropped our things off because they opened the door for us. We carried on with our night. We went to see an investigator and she told us that she was busy and to come back later in the week. So we set off from her house. We were walking by a park and Elder Rowley was on my left between me and the park. (yep, it's a story!) All of a sudden Elder Rowley bends over, grabs the side of his head, and I hear a loud bang like something hitting metal. We walked around the corner dodging three or four flying objects as we heard jeering taunts and laughter from the darkness of the park. We got under the street light and Elder Rowley felt something dripping behind his ear. I saw the blood coming from the side of his head. The first rock actually hit him in the side of the head. We went into a pub, got him cleaned up, and he's just fine. It was a small cut, but since the head has so many blood vessels it was bleeding a bit. It clotted quickly and we were back at it on Thursday."


Date: Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 3:58 AM
Subject: Re: So, how's the head?
To: "Dalene R. Rowley"


Mum,
My head is fine. I was hoping Elder Jensen wouldn't send the pictures home but oh well. The downside is that we didn't think to get a picture before I got all cleaned up, lame! But we wandered into an Irish Pub and met some really nice people who got me cleaned up and sent me home. The funny thing was they asked what we planned on doing now. It was about 7:30 and I said that we usually don't go inside until about 9, they looked at each other then back at us and said. You should probably call it a night. It was really funny to have to call sister Lindley about it though, she didn't really know how to react! But it all ended well and we have a great story now, its also an excuse to get out of that bad area! Well I know that you are probably expecting an amazing story about that Christy girl that we met last week but unfortunately we haven't seen her since then. We've gone by every single day but no dice. Oh well, we will keep praying for her and she'll come around. We did have some super crazy miracles this week though. We taught this guy named Steven whose from Ghana and he is amazing! He is so prepared for the gospel and gave us proper preach my gospel answers. He came to church and has amazing fellowship already (I love this ward!) and we'll be seeing him a couple more times this week. We pray that he will accept a baptismal date and that he will get baptised! Haha. Tamara is also getting baptised next Friday! We had set a date for this Friday and we were afraid that she wasn't going to make it but she feels really good about being baptised so we're going to help her get baptised on the 28th, I'm stoked! We'll be seeing her tonight to watch the big long Joseph Smith movie and I can't wait! There is also a funny kind of miracle happening this friday. So we met this less active named Pam and she has an 8 year old daughter named Gemma. Now Pam has always wanted to come back to church but has had some issues with the word of wisdom. I went with her home teacher and the next week she came to church, has stopped drinking coffee, and her daughter is getting baptised on Friday. The only downside is that since Gemma is only 8 she does not count as a convert but the upside is that she asked me to baptise her! So my first time in the water with be with someone who isn't even a convert! Haha, it makes me laugh every time I think about it! We also met with this man named Alfred who used to be an investigator. He is amazing, so prepared and needs to go to the temple! We were able to talk to him sincerely and openly and the spirit was so strong there, we addressed his concern and I know that when he gets an answer to the Book of Mormon that he and his family (of 5) will all be baptised! Pretty much this week has been amazing in every single way. Loads of small things all across the board, I'm just even more stoked for next week! Its just a testament for how much the Lord will bless you if you try your best and are doing the right things. I'm amazed at how blessed we have been since the first transfer we were together. Miracles, Miracles, Miracles! Haha. Well I'd best be off to have some p-day fun. I think I'll get a hair cut today! (should I get my initials in the side of my head?) Love you mum. Talk to you next week!
Elder Rowley

ps-Just in case Elder Jensen spills the beans again. I got in a fender bender on Tuesday night. I was with a member and a fire engine turned on its lights and tried to cross an intersection in front of us so he slammed on his brakes and we got hit from behind. I'm fine, everyone was fine but the next day the member's car broke down. Oops, I guess I'm just bad luck all around!