Gringa Party ;) - Jan 21, 2019

Hey everyone! So this week went a lot smoother than last week. We worked really hard to have a lot of family home evenings throughout the week, and really it was cool to see that if we really put in a lot of effort, usually we could get an investigator to come. (We had some divine help) We have a fairly new investigator named Jesus, and he is very interested in investigating EVERYTHING! (Which is great, except that he gets a little confused with his concept about God because he is also meeting with Jehovah´s Witnesses) But he came to 2 noches de hogar which was sweet. He said he is agreeing with a lot of the things he´s learning, so that makes me happy! 

We had interviews with President this week, and I always love talking with him. He helps me walk out feeling like a good missionary. I can always tell him how i´m feeling and how i know i need to get better, and he helps me turn self criticism to self betterment (if that makes sense...) 

Today for P day we had a ¨gringa party¨ so we invited all the north american sisters to our house (and their comps of course) and we ate pancakes for breakfast and celebrated some birthdays that are this week. It was really fun! It was fun to host it too (even though cleaning up after isn´t super fun).

So I was reading 2 Nephi 26 this week and i loved reading these scriptures, they gave me some comfort :). I know the Lord loves us.

25 Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me?   Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.

26 Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues,   or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay.

27 Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men;             and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance.

28 Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.

29 He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts;  for, behold,         priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.

30 Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing; wherefore,   the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing.    Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish.

31 But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish.

32 And again, the Lord God hath commanded that men should not murder; that they should not lie; that they should not steal;                              that they should not take the name of the Lord their God in vain; that they should not envy; that they should not have malice;   that they should not contend one with another;                   that they should not commit whoredoms; and that they should do none of these things; for whoso doeth them shall perish.

33 For none of these iniquities come of the Lord;      for he doeth that which is good among the children of men;   and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men;                                       and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him,  black and white, bond and free, male and female;                     and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

I hope you all have a great week! Keep serving the Lord and doing His will!

Hermana Rowe

Completos (Chilean hot dogs with guacamole?...)

The Gringas

Jessica with the 2 hermanas that had birthdays this week.

Missions Are Not For Quitters - Jan 14, 2019

So this week was actually pretty difficult for me. I cried a lot. I felt like a bad person, and a bad missionary. The first 2 days i was pretty sick, so we didn´t go work Tuesday or Wednesday. My comp and I clashed A LOT. This has actually been probably the hardest week that i´ve had as a missionary, emotionally. I´ve missed my family a lot, and i´ve wanted to go home. But I know why I´m here serving a mission. I know it´s not about me. It´s about serving the Lord, helping people to feel the joy and peace that the gospel can bring. I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that whatever bad feeling I have, I can give it to my Savior. Whatever pain or frustration, I can give it to Him. Whatever sin I´ve committed, or error I´ve made, I can really truly repent and be made clean of these things. I´m so grateful that I´ve been so privileged to be a member of this church for my whole life. I´m grateful for parents who love and serve the Lord, who have always shown me the way to be better, little by little. 

We had intercambios this week, and it was awesome. I really needed it. I learned a lot about how i can be a better missionary, and how I can be following the Spirit better. 

I´m grateful to have the privilege to be a missionary. It´s the hardest thing I´ve done in my entire life. It can also be one of the most rewarding, and the most spiritually uplifting. 

Sé que mi Señor me ama, y que Él quiere que yo sea feliz. Estoy tratando mejorarme, aunque soy tan imperfecta. Sé que siempre puedo depender en Él. Les amo muchísimo, y espero que esta semana puedan depender un poquito más en el Salvador, y sé que van a ver la diferencia en sus vidas. 

Con mucho cariño,

Hermana Rowe 

PS Don´t worry too much about my comp and I because we already made up, and she´s super awesome :)

She didn't send any explanations of the pictures.  I am assuming the two with American looking sisters are from intercambios (exchanges- where they swap companions and areas for part of a day to learn from other missionaries and areas.)  and the other two are the beauty of Cochabamba...)

Clinics are fun... right? - Jan 7, 2019

Paneton is super gross fruitcake. And the latios LOVE IT for some reason, and it´s all over the place. (For Christmas). And during christmastime everywhere you go the people will serve it to you, and you have to eat it to not be rude to them haha whoops. not the funnest thing ever. That´s the explanation for my title last week, sorry. 

This week my comp has been kinda sick, so we really spent the majority of the week in and out of the clinic. 

But! The times that we did get to work were awesome! We were really following the Spirit with our plans and where we went this week. Lots of times our plans fell through, and we felt like we should go visit someone that maybe didn´t make sense to go visit at that time, but then they were there and we got to teach them. It´s been pretty cool to see. But I still feel like I have so far to go with my relationship with the Spirit, I know i need to keep practicing and getting better at listening to the spirit to keep having these experiences. 

New years was fun, we were with the same hermanas as Christmas, but were went to their house. We are safe and sound. We enjoyed the fireworks, and even did sparklers :) (but then we repented because there is a rule in the mission handbook about fireworks that we had forgotten about... whoops)

I can´t believe it´s already 2019! I hope everyone has set some good goals for this year, and that you keep up with them :) 

Con mucho amor,

New Year's Eve

They carried their mattress from their apartment down the street to the other sister's apartment for the night. (She obviously has something tucked in her sweatshirt...)

Her pensionista with her grandsons (who are really more like her sons.)

Bowling on P-day

Paneton, paneton everywhere - Dec 31, 2018

So! This has been a pretty fun week. For Christmas eve we ended up hanging out with some other hermanas that didn't have a family to spend Christmas eve with either, and we did Christmas Bolivian style, so we opened up gifts at midnight which was fun. (Don´t worry, Presidente said it was alright ;) ) 

Suckers that had fun lips on them that I sent in her stocking...

The puzzle I sent her.  It's tradition!!

Our week has been pretty normal other than that. Something cool that happened this week is that we had some plans to go visit a contact, but when we passed in front of the house of a different contact that we hadn´t planned, we felt impressed to knock on their door and see if they were home, and they were! We got to teach the couple about the Restoration of the gospel and the book of Mormon. Que genial! I love seeing the little ways the the spirit guides us in all that we do as missionaries.

(we didn't write to her on Sunday night like we usually do.  It was Elijah's birthday and we had family in town.  They came over for dinner and we hung out and I was tired and went to bed...  She surprised us and wrote early Monday morning... (we usually get her emails in the afternoon but it came in at 6am!)  We quickly wrote to her so she heard from us when she went back to the internet cafe but then she didn't have time to write... )

Until later today,

Hermana Rowe

I really actually don´t have a lot of time, and I know I promised more of a letter but it actually isn't gonna happen sorry!! D: 

Feliz Navidad! - Dec 24, 2018

A short little email for you all this week :)

We´ve been super busy all week and have been enjoying the work! This is a really fun time of year to be a missionary.  The zone conference ended up being this week, and it was awesome! Presidente Montoya talked a little at the beginning (about some things that REALLY needed to be addressed in the mission) and then we had a bunch of different acts from the different zones which was cool! For one of the 2 acts that my zone did, I sang and an Elder from my ward (Elder Stevens) (but not the Elder Stevens that is Josh Cahoon´s cousin that baptized my convert last week, this is a different Elder Stevens) ¨What Child is This¨ and he played guitar. I thought it turned out alright, and we did it again for sacrament meeting on Sunday. 

The gringas in her zone.  They traded clothes for the day at zone conference

Talking with people this week has been kinda funny because everyone keeps telling us to come back next year haha! I´m not sure exactly what we´re going to be doing this week, but I guess we´ll find somewhere to teach/contact. The important part is about bring the joy of the gospel to people. 

Today has been fun because it was the birthday of my pensionista, so we made cinnamon rolls at her house while it RAINED super hard. I also have been wearing my Christmas Santa hat all day, so I think that´s made people happy too. :) I´ll probably wear it tomorrow too haha. I love this time of year. I´m so grateful to not only have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas, but to literally preach about how awesome this time of year is! It´s been fun today to walk through the streets and say ¡Feliz Navidad! to everyone and see the smiles on their faces. 

I know Christ came to this earth with a purpose: to save all of us. Only in and through Him can we return to the presence of our Heavenly Father, and I´m so grateful for His sacrifice! I love that in this time of year we can celebrate the very beginning of His ministry. I think his birth was the first of the many miracles that He did. I know He loves us. 

Feliz Navidad, prospero año y felicidad ;)

¡Les amo muchísimo!

Hermana Rowe

(We got to google chat (with video) for 2 hrs on Christmas and it was divine!  It was so hard to say goodbye.  She bore her testimony before we hung up that was powerful and faithful and sweet.  She doesn't have a lot of member support in her ward but she is enjoying the area and learning a lot.  It sounds like she is going to ask her mission president to come home a little early so she can get back to school in Sept.  BYU starts Sept 4th and she is slated to come home on the 10th I believe.  Only a little more than 4 months until we get to talk on Mother's Day :) )

Her guitar that she bought.

Biggest Whirlwind of Emotions - Dec 17, 2018

So I really don´t have time this week, so i´ll try to make this quick. 

This week has been FULL of rehearsals for different things. We´ve had rehearsals for the ward choir (since they are doing a special number next week, and I´m playing piano for them) and the zone has been practicing a lot for the zone conference this week. That one has got me super frustrated because there is no organization, everyone wants to do their own idea, and they don´t really want to keep things spiritual either (kinda sad, but it is what it is.) So this week I was a little frustrated about those, but at least the conference is this coming week, so i won´t have to worry about that anymore. 

We got stuck in our elevator for 45 minutes on Friday! We had just gotten some baptismal clothes from our zone leader, and when we were going up, it made a loud clunking sound and stopped working!! So we tried pressing all the buttons, but nothing worked. we tried opening the door, but that didn´t work. luckily we had the phone, because we called our zone leader, and they talked to some people to try to help get us out. I was alright, but hermana Muñoz was freaking out a little bit, so the zone leaders chilled out to try to calm her down from the outside. We said a prayer. We kept waiting for someone to open the door, and we were both a little worried because we had a baptism at 7, and it was 6:30 and we were still in the elevator!! Hermana Muñoz made kinda like a last ditch effort to open the door, and it slid right open! It was really a miracle. AND! We made it on time to the baptism, and it was beautiful! Jhenifer told us that she is really happy that she did it, and that she knows the church is true and all that good stuff! I think she is planning on going to the temple in the next few weeks, so that is super awesome!! We are so happy for her.

On Saturday night we did a service activity with the ward where we went to some of the plazas and gave out api, bread, clothes and other little bags of food. It was kinda fun. I´ll have to describe it a little more with the fam when we skype. All I have to say is that drunk Bolivians like gringas (aka me).

Today was a fun p day because we went to some cabanas to play pool, ping pong, soccer, volley, stuff like that. It was fun :) I´ll send pictures of how we traveled there haha! (looks like it was in the back of a truck...?)

Love you all so very much! I hope you all have a very merry week leading up to Christmas!!

Hermana Rowe

Christmas Time is Here - Dec 10, 2018

Welcome to my week! It went my so fast, I can´t believe it! 

Tuesday: The last day of birthday celebrations for me (at the pension... I'll send a video. Watch until the end!!) And the ward is preparing some special musical numbers for the special Sunday on the 23rd, so I've been using that as a way to serve (playing piano at practices and things) 

Wednesday: We studied and planned all day. We had a really good appointment with Dennys. We wasn't drunk when we showed up (yay!!) so we went to a park with him for a lesson about the word of wisdom and about faith. At the beginning of the lesson he was saying that he wasn't sure if God was really there, if he had faith, things like that. But by the end of the lesson he himself said, ok, i guess I've got a little bit of faith, even if it's basically nothing. So that was really good! Then that night we were going to start intercambios, but...

Thursday: Everyone wants Evo (the president) out of power and were protesting! So we had to be very very careful and decided that it'd be better just to do the intercambio another day. We got to go out a little bit, but we stayed in the house for the majority of the day.

Friday: We had interviews with President Montoya, and OH MY GOODNESS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE!!!!! I was literally crying. Literally crying. It was so so so so so so sweet!! I ate one of the boxes of hash browns for breakfast today with two fried eggs (and ketchup) and I just about cried while I was eating it! SO SO SO good. And thank you so much for the hash browns, notes, and the gifts for my comp, and for the mini Christmas tree, and the lights, and the candy, and for the nativities to give out! What an amazing idea! Seriously I wasn´t excepting anything, and this really really really made me happy. Thank you so much for the wonderful notes, I actually cried while I read all of those too. The only one I haven't read yet is the one from Grammy and Grandpa because that one specifically said merry Christmas on it, so probably on Christmas eve I'll read that one. 

Saturday: We had more song practices and tried to go visit some contacts and investigators. Pretty much nobody was home. WE had a FHE (Family Home Evening) with a widow in the ward and her daughter. We helped them set up their Christmas tree and put up lights. I love that we've been able to help so many people do that this year! I love this type of service, it is the best haha! 

Sunday: We went visiting with a woman from the ward to find less and inactive members... and nobody was home. But it's ok because we just kept on looking! In the evening we talked with Jhenifer about her baptism this week. She was saying the she wants to postpone it for the end of January because her life is so crazy right now. In the end she told us she´d pray about it, and let us know mid week if it's gonna happen or not, so we'll see. I think Satan tries to work REALLY REALLY hard on us when we are about to do things that are SO GOOD! I felt that way before my mission. I had a lot of fear, (that i wasn't good enough, that being in Bolivia would be scary, etc) and I know that all the bad feelings and worries were all Satan getting in my head. Now that I'm here I'm so grateful for all the experiences and things that I'm learning! I know Satan is real, and he tries to get to us, but if we turn to the Lord and try to lean on him, he will help us, and let us know what it is we need to do! He will give us comfort. He loves us, and wants to help us. He wants us to do what's right, the things that bring us real joy and happiness.

Monday: We basically spent all day in the cancha again, because we got put in charge of buy fabric for the zone, because everyone wants matching dresses and ties for the zone conference! I hope everyone likes the fabric!! 0: 

That's been my week! I hope that you all are enjoying the Christmas spirit like I am, and that you're trying to light the world with your service! (this week is light your community, so i'd love to hear about the cool things you do this week!) 

Lots of love from Sunny Cochabamba,

Hermana Rowe

(It won't let me send pics today, so I'll send them next week :) )  

Eggs and Flour... - Dec 3, 2018

Yup! You heard right, I´m 20! It feels super weird. But at the same time, normal. I guess it´s just a big number. I´m officially not a teenager, WHAT?? 

Tuesday: A normal day. We had district meeting, we had a lot of appointments, but people weren´t there, ¨weren´t there¨ or didn´t have time. The usual. But! It doesn´t matter, because it gives us more time to find people who DO want to hear the gospel. 

Wednesday: Hermana Muñoz has immigration things, so we spent a few hours doing that, then we had a service project in the morning, and went to lunch. I was feeling super sick (achy, runny nose, all that) so we stayed home in the afternoon and I rested. (It was a good thing we didn´t have appointments that day, it almost never happens! It seriously was a miracle)

Thursday: Thanksgiving!! (haha not actually, but this is the day that I had thought was thanksgiving originally, and I have a bunch of drawings in my agenda for thanksgiving, turkeys and things) We actually went and searched a lot of people. In the evening we got to talk with Dennys. He told us that for us, he has tried to have faith, but that he just can´t anymore, because all of the hard things he´s been through. We just tried to follow the spirit when we talked with him, so we´ll see. We said a prayer with him, and he was trying to hide his tears when it ended. We´ll see. He really needs the gospel in his life, so I hope the Spirit can really work in him. He is trying to quit drinking though, so that part is awesome!

Friday: Similar to Thursday. Actually almost identical, just with other people. We got to visit with Jhenifer, and she really wants to be baptized! She said that she knows that this is the true church, so hopefully next Saturday will be her baptism!! :D We are very very excited for her.

Saturday: We got to do a really cool service with the ward, we went and visited an old folk´s home! I got to talk with an old guy who is from France, but he also spoke English, and also understands some Spanish! Very smart guy. Apparently he flew fighter planes in WWII, and in other wars too. All of these things I learned from his son, because he mostly spoke in french and made weird hand motions, but it´s ok because he seemed happy :) That was the highlight of our day. I really felt like we were bringing some Christmas cheer for these people. I´m so glad it´s Christmas time now!! 

Sunday: Happy Birthday to me! I´m 20, that´s weird. But it was a good birthday. The Relief Society sung happy birthday to me, then made a line to give me hugs and well wishes! So cute. And then of course, we had an awesome lunch at the bishop´s house!! It really was a good birthday. We got to visit with a bunch of people. Oh! And Hermana Muñoz made a cute birthday banner for me! AND we finished putting up our Christmas tree! It was fun :)

Monday: So we spent basically our whole day in the Cancha. I bought a guitar, finally! It´s blue, super cool. I´ll take pictures this week. It was 550 bs, which is SO CHEAP!! (that´s like 80 bucks, and that included the case, the tuner, the capo, and the picks!!) But it´s still good quality!! Then we went to a ´birthday party´ of missionaries for hermana Padilla, since her birthday was the 30th, and then it turned into a little something for me too! (It´s a tradition in Bolivia that when it´s your birthday, they through eggs and flour all over you, so right now as i´m writing i´m COVERED! But I didn´t have time to shower before internet, so here we are haha!

And that was my week! Hope it was a great one for all of you, and that the next on is great!!

Hermana Rowe

PS I think it´d be great if each one of you could watch the new Light the World video from this year. It´s super great, and it has a lot of ideas for things we can do to be a little more like the Savior this year. He lives, and loves us. :)