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 ;)
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