Storytime!

so i have so much to talk about and like no time!

but a cool thing happened this last week. so this new guy came to our english class last tuesday and we were all introducing ourselves. he said his name is Miguel Angel and that he likes to read. so i was like, "Pues, tengo un libro por usted!" so after the class i gave him a book of mormon. they the next class on thursday i asked him if he had read and he said yes, and he wanted another book to give to his friend! i couldnt believe it. then on friday we were playing volleyball at the church for an activity and he came to that too. and we havent even taught him yet. and thennnn on sunday, he came to the church! i was so happy. and he stayed for all three hours. also we had four other investigators at the church! but still not the Alcaraz family:( please pray for them. the kids want to get baptized and are reading the book of mormon but their dad wont let them come to church. i hate it. but, we are going to start teaching Miguel Angel and he is going to be baptized. also at church yesterday we had 2 less actives! one has been inactive for 6 years and she came to church last week and this week! i am so happy for her. the other one has been inactive for 2 years and he came to back to church for the first time yesterday. seriously though, reactivation's are just as cool as baptisms i think because you are bringing a child back into the fold of the Lord.

also this last week i went on exchanges with my sister training leader, Hna. Coley, the amazing one. she is so awesome. she is so encouraging and helpful. and she chastens you in such a loving way ha. she helped me set some worthy goals for my mission and just helped me a lot! i hope she becomes my next companion:)

so my training is officially over:( we had transfer calls yesterday and Hna. Reese is leaving and im getting someone new tomorrow. im nervous to see who it is! hopefully somebody that knows spanish or we're screwed.. 

there is more i want to say but im out of time! so next week:)

Zone Conference!

so this past week i had my first zone conference! it was amazing, very long and spiritually overwhelming, but great. you learn so much good missionary stuff that its too much to take in! after i had a headache. we learned about Humilidad y El evangelio de Jesucristo.

 but also the worst thing ever happened at this conference. our mission got these things called TiWi's. they are satan. they are these little box's that go in your cars that calculate your driving and speed and they yell at you when you break the law. ITS HORRIBLE. so every time you speed, or when your seat belt is not on, when you turn too hard, or break too hard, or accelerate too fast, it talks to you and beeps at you. and it takes score and it goes back to the mission president and church headquarters, and they can take away your driving privileges if you are a bad driver. so basically its been a really hard week for me. they say its for our safety, but basically we're just late a lot more now. 

also this last week we had to go to the dentist for my companion because she has bad teeth basically is the just of it. we are going back again this week because she has to get a root canal. 

we also got to visit our investigator who just had a baby, Vickie. he is so cute! i would send the picture but i look fat in it so i wont..

in our english this friday, the girls threw us a Valentines day party. it was so cute! they also got us gifts, jewelry:) it was so nice! so even though i dont really have a valentine this year, i still got some gifts:)

we also had Stake conference this weekend too. Elder Dan Jones from the 70 came and spoke to us. the saturdaysession was about councils. and the sunday session was about temples and missions and being an example of the believers. we got to hear from The mission president and his wife, the temple president and his wife, the stake president, and Elder Jones. most of the talks were in spanish of course, so i didnt understand much, but Elder Jones was in english and they just had a translator. so it was nice i could understand!

our zone leaders have challenged us to read PMG in 2 weeks so that has been taking up all the "extra time" i have but i have learned so much and i love that book! i know that the 12 put a lot of thought and pray into it and i know its revelation from God. 

also on my mission i have come to love the Book of Mormon so much. It is amazing. I love learning from it and applying to my life and to the life of my investigators. if you are not reading it right now, DO IT. read it everyday and let it help. you will receive blessing and guidance from the Lord. Jacob 2;8. Let it heal your soul

so we have transfers next week, and im done with training! im freaking out, i dont know what im going to do with out my mom. i will most likely be staying in bear creek and hermana reese will leave because she has been here for 6 months! im nervous to see who my new companion will be. Im exciting im staying though because i know i will get at least one baptism in Bear Creek! some day.. 

im having a lot of fun, we're always busy, and my spanish is coming along day by day.

still super tired everyday of my life but that doesnt go away. love you lots! xoxo Hermana Lowry

Roller Coaster

So every week in a mission, and everyday really, is a roller coaster. I think i have already said this before in an email.. But there is just so much great and then not so great. 

We have been teaching the Alcaraz family everyday really and they love us! But they will not come to church.. And we just found out the dad, Alfredo has a drinking problem. So pray for him. But they know this gospel is true, they are just missing out on the blessings of going to church!

We tried out church tracting but nobody lets us do service for them:(

Our english classes are getting harder to teach because the students dont practice outside of class so then they dont learn as much and get discourage. Its also hard because all the people are at different levels of spanish. Its like trying to teacher 1st graders and 8th graders at the same time.

We taught Myra twice this last week. She is our only progressing investigator becuase she is reading and coming to church! I know that she is going to get baptized. In all our lessons with her we always have to bring a return missionary with us becuase she always asks really hard, good questions, that sometimes we dont know how to answer.. but we asked her to pray about a baptism date and she is!

We also taught a way awesome lesson to Jose Luis and Liliana with a member of the bishopric, Hermano Davila. we taught the plan and they believe it, but they say that they are never going to change or get baptized... its tough. 

but the absoulute best day ever was yesterday. so president told us if our investigators arent answering our calls on sunday morning, to go to their house and knock on there door! Shianna said the same thing. So yesterday morning we went the Alcaraz and they werent home, and we went to Rolando and Elaine, and they werent home, and we went to Myra and she didnt answer. I was so upset. I didnt want another sunday with no investigators at church. so we pulled into the church parking lot and one of our investigators(synthia who was our contact lesson three weeks ago and we havent been able to get in with her since) was there with her kids! We didnt even invite her and she was there. and Myra, was already at the church! Seriously, no effort is wasted! and the Lord blessed us for our work.

after church we had dinner with Myra at a members house, and then we were taking her to the temple. none of other investigators responded to our messages about the temple tour we were having, but i was happy with just taking myra! but when we got to the temple, two of our other investigators were there already! Jose Luis and Liliana! they were talking to our president and asking him questions. I couldnt belive it. The temple is gorgeous and i was so happy! 

i would love to write more but im out of time for today, but im sending lots of pictures:) 

(beware kloni)

Busy busy!

This past week so much happened but I feel like i cant remember any of it ha.

First of all I had 8 week, which is where all the missionaries that have been out for 8 weeks come and teach the lessons in front of president and the assistants and then they tell you how horrible of a missionary you are and you need to be better. Haha im totally just kidding, but basically they just see what you have learned and what you can do better. I was really nervous! And it was hard. Its just you, and then you teach a leader, and president watches you. And i am definitely so far from a great missionary. So i have some improvement! but the best part was, it was all in Spanish, and i new every word. so i know i can teach in Spanish! its just everything else i need to work on:)

Also this last week i went on exchanges with our amazing sister training leader Hna. Coley. She has been out about a year and she is such a good missionary. I strive to be like her. And she gave me such good advice on how to improve my teaching methods.

We also had a zone meeting this week and learned about family history and how to teach it. We also learned about fears. And how to overcome them through our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

When I first got out into the field, and i was having a really hard time, one of my really good friends, serving in Missouri sent me this scripture, John 16:33. Its perfect, i love it so much. I memorized it, in Spanish of course.

"Estas cosas os he hablado para que en mi tegais paz. En el mundo tendreis afliccion. Per confiad; yo he vencido al mundo." 

For you english speakers, it says that, 

"These things I have spoken unto to you that you, that in me you might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

We are all going to have hard times and afflictions in our life's, but there is no need to fret. Because has already overcome them. Let him help you. Use the atonement of Christ daily. It is the greatest gift we have. 

This is at our 8 week training with some of the missionaries I was in the CCM with!

Best Week Ever!

Sooooo many great things happened this last week. And they all only happened through the Lord and revelation. 

This past week i had my first contact lesson. Which just means while you're contacting, you go straight in to the first lesson and teach it. We were early to a lunch appointment with a member so we decided to knock her street. We found a mom and told her our purpose is sharing a message about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. She invited us to sit down and we taught her. It was awesome. We also had a really good lesson about the plan of salvation with our investigators JoseLuis and Liliana. It was so powerful, we read 2 Nefi 2 together with them and they accepted it and believed all of it, it was awesome! 

On thursday this past week we had this Specialized Training for all the spanish missionaries with president and his consolers and assistants, it was amazing of course. We always learn things that we can do better and improve on. one of the assistants, Elder Abidillo, (who actually used to be my zone leader but he just got called as a assistant), is so cool. He is from Guatemala and he actually played on the olympic volleyball team there! yeah but anyways, hes like the smartest guy ever when it comes to the gospel, i swear he has the scriptures memorized. He helped train us on how to improve our language study. he said we should be memorizing a scripture in spanish everyday! so this is the one i recently did,

Esta es la vida eterna, que te conzcan a ti, el unico Dios, y a Jesucristo, quien has enviado.

If you can tell me what that scripture is, that would be cool!

so anyways, we learned lots of cool stuff at the training! also, the best thing that ever happened on my mission, I got approved to drive!!! Finally. I couldn't drive for the first six weeks because i have too many tickets on my record..awk. but president told me i could start driving now and i was so happy! because the person that's not driving, gets the phone, and i hated having the phone. and i always got super car sick. but know i drive everyday. so the second day i was approved to drive, there was like a huge rain storm. more rain then i have ever seen in my life i promise! the streets were flooding and we had to go to the mission office which is far away on the freeway. and i had to drive four other missionaries in the car. i wasn't scared because Utah has prepared me for bad driving conditions, and of course i drove so safely and all the other hermanas were so happy i didn't crash and we didn't die!

so last Friday, we had interviews with president with our district. and when you have interviews they also have training for all the other missionaries that aren't in the interview with the prez.. so it was awesome of course. our zone leaders and sister training leaders and assistants teach us and its so spiritually uplifting and you learn so much! were are doing this new thing called, "Church Tracting" where we go to other religion churches, and basically contact them. president thinks it will be really successful so ill let you know how that goes. i think its kind of scary!

We also had a really good lesson with one of our investigators on Saturday night. Her name is Myra, she is 26 single and just works and goes to school. She has a lot of questions always about our lessons and especially about repentance. we were teaching her about the Atonement and i shared my testimony with her and she started crying. it was so amazing, the spirit!

and the number one best thing about last week was I HAD THREE INVESTIGATORS COME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY. I promise i have never been so happy in my life. finally finally finally. Myra came, and JoseLuis and Liliana. I know that the Lord does answer our prayers. I am just so happy and the only thing that could make me happier is if i knew more spanish. one day..

thank you for all your love and support! les extrano!

These are two of our English classes we teach.

Driving in the storm!