Until After the Trial of Your Faith

Holy Bananas!! 

This week has been absolutely incredible. We have seen so many ginormous miracles!!

I'm gonna skip the small talk and get right to it :)

So the story begins Monday right after we finished emails. We were at Walmart getting our shopping done and we got a call from the Elders saying that someone had called the church about one of our former investigators and that he was in the hospital and wanted us to come visit him.

This investigator is 93 years old and we had been working with him awhile back, but he got really sick and we weren't able to see him for awhile. Turns out, in that time we hadn't seen him he had two heart attacks and a stroke!

Monday night we went to the hospital to see him. We walked in and the lady, who we later learned is his... sister-in-law... i think... anyway, she said that we caught him right before they were going to move him to the rehabilitation center on the other side of town. Literally, the people that were supposed to pick him up were supposed to have been there an hour ago. He was so happy to see us! The stroke made it so he couldn't really talk, but he did choke out "glad to see you". So yeah...

Later on in the week, we went to visit him at the rehabilitation center. During our visit, he took my hand in his and with tears in his eyes said, "I want to be a Mormon." Now we had tried and tried to get him to commit to baptism when we were teaching him but he just felt like he was too old. So we were floored! The spirit was so strong!

So now we have this 93 year old man, who can't walk, or talk that wants to be baptized. So there is no possible way to get him to church, but we talked to our mission president and he said that an exception could be made for his circumstances. So we are trying to figure out how to make this happen... but we NEED to make this happen for him. He wants it so bad. We have the entire ward council on board with us, and thankfully half of them are health professionals. Keep him in your prayers!

Second miracle, one of our recent converts has a brother.... That's not the miracle. The miracle was that said brother showed up at church on Sunday and wanted to talk to the bishop. He had some questions for the bishop and apparently bishop answered them to his liking. And he asked bishop how he could become a member of this church. Bishop told him to talk to us!

So last night we dropped by his house, set a date with him for May 2. Told him we wanted to visit him 3 to 4 times a week and he said as much as it takes! He said that he went home from church just feeling on top of the world and he knows this is right for him. Before we left, he asked us if we had anything for him to read that would help him learn about the church better... Umm yes. Yes we do. He is so incredibly prepared.

So now we have three baptism dates set... I have no idea how it happened. They literally fell into our laps. I've been pondering and pondering about why these incredible miracles have been happening...I honestly don't know. BUT ITS INCREDIBLE!

So yeah... that's pretty much been our week.

Ooo I learned some neat stuff in my studies today. Okay, so preface: our District has really been struggling with lessons and baptisms lately. Last district meeting we had a council about why our numbers are so low, and how we can fix it. So thats been on my mind a lot. And I was thinking about the incredible miracles that we have had this week and why they happened, so that we can help the district to see the same miracles.

So this morning I was reading in Ether 12 (one of my favorite chapters!!) And in this chapter Moroni is talking about all of the miracles that take place throughout the Book of Mormon like causing prisons to tumble to the earth, changing peoples hearts, seeing Christ, etc. And I noticed that the common theme to all of these miracles is that they happened "because of" or "after"or "by" someone's faith.

Then in Moroni 7:33 it says "If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."

So miracles come after our faith... I know we have all probably heard that. But it never really sank in for me. I was thinking about how hard my mission has been. How I have been trying to do the right thing and work hard, but haven't seen any fruits right away. And I haven't seen the miracles that it seems like other missionaries are seeing. And I think that Heavenly Father was allowing me to show my faith. Hoping for those promises to come to pass. Trusting that God was guiding me. And doing what was right, even when I didn't see immediate success. THEN the miracles start happening.

It was the same way with Ammon and all those Book of Mormon missionaries. They had to face SO much. They got so depressed. But God told them to just keep going, keep diligently doing the right thing, and He would give them success. And He did.

This gospel is so true, guys. And God is so good.

I love you all so much!!

Love always, Sister Rowland 

Whatsoever Thing Ye Ask in Faith

Sister Yellow & Sister Rowland

Hey Family!

Transfers came and went, and my new companion is Sister Yellow! She is from Utah, in West Valley. She is an incredible missionary and I'm so glad to be able to serve with her. She's been out almost nine months. Every since she got here things have been flying! We have set some pretty hefty goals for this transfer, but we feel so good about them! We have no doubt that this transfer will hold many many miracles!

These past few days, I have just felt so good about things. We have been working extra hard with the members, because obviously that's the only way to do missionary work:) We prayed, and Heavenly Father helped us come up with this Youth Missionary Challenge... did I already tell you about this last week? If so, I apologize, you are going to hear it again. But basically its a list of little things the youth can do that will help them become more missionary minded! And different things are worth different point values. Plus they can earn a few bonus points for various things. We introduced it to the youth and started it yesterday. They were so excited! One of them had already earned like 10 points before the elders had finished explaining it! Our ward mission leaders wife asked us why her son was yelling "hello" and waving to everyone he saw on the way home from church... :p Yeah, that may have been our fault... But we are super stoked! We feel like even if only a few of the youth really latch on, that at least it will help someone to become more missionary minded and be prepared for his or her mission in the future!

The other things we are working on with the members is a 90 day Book of Mormon reading challenge, inviting their friends to all of our ward activities, and sharing the church's new Easter video with someone and then inviting them to hear a message about Christ from the missionaries. (If you haven't heard about it yet, the church is coming out on March 28th with an Easter video clip called "Because He Lives". We got a sneak peak of it, and its incredible! There is so much spirit packed into those 2 1/2 minutes it like punches you in the face! Its great!) Y'all should do the same thing! Pray about someone that you can share the video with, and then ask them if they would let the missionaries come and share a message with them about Jesus Christ! The worst they can say is no, right? :) Let me know how it goes!

As far as our teaching pool, it is growing and it is growing fast! We have a baptism date set for April 18 and we need all of your prayers for this one. She is a nine year old daughter of a less-active member. We will call her J. J just turned 9 today actually! Her mom has been a member her whole life, but really hasn't been to church since she was like 13. J has been wanting to get baptized for almost a year now, but its been hard to keep her mom active enough to allow it to happen. We gave J a children's Book of Mormon and she reads it on her own every day and its so fun to listen to her tell us the stories and what she is learning. She knows that the Gospel makes her happy. And she knows that God loves her. There is so much faith in that 9 year old little package! I wish I could be more like her. But if y'all would pray that we will be able to meet with J enough, and that her mom will be supportive enough that she can be baptized on the 18th, I know that it will happen. Prayers are so powerful. J even shared a story with us about how there were some kids at school that didn't like her. So she went home one day and prayed and asked God to make it so those kids would be nice to her, and when she went to school the next day she was "the most popular kid in class". Out of the mouth of babes, my friends.

That reminds me of a cool concept that I learned in the Book of Mormon this week about how praying in faith works. We learn from Enos that "Whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it." (Enos 1:15)

So why, sometimes, do we pray for things and we really really believe it can happen, but it doesn't? Well, its because we are only focusing on the first half of the verse. There's more to that promise, than just believing. God IS bound when we do what He asks. And we ARE promised in the scriptures that those prayers will be answered. BUT believing that God can do it, is only the first part.

So let's start with talking a little more about faith. The Bible Dictionary says that "Faith is to hope for things which are not seen, but which are true." It also says, that "faith is a principle of action and of power, and by it one can command the elements, heal the sick, and influence any number of circumstances." BUT it also says, "all true faith must be based upon correct knowledge or it cannot produce the desired results."

The verse in Enos mentions one very important element to this, and that is "in the name of Christ".

The Bible Dictionary, under "Prayer", says: "We pray in Christ's name when our mind is the mind of Christ, and our wishes, the wishes of Christ... Many prayers remain unanswered because they are not in Christ's name at all; they in no way represent His mind."

So we must base our prayers of faith on correct knowledge, and more specifically correct knowledge about Christ and His Gospel. And when we do that we can be assured, like the missionary Nephi that "all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will."

Nephi was given power to do pretty much anything. But he earned that power by obedience to the will of God. God knew that he would not ask anything that was contrary to His will. Nephi was EXACTLY OBEDIENT to all of the commandments of God.

I thought that was a pretty incredible concept.

About a week or two ago (and I can share this story now that its long enough past that it won't make Mom panic :p LOVE YOU MOMMY!), I had a pretty crazy allergic reaction to something. I would wake up in the morning and my face would be so swollen and puffy you would think I'd been in a terrible accident! It was gross, guys. Really gross. So for a week, I went through the routine of waking up in the morning with a swollen face, taking Benadryl, which would then knock me out for half an hour to 40 minutes, then get up and get going for the day. I have never been allergic to anything in my life! So I had NO idea what the problem was. I thought maybe I had developed a food allergy, so I pretty much stopped eating everything "just in case". But it didn't make any difference. Finally, one day, I was just fed up with this new routine. So, lying in bed, I said a quick little prayer and asked what was causing the allergic reaction. Immediately I thought of the new face lotion I had bought that Monday. It was the same stuff I've been using, only it was the generic brand of it. So I never would have thought that was the problem. I immediately got up, threw it away, and haven't had a problem since. Heavenly Father really does answer our prayers, big or small :)

We have been praying a whole heck of a lot, and seeking to do God's will, and miracles are happening. Sister Yellow and I both started a "Promptings Journal" and every time we get a prompting to do something, we write it down with a little check box next to it. And as we go throughout the day, we make sure that we are able to check off every little box. And every time we do, something amazing happens! Crazy how much God knows better than us! He is so smart!

We really have been seeing some incredible miracles the past few days. And we can feel Heavenly Father helping us and guiding us. This work is so important, guys. I hope that you all recognize that! And I hope you all know that God loves you very much:) And I love you very much!

Hope you have a glorious week!

Love always, Sister Rowland

GLORIOUS! Goodness!

Hey Family!!

This week was GLORIOUS! Goodness! 

So I'll start at the end of the week with the baptism of our incredible investigator!! The service was scheduled to start at 10 because the youth were leaving for Orlando for a temple trip at 12:30. So we told A to be here at 9:30 so that he could change, take pictures, and walk through how the baptism was going to go. So we got here about 9:25, the ward mission leader was already here, and the man who baptized him showed up a few minutes later. About ten minutes past 9:30 we start to get a little nervous, so we call A just to make sure he is on his way... No answer... Ten more minutes go by. A few of the ward members begin showing up, even his non member sister came! But still no A... THEN the first counselor in the mission presidency and his wife show up!! But there was still no one to baptize... So we call him again. Still no answer. Now its five past 10 and we are panicking big time. Were they in an accident? Did he change his mind? It was super duper stressful! 

All of the sudden the phone starts vibrating in my hand, it was him! "Hello?" "Hey, I saw that you called?" "Yeah, are you on your way?" "We will be soon... the baptism starts at 11, right?" "Umm... no 10..." Silence..."Oh crap, we are on our way!!" 

The adversary is so mean!! Making him forget the time of his baptism! But jokes on him because once he got here the service went incredibly. Everything went smoothly. He bore his testimony at the end and it was so powerful! 

The next day he was confirmed in sacrament meeting and ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. 

Now what are we going to do? Goodness! 

So transfers are here again! I can't believe I have been here for three months! It has definitely flown by! I think it has been my favorite three months of my mission. I love the area, I love my companion, and I feel Heavenly Fathers love every day.

I will live to see another transfer here in Sebring, but Sister Schaumkel will not. :( She has been such a fun companion! We have been through a lot together and I'm grateful for every minute of the craziness that is our life! I am definitely going to miss her. I will be receiving a new companion and from the looks of it, it will either be Sister Yellow or Sister Brown... yeah thats really their names. I know both of them and they are both great! 

Since Sister Schaumkel is leaving, and she has been here for every birthday in my ward mission leaders family except Mattmatts, which is in May, we had a surprise early birthday party for Matt yesterday! We had meatballs and rice and cake and it was so much fun. I love this ward so much. They are all so crazy... like so crazy. But I wouldn't have them any other way! 

So have any of you seen the Mormon Message "Deep Beauty"? If not, I definitely recommend it. Its like my favorite now. It talks about the true beauty that shines from the inside out. It comes from basically striving each day to be more like our Savior. And that kind of beauty is so much better than anything that the world tries to sell to you. 

I was thinking about it, and that concept of deep beauty is what motivated me each and every day to read and pray and strive to improve and live the standards as a teenager. I mean, what teenage girl doesn't want to be beautiful? :) I'm grateful that Heavenly Father taught me about deep beauty at a young age. We have been working really hard to help some of the less-active young women in the ward understand that concept. There are three in particular that are just so good, but they have no support from their families. Someone spoke in general conference once about how if you save a girl you save generations. That is what we are trying to do for these three precious girls. 

I testify that the best "beauty tip" is found in the scriptures: Come unto Christ. 

In the Personal Progress booklet, in the introduction it says:

"Always use you influence to life and bless your family, other young women, and the young men with whom you associate. Honor womanhood, support the priesthood and cherish faithful motherhood and fatherhood."

That's true beauty. 

Just a side-note: we had a combined district meeting this week and the Zone Leaders shared with us something that hit me hard. They said that when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve met to discuss the lowering of the missionary age, the prophet's first concern was what this change would do to temple marriages. Originally, they had just wanted to lower the age for the young men. But they decided that by lowering the age of young women as well, there would be more temple marriages. His first question was not, "What is it going to do to the number of convert baptisms?" It was "What will it do to temple marriages for these missionaries?" It's neat to think how important that is to the prophet. 

They also shared Alma 17:2-3. They pointed out how as these faithful friends and missionaries meet up years later, they don't rejoice because of how many baptisms they had. But they rejoice because they are all "still brethren in the Lord". 

I thought it was interesting... But I agree whole-heartedly. We are doing much more than missionary work here. 

Well I hope you all have an incredible week! I love you dearly! 

Sister Rowland 

 

Of Miracles and Sugar Sand

Hey Family!

Goodness, this week has been insane. It felt like the longest week of my life, but at the same time, it flew by! We have been so busy! Its so glorious!

So an update on our miracle investigator! He is right on track to be baptized on Saturday and he is so excited. As we teach him the commandments, even those that are new to him, he just accepts it. He says, "Well that is God's law so we have to live it." He is so easy. He always asks what we are going to be teaching the next time we come and then studies up on it so that he basically teaches the lesson to us! On Sunday, he came up to us in church with a big grin on his face and said, "There's my two favorite people!" It melted my heart. We feel so blessed to be able to work with this guy. He is so incredible. And he is just the miracle that this ward needs to strengthen their faith.

He is pretty much our only investigator so we spent the majority of our week working with members and helping them be missionaries. I think that the ward is really catching the wave. Things are getting exciting!

On Saturday, we had a hog roast. And we had almost as many nonmembers here as we did members. One of the couples in the ward invited eleven of their neighbors and nine of them came!! It was so exciting! And Saturday just continued to get more and more exciting...

First of all we went to teach this little girl in the ward. Her mom is a member but hasn't been to church pretty much since she was baptized as a teenager. So this little girl is nine, and she really wants to be baptized! Her mom is working on coming back to church and they have been coming quite a bit. We have been trying to teach this girl for months, but her moms schedule is so hectic we haven't been able to. So Saturday, we decided to just stop by and see if we could catch them home. The little girl had spent the day with her grandma, but pulled in shortly after we got there! YES! We were so excited. This little girl has energy like no other, and wanted us to jump on her trampoline with her. So we did! It was probably quite a sight and it sure wasn't easy to jump in a skirt... my skirt was white too, but not for long! So we taught her the first lesson, jumping on her trampoline and it was so much fun! She is such a sweetheart, and understands it so well for only being nine. Hopefully, we will be able to help her be baptized soon!

Saturday's adventures just kept getting better and better... my next story, I hesitate to share. But as a disclaimer, Heavenly Father really does watch over and protect his missionaries:) Curious yet?

Well, Sebring is a pretty redneck place. And a lot of the roads in the neighborhoods aren't paved. There are a lot of wooded areas. So, after we finished our trampoline lesson, we were headed to visit one of the members. So we plugged her address into the GPS and trusted Garmin to get us where we needed to go. Before long, we found ourselves on a pretty rough dirt road. We didn't feel good about it, so we started to look for a good place to turn around but there weren't any! So we just kept going straight and praying hard! Then we hit a two-wheel drive car's worst nightmare... sugar sand. Sugar sand is very very fine, soft sand. And you definitely don't want to drive in it. My skid-car experience in drivers ed came in handy as we fishtailed our way through the sand. The first rule of driving in sugar sand is you can't stop, or else you are stuck. So we just kept going and kept praying. And the sand just kept getting deeper... Pretty soon we bottomed out and were completely stuck. The only thing that kept us from panicking was laughing hysterically at our stupidity and the hopelessness of the situation we were in.

So Sister Schaumkel got out and tried to push as I tried to reverse, but nothing happened.... More hysterical laughter. She tries pushing again and breaks her sandal. Hysterical laughter continues... So i put the car in neutral and go out to help her push. Nothing. So we laughed some more and decided to pray. We prayed and asked Heavenly Father forgiveness for our stupidity, and asked for His help to get us out of this situation. Right as we said amen we saw headlights coming down the trail to our left. Now, we are in the middle of the woods, there are a few houses nearby, but picture it more like our cabin area in Manor Lands. So we wave and get the headlights attention and they make their way over. It was a guy and his wife on a golf-cart. We told him our dilemma and he said, "Don't worry, we will get you out of here." And he headed up the road to get his brother who has a four-wheel drive vehicle.

Long story short, they came and towed our car out of the sand, sent us in the direction of the main road and told us not to worry about it, that thing happens all the time. Last week it was a Semi!

We headed to our meeting with our ward mission leader and the elders, and boy! were we a sight to see! We were a mess. We were covered in dirt from head to toe from our attempts to push the car. Sister Schaumkel was missing a shoe and an earing, my hair looked like a rat was living in it. And we were still laughing hysterically. Not as hysterically as Brother Leicht and the Elders when they saw us walk into the room though... Goodness!

Moral of the story... stay away from sugar sand. Also, Heavenly Father looks out for us and He answers prayers!

But I tell you these things because miracles are happening here on every side! And we are so excited for things to come. Heavenly Father is blessing us so much!

Well, love you!

Sister Rowland 

I Will Give Unto You Success

Holy Bologna! This week was G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S!

So, let's see if I can start from the beginning... This week started out pretty normal, like any other week. We taught a few lessons, tried to teach a few lessons (but the members and the investigator wouldn't stop talking long enough for us to teach lol), and sadly had to drop quite a few investigators who just aren't quite ready yet. That's always sad, but we have to remember that God won't forget about them and when they are ready he will lead the missionaries to them or them to the missionaries. So it will all be okay:)

Then, Thursday, we had our Zone Conference with Elder Zwick of the seventy. It was incredible. I wish I brought my notes with me, so that I could share some of the things that I learned! But, I think, more importantly that what I learned is how I felt. Throughout the meeting, I just knew and felt that I was right where I was supposed to be. I am here in Tampa Florida, serving under President Cusick, right now, for a reason. Some people think we are spoiled little missionaries. We have cars, iPads, washers and dryers in our apartment, even warm showers and AC are things that some missionaries live without. But we aren't spoiled. We are having exactly the experience that our Father in Heaven knows that we need. We have iPads because Heavenly Father needs us to learn how to use them wisely and effectively and kill any bad habits that we may have had before our mission (i.e. wasting time on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram and pornography).

That was the biggest thing I picked up from the training is that our mission is just boot camp for life. We are here to learn how to be disciples and how to serve God our whole life through. Our mission is to build us, so that someday we can be good mothers and fathers and raise up our own Helaman's Army. There is so much more happening here than just find, teach, baptize. That is essential to our purpose and it provides opportunities for us to learn and grow. But God has a grander purpose here. President Cusick, President Monson, and our Heavenly Father have high expectations for us now and throughout our lives and we are learning how to reach those. I look around at all of the faithful missionaries that I serve with and never have I known so many people that were just so good. That had such a strong desire to improve and be like their Savior. Its glorious!

Right after the training on Thursday, we had to rush home to make it to our Open House. And even then, we were late. Sadly the open house was kind of a bust. Over 75 invites were handed out by the members, and only 5 people showed up. To be honest, if we weren't still on a spiritual high from the training that would have been pretty depressing. But we just brushed the dirt off, stood up and kept moving! We have another activity coming up this week that should bring in a lot of members to the church.

So, there is a scripture that I'm pretty sure most of you are familiar with. Its in Alma chapter 26 verse 27:

"Now when our hearts were depressed and we were about to turn back, the Lord comforted us and said: bear with patience thine afflictions and I will give unto you success..."

Sometimes, I get really sad on my mission. Sometimes, it doesn't feel like I'm doing any good. Of the five people that I helped to be baptized, only two are still attending church. One wants nothing to do with the church at all. And now, a year in I am finally seeing the promise of this verse be fulfilled:

"I will give unto you success."

Let me tell you about this "success". We will call him XYZ. XYZ was a church headquarter referral. He was in Salt Lake last week on temple square and requested that the missionaries here in Sebring come visit him when he gets back. So, we called and set up and appointment for this past Saturday.

So we went, we have both been feeling really good about this guy all week long. Then when his appointment rolled around EVERYTHING went wrong. It was the last day of the month, and since we had to travel so far for our training meetings we were out of miles. There was a relief society function happening at the church so it took forever for us to find a ride over there. When we finally found one, she showed up ten minutes late. Then when we were well on our way to his house, we realized we had forgotten his Book of Mormon and had to go back and get it! UGH! FINALLY, we show up at his house.

The front door was open, so we just went in to find XYZ sitting on the couch next to his wife ABC. ABC stands up and introduces herself as a member of the church from South Jordan, UT. And then she introduced us to her husband of only a week, XYZ. We then learn that they met online and were just married the week previous. XYZ has been SEARCHING for a church his whole life (he is now well into retirement). And he feels that he met ABC so that he could find this church. He asked us how many lessons he would have to have before he could get baptized, then he asked how long it would take. When we tried to set a baptism date with him (before we had even taught the lesson, mind you) forMarch 21, he asked if it could be sooner. So, within the first five minutes of meeting this guys, he now has a baptism date for March 14 and has agreed to meet with us four times a week. He was the perfect student throughout the lesson, he even took notes.

The next day, he showed up to church in his suit and tie and looked so spiffy that everyone assumed he was a member already! He would introduce himself as a "member-in-training". He is so prepared! He and his wife were already studying from the Book of Mormon together every day and he says that is his favorite part of the day!

 The best part is, they live in Utah part time!!

So, moral of the story, God knows us. He loves us. And in His own time, He will pour out the blessings, and fulfill all of His promises, so long as we stay faithful.

I love you all! Hope you have a fantastic week!

Sister Rowland