Just Made it to Cochabamba! - April 24, 2018

Wow wow wow it is so beautiful here!! But we only have 5 mins, so unfortunately i didn't read the letter from you this week. I'll look forward to reading it next week! We left the CCM at 7 last night, and just arrived in Cochabamba 2 hours ago!! Crazy crazy! I also am starting to miss my district already, but i'm sure they'll all do great in their missions! We've started taking pictures, but i don't have time to send them this week. (i'll catch ya next time) This past week i spoke in church again!! 2 weeks in a row, AND i taught relief society. I have felt like I've got a lot put on me this past week, but i'm getting through it with a smile on my face. The one thing I've realized since leaving my district is that for the first time i really kind of feel alone. but not too alone. I know my savior is with me where ever i go, no matter how well i can communicate with others. Love you so so much!!

Hermana Rowe

Last P-day of the CCM! - April 18, 2018

Wow lots of stuff has happened this week!! So I guess to start off i'll talk about a cool experience I had this week. So one of the maestros, Hermano Sosa (whom we all love so much because he is hilarious!) heard me singing and asked me to sing his favorite hymn, Abide with me tis eventide, and asked if he could record it. I said sure, sang for him, and thought that was that. Now, a few weeks ago, I met one of the other maestras here, who's name i believe is Hermana Gutierrez, and we talked about our families, and i saw that she had a Dominican republic pin on, so i asked her about it. And i found out that she served with Jacob! And then i thought that was that too. But then last night, Hermano Sosa came up to me and said that he'd sent the recording to her, and she had sent it on the Jacob, and that mom was crying about it! It gave me so much joy to remember that communication works so quickly (because he recorded me yesterday) and that my family got to hear my voice again! (even though i mispronounced a bunch of the words)  (We got a recording of Jessica singing Abide with Me in a text from Jacob.)

So fun story from last week, my compañera really really wanted her hair cut, and i told her that i knew how to do it, though i'd never done it before, and she trusted me enough to do it!! So now I've given a haircut, and it turned out really well, and she actually loves it!! 

Another funny story, this same Hermano Sosa came up (seriously he is so cool) to us hermanas while we were eating, and before he left i was trying to tell him that we as a whole love him, but i accidentally told him that I loved him hahaha don't worry though i fixed it, so all is good and well in the world, but still it was pretty funny

On this past Saturday we had the chance to go proselyting with some of the missionaries from the Lima East mission, and it was so awesome! I got to practice my Spanish, the hermanas that i was with were super nice, and i gave away lots of pass along cards, and even gave an investigator a Book of Mormon with my testimony written in it! One of my favorite parts of the activity were that 2 different times, there were people that I stopped on the street, gave them a card, and asked if they'd like to learn about Christ, who actually really wanted to, and at some point this week they are meeting with the missionaries!! It made me so excited to go out into the field, but it also made me realize that my Spanish is seriously not where it needs to be. So hopefully that'll improve a lot more once i'm in the field.

This week we began orientation for the campo! I'm so excited to be heading out so soon! 

I love you all so much! I'm so excited to serve the Lord, and i can't believe i'll be in my mission in 5 days!! Wish me suerte!!

Hermana Rowe

Here is the audio of Jessica singing.  I put it to some of the pictures she has sent in the 5 weeks she has been out.  

1 Month in the CCM - 4-11-2018

Momma thanks so much for sending the report! (She requested the church stats because they wouldn't be able to look them up.)  I was missing fast Sunday dinner this week! I thought about you all as i ate my pollo y arroz. I also told everyone in my district that post mission they are all welcome to come have a fast Sunday dinner at our house, but we'll see if that ever happens :) (I have been asking her every week where all the missionaries in her district are going and she finally answered!) So my companion Hermana Agasen is from Canada, going to Peru Chiclayo mission. Hermana Coats from South Jordan Utah, Elder Eduria from the Philippines, and Elder Villareal also from the Philippines are going to Lima Este, Hermana Gundersen also from South Jordan Utah and Elder Thornton from Australia are going to Lima Norte, Elder Neyra from South Carolina is going to Ariquipa, and Elders Baxter from Oregon (he is from Union) and Sabin from Mesa Arizona, are going to Bolivia Santa Cruz Norte, so they'll both be on the plane ride over to Bolivia with me in 2 weeks. And yes! there are tons of people in the CCM again!

Dad - I'm very proud of Elijah for branching out! That's so cool that she served in my mission! (Her Dad told her that there is a new young couple in our ward and that the wife came home from the Cochabamba mission 2 1/2 yrs ago.  She said the potatoes called chunos are kinda gross and not what we think of.  Jessica loves potatoes and was excited when she heard she would be eating them A LOT!  We will see when she gets there.)   And those chunos... hmmm we;ll see how i feel about them when i get there. I've met a few latina hermanas from bolivia, and all of them say that the weather in Cochabamba is great, and they serve tons of food, so don't be surprised if by the end of my time in the CCM i'm a little bit bigger, because I've been working on preparing my stomach for large quantities jaja. I miss talking with ya daddypa! Your antics are so fun and i miss being about to quote things with you (and this statement goes for all members of the fambam )

So this week!! We received lots of new principiantes this week, although less than us. So there are about 90 Latinos and 20 English speakers. It's so fun to start over with all the new Latinos because now we actually know how to ask and understand getting to know you questions! We love the Latinos they are so fun!! We love talking with them, eating with them, playing sports with them, you name it! And it's great practice for our Spanish too!

Some funny stories from this past week: This week when we were alone we played soccer as a district and it was so fun! (for me at least! All my soccer skills from when i was a kid came back and i was destroying people! in a non competitive way, of course) The next day we played ultimate Frisbee with the principiantes, and that was a blast! A funny part of what happened (me being silly) was that i had run to catch the Frisbee and missed it. I was a little frustrated that i had missed it, so i went to jokingly kick it away from the other team when Elder Neyra from my district came running in to pick it up, and i accidentally kicked him in the shins!! i felt so bad, but it was SO FUNNY!!! I need to be better at turning down my competitive energy i think jaja. 

Like i told mom earlier, fast Sunday i couldn't help but think about the traditional fast Sunday dinner, sugar muffins, scrambled eggs and bacon. Wow i missed it a lot! but it's alright, i'll have it when i get back :) 

My piano skills have really come in handy here at the CCM! I play piano for basically everything that a piano is needed at, like yesterday, we have a devotional (live from the Peru CCM) with Elder Godoy and I was the pianist! So now I've played for a general authority, what what!! It was also a cool devo because it was in Spanish, so they gave us headsets and we listened to it translated. So cool!

I'm out of time for this week, but i love you all so much!!!! Read the Book of Mormon every single day and it will bless your life! Love love love,

Hermana Rowe

3 Weeks down and 3 Weeks to go (En el CCM)!! - March 3, 2018

Wow wow wow what to talk about! Conference was amazing!! I seriously had my mind blown so many times!! Also, sad side note: I left my journal with my conference notes back in the room, so I won't be able to make as many comments as I'd like, but i'll give y'all my best. (BTW could you let me know what the church stats are? We really wanted to know but we can't look them up! Since they didn't get announced) Some things that I really felt were emphasized was that President Nelson is supposed to be the prophet!!! Wow wow wow seriously we got hit with that message over and over, and seriously the Spirit was so strong! Being on the mission and watching conference seriously is so amazing! That was the shortest conference I've ever experienced, but also the most spiritually rich! A really great quote from Lynn G. Robbins was, "Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm" This really stuck out to me because it is so easy to get discouraged when we fail (especially as missionaries in training) but something else he said was that failure should be our tutor. I also loved what Taniela B. Wakolo said, "Casualness leads to casualties." We need to be active in the work. If we are too casual about our conversion, we ourselves will be a spiritual casualty in our daily battles against the adversary. Some messages from Sunday that I loved were: Claudio D Zivic - Endure and you shall triumph! Henry B. Eyring - It's your choice to receive the Spirit into your life. Dallin H. Oaks - Be civil and cheerful in personal interactions. And of course Dieter F. Uctdorf - Behold the man! I also noticed that a TON of hymns were quoted throughout the conference, which made me super happy because most of the hymn books down here are in Spanish. 

So some things about this week:

I feel like my Spanish improves in leaps and bounds when we hermanas decide to use only Spanish at meal times! It also helps us really get to know some of the latinas better, and it's super fun! For some reason (I think it may be the fact that we mess up so much jaja) we seriously laugh so much more when we try to speak in Spanish! This week we were introducing ourselves to some Latino Elders sitting at the table next to us, and so they wanted to know how to pronounce my name, so I said, " It's like 'row row row... su... boat!" jajaja because i didn't know the word for row or for boat, and i used air finger quotes when i said boat, and for some reason we all thought it was the funniest thing ever! Also, they don't sing Row row row your boat in south america!! So i'm sure they thought i was just super weird jaja, but that's just fine :) 

We also (Hermana Agasen and I) have been improving a lot with our investigators! Our gospel Spanish is getting a lot better, and seriously we have had some good progression! Not as much as the other hermanas, but really that doesn't matter! We have been doing our best to really listen to what the investigators are feeling and follow the spirit in our lessons. We were supposed to teach yesterday, but our normal maestra was sick, so the sub (who is a meastro names Hermano Sosa who we all love dearly because he is SO SO funny) had us draw for it, and we didn't get to go! But it was ok since we got extra study time.

Also! Feliz Pascua! I hope everyone got to paint eggs and eat chocolate to their heart's content, cuz i didn't jajaja

Lots and lots of love!! Have a happy week!!

Hermana Rowe

Week Dos!!! - March 28, 2018

(Dos as in the number 2 in Spanish). 

Well I can't believe it's been a 2 semanas already! On one hand I feel like I've been here forever, and on the other I feel like I just got here, especially since I'm still pretty novice level at Spanish. 

So at one point during this week my distrito was discussing cultrual differences, and Elder Eduria (de los Philippines) somehow ended up telling ME (directed at me though the whole distrito was listening) that in the Philippines it's a complement to when a woman is 'bigger'! And then everyone started DYING laughing. I seriously though it was so funny (don't worry i wasn't offended by it, and he felt bad afterwards)

While here at the CCM I have not only been learning Spanish, but I've been learning little bits of Tagolog and 'Australian'. Our entire distrito now uses phrases like "Scarn on mate" and "She'll be righ' " because we have been so influenced by Elder Thornton's language usage. Also, the Filipino Elderes in our distrito like to make fun of me because sometimes they talk to each other in Tagalog and I try to copy some of the words that they say (because it is such a cool language too) (but i would never want to learn it, that'd be waaay harder than espanol) so i now can say hindi ako madaling magalit which means I don't get angry easily. So whenever they start laughing at me i always say that and then they laugh harder jajaja

I have definitely been enjoying physical activity time this week. I've been able to spend a lot of the time with my district which has been super fun, and we've played things such as volleyball, basketball, ultimate frisbee, ping pong, foosball, the works. We've got a pretty good set up here in el CCM. Also idk if i told you this last week, but one of the favorite drinks that I've been able to try is called Maracuyo, and I think that is the same as the weird fruit that i tried last week. Anyway, so this week during physical activity Hermana Agasen wanted to play volleyball with the latinos while I played basketball with the distrito (which was fine since they are right next to each other). While she was playing volleyball, she hurt her hand pretty badly, so on Monday she and I got to leave the CCM and go to a clinica so she could get an x ray. Driving here is crazy btw!!! I though we were going to be hit, that we were going to run into people, all that jazz, so now i really understand why missionaries don't drive down here. I wouldn't want to!! 

Sundays here in the CCM are the best!! Seriously they are my favorite. This Sunday I was able to accompany a special musical number in my branch, and the music was given to me on Saturday!! Seriously the Lord blessed me so much, I would NOT have been able to do that on my own. We also watched a movie about Christ's Atonement this week, and I had a really cool spiritual impression! In the video it depicts Christ going back up to heaven and all the spirits recieving Him with so much joy. I had this though that I had never had before: I was one of those spirits who welcomed Him home so ethusiastically and joyfully. I felt Heavenly Father tell me through the Spirit that he knows how much I love Him and Jesus Christ, and that He is pleased with my decision to serve a mission. It was so cool. We also have the chance to watch Devos from the Provo MTC every Sunday and Tuesday night, and everytime I look for Rick and Juliana (but sadly I haven't seen them yet) (Her aunt and uncle have callings at the Provo MTC,)  I've seen a few people that I knew from BYU tho which has been so cool! The last one was from Elder Renlund and his wife, and seriously it was so good! While discussing it as a distrito afterwards, my distrito leader Elder Baxter said something that really made a ton of sense in my head. Faith plus Works equals Miracles. If you think about it like math, x can't equal z, and y can't equal z, it's impossible. Only when both faith and works are together can we really find miracles. Just thought that was super cool. 

So this week we went from having 1 investigadores to 2, and Hermana Agasen and I actually have been doing much better!! We speak Spanish much better, so we are able to understand what questions they are asking, and follow the Spirit much more easily! El don de lenguas is real!!! (the gift of tounges) 

Next week my P day is Tuesday, so if you want to write me don't forget to do it early! 

Love you all so so so much!!! Have a happy life, and know that mine is too! 

Hermana Rowe

The Lima Peru Temple

Las Hermanas - all of the 6 week hermanas in the CCM right now, but all except the 4 from my distrito leave next week

Some of the latino hermanas that are so cute and funny (all the latinos are here for 3 weeks, so next week there will be completely different latinos) 

First Week in el CCM!!! - March 21, 2018

AAAAAHHH it feels so good to write home, especially in English!! The CCM grounds are beautiful!!! I'll have to take more pictures this afternoon so that I can send them next week! Ok ok ok... so I got here safely, it was seriously like 2 am when we got to the CCM, but they let us sleep in til 8, so it wasnt too bad *insert smiley face because using spanish keyboards is so confusing jajaja* My companeras name is Hermana Agasen, and she is so sweet! She is from the Philippines, so right now she is learning her third language! I love my distrito, our name is Moroni and we are in the Manti branch. All the leaders are so sweet kind and helpful, and they encourage us to be better missionaries! The food here is... different jaja. The first day I ate almost nothing because I didn't really understand the flavors together (like how they put lunch meat ham in EVERYTHING) but I have finally started to eat things because I guess I'm getting used to it. Although I have to say they have some of the best fruit I've ever had! The watermelon, cantelope, bananas, pineapple, and other fruits that I have no idea what the name are, are all delicious! They also have really weird drinks, but the orange juice here reminds me of Christmas morning, THATS how good it is! And the pineapple juice is amazing too. And others that I forget the names of, but one I think is called Carambolla...? Anywho, they are good. They also have vending machines that we can use in the CCM, and today I tried Inca Cola (that seriously you can only find in Peru or in Peruvian restaurantes) that tastes like carbonated cotton candy slash bubble gum, and it's super good! 

Learning Spanish has been kinda stressful, but I also feel like I've learned tons in the past week! Wow I feel like I've always kinda been here, because this week has been super long but also quick too... not sure if that made ANY sense but we'll go with it :) (figured out how to make a smiley face on this thing) Being with a missionary comes with more rules than I realized! This week I've realized that obedience can be hard when you have to follow rules that you don't know about! They gave us an extra insert to our mission manuals last week with all the CCM rules, and boy there are some that I didn't even realize that a missionary couldn't do! For example: we are only allowed to take pictures on P day and never in our rooms (in the CCM) so I have a few 'sin' pictures to send that I didn't know I wasn't supposed to take at the time. Also, living here is kinda crazy because in my room there is me and Hermana Agasen, and then two Latina Hermanas as well! But they are so sweet and loving, and they always say I love you in English to us :) One of the ways that I've been learning Spanish the best (at least for practical phrases) is through talking with latinas y latinos at meals and during physical exercise time! Oh! And learning to teach investigadores here is hard! On day 3 of the CCM we had our first meeting with an investigador, and it was entirely in Spanish!!! So that was more than slightly challenging haha, but we learn more churchy words and phrases everyday, so esta bien :) we have taught 3 lessons now, and this afternoon will be our fourth. Everyone in my distrito has been so kind and supportive of each other tho! Hermanas Coats and Gundersen definitly know the most Spanish out of all of us, but it is good to get help from them. So I guess I'll explain about my distrito. There are 4 Hermanas y 6 Elderes. We have a lot of fun together, a lot of laughs, but we also work hard. The Elderes names are Elders Baxter and Sabin, Neyra and Thornton (who just so happens to be from Australia and has a super cool accent), and Villareal and Eduria. The last two are also from the Philippines, so it's kinda fun to hear them speak in Tagolog with mi companera.  Also, I never realized this before but Philippinos have to use the bathroom a lot!! Those two elderes y me y mi companera go to the bathroom ALL THE TIME!! jaja pero esta bien. The maestros here are really good too, and they really help us with goals. Things are very goal oriented here. Seriously I've made more goals in this past week then i have probably in my entire life jaja. Today has been awesome since we got to go to the Temple!! It was so cool because we got it all in English up until the end, and then we got to say some stuff in Spanish!  My favorite day so far was Sunday! We got it all in English (except for the talks and prayers of course) and we had so many uplifting classes and got to watch an MTC Devo from Elder Holland that really helped me know that I'm supposed to be a missionary, and that I'm doing the Lord's will! One of the things that he said about obedience that I loved was: You have to do the Lord's will. It's not Burger King, you can't have it your way! That caught my attention, and i thought maybe it would catch some other people too. I know that nuestro Padre Celestial loves each of us, and that we are His children. Yo se que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador, y nos ama. Nosotros podemos ser con El si seguira a El. I love you all so very much! Know that I am happy and healthy, and even though I'm doing hard things, I'm working through it, and really, I haven't cried because of homesickness at all. (Which is interesting because all the other Hermanas have, and so have some of the Elderes) but it's not because i don't love and miss you! I know that i'm supposed to be here and that makes me happy. :) Amor amor amor!!!! 

Hermana Rowe

Hermana Rowe