Sister Rowland's District 

Weekly update: BOM Style :)

So i've been reading in the book of mormon, and i like the way they write letters... so here's my weekly update, Book of Mormon style:)

 

Behold, I direct mine epistle to my family, in the city of salt lake, utah. (and anywhere else you may be reading this from)

 

And now, my beloved family, i would like to tell you somewhat concerning the affairs that have been here, in the city of Tampa. Behold, my soul is filled with joy at the work of my brethren and sisters. For we have labored diligently in bringing forth the word of Christ and declaring repentance unto this people. we have been bold in declaring the word of god unto this people, even unto the baptizing of many souls. On the coming sabbath, a stripling warrior by the name of Jonathan will enter into the covenant of baptism and take upon him the name of christ. He is only fifteen years of age and he has sought valiently for the truth, even unto much studying and googling. While thus studying, he came to know for himself that this is the church of christ. He gained much knowledge, so much so that the lessons we teach him are merely a review. He has many questions and a strong desire to follow christ. Remember, remember, my family to pray for him continually that he may be able to withstand the temptations of the adversary:)

 

and behold we have seen much heat and sweating in our journeyings, nevertheless we have found many souls who have been prepared to accept our message.

 

In the week past, we met and conversed with the chief captain, President Cusick. Therefore he counseled much concerning our sugar intake. He warned us against getting too fat, and told us that we must exercise longer in the mornings if we are to eat cookies and ice cream. Behold, this is his counsel to many and all who will hearken unto the sound of his voice, for his concern is great regarding our physical condition. behold he said many things more which can not be written at this time. but it sufficeth me to say that he has a great love for his people, and there is much that can be learned from his example which he hath set forth. (sidenote: when we were in the zone conference a few weeks ago, elder clark told us that often when they are making missionary assignments they send someone to a certain place because of the mission president and not necessarily the area. i feel like thats the case for me! hes exactly the kind of mission president i need!)

 

There is not much more that i can write to you at this time, for behold this week has been kind of uneventful. Nevertheless it hath been a tiring week, and my heart is full of gratitude for the chance i have to nap today:) Behold my heart is full of much joy despite the afflictions we have seen, and i know that i am doing the work that i have been called to do. Transfer calls are this coming saturday, and the outcome of that day is unknown to us but we fear that there may be many changes that will take place. I will tell thee of these changes in mine next epistle.

 

Behold, I am sister Rowland, and i have been called to bring forth this work unto the people of tampa and have sought to labor diligently among them. I have found much fulfillment in this, and i would exhort thee that thou wouldst take upon thee the challenge to declare this message unto those who are near thee. For behold it will greatly bless their lives and bring to pass much happiness and joy to both them and to thee.

 

Now i close my epistle. I am sister rowland, missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

(that was fun!!)

Happy Birthday Carter!

We received this in a text on Saturday! 

4 Months!!

Hey family!

Wow have i really been out four months? it kind of blows my mind... but in a good way:) This will probably be a pretty short email because this was a pretty slow week:)

We had just about EVERY lesson fall through this week so we did a whole heck of a lot of walking and sweating:) we decided that either heavenly father has someone really special in store that he wants us to find and we havent found them yet, or hes just keeping us humble:) maybe a little bit of both! But even though its been slow, it has been a really good week. even though we only taught five lessons this whole week, we went home feeling fulfilled! being fulfilled is a good feeling and its one that i wish i had worked harder to feel before my mission. but because we have been showing our faith by walking and walking and walking... and a little bit of knocking, heavenly father lets us know hes proud and he appreciates the effort! the other sisters serving in our ward made up a little jingle about our experince (i wish i could sing it for you) but it goes like this: "everything be falling through, fallin through.. we be knocking doors, DOORS! they're empty houses!" its pretty fun and its been our theme song this week:)

we did have some fun things this week though! on saturday we went to a luau that our complex put on and it was SO effective! We did the cupid shuffle and afterwards everyone was coming up to us and asking who we were! and then we got attention because we were walking around drinking capri suns while everyone else had beers and margaritas:) we didnt even think about it! but we stood out:) who knew that we could be an example of the believers by drinking capri suns!

oh and we have this one investigator who is totally awesome! he is fifteen years old and he was watching the south park that talks about mormons and he got curious so he looked us up! and then he requested a book of mormon so we took one over to him and he told us he really likes our church! and he came on sunday and loved it! his mom isnt too interested but she totally and completely supports him in whatever he wants to do! So thats fun:) we have a few other investigators that could be really solid we have just been having trouble seeing them, so hopefully that will turn around a little this week!

so i just wanted to share some of the changes that have been taking place in our mission and many others, because these things are such a testimony that this work is really hastening! So first of all we have been told to introduce ourselves and missionaries whose purpose is to help people prepare to be baptized.. like on the street, right when we meet them, that is the first thing that comes out of our mouths! second, we have been instructed not to set baptism dates more than two months out. so if they cant be prepared for baptism in within 2 months, we have to stop meeting with them. (the ogden utah mission has said within 3 weeks). And if we are teaching people and they arent progressing, meaning they arent keeping commitments, we have to stop meeting with them. If members arent keeping commitments, we have to stop going over there. If less actives arent keeping commitments, we have to stop meeting with them. It seems harsh, but its an exercise of our faith. if they arent progressing, they arent prepared, and we need to be spending our time out finding those who are prepared! and if these are what we have been asked to do, it must mean that there ARE people who are so prepared that they can be baptized in a month! We have to keep our lessons under 30 minutes and we should wherever possible meet with people 3 times a week. people, this is urgent! This work is speeding up and taking off, are you on board? This is such an exciting time:)

well i love you all so much! and hope you have an awesome week:)

love always, sister rowland

WHAT A WEEK!! :):)

We both got packages on the same day!!

Hey family:)

I've been super excited all morning to be able to email! this week has been so amazing! seriously, the best week of my mission so far:) Its hotter 'n hades, but who cares! On tuesday, last week, we had a zone conference training thing and it changed my life! Elder Clark of the seventy came and did the training and it was so awesome! We learned so much, and we went home and cleaned up our act and the miracles have been pouring out ever since!

First change we made: we cut out dinner and lunch. We grab and go, and pack a dinner (so pretty much we have sandwiches for dinner every day.. but its still good!). That adds almost two hours to our proselyting time. and now we are making an effort to be "9:30 Missionaries". We have to be in at 9 every night unless we are teaching a lesson, so we have been making an effort to have a lesson at nine every night! so that adds another half hour. You think we'd be left with a bunch of free time, right? NO! because Heavenly Father blesses us when we try. and we have been so busy the last few days that we dont even have time to ride our bikes! we have had to take the car every day so that we can see everyone that we need to!

Second change: we changed our perspective. We decided to have faith and believe that Heavenly Father really is preparing people. I came into this area and saw that there hadn't been a baptism in months. Tampa is supposedly the hardest area in the mission, and gets the fewest baptism. When they told me that, I believed them! and what a mistake that was! Because once i accepted that, it became truth. Because i settled, I wasnt excercizing my faith! so we decided that tampa is now the easiest area in the mission, and will soon have the most baptisms. And we currently have six investigators with a baptism date set, and hopefully, eight more by the end of this week! So the mission average for baptism per missionary per year is 2.2... and its been that way for over 20 years!! why? because we just accept that! and if we get three baptisms, we see ourselves as over achievers and quit trying! we are SO living below our potential!

Third change: we decided to rely more on Heavenly Father to lead us. If ever we have a spare minute, we stop and pray and ask where he would have us go, and EVERY TIME we have found someone who is super prepared! We got 8 new investigators this week! and met plenty more people that we get to go follow up with this week.

Fourth change: we have been asking everyone for referrals! For every person that we forget to ask, we have to do five pushups at the end of the night! My arms are pretty sore... but now, everytime i wave goodbye to someone my sore muscles remind me to ask for referrals so it works! :) and we have been getting referrals left and right! sometimes from other people that we havent even asked yet!

and there are plenty more changes and the miracles are showering!

Elder Clark also said something that changed me, he asked everyone to stand up who has someone in their family who is inactive or is not a member. EVERY missionary in the room stood up. He then went around the room and asked everyone (over 200 missionaries) who it was and what they would do to have them accept the gospel. And we all agreed that we would do anything to have our family members accept it. Why? Because we want them to be with us in Heaven. Then he said "Every person that you pass on the street is someones brother/sister/father/mother/etc. What will you do for them?" Tears broke out around the room! i realized how selfish it is of me to walk past someone on the street because I'm afraid or it feels like an awkward situation. What if that was my family member? Wouldnt i want someone to say something! wouldnt i want someone to at least try! of course i would, and i hope and pray every day that someone IS trying to help my family to become part of our eternal family! So now, I try to never walk past anyone without invited them to do something.

You guys, Heavenly Father truly has come through for us this week and my heart is just overflowing with joy! I feel like Ammon! "There never were [sisters] that had so great reason to rejoice as we... and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God...now if this is boasting, even so will a boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation... blessed be the name of my God!"

I love you all so much:) and i hope you have an incredible week!!

Love always and forever, Sister Rowland

Email Monday!!!!!

Hey Family!

This week has been a weird week! Really slow, but it still felt good:) it is getting miserably hot though... you pretty much just accept the fact that you are going to wet. And we havent had a lot of lessons to teach so we have been out in the sun trying to find people ALOT! We know that there are people out there that are prepared to hear the gospel, but they are smarter than us and stay out of the sun:) so we have done a lot of walking with not a lot of success:)

 

Our investigators were confirmed on sunday! it was so neat:) She says that even though shes sick and in pain because of the baby, she feels cheery:) Its cool how the gospel just makes us happy despite the hard things in life! Its like the wise man and the foolish man. It rained on both, the only difference was that the wise man had built on a good foundation so the rain didnt bother him!  They are incredible missionaries though already! They have gotten their family to stop swearing, stop smoking, and come to church! His brother wants to be baptized! but he hasnt showed up to any of the appointments we set.. so.. kind of a problem. But his mom loves church! she says that she just felt good there:)

 

One fun thing that we have been doing is church tours! we do them every week. it gives the members the opportunity to invite their friends to come and see what we do and to feel the spirit of the building. It really has been a special experience for those who have come:)

 

This week really was pretty uneventful... oh! there was one day that we went over to a former investigators house to see if she was interested in meeting with missionaries again and she said she was. but then we asked if we could pray with her before we left a look of terror came over her and she was like,"please, no!" it was the strangest thing... we were like... uh okay? People are crazy, i'm telling you!

 

Things are slow, but I'm still happy and loving every minute of it:) i'm convinced that there are incredible miracles on the horizon, we just havent quite found how to access them yet but we are working on it! :) well sorry this update is so short, i dont have much else to say!

 

I have been studying a lot about how the savior taught and ways that i could exemplify that in my teaching. And the two things that have stood out most to me are his love for those he is teaching, and the fact that everything he teaches is focused on the eternal perspective. Most blessings that we are promised really arent for here on earth. But when people keep the eternal perspective, they have a reason to change their lives and live the commandments. We saw this with our investigators that were just baptized. She really didnt want to give up her coffee, but the bishop sat her down and explained that its not about the coffee. ITs a principle of obedience, and when we are obedient we are promised eternal life withour families. When we think of it that way, giving up coffee isnt that big of a deal. This earth truly is just to prepare us:) the hard things here dont matter. we do what we can and all will be made right in the next life:)

 

I love you guys so much! have a great week!

 

Love, Sister Rowland

Quick update :)

Hey Family!

 

Quick update for the week... Today has been so crazy so i dont have very much time! So some fun and exciting news: the sisters in our mission are now allowed to wear sandals!!! i'm super stoked:) my companion and i went and bought some today! The weather is insane here. It is super hot and humid all day, then in the evening its lightening and thunder, then hot again. every day, just like clockwork! it makes things pretty exciting.

 

We had the baptism yesterday! J. and Y. were baptized and it was such a neat experience. They are seriously the greatest people ever, and its been so fun to watch them make these changes in their life for their family. They are having a baby pretty soon, like probably next week and they really want this for their family. He is 19 and she just turned 21, and it amazes me how mature they are in the decisions they are making. They are so willing to change their lives because they want an eternal family:) and they are setting an example for their parents and their brothers and sisters. His brother even paid tithing this week even though he doesnt come to church, and hasnt met with us in months!! it was pretty awesome:) it was funny, when we told J.  that we couldn't hold babies he liked freaked out and was like, "isnt there a waiver i can sign or something!!". It pretty much made our day:)

 

We have been finding a lot of new investigators and i think its because of our new approach. Our mission president has told us to talk about baptism early and often. So when we meet people on the street we pull out a picture of christ being baptized and ask them if they want to be baptized (like christ was, or to have their sins washed away, or to be with their family for eternity; depending on the person) then we testify of the restoration and the power that is on the earth to do that and ask them if they want to learn more. believe it or not, it works!! its super scary, but its really fun:) and it lets them know our purpose early and they are preparing for baptism from the beginning. Another fun thing we have been doing is weekly church tours, and we are going to start knocking doors around the neighborhoods close to the church and handing out flyers. There are alot of changes being made in how we do this work but they are all exciting and inspired!

 

OH and we are teaching a cute family! but... they only speak spanish:) so thats exciting! we have a member that speaks spanish come with us. but they need to hear the gospel, and i know we met them for a reason!

 

Well i better get going! but i love you all so much! have an amazing week!!

 

love always, sister rowland