I'm a Big Missionary Now (and that's not just figurative, ha ha) - July 23, 2018

I´m officially out of my training and I´m with a new comp! (Did I mention last week that I have 4 months in the mission now?) Still in my first area, but it´s been really cool to see how I have to take the lead a LOT, even though I´m the junior companion. Hermana Piguave is AWESOME! I have absolutely loved this week with her.  She actually is what I think having an american comp would be like. Her trainer was american, and she is super rule oriented. We had our first companionship inventory this week, and she said that a lot of the other latinas don´t take the mission seriously, but that she was here to work, and that she knows we are here on the Lord´s time. I´m super excited to work with her! Of course she´s not perfect, nobody is, but for the most part she is a lot more serious about missionary work than Hermana Padilla is, so i´m really excited!

Tuesday: Spent a lot of the day waiting with Hermana Padilla for our new comps to come from the airport (since she just got changed to another ward in the same zone) and spent a lot of Tuesday helping Hermana Piguave unpack. (Or trying to help... she´s pretty independent and didn´t want a ton of help, but I sure was offering haha!) 

Wednesday: We spent a ton of time walking because I accidentally put us on the wrong bus! We were trying to go to Tejar (one end of our area) and I accidentally put us on the bus to Aranjuez (the other side of our area). I felt pretty bad about that, but it gave Hermana Piguave some good opportunities to get to know a lot of our area! In the evening we had an appointment with one of our best progressing investigators, Marcelo Martinez. He is seriously so awesome, and he was originally a reference from our district leader, because he is cousins with their pension. We always feel the spirit SUPER strongly in lessons with him. He says that he´s been looking for more peace and tranquility in his life, and he feels it every time he meets with us. It´s super cool.

Thursday: Yeah... I´m blanking on Thursday. Just assume we working so hard that we forgot everything that happened haha :)

Friday: We had our first district meeting of the cambio, and it was super awesome. I always love what my district leader, Elder Fisher, has to say.  We met with a lot of ward members on Friday which was great for Hermana Piguave to get to know more people. 

Saturday: Today was super long. So remember our investigator, Marcelo? He decided to start taking action to find more peace in his life, and decided to move to Santa Cruz to be with his wife and child (he was only in Sucre for work) so we helped him move out of his house (with the help of the elders) pretty much all day long, and he´s going to continue meeting with missionaries in Santa Cruz. We are sad to lose him, but super happy that he is starting to really see the importance of family. We also met with some inactivos in the afternoon (inactive members, sorry i´m used to using the Spanish for so many of these mission terms) and went to a baptism of some elderes because they wanted me to sing for the special musical number, and Hermana Piguave gave one of the talks. (I´ve actually sung for a special musical number like 3 or 4 times for baptisms, it´s cool that i can use my talents to help uplift and edify others)

Sunday: Basically all of today was church and appointments with families, so that Hermana Piguave can get to know them better, but it was a super good day :) I´m also running out of time to write

Monday: Today was the usual, woke up, studies, cleaned the house, ate breakfast, went and played soccer with the zone (and all the hermanas showed up so we could actually play, which was awesome, since we can´t play soccer with the elders). We bought groceries and ate lunch, then came to email. Ta-da!

There you have it. It´s been crazy, but it´s been good. Thank you all for your love! Keep up the good work, and always keep doing the small simple things.

Amor,

Hermana Rowe

Day 1 with Hermana Piguave

Part of her area in the background

Out of Training! (And hopefully not into the frying pan, ha ha) - July 16, 2018

OK! I did it! I made it through my training and I´m officially a normal missionary!! (except not... because I´m still learning Spanish and I´m a gringa... I don´t know if I´ve mentioned this before, but I can´t tell you the number of times a week I get whistled at just because of my hair color... it´s interesting). My comp Hermana Padilla is being transferred to another ward in Sucre (which usually doesn´t happen, usually they get sent to Cochabamba) and actually will still be in the same district as me, so that´ll be kinda fun! :) My new comp is Hermana Piguave, and is actually from the same group as Hermana Padilla, so she has 6 months in the mission. Apparently she is super serious, but I guess I´ll find out tomorrow! Here´s what happened this week-

Tuesday: We had district meeting and afterwards we had a testimony meeting as a zone, since about half the zone is leaving to go to other zones this transfer, and one of the elders is dying (mission lingo for going home) tomorrow. It was awesome, I love my zone tons. And we all are super good friends because there isn´t anyone else to hang out with on P day haha. Also: it was pretty cold on Tuesday.

Wednesday: Don´t know why (I think it was the cold) but I was having muscle aches all day, so we went out to lunch, went to 1 appointment, then went home to rest because my muscles were hurting THAT BAD. I don´t know what´s happening, before Bolivia I didn´t ever get sick this much.

Thursday: I actually felt tons better, I think it´s because we took time to rest on Wednesday. Thursday was cool because we had an appointment with a recent convert, Antonia Condori, and she is the cutest little cholita. (I need to take a picture with her, she is so sweet, and always gives me the biggest hugs when we see her at church) She speaks Spanish pretty well, but understands Quechua a lot better, but doesn´t know how to read either one. We had planned to give her one of the retention lessons, but felt impressed to start teaching her to read. We discovered that she REALLY wants to read the Book of Mormon, and we are going to have one of the ladies from the ward that speaks both Spanish and Quechua continue to teach her so she can start reading the Book of Mormon. We are so excited to see how that goes. :) 

Friday: Happy Friday the 13th! We had our correlation meeting with the ward mission leader, and did a lot of contacting, but it was super good! We got 2 new investigators, one of them is a 10 year old named Valedia, and she is awesome! She goes to her church on her own every week, and has a lot of faith. She actually came to church this week and said that she really liked it, so I hope she will keep coming!

Saturday: I had my third baptism of the mission this week! He´s named Pablo Saigua, and he´s had a long journey to getting to baptism! He originally started meeting with missionaries 8 months ago, but has had problems with his addiction to alcohol. But he is no longer addicted and is a member of the church!! So cool. He has a super strong testimony, and he wants to do what´s right. We are SO SO SO happy for him :)

Sunday: We spent most of Sunday visiting members because it was Hermana Padilla´s last week. It was super fun, and we had some good spiritually strengthening lessons.

Monday: Today Hermana Padilla has been packing, and I´ve been helping. For breakfast we went to the stake center and made quesadillas with our district. There´s is also a fair type of thing happening right now in Sucre, so we went to that, and it was pretty cool. And that was today :)

Ta-da! There you have it :) Thanks for all the love and support! Lots of love from Bolivia!

Hermana Rowe

Weird popsicles called lenguix that when they start melting are the texture of a tongue... I didn't love that one... ha ha

Pablo and his daughter Patricia who was baptized 4 months ago, and us!

Me and Hermana Bouwhuis (who has become one of my best friends in the mission, but is going to Cochabamba tomorrow) (RIP I will miss her ha ha)

Amo Sucre! - July 9, 2018

I asked Jessica what things the sisters told them they were doing wrong.  Did it apply to obedience or just the way she and her comp were doing things.   Both, there were some things that I didn´t even realize that were in the handbook (because we´d only read it together one time, at the very beginning of my training when i really didn´t understand that much (and actually we are supposed to read the handbook together every single day, which i didn´t know either...)) that we were either going directly against (and i seriously did not know) or that were being bent a LOT (I know I shouldn´t play the victim here but I feel a little bit like one because of all these things that i´d never known or realized because i´d never been told about, or i had but i didn´t understand). But it´s ok now because we´ve been doing a lot more things right this week :) 

So! Welcome back to the Bolivian life I´m living, friends and family! I have to say, I feel like I don´t have a whole ton to say this week, but we´ll see I guess. 

Tuesday: We had district meeting like normal, and the topic was the small simple things that we should be doing obedience-wise. It was super great. My invitation to all of you is to to do the small simple things that add up to a great big relationship with God: Read the Book of Mormon, at least a few verses every day, and pray every morning and night on your knees. I have seen such a large spiritual progression in myself as I´ve done these things, and I know that we can have the spirit with us more abundantly as we do these things. This is something that we talk about with people pretty much every day, and I have seen the huge difference it can make in people´s lives. On Tuesday we ate Pique Macho at the pension, and it was SO GOOD! Apparently the pique macho from Cocha is better, but I was happy to eat it. It is french fries with ketchup mayo fried egg, steak strips, hot dog, peppers, and onions... it´s pretty good :) 

Wednesday: Happy 4th of July y´all! I made sure to subtly rep my país by wearing red white and blue. We ate ice cream, and also made a dinner of hot dog, rice, eggs, and I drew fireworks on mine with ketchup mayo and mustard. It tasted super good. :) (Yes I know, Bolivian food is oddly sofisticated but super child-like at the same time) It was a good day, even though I was a little trunky thinking about friends and family :) I really tried hard to lose myself in the work for the rest of the week.

Thursday: We had interviews with Presidente Montoya, and he basically told me that Hna Padilla is going to Cochabamba for the next transfer, and that I´ll have at least one more transfer here in Sucre (YAY!!) But we won´t ´officially´ know until this Sunday night. It was really good to talk with him. I was able to express a little of my frustrations and ask advice about what to do when I want to be more obedient than my comp (he told me that was a common theme this transfer, so it´s good to know that I´m not going through this alone). 

Friday: I actually can´t really remember much from Friday. I know we actually had time to get in all of our studies, so that was good! Let´s just assume it was a good day because I can´t remember haha

Saturday: We were going to have a baptism, but the date fell through because she wasn´t ready. We are hoping that she´ll be ready in another few weeks, but we´ll see. But it was going to be a group`baptism at the stake center, and they had asked me to do the special musical number, so we went anyway. I sang Teach Me to Walk in the Light (because two of the people being baptized were kids over 8). I´m really glad I´ve been able to use my musical talents to help others feel the Spirit. I continue to play piano for the ward in sacrament meeting every Sunday, and I´ve been asked to sing for things many times.

Sunday: A very good happy day! I was a little stressed out in the morning because 5 mins before the meeting one of the people giving talks hadn´t showed up yet, and they asked me to share a message. It actually turned out pretty good! I´m choosing to count it as a blessing that I had to do that because seriously I have seen HUGE improvements in my spanish. I understand the majority of things that people say, and Ï´m able to respond adequately, so it´s looking pretty good! Almost every other week President Montoya tells me in response to my weekly emails to him that he is really seeing a lot of improvement in my Spanish as well! It makes me happy :)

Today (Monday): For P-day today we hung out at the stake center and played games. One of the Elders (My district leader, Elder Fisher) bought Settlers of Catan from the Cancha in Cocha, so he brought it and we played it! It was super fun. (It was also super cheapy and a rip off of the original, but I´m not complaining haha :) A lot of things in Bolivia are like that. For example: All the movies here you can buy for 1 or 2 bolivianos which is like 20 cents, and they are ALL pirated. It´s so funny because it´s illegal to pirate movies in the US, but in Bolivia it is actually legal. And ALL the stores do it. It is next to impossible to find a movie that is not pirated. So at the end of my mission every has to let me know what movies they want, and i´ll buy them here since they´re super cheap. And no, they are not all in Spanish) We also played soccer, and we were all surprised by how tired we were after! (the hermanas, idk about the elderes) (btw we played separately, don´t worry) But I guess it´s because we don´t run at all, because it´s not really safe for the hermanas to go on morning runs because it is still dark out when we get up (also it´s cold because it´s winter here). 

AAAAAaannd here we are. Thanks to all for your emails, it really does make a difference! I love hearing about what is going on in your lives! Lots of love and keep doing the small simple things!!

AMOR,

Hermana Rowe

4th of July Ice Cream

The dinner

A cool sign that they found (yes, she is allowed to wear pants, as long as she doesn't wear them to church or meetings,)

I Didn't Ask for Mezcla, But That's What I Got - July 2, 2018

This week was a mix of emotions for me. Monday night we started intercambios, and I was with Hermana Cristobal again, so that was pretty fun! I have a lot of respect for her as a missionary, she is awesome. (but we didn´t take a pic to prove it, so sorry about that) Tuesday we were in intercambios all day, and I was in my area again. At the end of intercambios I was feeling bad because the capas (hermana leaders) had a lot of things to talk to us about, that I didn´t even realize that we were doing wrong. But we have been working super hard, and been a lot more obedient this week. That evening, we found out that the brother-in-law of my pensionista died (brother of Hno. Absalón), so we spent a lot of Wednesday morning helping them out and supporting them. We got permission and went with them to do paperwork (because the cemetery is in our area) (actually the cemetery is really cool because it has a lot of famous Bolivian royalty, from back when that was a thing, presidentes, and people like that) and I was glad that we were able to support them that morning, because they were hurting BAD. My spirit even felt heavy, and I didn´t really even know him, but I have such a great love for their family. I really felt like I was "mourn(ing) with those that mourn, and stand(ing) with those that stand in need of comfort." 

In that same day we had an amazing lesson with Ana Carla, who was baptized this week! The spirit was super strong in that lesson, and we were so excited for her. That evening was the viewing for the hermano, and it was kind of really sad, but at the same time it was good because a bunch of members from our ward came and sang hymns. Our district leader and his companion came too, because last Saturday when we had the baptism of Blanca, Hno Absálon asked the elders if they´d give a blessing to his brother. They actually gave the blessing on Tuesday, and he died about an hour after that. Apparently that last hour he was a lot more peaceful  (because he was super sick, he had been in a bed for a year and in a lot of pain). Our pensionista Rocio shared with us that she was outside during this, and actually saw a pillar of light and heard comforting voices, and felt real peace when he died. Super cool experience that she said really strengthened her testimony of the reality of God. Anyway, at the viewing they asked me to sing "Conmigo Quédate, Señor" (Abide with me tis eventide) and I felt the spirit SUPER strongly during that (and yes that is the same one that I sang in the CCM). 

Thursday I was in Cochabamba for trámites (I think that means immigration or something like that... I´m not entirely sure) and the weather was BEAUTIFUL! A lot warmer than in Sucre (even though Sucre isn´t that cold haha). We ate empanadas with really good Bolivian cheese inside, with bags of chocolate milk. (I don´t know if I´ve mentioned this before, but most of the single portion drinks in Bolivia are in bags. Kinda weird, but it is what it is haha) That evening when I got back we had the baptismal interview for Ana Carla, and after that we were at the house of a part member family for a family night slash birthday celebration for Davíd Colque Alaca, who turned 11. It was a pretty good day.

Friday we ate RIDICULOUS amounts of food. We didn´t know if the pension would be open (understandably so) and made plans with a member to eat lunch. While we were walking to the member´s house, Hna Rocio called us and insisted that we eat lunch there. So we ate lunch with the members, then went to the pension and ate lunch AGAIN! I was SO SO full. (and in Bolivia if you refuse food it is super offensive, so we chose to go the less offensive route and gorge ourselves haha) We actually decided to fast a day early because the baptism of Ana Carla was Saturday night and we were planning to have a mini celebration with her afterwards (and maybe a little bit of the reason was because we had eaten a ridiculous amount of lunch haha). We also had an appointment with an investigator Friday that ended in a funny way. She (se llama Belen Serrudo) has a younger brother that is probably 2 or 3, and as we were saying the closing prayer, this younger brother was throwing spoons at my head! For the whole prayer! It was funny, and I was trying SO SO hard not to laugh during the prayer. 

Saturday we had the classes of English and piano, and 2 people showed up, that hadn´t been before, so I just taught the same things that I´d taught in lessons before. In the evening was Ana Carla´s baptism! A little bit about her, her family (parents and older sisters) were baptized 8 years ago but went inactive. Recently they have been re-activating themselves, and we had a family night with them about 2 weeks ago and found out that she was never baptized! But she was so ready, and already knew basically everything that we taught her. We got lucky that we got to be the ones to teach her, because it was like every missionary´s dream! :) During the baptismal service I sang for the special musical number, Lord, I would follow thee. It was a great baptism, and their family is so happy. (And so are we!!)

Sunday was fast Sunday, and there were a lot of less active members and investigators that came! We were so happy that they were there, and that they were sharing their testimonies! Especially Hno Absalón, because our pension family (Calvimontez Mancilla) have been really inactive, but I think everything that has happened this week has really humbled them, and brought them so much closer to Heavenly Father. We are so happy for them. They even set a goal for themselves so that they can go to the temple in Cochabamba (45 mins in plane but 8 hours by bus) and be sealed as a family. (That´s actually really common here, that there are members but haven´t ever received there endowments or been sealed) We are so proud of them.

Today for P day we went and toured a really old house museum thing that I guess was the house of a bunch of the royalty and presidentes of Bolivia. I think the coolest part of that was that we got to go in a tunnel that they had dug however many years ago, I think 200 or 300 years ago, and it was so small! We were basically squat walking slash crawling through it. But the tunnel lead to a different one of the government buildings, I think in case the people needed to escape in the case of emergency. But yeah, super cool, and that was my day. 

So there ya go! Lot´s of stuff happened this week, happy and sad, but I know that that´s just a part of life! I hope you all have a happy 4th of july and enjoy the fireworks for me!

Mucho Amor,

Hermana Rowe