Feliz Navidad!

Okay, today has been the best, happiest day of my entire life!

so i have been receiving packages and letters through out the last week but my comp told me that we couldn't open them until today(pday) so last night was like Christmas eve! I am seriously so so so so so so so blessed. 

Steph Bauman sent me a T-Bird gymnastics shirt which im super stoked about. I got a Christmas card from my favorite teacher Mrs. Trudy Benson, I got a  package from The 7 Brides house, Grandma Lowry sent me so much homemade candy and fudge, I got a cute little mason jar mug from tiffy and doug, and grandma sandy sent me so much stuff!! She is amazing. She sent me like everything i need right now! An umbrella, alarm clock, gloves(because its getting chilly), toothpaste, and nail kit, jewelry, clothes, and a ton of candy!!! she is a saint. My family of course sent me a package and letters too. Me and my comp actually needed a 2015 calender and they sent my Jesus calendar that is so perfect!! and a journal, candy of course, toms, and loni sent me some church cds!! It has literally been the best Christmas i have ever had. I cried when i read the letter from my dad and brady. 

I got so much stuff but its funny because the only thing i asked for was pictures of my family and its the only thing i didn't get ha.. oh well. 

I sent Christmas cards out to y'all so i hope you get them soon. Btw, does anybody have Steph's email for me?? And Gia Allred\

so this past week has been pretty awesome for spiritual mission stuff too. there are these two girls in our ward who are 16 and 17 and they want to serve missions so we took them out contacting and they loved it!! they said it was so much fun. ha but it was a good contacting day, its always really easy around this time of year because its Christmas! and the spirit of Christ is around, and all were doing is inviting people to watch the He is the Gift video. I've done it so many times, its like the only thing i know how to say in Spanish now. "Podriamos compartir una trajeta con ustedes? Es un video en YouTube y es sobre como Jesucristo fue el primer regalo de dios para nosotros."

My Spanish is coming slowly but surely. I still have a really bad white person accent which is annoying. im building really good relationships with the members right now. they are all so nice and loving! But they feed you so much food. Like even when you are so full, you still have to eat more. So if it looks like im getting fat in my pictures, i am. I have never ate so much in my life! I wish we had more time to work out in the morning. 

So we had our mission Christmas party last Friday. our whole mission was there, all 280 missionaries we have. it was huge! but so amazing of course. because my president and his wife are so amazing! I promise that President Mortensen will be and apostle one day because he is so powerful. we sang Christmas songs, watched the nativity story, ate of course, American food! i was so happy. you get over Hispanic food real fast. Oh yeah Dad guess what? I met two wrestlers at this party for my mission. Elder French, from Cedar High, walked up to me and said Hi sister Lowry! and we talked. I had no clue he was in my mission! hes been out 9 months and is English speaking though. And then this other elder came up to me from Hurricane, and he was like, Hey do you remember me?? and i was like haha noooo. I think hes name is elder hill, he was heavy weight. He told me he remembered me because i always hung out with the hurricane kids! ha awkward. but anyways, it was a fun time, 

we have two new golden investigators that are ready and excited to learn about the gospel. Norma, and Ronaldo and his wife Elaine. We don't have any baptismal dates yet but by next week, we will! 

time is still going by pretty slow. i just want to know more of the language already! but patience is a blessing i don't possess yet i guess. ha 

i really do appreciate all your guys prayers. they really do help. i am actually kinda sick right now, im pretty sure im getting strep throat like i do every year:/ but i really don't want to go to the doctors so pray for me to get better soon please! like my dad would say, "I don't have time to be sick!!"

prepare yourselves for a lot of pictures coming up! loni is going to kill me ha.

i love you all so much and i hope you can remember the reason for the season and watch He is the Gift together as families or read the Nativity story or something! keep Christ in Christmas!! he never forgets us, so don't forget him. My sister sent me an amazing talk by elder holland about the attonement. it really helped me to realize that missionary work and life is not easy, because salvation was not easy for Him. 

tengo un testimonio sobre la expiacion. yo se que Dios nos ama y nos da nuestro salvador. y por media de Jesucristo todas las cosas son posible. estoy agradecida por el poder de oracion. y yo se que este evangelio es vedadero.

Sunny and 75

Okay so I felt bad that last week I didnt have a lot of time so I didnt get to say much about the field but I will today.

So Houston. Its super great here. It doesnt get cold so thats nice. I like havent wore a jacket since Ive been here. Our area is called Bear Creek. Its a not like in the city city so its nice. A lot of hispanics of course. Our ward here is great. Everybody is so welcoming and loving. And really huggy, not sure how I feel about that. We always eat hispanic food so also not sure how i feel about that.

My companion is amazing. Her name is Nikelle Reese and she's from Orem. we get along so well. And her spanish is so good. And good thing because i literally cant even speak spanish at all. We are like the same person. all the hispanics in the ward call us Barbie Pequeno and Barbie Grande. haha which is just little barbie and big barbie. Because we're both blonde. She helps me so much and im so happy we get along because me and my last comp hated each other. I also like everyone in my district. They're awesome. The two elders in our ward are Elder Gibson and Elder Martinez and they are super funny. 

Our apartment is like really really nice. We are super blessed. If you remember what my townhome was like that i used to live in in cedar, its kinda like those but nicer. we have a really nice gym that we can use in the morning. and the computers we email from are here in the club house part of the lobby. it almost like we live in a hotel. 

So im not biking in this area, which i was super depressed to find out because i don't want to get fat. and i get super car sick. and only my comp can drive and i cant because i have like 5 tickets on my record ha..awk. it nice that we have the car but it does make me really sick. and thanks Lon for the gps. we use it everyday.

Ive been getting really bad migraines frequently since i was in the ccm which sucks and i thought it was just stress but i actually think its my eyes so thats super unfortunate. i get one everyday if i don't wear my glasses. and sometimes my glasses don't even help. so not sure what I'm going to do about that. 

the work has been really fun here. its really easy to contact because everybody here believes in Christ so we have that foundation. we work a lot with less active members and part member families in the ward. we have a couple investigators right now. Yesi and Myra and Mario and Vickie. none of them have baptismal dates right now so yeah, we just need to keep working with them! 

Something we do here for our service is we teach english classes every tuesday wednesday thursday and friday to parents who only know spanish. it is seriously my favorite thing ever. i love it. its fun and all the moms are so fun. and it is a great way to find future investigators:)

Im still really tired always and frustrated with the language but maybe 17 months from now ill know some spanish.. but i learn so much about the gospel everyday and i have really grown in my spiritual knowledge. i love my study time when im not falling asleep.  

Brady! congrats on wrestling, you're awesome and i cant wait to see y'all on christmas! hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday season. Keep me and my investigators in your prayers:) 

So the address i would like you to send letters to is My home address not the mission home address because we never go to the mission home so I'll never get your mail or packages! 

15903 Yorktown Crossing Pkwy #1223

Houston, TX 77084

Talk to y'all next week! 

Texas Houston Mission

okay so much has happened these past 5 days and i only have like not enough time to type! so please excuse all my grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. i dont have time for that.

so, i arrived to the mish last wednesday! so overwhelming. in the airport i contacted two people and gave them passalong cards. the plane ride was actually not bad. they gave us breakfast so that was nice. we met our president and his wife first and they are saints. they are literally perfect. we love them. the weather here is not christmas weather. first we had like a little orientation thing with all the new missionaries at the church and then our mission president commanded us to take a nap. literally we all took naps on the church pews, pillows and blankets provided. so that was nice. then we went and had dinner at their home, texas barbecue. i was so happy to finally eat american food i wanted to cry. it was fantastic. we had some more orientation stuff and then we went to our hotel for the night. i was so happy to have a queen size bed to myself for the night. i slept like a rock! the next morning we had breakfast the mission home, texas french toast. it was the best thing of my life. and then we went to another training thingy and thennn we got to meet our new companions. my trainer is greaaaaat. her name is Hermana Reese she is from orem utah and her spanish is like perfect. she has only been out in the mission for 3 months! we went right into the work and everything is really hard and stressful and exhausting and frustrating because i dont know spanish. so that sucks. hopefully next week is better. if you want to see pictures you can go to the Texas Houston Mission Blog. sorry i dont have alot of time. next week my group email will be better! still keep me in your prayers because its a hard life out here! i love you all and happy holidays. if you havent yet, you need to watch the church's HE IS THE GIFT VIDEO. its all we are doing right now as missionaries. adios

my address is 15903 yorktown crossing #1223 houston texas 77084 WRITE ME

Rrrrr

so about the subject, i have tried my whole entire life to roll my R's and i have never been able to. and my spanish teacher would always tell me i had a white girl accent because i cant roll my R's. but this week i was trying in class and i did it! i was seriously so happy i literally started to cry. right there in class. it was the crazy thing ever ha. 

okay the coolest thing that happened this week, and probably one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me in my life. so here at the ccm in mexico we have devos every sunday and tuesday. sometimes they are real people from the 70 or something but most of the time they are old videos of the past from the mtc in provo of like elder holland or elder bednard. but this tuesday we had a special live broadcast from provo to all the 15 mtc's around the world. it was elder oaks. but that is not the cool part. so i was sitting next to my sister training leader and i turned to her and said, wouldn't it be cool if we like saw somebody we knew in video of the crowd audience at the mtc? and right after that the choir stood up to do a special number and I SAW SHIANNA LOWRY SINGING AND I WAS SO STOKED ON IT YOU HAVE NO IDEA. i was really freaking out. i was like, hey that my cousin! she was wearing a white scarf and had her hair in a bun and was smiling while she was singing like she always does. they sing nearer my god to thee it was awesome.

also this week i received a real live letter from my sister that she sent like 5 and a half weeks ago so that was a miracle. i also received two missionary package letters from grandma lowry and my young women leader Sis. Haun. i loveeee receiving mail from back home. loni also sent my a missionary package letter and i was really really happy because brady wrote in it and i almost cried! i love that boy so much. congrats on the tournament baby! my amazing stepmom sent me a thanksgiving package this week with cinnamon rolls and cake pops, yumm. shes a saint.

during gym time some of the elders in my zone were trying to teach my how to throw a football. lets just say im retarded at sports and cant do it. and it pisses my off because my dads a footabll so i should be able to spiral a freaking football but i cant. but i am determined! so im doing it every time in gym until i get it right!

i am so grateful for the devotionals we get to watch here because mtc devotionals are only for missionaries and you cant find them anywhere else, online or printed copies. and they are always so good and exactly what i need to hear. 

so for thanksgiving today they did feed us thanksgiving food. it was very marginal compared to home but i was grateful. i wish more than anything i had grandma sandys yams though. and tiffys mashed potatoes. and moms coconut creme pie!

and also we had another special devo from provo broadcast this morning. it was elder bednar! hes like my fav, but that wasn't the cool part. I saw Shianna again ha! singing come thou fount, my favorite song ever. and she was wearing a cute floral shirt and had her hair curled. gosh its so nice to see a familiar face that i love!

speaking of familiar faces.. so since ive been here i have not met anybody i knew. but we got a ton of new missionaries yesterday and today at lunch i heard somebody call my name, Toni. ha and i was not used to that. it was Coach mardis' daughter britney mardis. i think shes lonis age. so that was cool. shes serving in Virginia.

today is my last pday in the ccm. im really sad and don't want to leave. i love it too much. but hopefully texas will be just as great! i leaveon wednesday morning next week! 

in sisters bednars talk she said to ask our parents to pray for us morning and night for us to have the gift of tongues. and in every pray we ever say and i will be blessed with the gift of tongues. so shout out to my whole family at home, PRAY FOR ME  POR FAVOR. happy thanksgiving i love you all. also pray for me that my suitcases wont be so heavy. :)

yo se que la iglesia de jesucristo es vedardera. se que el señor bendecira si estamos obediencia. creo que la expiacion es la gran bendicion tenemos. yo se que por media de fe en jesucristo todas las cosas son posible. estoy animado servir mi salvador. digo estas cosas, en el nombre de jesucristo, amen.

Happy Birthday Brady and Grandma!

shout out to mama Brenda for sending me the best cake pops ever this week! also Gia sent me another package, krispy kreme donuts, shes a saint. some people say the ccm gets easier as you go but it really just gets harder and harder. im going to kill myself if i dont get this language down. and im leaving in two weeks! i am so not prepared. i wish there was an option to stay longer in the mtc ha. i still haven't received a letter from brady so tell him to get on that or else he doesn't get his birthday present. 

so on Sundays here you have sacrament meeting with your zone and they randomly call 6 people every week to talk. in spanish of course. they give us all a topic and we all have to prepare a talk because you don't know if you are going to speak or not. two weeks ago the topic was on the atonement and i wrote a rockin talk and i didnt get called so i was sad. this past week the topic was on ordinances and i probably wrote the best talk ive ever written about temple ordinances and eternal families and i freaking didnt get called! i was so upset. they announced the new topic for this next week as repentance. my branch president came up to me after the meeting and told me i would be speaking next week so prepare a good talk. and they never tell you if you going to speak. it was weird.. so for some reason im suppose to be speaking next week. about repentance. pray for me. 

i wish i could say me and my comp are bff´s now but were not. we have our ups and downs. mostly our downs. so the only thing im excited for to go out in the field is to get a new companion. i know that the lord put me with her for a reason but i still haven't figured out that reason, im pretty sure Satan actually put me with her to test my patience to see if he could get me to come home. that's my conclusion. 

i know i sent a million pics last week so no pics this week. sorry all my emails are written with like a third grader but i don't have time to worry about grammar when i only have an hour on the computer with a stupid spanish key board.

some major accomplishments i have made are memorizing James 1.5, the first vision. the missionary objective and d&c 4 all in spanish! that's about it ha. 

talk to ya´ll next week! 

Mommy Angel

So like i said before, i hadn't received any packages or mail yet but last Friday my district leaders told me i got a packaged and i was so stocked. but when i got it i had no clue who it was from. the name said Gia Allred. and i was like weird, so i opened it and it was a box full of chocolate and candy and the note read, " sis. lowry, hope you are having a great day"! i was your moms team roping partner in HS rodeo. i would like to write now and then for your mom because that's what friends do;) much love, your mom and gia."

i cried and cried. it was probably the nicest coolest thing that has ever happened to me. so this lady is my new favorite person in the world. later in the week i also received letters from missionarypackagemx.com from my roommate Emily Olsen and Kloni but the best was a real letter from mexico, from Elders Giles. i was so happy! So that was really good about this week. also, me and my companion are getting along sooooooo much better because we had a companionship inventory. which is just basically where you tell each other everything that bothers you about them and what you can do better. it was great to really let out my feelings and tell her everything that bugged me! for the first time since ive been here in mexico it rained and it was no bueno. when it rains here, it really pours. thanks to klonis umbrella my hair didnt get wet,but my feet and shoes got soaked. i hope it doesn't rain again because we have to do alot of walking around out here. the weather has been really nice besides that. so we got a district in our zone last week and one of the sisters is from wasatch. her name is Hna. Haywood. DAD. her brother is the one that beat zach prince in region at vernal remember?? yeah we automatically became best friends because we both love wrestling so much. she was a stat girl too! We play alot of volleyball here at gym time so mom would be proud of me. i still hate TALL. 

so today was the day we got to go to the temple vistitor center. you only get to go one time your here so we were all pretty excited. the mexico city temple is the largest temple outside of the united states in the whole world so thats cool. and there visitors center is humongeous and really nice. some hispanic sister missionaries gave us a tour. this will be the only time i can exit the gates of the ccm so it was cool. it is really reallly really ghetto here. like really poor area. its kinda scary. from the store i bought a scripture case for my spanish scriptures and a keychain of the temple that says "las familias son eternas" which families are forever! and then i got brady a birthday present. im sending a lot of pictures after i send this email so you can see. we had a couple people from the 70 come and talk to us so thats cool. devos are always the best. 

ive been out her three weeks and i feel like im never going to be ready to go into the field. i still have so much left to learn! mostly my spanish ha. its hard! well write me more letters and send my food. te amo! xoxo Hemana Lowry

Misionero Objetivo

Invitar a las personas a venir a cristo al auydarlas que reciban el evangelio restaurado mediante la fe en jesucristo y su expiacion, el arrepentimiento, el baptizado, la recepcion del don del el espirtu santo y el perserverar hasta el fin.

ha thats by memory so there might be some missed spelled worrds.

well homies, i gave you the wrong address last week, its actually, missionarypackageMX.com so please please send me some mail that way. i love all your emails but seriously don't have the time. and every person in my district has gotten a letter or package but me:( so im expecting an abundance of mail next week. i really would like one from Brade and Kamryn. so someone help them do that. and you can send me treats through it too, like cookies:) 

so there are some people here that say it gets a lot better after your first week, they're all liars. its just as hard, the language is just as hard, and im just as tired if not more. just to let ya´ll know, kloni had it so easy on her mission, because preaching the gospel in a foreign language is 10000x harder. because you know what you want to teach and way in English but you don't know the vocabulary in Spanish and its really frustrating.

i love my zone so much. and especially my sister training leaders. they are so caring and helpful. two really cool things that happened this past week. we had a devo by Hermano Cates the directer of the ccm, and it was amazing. he talked about staying on target and never giving up.forget your self and your problems.  but my favorite part of this week was on tuesday our zone had its own testimony meeting together. nobody else does it but they thought it would be cool to do it every couple weeks. it was amazing. the spirit was so so strong. every body had such good testimonies.

me and mi compañera have still been having a hard time, and i know its half my fault so i asked my zone leaders for a blessing this morning to help me have patience, humility, and christlike love for my companion. it was great and i feel much better now. even though my dad isn't here, im so grateful to be surrounded by the power of the priesthood.

i miss hanging out with brady and taking him to lunch. so loni take him to brads for me. 

CCM (Centro de Capactiacion Misional)

Hola familia y amigos!!

I got all your emails and read all of them but I only get uno hora of computer time on pdays so I really don't have time to write. And these are Spanish keyboards so this email is going to be really sloppy. but,,, i know you cant write me letters and dear elder doesn't work either but there is this website called MISSIONARYPACKAGE.COM and you can type me a letters and they get to me the next day here. you can also send me Krispy Kremes :) please put this on facebook or wherever because it makes me sad when the other misonarios get mail i don't get anything. :( and it will be easier for me to write more of you that way. so the MTC here is actually called the CCM standing for Centro de Capactiacion Misional. translating to- Center of training missionaries. and you have to say it with Spanish letters, ce, ce, eme. ha. So the ccm IS THE HARDEST THING OF MY LIFE. oh my gosh. the first day i contemplated suicide. the rides were horrible because i was so sick and then my flight in Houston was delayed because of maintenance issues, so i had to sit in an airport by myself. when i arrived in mexico i met up with 7 other missionaries. 4 elders 3 hermanas. the two men who picked us up only spoke Spanish and just held a sign saying CCM and the packed us into a large white van. i was scared for my life. i got to know the other missionaries really well because it took like 40 minutes to get to the ccm. and it is legit the ghetto here. so scary. and the traffic is even scarier. we finally arrived at the ccm. we dropped off our luggage at the door and went straight into an orientation. there was probably about 25 new missionaries. we got a bag and a folder with a bunch of stuff in it. a ton of Spanish books and the folder had all our important info, branch, zone, district, companion, house number, classroom, schedule. it was really over whelming. and even more over whelming, everybody speaks Spanish here. as in like workers, employees, teachers. they're all native to mexico.. after orientation we had to go find our casa y clase. and the campus here is huge. but very beautiful and very well kept. right when we got here we had no time to unpack because we had to straight to  a class. my Maestro is Hermano Guerrero and he is a pretty cool cat. my district (class) has four elders and 4 hermanas. i room with all the girls in class in mi casa, 18. my companion is from West Jordan Utah, Hermana Ingleby. and other roommates are from Idaho y Alaska. our schedule is so packed. class and studying from 730 to 930 everyday except Sundays. Sundays are nice and more layed back. we have no classes just devotionals and study. so the first day of class they told us we would be teaching an investigator the next day, IN SPANISH. yeah i thought about coming home right then and there. its crazy how much i learned in the first two days because i had to and our maestro only speaks Spanish to us. everytime you talk to someone here it needs to be in Spanish. every time you pray, its needs to be in Spanish. it basically the hardest thing of my life. its even harder when you and your companion don't get along.

our investigators name is Lenina. shes 24, single, from mexico, and only speaks Spanish. we've taught her 5 times. the first 4 times were really tough. but the 5th time, the 5th time was amazing. at first we would just have to write down our lesson in Spanish and read it. but by the last lesson we were just able to speak and understand her without having to read. the spirit was really there and it was awesome. they say the first week is the hardest so hopefully it goes up from here. seeing all the elders here reminds me of Elder Giles y Elder Robertson. i know that they are just doing such cool things out there in the field. all the hermanas im writing with in the lab are crying because they miss there families. but im not.. i dont really miss my family that much yet. i just miss being able to watch my little brother play football. and i wonder what Loni is doing now shes home. but i really miss Celly. every night in bed i wish i had Celly. and i really miss music because we never listen to any music here at all. i got to bed at 1030 every night and wake up at 630 but i still get really tired during the day. especially during T.A.L.L ( technology assistive language learning) its really boring. my favorite time is gym time. we get gym time everyday for and hour and i love it. also breakfast, lunch, and dinner are my favorite times. pictures are coming soon!

Yo se que el evangelio de jesucristo es verdadero y que misonarios son llamda de dios sevvir para el señor. yo se que jose smith y thomas s. monson son profetas y son llamao a ayudanos. creo la iglesia pude su vida. yo se que pare celestial solucion nuestros oracion.

Pictures of me and my district at the CCM!

Made it to Mexico!

I have arrived! Im still sick, but the nurses here took care of me right away. The plane rides sucked really bad. <Especially since I'm sick. My pdays are Thursdays!! Its very ghetto here. And everybody only speaks spanish. love you all

Hermana Lowry

03-12-2014  4C

Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828

Colonia Zona Escolar, Gustavo A. Madero

07230 Mexico, Distrito Federal

Mexico

This is my address but don't send me anything because i wont get it.

 Loni trying to unpack and Toni trying to pack!

 Get one home and send one off!

Saying goodbye at the airport!