Sobreviviendo... (Surviving...) - Feb 25, 2019

This has been a pretty good week! A little crazy, but we´re making it through!

This week I got to do my first intercambio (exchange) as a capacitadora,(Sister Training Leader)  and it was super fun because I got to be with one of my past comps Hna Piguave! Super fun, she told me that she could see a big difference in who I am now versus who I was 6 months ago, so that´s super cool!  

We had interviews with Presidente Montoya which is always the best, and he helped me understand why he thought i´d be a good capacitadora (because I was doubting a little bit) and we talked about a lot other good stuff. 

This weekend Hna Curtis and I have been pretty sick,  but we are getting better little by little! God helps us when we need it! (because without His help i don´t know if I would have made it through!) 

I talked with my family before writing all of my letter so i´m sorry it´s so short!! This is one of the best changes I´ve seen as a missionary, I´m so grateful for it! 

She bought a camera to plug in at the internet cafe so we actually got to see her this week while we chatted.  Brad even got to join in (because it was during his lunch.)  She told us a little more about where her area is and I looked it up on a map.  You can google Cala Cala Cochabamba Boliva and look at maps to see where she is.  It always helps to have a visual.  The people in this area have a little more money so it is a nicer and more established.  She showed us some fruit that she bought and loves.  It is called cherimoya.  We talked about how inexpensive things are there.  We asked a little more about her day to day life.  They eat the main meal (lunch) at a pensionista who prepares it and cleans up after.  She is known in the mission as "the sister who cooks eggs..."  because she prepares them lots of different ways.  They don't have an oven and only have a cook top stove so they don't do a lot of cooking.  She loves all of the fruit and was saying how much she will miss it.  It was wonderful to see her and talk to her.  It was great to get questions answered on the spot (because sometimes she forgets to answer them in the email.)  I am so grateful for the new communication guidelines.  They are the best!!  The only downside is that the letters are much shorter...

Next week is carnival, so we´ll see if I get to talk or not. :) 

Love you all!

Hermana Rowe

The Best and Craziest Week Ever!! - Feb 18, 2019

ok so I just got done talking with the family that´s so crazy!!!!!!! I believe in revelation, I know that God wants us to be happy even in the small things!! 

This week was an absolute BLAST! We were helping out other sisters the whole week so there were other sisters with us all week except yesterday and today. Today we went to some really cool water falls which was SUPËR cool. (She said it was a 5 1/2 hour hike but it was soo worth it!)

The picture is to show how far they went.  In the picture you can see the cloud layer.  She said that is where the waterfall was.

This picture she sent to show how lush it is.  She said that it isn't that way in Cochabamba but only as you get out into the jungle.

Spiritual experience this week: We were teaching about the restoration and i was sharing my testimony about the Book of Mormon, and I felt the spirit SO SO SO strongly. I almost cried, and that doesn´t happen a lot. It reaffirmed to me that testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I know the Book of Mormon is true, and that whoever wants to know its true and asks God, they can know :)

Sorry out of time. Lots of love and Sunshine from Cochabamba!!

Hermana Rowe

This is a picture from the first week of her mission in this area

This was taken this week 

We got to talk to her (she could see us but the computer at the internet cafe didn't have a camera so we couldn't see her... but she sent us a picture:) ) for an hour and it was heaven!  

It was great to get questions answered on the spot.  She and Jacob got to converse in Spanish for a while and she seemed more comfortable with that.  It was harder for her to find words in English,  She loves her new companion.  In her new capacity as Sister Training Leader she has a lot of opportunity to help and be an example to other sister missionaries.  They go on exchanges (intercambios) a lot with the other sisters.  There are apparently 4 sets of STLs in the mission.  So she and her companion have responsibility for about 1/4 of the sister missionaries.  She loves her new area.  She spent her first week in the mission in this area because when she got to Bolivia the airports were shut down because of civil unrest.  She said it is very hilly and she loves it.   This new communication policy with missionaries is so wonderful.  As we get used to having more personal contact with her I am sure our weekly visits will change a little but yesterday felt like Christmas all over again but better!  It was great to talk to her and hear her enthusiasm and love for Bolivia!

She tried this fruit this week.  It is called rambautan here (I only know because I have a friend who likes them... Thank you MaryAnn) but she couldn't remember the Bolivian name.  She really liked it.

BIG HUGE CAMBIOS :D :D :D - Feb 11, 2019

As of today Jessica has a new email address.  It is jessica.rowe@missionary.org.  She will still have access to the ldsmail.net address throughout her mission.  

Welcome to my week! It´s been crazy with transfers and everything, but I´m SO excited for this next week because of my transfer...

The work here in Ingavi is getting better. We are getting a lot better at talking to more people in the streets so that we have more new investigators. BUT! Sadly that doesn{t affect their agency, but we do all we can! The people in Ingavi aren´t that humble, but every once in a while you can find somebody ;) There is a new investigator that we found last week named Jhordan, and he is super cool! We were contacting in a park when we saw him sitting reading a book, and we felt like we should go talk to him, so we went and he is super interested about learning about the church! He likes to read, so we invited him to start reading the Book of Mormon, and he ACTUALLY started reading it!!! That actually really doesn´t happen almost ever, so we were super excited about it. Sadly I won´t be able to see his progress (you´ll find out why in a sec), but if he gets baptized i will be there :) 

We got our cambios last night!!! AAAHHHHHH I´m so excited. Ok ok drum roll please..... (*drum rolls*) I´m going to be a Sister Training Leader in the area called Cala Cala!! AAHHHH I´m super super excited!!!!  I don´t know how many of you remember this, but Cala Cala is the area where I got to stay for a week when I was waiting to go to Sucre!! (My first week in the field!!) I am VERY excited. VERY haha. My comp is Hermana Curtis, and she is from Utah :D YAY my first north american comp!!! I´m so excited. I hope this email is dripping with excitement because that is really how I feel. :D :D :D

This week wasn´t the best of weeks... I was sick for a few days so that made things hard, but I´m all better now :) This week has been a hard week for our companionship, but I feel like we are leaving it in a good place today. I really have learned so much from Hna Muñoz. She has helped me so much to be a more charitable person, to not judge, and to not criticize. I think the reason it´s been hard to be with her because she really has a hard time trusting in people, and she has chosen to trust a little more in others than in me. I´m excited to be with someone a little more open :) (But I will miss her, she loves to laugh which has been fun. I feel bad, I feel like I´ve painted her in a really bad light, she really is great, just that sometimes I get frustrated at the bad things and forget to mention all the good things that are happening)

We had the Zone Conference this week which was awesome. Pte Montoya knows what he´s talking about. The Old Testament is super cool.

Having matching dresses and ties made for zone conference is a thing in her mission.  

This week I´ve been trying to be better at reading Come, Follow Me. It was cool to read about Christ´s baptism this past week (I think that´s where we´re at, right?). I´m also reading the Book of Mormon at the same time, and trying to study for investigators. There´s not time to study it all every day, even though we get a whole hour every day! That is probably one of the quickest hours that I have every day. I love studying the scriptures! I learn so many things each time. I know that as we read the scriptures with a prayer in our hearts, the Lord will reveal His will for us through the scriptures. He loves us. :) 

That´s been my week! Next week I´ll let you all know how Cala Cala is!!! 

Hope you all are enjoying the snow, we´ve had lots of rain, and hot weather ;) 

Hermana Rowe

Intercambios de emergencia y mucho mucho mas... Feb 4, 2019

This week has been a pretty crazy and also pretty fast week!! 

This Tuesday was pretty normal. We found some contacts from like 3 months ago who said that they went to Peru to visit, but now they are back and TOTALLY willing to listen to our message! We´re pretty excited about them :) 

Wednesday: CRAZY because we had emergency intercambios! The 2 sisters that we share a pension with have been having a SUPER hard time together, like they really don´t get along at all, and the american sister has been crying for like 2 weeks straight!! Super sad. So I was in Cobija for a day with her comp. It´s hard to be in the middle of other people´s problems when all I really want to do is work in my area, but it´s ok because they were both feeling a little better the next day. I´m trying not to take sides with this, but it´s kinda hard. The good part is that Hna Muñoz and I are doing fine :) I probably get along with her better than the rest of the comps I´ve had. It might be because I´m learning how to get along with different types of people better, but she is also super awesome :) (I was a little surprised by this statement because she has written many letters talking about her struggles with her current companion.  I am glad she has a short memory and is learning to get along with different personality types...)

Something we´ve been focusing on a lot this transfer is contacting in the calle. As we street contact, we´ve seen more progress in our area. Before it was pretty much just knocking doors, but we realized that it wasn´t working well for us here in this area, so we talk to people in parks and things like that, and it works a lot better! It´s super cool, this week we´ve had 7 new investigators!! For our area, that´s super awesome!! I ´ve felt good about the work that we´re doing together. We´ve only got 1 week left together, and then her training will be done and I´ll probably be heading to another part of Cochabamba! I´m excited, but I´m also going to miss being here with Hna Muñoz.

Today was fun because we went and got our nails done for the zone conference tomorrow, and it was super cheap!! mine was 12 bolivianos!! (That´s like $1 75 for a manicure!!!!) It was fun, we´ll probably be doing that again haha. I´ll send pics.

I´ve been hearing a lot of things about home lately. Apparently the cold has been super bad, I hope everyone´s doing alright!

Also I´m sending a pic of our lunch the other day...