Our "Awesome" Monday email :p

Dear family:)

 

HOLY BOLONEY! this week has been awesome:) we will start with the not so awesome stuff first.. (sorry about the overuse of "awesome", i got an awesome letter from greg and the awesomeness rubbed off :p) so we lost a few investigators :/ our drunk friend dropped us, go figure:) he says he enjoys drinking too much. but the seed has been planted, he knows that the book of mormon is the word of god. so maybe someday when hes read to change he will know where to go! also my first investigator that i told you about, we found her contacting my first day and she was doing awesome, has been avoiding us, we haven't been able to get a hold of her for two weeks:( we are going to try again tonight, but if she doesnt open the door we are going to have to drop her for now. but luckily, thats all the bad news for this week!

 

we did a special olympics 5k and it was really fun! but not nearly as effective as it needed to be, only because we were chicken and didnt go talk to people. we repented for wasting our time, and have resolved to do better :) but we got to wear neon green shirts that say mormon.org on the back! so maybe someone will be curious and end up looking at the website! also women's conference was sooo good! i hope all of you got the chance to watch it:) our ward did an ice cream social beforehand at 7 and then at 8 we watched the broadcast. we had a potential investigator with us and she even brought her daughter and granddaughter, who are both young womens age. they really liked it! she even teared up a few times:) and the other sisters in our ward also had an investigator with them, she is getting baptized on the 13th as well! speaking of that, our investigator that is getting baptized is doing awesome! she came to church on sunday, which was fast and testimony meeting. and she kept hearing people talk about temples so she asked us about them! and we told her what we do in temples, and she started like straight out bawling and said "so my dad could get baptized?". apparently her dad passed away when she was 15 and she was very close to him. she said that since she has been meeting with us, sometimes she sees his face different places. i definitely think he has been helping her along in her conversion:) it was so cool! also, at church we brought this cute ten year old girl, named zikeria:) she is adorable.

 

let me tell you how we met zikeria... we were going to visit a  less active (i mean returning member, thats what we are supposed to call them :)) but they weren't home. so we decided to go walk around the complex and see if we could find anyone to contact! she was over playing with two of her friends and we went over and asked them if they knew anyone that would want us to pray with them. she got all excited and raised her hand, "i do! you can pray with me!" so we did:) and then we asked her if she knew anyone else that would like a prayer and she said her friend would! so she marched over to her friends house, and we followed behind her, she knocked on the door, and then said "we want to pray with you!" so we prayed with them too! then she took us to her house to pray with her mom, but her mom wasnt feeling well so we didnt pray with her. but we asked zikeria if we could come back and teach her more! and she was way excited! the next day we came back with a member and her daughter and taught her the restoration and she understood it so well! she even read through the pamphlet we had given her the day before, and she was practically teaching us stuff! the next day, we went back to teach her again, and this time she brought her 13 year old sister to listen to! it was so awesome! then zikeria came to church, and loved primary:) she even came later to the baptism preview and asked us when she could get baptized!! we still have a ways to go with her and her family but it was absolutely aweseom! 

another super awesome experience, but it requires a little background. so one of our main contacting techniques when we are stopping people on the street is to give them amormon.org card and just invite them to check out the website (when we meet people on the street, they are often in a hurry to get somewhere else so we keep it quick) and then if they pause, we take out a picture of christ and ask them who they see, and what he means to them, etc and get a discussion going. then we ask them if we can come to their home and teach them more about christ and his church. lately though we have been really chicken... like really chicken and we stop after the "check out this website" and we leave... NOT EFFECTIVE! and because of that, our teaching pool has gone way down. because no one ever checks out the website, and no one ever calls our number on the back of the card. no one except, wilfred :) miracle of miracles, yesterday we get a call while we are at church and he leaves a message saying that we had given him a card and he checked out the website and that he feels like there is something to what our church teaches and he has some questions and and he just feels miserable and feels like we can help and would love to meet with us and learn more.... umm what? is this real life? guys, that doesnt happen!! it doesnt happen. long story short, we call him back and we have an appointment with him tonight! what?

 

 anyways i have been thinking a lot about this, why would we be so blessed?! we werent doing our part, we werent doing everything we could... why did that happen? and it hit me, this is Gods work, and he will get it done with or without us. he doesnt need us... does that make sense? we need to be missionaries more than god needs us to be missionaries. and he takes our best efforts, whatever that be at the time and he makes it enough! even when our effort is minimal, if its all we have right then, he will make it enough. its like the story with the brother of jared... he says "Lord, its dark. we need something to light our barges." "well what do you suggest?" "Umm... well i could molten some rocks?" "Rocks?" "well yeah and then you can touch them and make them light up!!" "really? thats all you've got for me?" "yeah..." "well... okay then!" and then they had glowing rocks!! the lord made it enough:) the brother of jared put in the effort and excersized his faith, and even though all he had were rocks, the lord made them work! sometimes, all we have to give are a bunch of rocks... but if thats truly all we have, the lord with fill in the rest. and then the next time, hopefully, we can bring something a little better than rocks and keep improving:)

 

this week truly has been great! and i am learning so much! thank you all for the love and support i get from you:) i love you!!

 

Love always and forever, Sister Rowland

Love this girl !!

Hey family:)

this week seriously flew by! i swear i just emailed you yesterday... i feel like i'm in some sort of time warp where days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days, and the weeks are slowly speeding up! its crazy. its been sooo hot here, i honestly dont know how i'm going to survive the summer. its barely spring and i'm miserable! and its not even humid yet... oh boy:) 

we have had some awesome successes this week though. friday, in particular, was a great day! we taught this one guy, and the whole time he was "wow this is true", wow this makes so much more sense" etc etc. he told us that if it weren't for his wife being so anti, he would convert right there! so we are working on his wife:) he knows that its true and he wants to be baptized but he doesnt want it to cause a fight with his wife, which is understandable. so all of y'all should pray that her heart be softened! we also taught this sweet hispanic lady, she is seriously precious to me. we met her in her front yard, we were actually there to talk to her neighbor, who is a less active but they werent home. so we went over and asked if we could pray with her. i said the prayer and by the end she was in tears! so we came back a few days later and she told us that she was able to get a job, and she has been trying to get a job forever:) she told me that when she started her first day, my face came to her mind and she remembered the prayer i said and she knew that god had helped her to get a job. she has 5 kids, ranging from age 21 to 2, and she loves her family so much. they aren't all living together, and that is her biggest wish, is just for her family to be together... so we taught her the plan of salvation :) we invited her to be baptized and she said yes, and her whole family too! she is so sweet! we also met her brother, who she is living with and he told us that he is still looking for his faith, and asked if we could come and talk to him sometime (umm yes!! every missionaries dream, right?) later that same day, we met with this younger guy who we have taught a few lessons to, but he has been avoiding us for like a week. so we finally caught him, basically forced him, his brother and his brothers wife to sit down and listen to us (hehe) and by the end, HE was the one who asked when WE could come back! he was ready to drop us! but heavenly father softened his heart, gave us the right words to say, and sent his spirit to testify:) they still aren't ready for baptism, but they are at least progressing! it was seriously an awesome day!

then, because there must be opposition in all things, saturday we spent all day out in the hot sun trying to find people to talk to because all of our appointments fell through:) it was an adventure, for sure! did i tell you about the lady who is getting baptized, but is moving so she will be baptized in her new ward? well my companion and i got permission from the mission president to go to her baptism!!! i'm so excited, i'm so scared too though because it almost seems to good to be true! i almost feel like something bad is going to happen and it will fall through. but honestly she is awesome, she has so much faith! i think the adversary is just trying to put doubt in our hearts. thats april 13th though and we are sooo excited!! 

i'm glad to hear that everything is going good back home! i love getting letters and emails from everyone:) keep em comin!! please:) 

one thing that i've learned a lot about this week is humility:) it was the focus at our district meeting this week, and i had the sneaking suspicion that it was meant specifically for me! the main thing that i learned, is that God's way is better than ours. he knows better! he knows what other people need, and he knows what we need. I was reading a talk called The Challenge to Become. And it talked about how our church, unlike other worldly institutions, is not focused on learning and gaining a knowledge of things. it challenges us to become something or someone. simply having a testimony, knowing it is true, is not enough. we have to act on that, and through our actions our nature will change. we will become the person heavenly father knows we can be. and i promise that that person is better than anyone we could make of ourselves. and that comes from being humble and submissive! by taking the rules that heavenly father gives and living them faithfully, by accepting challenges and pressing through, by loving and serving God and others, we can become LIKE HIM. do we realize how incredible that is? i know that i dont always, and sometimes i like to think that i know better. i have a picture of who i want to become in my head and thats a good way to do things, a good thing to work towards. but Heavenly father also has a picture in his mind of who we can become, and by submitting our will to his, we can become that person:) and thats the best way, thats the smart way. thats the main thing that i have learned this week:) well i love you all so much! you are always in my heart and in my prayers! have an incredibly super fantastic week! 

love always, sister rowland 

Today's email

Hey Family:) 

How is everything going! This week has gone by sooo fast! On Wednesday I will have been out on my mission for a month... crazy right? Its so good to hear from everyone and I'm glad that everyone is doing well:) Keep writing, please! I love getting letters and our mission president just announced today that we are allowed to read emails any day now, not just p-days so if you feel like sending me something on other days please do! I won't be able to email back until monday, but I will read them. Rules in our mission are pretty strict, mostly because the last mission president was really lax about everything so there were alot of obedience issues. But as president has seen improvement in obedience we have been getting a lot more priveleges (how the heck do you spell that??) So it's good! We aren't allowed to listen to music at all so you can just give that mp3 to ethan or someone! 

We had interviews with our mission president this week, which was weird because I just had an interview with him last week:) but it was good! he was very encouraging. He made sure that I knew that if i gained only 1 pound every month on my mission, I would go home 18 pounds fatter:p and he said the only way he would send me home 18 pounds fatter is if a grew a foot too! he puts a huge emphasis on working out hard for a full 30 minutes and eating healthy. Which is good:) he also told me that I was doing well and that i just needed to keep doing what I was doing! 

So to answer some of y'alls questions: My companion is super nice, i love her! We are a full bike area, but we have a car for emergencies and church since the church is super far (its technically not even in our area). There are two other sisters in our ward and we see them quite a few times a week. We do Tuesday night splits with the ward members and see them there, plus weekly planning is done at the church, plus district meetings, plus church:) so we see them alot! they are both from salt lake! one from murray and the other from holladay. They are a year older than me, and they are super sweet as well. the weather is great! so far the humidity hasnt been that bad, but it is getting progressively worse. and i'm plenty sunburned (even though i have been diligent in my application of sunscreen!). Its supposedly going to start getting pretty miserable pretty soon though:) today its raining! but its like 74 degrees :p be jealous! And I think most missions now a days dont knock doors. its just not effective anymore. People usually aren't too happy about unannounced visitors. So we don't knock doors unless people on the street dont give us and exact address, then we have to knock a few doors to find them. ( i'm sure they thought they were getting away with something, but we will find them :p) 

We got 12 lessons this week! we almost double last week:) so we are going for the 20 lessons this week! the ward still hasnt been super helpful, they are pretty tired of missionary work. (dont be those kind of people! we, missionaries, desperately need members help!) so all those 12 lessons are people that we have found on the street. We have one member referral that we are going to see tomorrow:) hopefully that goes well!

Let's see, oh super awesome story! So our lovely drunk investigator once again showed up drunk, but he brought a friend! This friend was baptized like 6 years ago, but moved here to Florida 4 years ago and didn't know where the church was or who to ask to find out! It's super cool that we found him and we know that it was completely Heavenly Fathers doing:) this man was almost lost! but he was found and brought back to church by a drunk man... God sure does work in mysterious ways:p That was way cool! We also have two investigators with baptismal dates set! One is moving out of our ward, but we will finish the lessons with her and then pass her off to the new wards missionaries (who, by some other miracle, is the sister who was in this area before me and actually was the one who contacted this lady in the first place!) This transition could have been super hard, but Heavenly Father has it all planned out. He knows what he is doing! We also are going to be able to do a 5K on the 29! Our mission president really wants us to get out there. Its crazy how many people have never heard of mormons at all before! So we are supposed to go to as many activities with the members as we can (sports games, 5K, birthday parties, mom groups, dance recitals, choir performances, etc.) How fun is that? Its a different kind of missionary work down here, and at first i really didn't like it, because it didnt feel like missionary work :) but I'm starting to see that this is how we are going to have to do it if we want any kind of success. 

My testimony of how aware of us our Heavenly Father is has grown immensely. He totally knows us, our hardships, our talents, our limitation, everything. He really is taking care of us. The other day I was honestly just having a hard time. (We were on bikes and i was praying to crash so that i could break my leg and go home, thats how bad it was :p) I was feeling super homesick. And I went to bed that night, and just kind of curled up, and immediately I just felt like someone put their arms around me. It was so real feeling! And i just felt the words "I will take care of you, everything is okay." I'm telling you guys, it was so incredible! I honestly felt like I had fallen asleep in someones arms, it felt so real. I know that He does take care of us, no matter what we are going through, big or small, He is right there. I'm reminded of the story of the Refiner.A refiner has to hold the metal in the hottest part of the fire in order to get rid of the impurities. He has to hold it  in just the right amount of time though, so he sits and he watches it, and he doesnt take his eyes off of it even for a second. and he knows just when to take it out, he knows just when its ready. Sometimes we are being held right in the hottest part of the fire, but its only to make us the best we can be, and He never takes His eyes off of us.  

I love you all so much!! And I hope you have the most incredible week:) 

Love always and forever, Sister Rowland 

Note from Mom:

I'm extremely glad she didn't break her leg ;)

Our first Email :)

Hey family!!

Thanks everyone for the emails.I dont have enough time to write each of you back individually but i promise i read them and loved them! and i love hearing what is going on with everyone. still havent heard from preston though... you stinker! or ethan! i guess JC is my only brother that loves me.... :)

 

Well wow... where to begin? So ya'll saw pictures! I am in florida! It was so crazy running into steve at the airport. I saw him right as i was boarding, it was super sureal to see someone that i actually knew, it took me a second to remember how i knew him! but it was great to talk to him and i was glad he was able to tell you guys because i knew i wasnt going to be able to talk for awhile. Did you get the letter i wrote the first night here? it was kind of quick and that night was super stressful so i dont remember what i wrote. But so the next day we had meeting after meeting and then we got assigned to our companions and our areas. my companion is sister chadwick, she is 22 years old from idaho (my second companion from idaho, i must just be way compatible with idahoians :p) she has only been out for 3 months!! so basically she finished her training and now she is training me. she is a super great missionary though and we are working really hard to make some changes in this area. which brings me to my area... i am in the tampa 4th ward!! so i'm in tampa but its like a subcity of it called town and country. It actually super ghetto... like mostly trailor parks and apartment buildings. except for a small section of houses comparable to amy nash's neighborhood. so our ward is pretty diverse. i like it though because honestly poor people are more humble, and they realize that they need christ. alot of people will listen to us, just because they love jesus christ, even if they dont want to be a part of our church they commend us for what we do! its really great:) its crazy how poor people here are though. ive never seen so many homeless people in my life, and even the people with homes dont have much. there's not povertly like this in salt lake really. it makes me really sad, but it motivates me more to share our message of hope with anyone who will listen!

 

wednesday was our only real day in our area and it was mostly a day of trying to find people. we didnt have any progressing investigators when i came out, now we have two... lets hope they keep progressing! then the next day they sent us to downtown tampa to do a training. they basically just let us loose and we have to pass out as many pass along cards as we can. people in downtown are too busy to really listen to the message, so missioanry work there is basically just planting seeds. we were on the bus most of the time so we were able to teach a few lessons. you meet so many interesting people!! and its surprising how nice and friendly people can be... and also how rude:) it was really different though. on thursday night we went to a hockey game and stood outside passing out cards. i honestly hated it and i pray i dont get called to that area:) but i learned alot!

 

Then we got back to our area and got back to work. oh i forgot to mention, my first night here we went out contacting ( we arent allowed to knock doors so we just go walk and find peole on the street), and we met this lady named april. she was super interested in our message and we had an appoinment with her saturday and sunday! she is honestly golden, she has been through so much and she came to tampa searching for god. she talks to him, she has a testimony of everything we teach, she loves the book of mormon and the way she feels reading it. we invited her to be baptized and she said she has to think about it, she just really wants to make sure she is committed to this, because she is the kind of person that wont back out of promises. I love her so much! and she really was prepared to meet us. we also taught an... interesting lesson to this man that my companion and her previous companion had found. we met him and the library and he was sooooooo drunk! it was honestly the funniest thing ever. so instead of teaching him the plan of salvation like we had intended, we taught him the word of wisdom :p he spit out his tobacco right there! which was great! but discusting... he has a baptismal date set so we are really working on helping him be ready for it! and word of wisdom is really the only issue.

 

our ward is really great! there are some people who are super involved in the work but there are alot who i think are tired of being told to be involved. they have kind of lost interest i guess. so we have our work cut out for us so we can get them excited about this again! we also have alot of less actives that we have been working with. this area has a ton of potential and we are really trying to figure out where to invest our time and efforts that will bring the most return in the long run (if that makes sense). our mission has been given a goal to be teaching 20 lessons a week per companionship. and honestly we just arent there right now. we are being left to find people, and its just not as effective as it would be if the members were really involved in getting there friends and family to meet with us. this past week we only taught 7 lessons. mind you, we were out of our area for two and a half days. but its still not where it needs to be. i think we are almost there though:) the ward just needs a little push. they need to see that missionary work is fun, but not only that, its important.

 

umm... i cant really think of anything else to say. oh mom, that picture works fine:) and can you send me a twin size blanket for my bed? it doesnt ahve to be super thick, but i just need like a quilt or something out of the closet. that would be super great!! i miss you guys so much but honestly i love it here. i really want to be here, and i think that surprised me. i expected to get out here and want to go home, but i dont! i want to be here:) heavenly father is really helping me to be the person i need to to be an effective missionary. i used to be so shy! and i used to get major anxiety over anything new or any change of plans, but now i'm not shy! i can talk to anyone:) and plans change all the time, and things come up that werent expected and i can just go with it. i dont feel stressed or nervous or worried. and that was about all i ever used to feel. heavenly father truly does make weak things strong. i'm so glad you guys are reading scriptures!! keep doing it:) it will truly bless us as a family. the closer we get to god the closer we will get to each other as well. i love you all sooooo much!! i'm glad to be able to call you my family:) also, with the blanket could you send some pictures that i can put up in our apartment and show people when we visit. just some family pictures. also, dad, that other email never got to me. just so that you know:) well i have to go! i love you! thanks for everything that you do for me:)

 

love forever and always, sister rowland:)

And her address is:

6706 Camden Bay Dr. #103

Tampa, Florida 33635

Pictures from Florida :)

This post is mainly for those who are not on Facebook and wanted to see the pictures.  Kaitlin arrived in Florida on Monday and was given her companion assignment on Tuesday.  These are the pictures that were uploaded by the Mission President's wife and the mission Secretary...

Can't wait to hear what she has to say about all of this!!!

Florida Bound

We got to talk to Kaitlin this morning at 3:45 AM!!!  Her flight left at 6:30 with a layover in Atlanta, GA.  She was scheduled to arrive in Tampa at 3:30 pm ET.

We got to talk for about 25 minutes.  All of the kids got up so that they could talk to her.  Preston told her she'd been gone long enough and could come home now.  He even offered to drive to the airport and pick her up.  She sounded very happy and upbeat.  There were 15 missionaries going to her mission today.  

The funnest part was a phone call I got later this morning from a good friend.  Her husband was traveling to Georgia today for work and was on Kaitlin's flight!!!  

He said she looked great and was really happy!  

I had had a feeling all morning that someone we knew would be on her flight!  I have no idea where it came from.  I didn't even know that anyone I knew was planning to fly today!  But there it was! Tender mercies from our Father in Heaven!

She was scheduled to have training this afternoon, dinner with President and Sister Cusick, and then a night in a hotel.  They plan to send her to her first area tomorrow. We expect to hear from her next Monday!

Last Saturday, everyone received letters from Kaitlin.  She said she "absolutely loved" the MTC experience.  She and her companion, Sister Waters, got along great!  She said to us," It's incredible to me how much God truly qualifies us for the things He asks us to do.  Me, as I was a week ago, wouldn't have lasted this long.  But Heavenly Father has 'strengthened my back.'  I love it here and I'm so happy :)  I can't wait to get out into the field!"

We are so excited to see her growth already! We can't wait to hear from her again!  She amazes us!