A Standard of Liberty

Hey Family!

I just have to start out by saying that Heavenly Father is so good. And when He promises blessings, He will never leave you hanging. This week was INCREDIBLE with a capital INCREDIBLE. But first, it was really really hard.

We started the week out and it was pretty much your average week in Sebring, a lot of a-whole-lot-a-nothing-to-do. We had two old ladies yell at us. No one answered their doors, and if they did they were way to busy for us. It was hot. And I was like "great! Its going to be another one of those weeks!"

We did have one new investigator. Monday night we went over to a members home for dinner and FHE and as soon as she sits down she's like, "I have two neighbors that want to meet with the missionaries." like its no big deal. Its a good thing I hadn't taken a bite yet because I probably would have spit my food across the room. We were trying to play it off all cool like that's something that happens ALL the time. And we gently nudged for more information. She eventually said that after we finish dinner she will take us over to meet them. YAY YAY YAY! We ate fast. So we went over and met with her neighbor, and husband and wife. They were so sweet. And they were totally excited to learn more and be baptized!

That was pretty much the only exciting thing from the beginning of the week. But it didn't last:( Come Thursday we are at the church planning and setting goals for the coming week when we get an email from Sister Coleman and her companion in Tampa 4. If it weren't so sad, this story would be kind of humorous. The email let us know that the investigator spoken of in the above paragraph had called and said that she no longer wanted to take the lessons. And that we shouldn't come by anymore. Why did she call sister Coleman? Because I'm a doe-doe and get all my areas numbers confused and I gave her the phone number from my old area!! But that was pretty devastating. We had just finished making some awesome plans for this investigator in the week to come and we were really excited for her.

That email kind of put a damper on our weekly planning and we were pretty upset. It was like the straw that broke the camels back, you know? We just wanted SOMETHING to work out. We just wanted at least ONE investigator. ONE baptism. ANYTHING! But nothing is working out. And we have been trying everything that we can think of. We were pretty discouraged. So we called our District Leader, who conveniently serves in the same ward as us and only lives five miles away and asked for a priesthood blessing.

People, it was such a neat experience. I know that the words said in that blessing were straight from my Father in Heaven. Because Elder Whaley had NO IDEA what we were going through, he had no idea about the conversation Sister Schaumkel and I had earlier. Yet he said everything that answered every question and concern that I had. And I felt God's love and I knew that everything was going to be okay.

From there things started looking up! We have been working like crazy to come up with fun plans and activities that we can do for the members to invite their friends to. We presented them to our ward mission leader, who then presented them to the bishop.... right in front of the stake president! We got approved for all the activities, the stake president said that the stake would even fund any that we needed help on.

So in the next month or so we will be holding a youth movie night/ fireside, an open house with a complete tour of the church and explanation of all of our groups and auxiliaries, and we will have a booth set up at the county fair!! We are a little bit stoked about all this:) The ward is really excited too!

And all of the sudden all of these people to teach are coming out of nowhere. Literally we went from having no one to teach, and no way to find anyone to teach, to having like ten super awesome prospects. Members are giving us referrals out of nowhere. People that were taught by missionaries in the past are reaching out to us. Everything is just working out. And really good things are happening. That's why the adversary was trying so hard to get us discouraged. He was trying to stop all of the good that is taking place.

Before I wrap up this email, I just wanted to share something that I studied in the Book of Mormon yesterday. It really stuck out to me!

I was reading in Alma 46 about Moroni and the title of liberty. So Amalekiah is a pretty mean guy. And he just won't quit picking on the poor Nephites. He has no good reason for harassing them other than just the fact that he's a meanie head. So he wants to start a war with the Nephites, just for fun. So that he can destroy the church of God, for fun, you know? So Moroni gets word of Amalekiah's plans and he gets mad and has a little bit of a temper tantrum... but this tantrum is very significant.

In verse 12 it says, "And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it-- in memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children-- and he fastened it upon the end of a pole."

He sets it high, and then kneels and prays and asks God to bless and watch over his people.

Verse 19 " And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part, and crying with a loud voice, saying: whosoever will maintain this title upon the land, let them come forth in the strength of the Lord..."

The people's reaction is also very significant.

Verse 21 "and when Moroni had proclaimed these words, the people came RUNNING together with their armor girded about their loins..." (Not only did they come running, but they came PREPARED. They were already in their armor, they were ready to go. They were ready for whenever, wherever, and however their God would call them.)

And they covenanted with God that they would stay faithful to him and his commandments.

After they had made this covenant they "went forth in all the parts of the land and gathered together all the people who were desirous to maintain their liberty."

What does this have to do with us? What would you write on your title of liberty? What would you do to defend those things? Who are you going to recruit in defense of those things?

Verse 36 "And it came to pass also, that he caused the title of liberty to be hoisted upon EVERY tower which was in all the land, which was possessed by the Nephites; and thus Moroni planted the standard of liberty among the Nephites."

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Love always, Sister Rowland

Look at who we found walking on the side of the road:)

Behold, He Changed Their Hearts

Hey Family!

How is everybody? First off, my foot doesn't seem to be fractured! It felt a whole lot better this week. Second, we got our car back! I'm still not convinced that its fixed, but we will see. We were able to drive it out to Tampa without dying! Although we had the elders wait for us so that we could follow them in case something were to happen with the car. There is pretty much just fields and woods between here and Tampa so if we had broken down we would have been in a heap of trouble. So we are like, how about we just follow the elders, then if we break down we hopefully won't get murdered right? Well about ten minutes in to the drive they decide to just take off without us!! We never did catch up with them :( And on the way back they had the nerve to ask us if we wanted to follow them again! Elders! Ugh! But we did make it there and back just fine. And our zone training was incredible! They made a ton of changes!

The main topic of my email today is change. Because we have seen a whole heck of a lot of it over here lately.

First change, they changed the mission boundaries between us and the Fort Lauderdale mission and they swallowed up an entire zone of our mission. We lost 30 of our missionaries! Its so crazy. Some of the missionaries I have served in the same wards with and its so strange to think that now they are in another mission! They have to make a ton of adjustments. They won't have ipads anymore so they have to learn the old fashioned way of doing things. They have to learn the ways of a new mission president. They have to work with new leaders. It was a very hard change for them to make. We were shocked when they announced it.  

Second change, they took away one of our ipads! Turns out there were some problems so now rather than us each having our own ipad each area has an ipad. So when someone is transferred the ipad will be left in the area like a phone or a car. So its basically just an electronic area book now. But from my understanding that is what it was intended to be in the first place.

Third change, me!

To be honest, I went to the zone training with a pretty bad attitude. I was thinking to myself, "I'm already doing everything that I'm supposed to be doing and its not working. What else can they possibly have to tell me?" I was grumpy that day:)

But they told me a lot. Actually, I think the spirit told me a lot. The things they talked about were mostly just changes in the mission. But the spirit took that atmosphere of change and took that opportunity to change me a little bit. I realized that no, I really wasn't doing all that I could. I was still withholding some of my heart and my will from Heavenly Father. I was still being a little bit lazy with things. I was still letting fear overcome faith way too much.

So I left with the desire to change. The next day was an incredible day. I made a special effort to talk to everyone. I was a little more persistent when we went to peoples houses and they really didn't want to hear a message. I was a little more bold with members who really didn't want to give us referrals. I was a little more careful with our time and made sure that we didn't waste any of it. And we were able to teach four lessons that day! Which made for a weekly total of five! It took a little bit of extra effort, and it really wasn't easy. I had to stretch. But then miracles happened! And I felt so much more satisfied and fulfilled going to bed that night.

Its crazy what a little extra effort can do:)

I also made an effort to change my attitude. With a good attitude, its a lot easier to love!

So moral of the story, don't be grumpy like me. Just be happy and let God change you. He really does know best.

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love always, Sister Rowland

Tossed Upon the Waves of the Sea

Hey Family!
So apparently my blood has thinned because I have been freezing the
past few days! And it's been in the 60s... I'm going to struggle next
winter! :) But we have been totally on foot for the past week! Our car
broke:( We are on car share with the elders and they took it in the
week before to get fixed, then exactly a week later it wouldn't start
again. Probably because it's a Ford. :p Our area is super deadly to
bike in so our options are to get rides from the members or walk! And
none of the members want to drive us. So we have been walking
everywhere.... As a result I most likely have another stress
fracture... I didn't go to the doctor or anything to get it checked
out but my ward mission leader is a paramedic and he says that's most
likely what it is. Oh well! We also have to find a way to Tampa this
week... That's a two hour drive. And no one wants to drive us... This
will be exciting!

Our week has again been pretty uneventful. Because of the
transportation situation it's been pretty hard to see investigators.
Let's see... What else has happened this week? We got to sing in
relief society! That was fun! I can't remember what the song is, we
learned it the day before!

Honestly, this week has been pretty discouraging. The adversary knows
how much good we are capable of and he's going down swinging. First
our car stops working and we are like "Ha! You thought you won, but we
still have two feet." Then he was like BAM! Stress fracture! And
Sister Shaumkel twisted her ankle. None of our investigators came to
church. We have a super awesome prepared potential investigator, but
she can't meet with us because 3,480 she only has a week to finish all
of her community service hours or she will be going to jail. Our
awesome ten year old investigators mother is causing issues. Etc etc.
it just seems like everything is raining down on us all at once.
Sister Shaumkel and I have been pretty discouraged. When are the
clouds going to clear?

I was thinking about that and I thought about Ether 6. In Ether 6 it
talks about how the barges are tossed on the sea, they go in and out
of the water, the wind never ceases to blow. But there are two things
that are mentioned that I want to focus in on.

The first being that they were prepared. God had told them everything
that they needed to bring, how to make the barges strong and tight so
that they would be safe crossing the water. We are prepared for
trials. We were prepared even before we were born. We knew that life
was not going to be a cake walk! We prepare throughout our lives. Even
past trials have prepared us for future ones.

The second thing is that the purpose of the wind, the never ceasing,
problem causing wind, was to drive them towards the promised land. I
know that there is purpose for every trial.

It's frustrating when you see other missionaries around you having so
much success, and not seeing anything happen for you. It's frustrating
being exactly obedient, and not seeing the promised miracles. It's
frustrating knowing that there is so much good to be done, but feeling
like you aren't doing any of it.

But if we let ourselves get frustrated, guess who wins? Definitely not
the one we want to win.

So we learn to focus on those things that we can control. We can be
exactly obedient. We can diligently ask talk to every person we see.
We can ask every member for referrals. We can be worthy of the spirit.
We can trust God. Beyond that, the results are out of our control. But
if we focus on those things we can control, we will be happy. We will
grow and change. And we will make it to the promised land.

In Ether 6, when they arrived in the promised land they sang praises
to God and thanked Him. They thanked Him for the relentless tossing in
the sea? They thanked Him for the waves? They thanked Him for the
winds?

Something tells me that they didn't pay too much attention to those things.

I know that trials are hard and life is hard, but so what? This life
isn't everything. In fact, it's hardly anything when you look at the
grand scheme of things. But if we use this life to focus on those
things that our outside of our control, we will be miserable. Let's be
happy! Let's look for the good! So that when we get to our destination
we can sing praises to our God for His Goodness and mercy, and for the
beautifully terrible adventure that this life is.

Love you all! God is good:) So good. And He loves us so much. I know
that He does.

Love always, Sister Rowland

The Light of the World

Hey Folks!!

How are things? I hope you are enjoying the freezing weather:) And I hope you all had a great New Years and set some awesome resolutions :p Things here have been really good! And interesting. We had some awesome adventures this week!

First, I would like to tell you about our super duper awesomely fantastic investigator. She's ten! But you would think she was like thirteen. She is a referral from a twelve year old recent convert. She has a baptism date set for January 31 and she is so excited! We gave her a Book of Mormon this week and she started reading it as soon as we left. When we followed up the next day she said, "That book is awesome!" We asked her if she prayed about it and what her answer was and she told us that she felt a voice in her head telling her that the book was true and that she should keep reading so that she can get to know Jesus Christ better. It was so cute! We just love her! Now we just need to get her mom and grandma more involved!

We also have a fourteen year old kid that we are teaching. Also a referral from one of our youth. And he is so prepared! He is a really smart kid, so its fun being able to teach him in more detail and all that stuff. Hopefully we will be setting a baptism date with him this week!

Our youth here are on fire! They are so excited to share the gospel! We think that they really are the key to getting the work moving here in Sebring. Everyone else is pretty stuck in their ways, and honestly have no interest in missionary work. But if we can keep getting the youth inviting their friends, and all of their friends have families so we can take it from there!

Oh big news! Our mission is no longer going to be using Facebook:( We are a little bit bummed, but as our leaders have looked over the numbers for the past year there hasn't been too much success with Facebook, so our time would be better used elsewhere. I agree. It's a good seed planter. But as far as finding progressing investigators that will be baptized on Facebook, it doesn't happen.

There are going to be a lot of changes coming up. We have a lot fewer missionaries in our mission so they are getting rid of a lot of cars. We are praying they don't take ours... But its a possibility. We have also been doing a lot of hard core cleaning of the apartments. We are getting rid of EVERYTHING that we don't need. Sister Shaumkel and I threw away three garbage bags full of clutter items! And we still have two boxes full of other things that we need to get rid of. Use of ipads is becoming more strict. We are just to use them as area books. No pictures, videos, notes etc. In personal study we study Preach my Gospel for 60 minutes. We only go to other books as directed in PMG. So we aren't reading the Book of Mormon front to back, or studying Jesus the Christ or conference talks. It really focuses us in on our missionary purpose, directs us to the scriptures that we need in order to teach, and keeps us from getting caught up in the fluff of the Gospel. We exercise for 45 minutes, keeping our heart-rate at 80% for at least 30 minutes. (That is some intense cardio guys..) We work with members. Tracting is a no-no. Street contacting is a last resort. BUT we have seen some incredible miracles in our mission in 2014, and if we want to be warriors and keep improving we have to work harder.

In 2014 our mission had 553 baptisms. A 32% increase from the year before, and a record high in the history of our mission, by a long shot. That's a miracle! The Tampa Florida Mission pushes us WAY outside our comfort zone and has extremely high standards, and sometimes it feels a little miserable. But things are happening, good is happening. Its like working out. If you stay in your comfort zone, you can maintain your weight. But its just beyond your comfort zone that improvement comes. And as you are working out outside of your comfort zone, you are probably going to hate it. BUT when you look back at all that you have accomplished you'll be so grateful that you pushed yourself.

Some other fun things that we did this week: 

Went to a Catholic mass, and taught the Restoration to a priest-in-training. (He was asking questions, we didn't break any rules:))

Celebrated Three Kings Day, true Puerto Rican-style!.. and a few days early.

Decided to baptize the world.

So I was studying the Gospel today, in Preach my Gospel, of course. But it had sent me to 1 Nephi 11. And I was thinking about the process that Nephi had to go through in order to receive personal revelation. First he had to really want to know, then he believed that he could know, and last but not least he had to sit and think about it for awhile. So today I decided to spend some more time in my studies pondering.

As I was thus pondering, I was thinking about a picture that I had seen the night before in a Deseret Book catalog of Christ holding a light. So I started thinking about light...

Christ is the LIGHT and the life of the world- 3 Nephi 11

We are the light of the world... - Matthew 5

We are commanded to hold up our light so that the whole world can see.

Light... Then I remembered a talk in sacrament meeting years ago where the speaker shared a quote about how darkness is just the absence of light. And in the same way, evil is just the absence of good.

So then I started thinking about the good that we are able to do. A lot of the time, the good that we can do seems so small compared to what needs to be done. We talk to people all the time who are so concerned with all the evil in the world. So many people are absolutely convinced that there is more evil in the world than good...

Well I don't necessarily believe that's the case, but if it is. What can we do about it?

Well if evil is only the absence of good, wouldn't it make sense that every little bit of good we add to the world subtracts a little bit of bad?

Every bit of good we do takes away from the overall bad in the world, automatically.

Think of a candle. That flame is pretty tiny, yet its influence can light a whole room. And as its light fills the room, out goes all of the darkness!

What good can you do this week? Ponder on it :p

Love you all! Have an amazing week!

Sister Rowland :)