FAMILY! FRIENDS! i love you all!
i love being here, and i especially love president cooke. for the second sunday in a row, i got the chance to see him. he continuously reminds sister leben and i that we are not alone and that we can call him anytime as we continue to create this YSA group.
we went tracting for the first time last night. we went to an apartment complex and ended up doing street contacting instead of door knocking. sister leben speaks spanish so she was able to talk two separate men about the gospel. we then met jarmaine who is pretty much amazing. i can't wait to go back and teach him. he said he's be interested in coming to our church one of these upcoming sundays and i even left him with a book of mormon before leaving!! best part?! he's YSA age so we don't have to refer him to someone else, we get to teach him! when we met him he was on his way to pick up his aunt from the bus stop which was right across the street. we told him we would wait for him so we could continue talking with him and give him our phone number, a mormon.org card, and the info about our meeting house on sundays. my favorite part was that he came back outside after dropping his aunt's stuff off inside! he was serious about getting that information from us which is so great because we're serious about coming back and sharing the goodness of this gospel.
that Ethiopian family i told you about, the one that made me sooo excited?!?! didn't end up going anywhere. when i called them saturday, the wife didn't answer her phone so i left a message and then the husband and i talked but it didn't go the way i was hoping it would. he kept saying "we have our own religion, we have our own books, we're sticking to what we already know". i asked him if he had read the book of mormon with his family like i committed them to do, and he said no - that ultimately they were just wanting to see what the book of mormon looked like. i should have testified a little more, that is when the holy ghost can really touch hearts. i sometimes worry that i was the reason it didn't work out. that perhaps i said something wrong or failed to say something that would have helped. i have to remind myself though that the spirit will not let me say or do something that ruins someone else's eternal salvation - they have agency and i have to respect that.
some other note worthy things that you'll get details on later (a handwritten letter is coming your way soon): priesthood blessing from elder eyring (the visitors center president). oh boy, did i need that blessing. hispanic heritage night! basically a bunch of hispanics came to the visitors center and danced and sang. it was so awesome. each country was represented and i definitely cried during the honduras dances. i so wish dad could have been here. and extending my very first commitment to be baptized (he didn't say yes, but he also didn't say no!) turns out i'm a lot more bold and assertive than i realized. like, i knew from dance company experiences that i could be assertive in getting things done, but here it's been like woaaaaa!
THE VISITORS CENTER IS AMAZING! i cannot wait to show you this place!!! i'll tell you more about it later!
the story of how we became an online proselyting mission: (this all happened before i left on the mission and right before that day we found out they would be online proselyting). so elder little had some personal revelation about using facebook. he felt dumb at first, because we weren't authorized to do so yet, but his companion at the time convinced him to call president cooke anyway. president cooke had to again decline the request but elder little asked him to call headquarters in salt lake. and he did. we basically became an online proselyting mission because of that single phone call to headquarters. we weren't set up to start for quite some time, but it was fast tracked because of that phone call. what a testimony builder to revelation and being called exactly where one is meant to be! i know that i can really help move the online aspect of missionary work forward and i'm really excited to get more involved with that. i encourage you all - especially my blog friends - to really use the internet to share the gospel. it's not hard to type a little testimony or even pin a simple quote. just think of all the people you can touch because of that one little post or that one little pin. DO IT! OPEN YOUR MOUTH BY TYPING WITH YOUR FINGERS!!
sister leben and i were invited to attend the stake mission coordination meeting (lucky us! that's where we got to see president cooke again!). we were the only sister missionaries which was pretty cool. my very favorite topic came up that night - blogging! i got to stand up a few times and testify that blogging is really an amazing tool when it comes to sharing the gospel. it's possible that workshops will be created at some point to help ward members utilize blogs and facebook - and perhaps i will get to be involved with that! the online proselyting thing is so new that i'm not sure exactly when these sort of things are going to kick off, it's still in the beginning stages which is so exciting for someone like me! i get to be involved from the very beginning! i get to see it grow when i get back home - i'll get to CONTINUE teaching! did you know that missionaries use facebook to teach actual Preach My Gospel lessons?!?! and people back home can be included in the conversation as a member present! i can't just randomly add someone though - it has to be someone who can really help the investigator and share something that will really provide a conversion experience.
our food situation still sort of stinks. the YSA group is so small that when we sent around a food calendar we had like one sister sign up. aaaand guess who didn't get to grocery shop today? this girl. it's hard because sister leben and i eat sooo differently so we end up shopping at different stores which means this week i get to eat pb&j sandwiches, eggs, and oatmeal. i do have some quesadilla (sp?) stuff too though! mac & cheese is gone :( i bought some at the store last week and ate them so fast. they are just so good and so quick for the missionary life, especially when i have to eat at the visitors center. oh how i wish i could just go out to eat or have mom's homemade everything. daniel is the YSA representative for our YSA group. his family has been a MAJOR blessing. we were called last minute to attend that stake mission meeting last night so we just asked daniel (who had earlier invited us to eat lunch with him) if we could tag along for dinner (he was also attending the meeting later). his family let us in on such short notice and fed us the best soup of my life (okay, not better than mom's, but i was starving and craving real food so bad). there was even green beans and a lot of ground beef and i loved it so much. i think heavenly father is blessing my taste buds. i even drank milk without hating my life!
i wasted a mac & cheese and wanted to cry. i took it to the church building on sunday to eat for lunch and turns out that microwave didn't work and i had already opened my mac & cheese and poured the water on. worst thing of my life. that mac & cheese is my saving grace! thank goodness sister leben packed quite a bit of her food and was willing to share. she's such a good person. we both struggle with communicating well though, so that's been tough.
keep sending letters! they make my day! i'm so sorry that i have been the worst writer in the world, i literally have no time to get any letters out besides the ones i send to mom and dad which are more of a journal entry than anything else.
i can't thank you enough for the support and the prayers, especially the prayers. missionary work is hard (they weren't kidding when they said that). it's worth it though. maybe not entirely yet, i'm still really struggling with some things, but i know that in 18 months i'll beg president cooke to let me stay forever.
LOVE, sister rowley
