May 27, 2013

Hi momma...Thank you so much!!! Wearing the same thing every single day gets kind of monotonous...and if you find any skirts too, feel free to send them my way :-) haha Where does Pam Steenhoek live? Still in Katy? Or did they move? Our ward is trying to be bilingual...they do the Sacrament prayers in English and Spanish, and we sing our intermediate hymn in English. And this past Sunday, we had an English speaker with a translator. It's pretty windy here today as well...not really sure if there's a storm coming or not...we'll find out!! I still go play tennis every morning though :-) We have a racketball racket too, so sometimes one of my companions comes and plays with me :-) haha Normally to email we go to a nearby college, but they were closed, and we're on bikes today, so we came to the Library. The library just has very limited hours, so we can't always come here. Biking is good :-) haha we haven't riden in a while, because my bike tire popped (again) so we had to wait to get a new tire before we could go again. But I got it fixed up, and back in working order!! Dad would be so proud. Especially since the whole tire kind of fell off when I was putting the new tire on, so I had to put it back on the chain and everything. I felt like a pro. haha :-) But it is quite hot today...about 90 I think is the forecast. We have a weather service we call in the mornings for our forecast :-) And not to mention, we have the occasional "splash and dash" as our weather man called it, or a few quick showers here and there. Dinner calendar...it's usually pretty full. They pass one around for each coming week because there are 3 companionships in our ward, and having 3 separate calendars would get kind of hectic. But usually it's not too bad. We have I think 4 appointments for the rest of the week. The food is almost always delicious...I think I've decided hispanic food is just my favorite. A member took us to a buffet this past week, and what did I first choose to eat? Mexican food. Geez. (See pictures in dad's email...) So, the first picture is of our baptism that we had on Sunday!! All went according to plan, and it was so perfect. Well, almost according to plan at least...there was supposed to be another girl getting baptized as well, but she backed out at the last minute, which also meant that her family wasn't coming either. So we had to make a quick emergency stop at Walmart the night before to get some refreshments for all the other people that came...haha good thing we did, because a lot of people came. Manuel, the guy who baptized Jaime, brought his entire family. So we probably had about 30 people come to support Jaime. Super awesome. Jaime cried, and the Spirit was so strong. It was just perfect!! The other picture is our district...minus 2 more sisters. Their area is really far away from ours, however, so they couldn't make it for our picture. Our district leader was Elder McConnell, the brown haired one. He was super great, but he just got made a zone leader for this next transfer, so he's leaving our district now. Can you believe I've already been here for a transfer?? Craziness. This past week we also had zone conference. It was really great, and we learned a whole lot about how to teach the Book of Mormon effectively. We did a lot of role plays :-) And then, after we came back from lunch, President Crawford asked me to sing a solo in front of everyone!! Holy cow. So nerve racking. He asked me like 2 minutes before I got up and did it too. I sang Savior Redeemer of my soul...don't know if you know that song or not...but it was fun. Believe it or not. Haha AND...I was talking to one of the assistants, and he was just asking me what I was studying in college...talked about flute...and he asked me to do a musical number this transfer for a conference that we are going to have with one of the people who came to conference...Christoffel somebody I think...But yeah. So I told him if he could find me a flute, I'd be happy to :-) haha I really do love sharing my talents. So, besides that, nothing new has happened. We are still teaching all of our investigators, and they're doing great. This past Sunday the theme of the day was Temples I guess, so everyone was talking about that, and I think (hope) it kind of hit home for some of our investigators. Especially Karina and Reynaldo. They know it's true, and they really want to make this change in their lives, but they're hesitating for some reason. But they really want to get involved with the ward, which is so great. I guess our ward goes to the peanut butter factory (remember that??) like every other week or something, and Karina and Reynaldo went!! We didn't even know about it. They just told us that they went, and they loved it!! They didn't know a whole lot of people, but we're working on that. Anyways. So what else is going on back there? Are you getting more moved in? Space wise, how is looking? Better than Katy, I hope :-) haha How are my siblings? I haven't heard from them in a while...and the puppies?? I hope all is well. I love you all and miss you dearly!! Have a fantastic week, Hermana Bowerman

May 20, 2013

Haha that's so great that you had such a good time with your sisters. I'm glad that everything was able to work out!! And pretty sure based on that picture that your hair is way longer than mine now...haha :-) Let's see what happened this past week...We are teaching a lot of people, but we have also lost a couple this week. One was Margarita...she let us in only because I think she thought that we were just sharing a message about Jesus Christ, but she didn't ever really want to hear about the Book of Mormon or anything like that. It makes me so sad when people say they don't want to even try to read it, because I have gained such a great love for this book. The other people we lost actually happened last night. We were teaching Julio and Marta ( Son and mother) They've been taught for a while actually, by other missionaries, so we tried to just have a first lesson with them last night again. They were never really paying attention, and then at the end when we asked Marta to pray and see if what we were teaching was true, she just refused to even try. So unfortunately we have to drop them as well. But we are teaching a lot of other people, and always looking for new investigators. Our most promising investigators right now are Lupita y Leslie...a part member family ( her husband and son are members, but super inactive) But she is actually progressing and I think she has a desire to learn more and eventually be baptized. She does have a problem with coming to church because she works every Sunday, but hopefully if we can get her husband to start coming, then that will give her motivation to start coming as well. Also we are teaching Juaquin, who is from Cuba. He really loves learning about the gospel. He reads the Book of Mormon, prays, goes to church, but he is still hung up on learning everything. He also has a girlfriend in San Antonio that he goes to see every weekend now, so he doesn't come to church with us, but he did start going there, which is super great. We're still teaching Jaime, and he is getting baptized this Sunday!! So exciting. He is definitely one of those people who has been prepared, and he even recognizes that. He knows that people have been placed in his life for a reason, and that this is the path that he is supposed to take. I am so excited for his baptism!!! Also we are still teaching Karina y Reynaldo. They are such a cute couple. They also both know that the Libro de Mormon is the word of God, that this is the true church, that Joseph Smith was a prophet and everything. However, when we tried to give them a specific date to be baptized, they said no because they didn't feel ready. We're slightly confused by that, but they are starting to open up to us way more, which is super awesome. Karina doesn't really have any friends in this area, which is really awesome, because we're going to introduce her to a lot of people in the church, which will be even more motivation for them to come, and so it's going to be awesome. One of the other problems that we find a lot here is that people like going to Lakewood, which I don't know if you guys have heard of it before, but it's that giant "church" service they have at Reliant Stadium here. I think the teacher person is named Joel Olsteen or something like that? Not sure. But a lot of people here like going to that. I think it's just more of a motivational speaker kind of thing, instead of an actual church though...not super sure. Anyways. Those are some of the investigators that we're teaching right now :-) I will keep you updated!! I hope everything is going well with you guys...Miss you muchisimo!! Con Amor, Hermana Bowerman

May 6, 2013 -- emailing with Lindsay

Hi Sarah!!

How's it going???

I totally spaced that your p-day is now on mondays! are you at the computer right now??

Yes I am :-) How's it going?

YAY! I figured you'd be close by!

I totally spaced that your p-day is monday, and not tuesday. so i missed writing last week, and got back from St. George last night, and meant to get an email out this morning before work. 

How are you?? Hanging in there? :) 

We were in St. George to go see Brian Regan...that comedian guy. You know him? 

haha it's all good :-) I'm hanging in there :-) Doing great actually!! We have a really solid baptismal date for a guy named Jaime on June 2nd, so that's super exciting :-)

I've heard of Brian Regan...was he pretty funny?

Yay for baptisms!!! That's AWESOME!! How old is he? Is he married with a family? Is this the guy you found that day that it was pouring rain and your tire popped?

I had heard a lot of hype about Brian Regan being suuuper funny. I thought he was...ok. The funniest part was when he came out for the encore, and people started yelling out skits that they wanted him to do, whereas the main portion of the show was him trying out new material that just wasn't as polished and the timing on his jokes weren't as good, if that makes sense.

What else are you guys up to today?

That's funny. Haha He's like 40ish...we don't know his exact age. But he has a 17 year old daughter. I guess him and his wife just got a divorce, and so he was struggling with that a whole bunch. We haven't met his 17 year daughter, but hopefully one day we will. Yeah, this is that guy. Super exciting though :-) We have plans to have 5 people with a baptismal date by the end of this week. Keep us in your prayers :-) haha

Hahaha That's awkward. That's good that he was at least a little funny though. A good chuckle at least :-)

We're not doing too much...after this we go to Walmart and get groceries and whatnot and then we go to the church and hang out with some of the other missionaries in our zone. We usually play volleyball or something. It's pretty fun. What are you up to this week?

I started working with a lady in Rhode Island on that BYU-Idaho pathways program. Did I tell you about that around Christmas time? 

That's cool :-) No you didn't tell me about it! What is it? I think one of my old roommates did that for a while...but I don't remember.

Basically it's a program that gets people up-to-speed with their English skills so they can start taking on-line courses through BYU-Idaho. So I Skype twice a week with this lady, Betzy, who lives in Rhode Island, but originally from Guatemala. She's taking like an English 101 class, and her verbal english skills are ok, but it's her writing that is needing a lot of help. We've been working on vocab and writing...turns out English is a hard language to teach! And I have no english teaching skills! And BYUI has given no training on how or what you're supposed to do in these skype meetings! So it's been interesting. I was trying to explain what "although" and "though" mean, so I told her it's kind of like "but"...well, she thought that "but" = what you sit on, not but as in "yes, but no"! I couldn't stop giggling. :)

hahahaha that's great :-) We teach an english class here too, every wednesday. Like you, we have absolutely no training. We just have to go and teach...it's actually really fun. None of our students and super fluent, but they probably sound like I do with Spanish. They can get their point across, but don't exactly sound perfect or anything. Haha we taught them about verbs in the past last week. Turns out, it's really hard, and there are a lot of irregular verbs. Like a whole lot. But they're catching on, so that's super awesome. Anyways, I have to get off now, pero, te amo mucho!!!

Can't wait to talk to you on Sunday :-)

Hermana Bowerman

Yay! See you Sunday! Loves.