New Area

hello everyone!!!! How are you?? I am doing great! It was a long, but fantastic week. I spent the first part of my week packing and saying my goodbyes to some people and then Wednesday, took the long trip over to Elche. Elche and Huelva are on complete opposite sides of the mission, so yes it took all day long and I had to switch buses at one point. Huelva was such a great starting point, and I´m excited to learn even more here in Elche. My companion is a native and basically only speaks Spanish. It´s awesome! It´s definitely testing my Spanish skills, and I have already learned so much just the few days that I´ve been here. It´s definitely a help with the language having a native companion. She´s really awesome though and I love her!!

Our district consists of 5 companionships, 10 missionaries. Half of them are native speakers and half of us are foreigners. It´s really great just being surrounded by the language. I understand almost all of it too, and the speaking is coming along slowly, but surely. When people talk really fast though...no way. I understand the concept of what their saying, but there is no way that I could translate it word for word.

The members here are great too. This weekend, we had Stake Conference here in Elche and we went to Alicante because the church is newer there although it´s the Elche Stake. The conference was great and really focused a lot on missionary work. 

I don´t have much else time to write, but I just wanted to let you all know that I love you all and that missionary work is the best!! Please please please involve yourselves in the work wherever you may be. There is no other substitute for the feeling you get when you´re doing missionary work. 

Love you all and I hope that you have a fantastic week!!!!

Love, Hermana Rowley

p.s. the picture is of us missionaries in Huelva our last P-day before transfers

Transfers

Hello everyone!!!

How is everyone doing?? This week was absolutely fantastic, per usual. We were able to share a lot of the talks from conference with some of our investigators and they really seemed to like it. We had cleaning checks for our pisos this week and it went really well. I really enjoyed the scripture that they shared with us in D&C 109 about the dedication of the Kirland temple and how our homes are like temples and we need to always remember that.

We´re teaching this family here that are from Bulgaria and their really awesome. They´re very accepting of what we have to say and they relate it a lot to what they already know. They´re willing to learn too, which is super cool. Basically they´re whole family lives in that neighborhood, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Almost every time we go over there, we meet someone new. Yesterday we went and there were three new girls and two of them and one of the others that we´ve already met all wanted a Book of Mormon for themselves. It´s a really cool experience and every time after we go over there I just feel so good and I know that all of their family is going to be baptized eventually. It might not be super soon, but I know that it will happen.

So Saturday, we got calls for transfers. It´s official, I´m getting a new companion...and a new area!!! We were all expecting my companion to leave since she´s been here for three transfers already and we´re done with training, so she was telling everyone here that she was leaving, but God works in mysterious waysand now I´m leaving. I´m a little sad because I was all mentally prepared to stay, but it will be good. I´m getting transfered over to Elche, which is on the complete opposite side of the mission than what I´m on now. It´ll take about a whole day to get there with switching buses and everything inbetween. I´m going to have a native companion, so I´ll be speaking a ton of Spanish, which will be good. I´m excited for this new change and all of the new people I´ll meet and everything I´ll learn.

Yesterday was my last day in church here and we had testimony meeting, which was amazing. The Spirit was so strong and I got up and gave my testimony. A lot of the testimonies were centered on missionary work and how important it is. I love missionary work and I hope and pray that all of you are finding ways to share the gospel. I also love hearing about all of the missionary experiences you all are having. Remember, the field is white, ready to harvest.

I hope you all have a fantastic week, I know that I will!!!

Love, Hermana Rowley

Happy Easter/general conference

What a wonderful time of year we have to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Did you all watch the #BecauseHeLives video I talked about last week? If not, I encourage you to watch it and try to share it with as many friends as you can! It truly is beautiful!

This week was a crazy week in Spain with Semana Santa. Every day the centro was packed full of people and there were processionals every day in the centro of Jesus Christ and the Virgen Mary. It´s an interesting thing to see. Some of it´s sad though when they have the processionals of Jesus being crucified and the music is just so haunting. I love that we celebrate His resurrection and that He lives. What a wonderful gift we have with the knowledge of the gospel. 

General Conference was absolutely great! With the time difference, the first session are from 6:00-8:00 at night and then we watched the second sessions the following day, but I was able to watch them all, including the General women´s session, but not the Priesthood session. I heard that it was really good though and I´ll probably go back and read/watch the talks from that later. I loved every talk, but my most favorite talks were by President Uchtdorf, Wilford W. Andersen, and Michael T. Ringwood. I learned so much and I can´t wait to apply it in my life in the mission and my life after the mission. One of the things that really stuck out to me was the saying, "Don´t let the fear of failure overshadow faith." Do we have true faith to do anything and everything the our Father in Heaven asks of us. At times it´s really hard. It´s hard to share the gospel. It´s hard to stop a bad habit. It´s hard to change your life for the better to follow God, but we shouldn´t let the fear of failing to do so overcome our faith. Faith is the first principal of the Gospel. Without faith, we have nothing. I encourage you all, if you missed any session to go back and watch it. There is NOTHING more important than hearing the word of God from the prohets on what we need to do in our lives in these last days. I have really learned to love General Conference and I hope all of you realize the importance of it. 

That was the highlight of my week and not much else out of the ordinary happened. Our investigators are doing good and some of them came to Noche de Hogar and some others came to General Conference. The work is slow, but it´s all in the Lord´s timing. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I can´t wait to hear from you all about how everything is going. I love getting e-mails! ;) Love you all and have a fantabulous week. Make it the best week of your life. 

Love, Hermana Rowley