15 months!!

15 months!!

Hey Family!

This week was another really good week:)

We had a zone training meeting on Tuesday and it was really good! It was really focused on having the faith to find people that are prepared, and using time wisely.

Elder Zwick said something really neat when he was here, and president Cusick reminded us of it at the training. He said, "The law of sacrifice for missionaries is perfect use of the Lord's time."

That really stuck with me! When Christ called his disciples, He asked them to forsake things, to give them up. And even today we are asked to sacrifice for the Lord. But we do that through sacrificing our time. Well, and not even our time, its the Lord's time.

So our entire focus lately, as a mission, is planning and making sure we are using the Lord's time perfectly. So we walk and bike, so that even travel time is finding time. We stay out until 9:30 every night. Our P-days are an hour shorter. Honestly, its exhausting. I've never been so tired in my life! And at first I had kind of a Laman and Lemuel attitude about it. I felt like there was too much being asked of us. But I have seen miracles just because we are TRYING to use the Lord's time perfectly. I don't think there has been a day where I can actually say we used it perfectly, but the Lord sees our efforts and is blessing us immensely!

Let's see, a few miracles from this week.

Noses??

We set a baptism date with someone that we tracted into! That's unheard of, at least around here. We have been knocking doors for awhile now and I haven't seen anything come of it yet. But on Friday we had literally all day open and so we started knocking! And only about 11 doors into it, this cute little boy answered the door! We asked for his mom and she came and was so open to everything we were saying. The next day we went back and taught the restoration and she felt the spirit so strong and knew that it was true! Her four year old son has been looking at all the pictures in the pamphlets so much that they are falling apart! He loves them. They are such a cute family and we are so excited for them!

Another lady who is getting baptized in a few weeks, is getting a lot of trouble from her boyfriend. She called us this week and explained what has been going on and she told us that she has been praying for so long that God would lead her to His church and if this is where He is leading her then she will break up with her boyfriend. She said that no one is going to stop her!

We had an investigator come with us to church yesterday and she loved it! She cried in sacrament meeting, loved the hymns, and told the relief society president she would definitely be back next week!

Also, our recent convert passed the sacrament for the first time!!

And this cute less-active family we have been working with came to church. They looked so happy and so cute in their white shirts and ties:)

OH MY GOODNESS! Crazy miracle! So the same day that we tracted into that cute mom and son we were walking to our next appointment which was like really far away... As we were walking we were kind of praying in our hearts to know which doors we should knock on because we didn't  have time to knock on every one. And we both felt like we should stop and knock on this one house, even though it didn't look like anyone was home. So we did! And this kid who looked about our age answered, we offered to show a little video with them and he is like. "I'm Mormon, I used to go to your church." The looks on our faces had to have been so priceless. We didn't know what to say, and all that came out was "who are you?" (yeah we are REAL smooth...) But he shared with us why he hadn't been to church in awhile and stuff. But here are the crazy parts of this story:

Parking lot picnic

1. he didn't even live at that house, he was just stopping by a friends house and happened to be closest to the door so he answered it.

2. a friend at work had mentioned that he met the "Mormon girls" a few weeks earlier and he knew that he was referring to the sister missionaries.

3. just the day before his grandma had mentioned us to him as well

Then we knocked on the door that he was visiting at! I think a loving Heavenly Father is trying to get his son back, don't you?

I know that miracles happen when we are obedient. We don't have to be perfect but we have to do our very best. Heavenly Father knows our hearts, and He sees every effort. I know that the Lord's time is precious, and if we truly love Him, we will use it very wisely.

I was reading a CES devotional talk this morning while running on the treadmill. It was really good! Its called Living with Purpose: the importance of real intent.

One thing that he talked about that really stuck out to me is to think about why we do things. He said that we need to always be doing a self-check and ask ourselves:

Why are we doing this? For example:  Why am I reading my scriptures right now?

He said that quite often we do the right things for the wrong reasons. If we are reading our scriptures because we want to get a good grade in seminary, then a good grade is all we are going to get. But if we read our scriptures because we want to gain a testimony of those things, or because we want to improve ourselves, then we will.

Along with doing the right things for the wrong reasons, sometimes we spend too much time doing pointless things- wasting the precious time we have been given. We need to frequently ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing. If it is not bringing us closer to God and helping us fulfill our purpose here on earth, then maybe we need to rethink the amount of time we are putting into it.

Remember, there is much more than this life. And if we spend all of our time focused on the things of this life, our life is going to be pretty empty. I know that life is eternal, and if we do those things that will influence eternity, we will be happy. No matter what!

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week:)

Door Knocking

Love always, Sister Rowland

Holy Moly!

                                            

Holy Moly!

I'm going to warn you now that this might be a novel... so make sure you have a good chunk of time to sit down and read all this, but I promise it will be worth it! This week has been absolutely incredible.

Okay, so I will start at the very beginning, I hear that's a pretty good place to start.

The moving crew 

On Monday after emails and shopping and all that, we moved apartments. We had some wonderful members from the ward come and help us. I don't know what we would have done if it was just us. Honestly it was pretty stressful packing, moving, and unpacking all in 4 hours! But we did get most of it done. I am so grateful for those members who were willing to come and help!

Tuesday was district meeting, its always so motivating and uplifting. I may be a little biased but I think that we have the best district in the mission! We are able to push each other and help each other. So I remember that Tuesday was a really good day. Sister Loveridge and I left feeling like we could take on the world! And we got right to work! Honestly I can't remember what exactly happened that day but I remember going to bed feeling so good.

The next few days were pretty average but still good:)

Curbside lunch 

But lets skip to the weekend. SO MUCH HAPPENED! Friday was a rough day, we had no appointments set, and everyone we stopped by to see had some reason why we couldn't meet. We walked literally all day long and hardly talked to anyone. And when there were people, we didn't really say much to them either. It was just an off day and we had little to no motivation, plus we were exhausted! it was a pretty terrible day. We went to bed that night just knowing that tomorrow was a new day, and boy was it!

Saturday was glorious! We woke up energized, had a great workout, some yummy cereal. Our studies were uplifting and we learned so much! I prayed so hard that morning that Heavenly Father would help me to be fearless that day. I feel like I have grown in so many ways on my mission, but I still fear man too much. So that was my goal on Saturday: FEAR NO MAN.

So off we went! We had one set lesson Saturday and she was first thing in the morning. So we biked over to her house and had a pretty good lesson, she thought that what we shared was interesting, but she really wasn't willing to act on it and told us she would be in touch. (That's code for I'm not really interested but I don't want to hurt your feelings) But that didn't get us down! The next thing on our schedule was to go talk to people at a park near our house.

As we were biking down one street, we rode past a house and we could see a man working on his boat. He had a super long driveway and that always scares me. Its awkward. So I was going to just pretend that I didn't notice him, because Sister Loveridge hadn't seen him so I could have totally gotten away with it. But then a voice came into my head and said: fear no man. So turned around and went back to talk with him. He was very nice, but not interested at first. We pulled out a pamphlet and tried to start teaching him, and he said, wait let me go get my girlfriend, she will like to hear this. So he went and got her and we taught them the first lesson and committed them to coming to church!

After we finished that lesson, we biked to the park. We had set a goal that morning to talk to every single person in the park. When we were planning we didn't realize just what a task that was going to be.... the park was packed! Every single pavilion had a party going on. There were honestly probably hundreds of people there. We were very unprepared. We only had like 3 Book of Mormons, 6 pamphlets, and a handful of Mormon.org cards. BUT we had a ton of leftover Because  He Lives pass along cards. So we put our fear aside and started talking to everyone and asking if we could show them a video, if they said no we left them with a card and went to the next person.

As we made our way along the walkway we saw this cute young mom sitting on a bench holding a teeny tiny baby! We asked how old her baby was and she said 12 days! (i'm telling you, this baby was so precious!) We asked if we could show the video and she said sure! So we sat down on the bench beside her and showed her the video and just started talking to her about her family. We just kept testifying over and over about how the gospel blesses families. She was so open to having us come over and teach her. Sadly, she doesn't live in our area, but we have already sent her information over to the missionaries in her area!

The Lunch Bandit 

After that we decided to go find a table to sit down at and eat our lunch. (We were running low on groceries by the end of the week so it consisted of a tomato and hummus sandwich and pistachios :)) Most of the tables were taken but we finally found a bench to sit down and eat and talk to people as they walked by. After a satisfying meal, and an almost raccoon attack (those things were brave! At one point they were right under our bench and we didn't even notice it!) we were back on our way to talk to more people.

We had one woman approach us and ask if we were Mormon. She was a Jehovah witness and she just wanted to compliment us on the work we were doing and how good it was to see young people doing it even though we are a different faith than her.

Sadly, we didn't have enough time to talk to every person in the park, but we did talk to a lot. And meeting that cute mom made it totally worth it. Our next stop was another park up by the church. This one was not as packed, but there was a group at the pavilion having a party so we approached them. We were not well received though... turns out they were a church group having a church sponsored picnic. And not just any church, but it was the Jehovah Witness church. OOPS! We had a good laugh about that..

Later that evening we decided to stop by the family that I told you about that lives right next to the church. The one with twin girls! We went over and they welcomed us right in. We explained our purpose as missionaries, taught the first lesson, and gave them a Book of Mormon. They had so many questions! But they were so open. But that's not the best part.

I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about this next part... So remember how we prayed for a family of seven, but this was just a family of six? Well listen to this, as we were teaching them I noticed a cute plaque on their wall with all of their kids names, but to my surprise there were five! The spirit punched me in the face right then and confirmed to my heart that this was a family of seven, six on earth and one in heaven. And that little angel boy is going to be instrumental in making this family an eternal family.

Sunday, the miracles continued. One of the less-active families that we have been working with and fallen in love with finally came to church! They went to the stake center by mistake... but they came to church. We talked to the dad afterward and he said that it felt so good to be back.

Gelati 

We also had another less-active woman come up to us in church and ask us if we could teach her the lessons so that she could be more active in the church again. After she asked, her eleven year old daughter piped up and said, "And I want to get baptized!". There were three other part member families at church yesterday that expressed to us the desire to be baptized. Such a miracle!

I know that this truly is God's work. He is at the helm, and He knows what He is doing. We just need to trust Him and do whatever it is He asks.

Sister Loveridge and I have really been focusing on that. When we pray we keep a journal of all of the promptings we receive and at the end of the day we account to each other and Heavenly Father for how well we followed through on those promptings.

One thing I learned this week is that the result of every prompting isn't always obvious or apparent. I think sometimes I get it in my head that every prompting I receive is leading us to a prepared person. But that isn't always the case. Sometimes our Heavenly Father just needs a little errand run, and knows that we will be willing to run it.

I realized this yesterday as we were tracting. We prayed and felt absolutely sure that we needed to knock on this particular street. We thought it was because there was a prepared family there. But after we had spent two hours knocking every door with no apparent success, we were confused. Everyone had rejected us, some kindly, some not so kindly. Everyone. But then the spirit brought to our remembrance the woman who wouldn't let us in because she was busy taking care of her sick husband who had just come home from the hospital and was waiting to hear if they would be able to do the surgery that would save his life. She was too busy to hear our message but she did allow us to say a quick prayer of comfort with her. As we remembered her we realized, that Heavenly Father needed to let this woman know that He hadn't forgotten her and that He loves her. And we were His messengers to carry that message to her.

I'm grateful that Heavenly Father trusts me enough to send me on His little errands.

I hope that throughout my life I will always act of those little promptings, and not get discouraged if I don't see any result from it. I love the scripture in Mosiah 27:36

"And thus they were instruments in the hands of God..."

I hope that I can always be His instrument, His hands to get His work done here on the earth. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have here on my mission to learn diligence, obedience, and faith in Jesus Christ to see miracles. I know that miracles are very very real. And they happen on a daily basis if we have the faith. I know that Heavenly Father loves us, He loves all His children and He is anxiously engaged, as we should be, in helping them all to come HOME.

Have a wonderful week! I love you!

Love always, Sister Rowland

The Lady Duck 

PS I just wanted to share a quick little story that happened today. We were at the front office of our apartment complex because we were going to use those computers to email but they were all taken so we walked back to get our stuff so we could go to the library to email. As we walked out of the office we heard some noises behind us and looked back to see a little lady duck waddling behind us. She followed us all the way to our apartment, and when we went inside she sat outside our door and cried!! We walked back out and over to the car and she followed us there, sat right behind our back tire and refused to move. She wouldn't let us leave! We finally had to trick her by walking away from the car and having her follow us until we were far enough away and then sprint back to the car before she could get there. It was the craziest thing!!

Her favorite Pink Cookie 

Blinded by the light :)

Feed the Birds :) 

Families Can Be Together Forever

Hey Family!

It was super great to get to Skype you all yesterday. It feels like zero time has passed since I saw you at Christmas, yet I felt like a totally new person! I guess that's what the mission does to you. It's pretty great:) I have learned to embrace change because change changes us!

We had a pretty great week this week. It was hard because we had to stop teaching a lot of investigators for various reasons. So we are kind of starting over as far as our teaching pool goes but we did meet a ton of really great families this week!

So first off, I told y'all about the Find a Family in Seven Days thing, and I also told you how the ward council immediately referred us to the family next door to the church because they were pretty sure that they fit our description of a family of seven with twins. We were a little disappointed when we found out that they were only a family of six (well as disappointed as you possibly can be when finding a family of six.. which isn't very disappointed). But when we went over to contact them, their grandma was there and we found out that she is over at their house every day!! Making it a family of seven! We had such a great visit with them. We took a member, whom they apparently knew from soccer a few years back! We had no idea when we asked this member to come with us. We showed them the video It was Mom for mothers day and they loved it. They are such a good family, they have high morals, they are kind, and they literally live two seconds from the church! It doesn't get any more perfect than that! So hopefully we will be able to start teaching them this week!

We also met a super cute family while tracting. We had some extra time before a ward activity and decided to knock on all the doors around the church and invite them. We met some nice people, we also met some not so nice people... but no one was interested. So we were like, "Well we better get going back, but let's knock on this last door." (I know, this story is totally cliché). So we knocked on the door and this cute little boy answered. We asked for his mom or dad and this cute mom walked to the door with a baby on her hip and we offered to say a prayer with her family. She accepted and afterwards we talked about the Restored Gospel and how we can be with our families forever. She was very interested in that (who wouldn't be?) and we are going back this week to teach her!

On Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to a soccer game with one of the members. They are seriously the cutest family ever! While we were watching the game, and chit-chatting with the mom, Sister Loveridge asked her what made her marriage and family so strong. (Sister Loveridge asks this to people all the time, I love it. Its something that Elder Clark of the Seventy told us to do). She thought about it awhile and didn't really come up with an answer, but she texted us last night and told us that besides the classic "Christ-centered home" response, she feels like what makes marriages strong and successful is serving your spouse without expecting anything in return. She said that when we serve selflessly we come to see that person as Christ does and you are able to love them so much more. I am grateful for the opportunity to be paired with someone 24/7 so that I can learn and practice these skills that will make me a better wife and help me to know how to build a strong family.

We had a Specialized Training for the sister missionaries this week. It was SO GOOD! President Cusick addressed some concerns that are pretty unique to sisters. He also trained on how everything we are doing here on the mission is preparing us for after. There is basically no place, no program that trains you for life as well as a mission does and I know that's true. We listed out all of the things that we will be doing in the next 2-5 years and matched up to something that we are doing here that will prepare us for that. That really motivated me  to take advantage of the time here on the mission, because this is the best place to learn those skills that will help me through life.

We also learned more about dress and appearance and looking professional. We got some beauty tips and clothing tips, it was lots of fun:)

With time running down for me here in the mission field, having less than four months left, I have been doing some careful evaluating. I've decided that I'm not going to be one of those missionaries that is in denial up until the plane takes off. I'm going to embrace the fact that the mission really does end, I really will go home and that time is going to come very quickly. The key is to not become distracted by that fact, but motivated by it. I want to come home completely changed, a new person, and I want to stay strong. I don't want to go back to old ways and old habits. I want to go forward. And the only way that is going to happen is if I give it my all here.

I know that families really are forever. I am grateful for all of you. I'm grateful for the member families here on my mission that model how to have a strong gospel centered family. I'm grateful for the families that I am able to introduce to the gospel here in the mission field. I'm grateful for my future eternal family. And I'm so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior who made that possible.

I know that this gospel is true, and when we center our lives on it and live it every day, we will have peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come, with our families.

I love you all and hope you have an incredible week!

Love always, Sister Rowland

Truly Good

Hey Family!

Man it has been a crazy couple of weeks! So for those of you who don't know, I was transferred! To Lakeland. I'm now serving with Sister Loveridge. She is great! She and I actually came out together and we are surprisingly a lot alike. We also kind of look alike... Seriously like three times a day we hear "are you two twins?" from members, investigators and strangers on the street! They are always shocked to find out that we aren't even related at all. The ward here is incredible. The leaders are so organized and they are committed to missionary work. Its so much fun serving here. We see miracles daily!

We had a baptism this past Saturday. He was so excited to be baptized and we were so excited for him. He  was a referral from a girl that was baptized a few months ago. He is the perfect example of humility, meekness and a pure heart. I wish you all could have seen his face when he went up to be confirmed on sunday! Pure gratitude and joy, it was beautiful!

I also found out that the week after I left two of the people that I was teaching in Sebring were baptized! The nine year old girl and the other guy:) I was so excited to hear about that, but also pretty sad that I wasn't able to be there. The 93 year old man that I've told you about passed away this past week Tuesday. Also, kind of sad I didn't get to say goodbye to him, but I know I will see him again. I'm grateful for the love God blesses us with for the people we are teaching. I love them all so much!

Our teaching pool here is pretty decent. We have three investigators with baptism dates. Two for this ward, and one for the Spanish branch. There are no missionaries serving in the Spanish branch so we have been teaching this lady that doesn't speak any English! Its kind of a challenge, but the relief society president in the Spanish branch is always at the lessons and translates for us. This lady is struggling with some things, but she knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and she wants to be baptized so badly!

The other person that has a baptism date, we met just two nights ago. We had a ton of empty time so we decided to go tracting in the neighborhood near our apartments. We prayed before we left and expressed our faith that we would find one person that night that was prepared to accept the gospel and be baptized. We met a lot of friendly people, but no one that was really all that interested. It was getting pretty late and dark so we decided to just start heading home. We walked past a house that we had already knocked at but they had looked through the peephole at us and locked the door (it was actually pretty funny), and there were two men outside working on the car. One of them, the older one, obviously didn't speak any English. But the younger one called out to us and said, "what are you guys doing?" Not in a rude way, just curious. So we walked over and told him exactly what we were doing. Then we explained the Book of Mormon to him, gave him a copy and set up a time to come back and explain more about it.

The next day we went back and taught him the first lesson. He had done research on LDS Missionaries the night before, and he was telling us all kinds of stuff about what we do. He thought it was the greatest thing ever! As we were teaching him, we just felt the spirit so strong and we could tell that this guy was truly humble and ready to receive the gospel. He told us right at the beginning of the lesson, before we had even started teaching, that he wanted to learn how he could be a better son in his family, and how his family could have eternal life. We were like, um, we might know a thing or two about that! :D

The other man that is getting baptized this month is the husband of a returning member who recently went to the temple. He has watched his wife make all these changes in her life so that she could go to the temple, and he saw how happy it makes her. He said the only thing holding him back from becoming a member was smoking and drinking coffee. But God took care of that! About two weeks ago, he was admitted to the hospital and told that he had better stop smoking and drinking coffee or he wasn't going to live too much longer. After that he got a hold of us and told us that he wants to get baptized! Their 21 year old son is also taking the lessons and will hopefully accept the invitation to be baptized as well so that they can start working as a family to get to the temple.

We truly have been seeing so many miracles. I go to bed each night with a heart full of gratitude and awe for what the Lord did for us that day.

Oh here is another miracle for you! So our mission is doing a thing this week called Find a Family in Seven Days. Basically you find a family that is prepared to be baptized by faith and fasting. So you start out and tell God your desire, and pray and ask what kind of family you are looking for, like size of family, and age. Then you fast. Then you work super duper hard and look high and low for that family.

So, we prayed and felt like we were looking for a family of seven with twins. Then we fasted. On Sunday, we told the ward council what family we were looking for and asked if any of them knew someone who fit that description. The primary president got chills and said, "I know exactly what family you are looking for!" Then she told us about the family that lives right next to the church. The ward has reached out to them multiple times and invited them to activities. And they have come to one! It is a mom and a dad and 5 little girls, two of them are twins. Prayer and fasting works, and if you have enough faith, anything is possible! We are going over with the primary president tomorrow to visit them.

I have also been learning a ton this week. I think, right now, I want to focus on something that stuck out to me in a talk from General Conference: Truly Good and Without Guile. I won't go into the talk too much but you all should read it this week!

When I read this talk, I was like "I want to be truly good, and without guile! But how?" I have been really focusing on this this whole week and praying to know how to do it and I have come up with a few conclusions that may or may not be totally obvious.

The first thing I realized is that becoming truly good is going to take a change of heart. And our hearts can only be changed by the Holy Spirit and because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

So how do we change a heart?...

Is it simply changed by a change of mind? Or a new understanding of doctrine? Can it be changed through sheer will power? Maybe.

But I think that a more sure way to truly change a human heart is through acting upon truth and living true doctrine. Because when we act upon truth, we invite the spirit into our life. And the more we have the spirit in our life and in our hearts the more our hearts will transform into something truly good.

Every aspect of the Gospel is related to the next. Everything goes together in a complicated, and almost impossible to understand, way. But I know that when we are obedient to the commandments of God, pray always, read and study the scriptures diligently, serve others, teach and preach the Gospel, attend church weekly, and follow Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit will be able to get into our hearts and change them

And over time, we will be able to become truly good.

That is how the Gospel changes lives. Its truly incredible!

Another incredible talk that I would totally recommend reading is The Music of the Gospel.

He says, "The music of the gospel is the joyful spiritual feeling that comes from the Holy Ghost. It brings a change of heart."

I know that sometimes when we take a look at who we are and who we are to become, it can be a little daunting. Sometimes it seems like we will never be able to reach it. No matter how hard we try, we are unable to be patient enough, loving enough, kind enough. Sometimes we wonder how we are supposed to change those things about us that are so much of who we are.

Just live the gospel. Do it. Act on it. And the change will come over time. It will be subtle, almost unmeasurable. But someday you will look back and see who you were and who you are. And you will be able to get on your knees and thank your Father in Heaven for making you into who you need to be. For seeing you as you could be and never giving up on you. Because HE NEVER WILL.

I know that we aren't perfect. But I know that our Savior is. And that because of Him, we can be made perfect. I know that perfection is a lifelong pursuit. I know that God has given us all the tools that we need to get there. I know that this gospel is true, and I know that it changes lives.

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

Love always, Sister Rowland