Sorry that I haven´t written a general letter in a while. This transfer and
everything has been pretty busy, sobusy that I´ve gotten behind on my journal a
lot, many times, so then it´s hard to know exactly what to write to you all.
I´ll try my best to update you.
A couple of weeks ago, we had our last meeting with President and Hermana
Deere. Hermana Deere gave a really good workshop about the parable of the
talents in Matthew 25:14-29. We talked about how we are all the middle man or at
least need to be the middle man. He had some, not a lot like the third man, but
he treasured his talents and developed more without the envy of the one with
more, but also not choosing to hide his talents. I think that´s something that
we can all apply to our lives; that sometimes we may not have everything that
other people have, but we have what our Heavenly Father knows we need and we can
be grateful and choose to act to gain more.
The 20th, we had Fatima´s baptism. We´re super happy for her. She really
acted upon what she felt. We only met her for the first time and started
teaching her the lessons in May and one Sunday she told us that she wanted to be
baptized because she felt good at the church. She´s a sweetheart and she seems
so much more happier now with the gospel in her life. I´ve attached a picture
from her baptism to this e-mail.
The Sunday right after her baptism, we were on our way to church for choir
and we were walking along the Cami del
Gato, and it´s a really windy road, and this guy on a motorcycle was passing a car going super fast on a turn
and we were walking by and seconds after he passed we heard this huge crashing
noise. We quickly turned back around and ran back to see what had happened. The
man did not look good at all. His motorcycle was on fire about twenty yards away
and he was laying next to a pole with one of his arms and one of his legs
completely turned the opposite direction. He hit the pole with his body and
broke part of the pole. Someone called the police immediately and the ambulance
and firemen came too. We were literally the very last people this guy saw and us
and the guy in the car were the only witnesses. It really makes you think how
precious life is when you see something like that. We went to the hospital the
next day to see a man in our ward that had a stroke a while back and while we
were there, we tried asking to find our if this man was alright, but without
knowing his name, they didn´t know anything. We hope and pray that he is alright
and that his family is doing okay as well.
On the 27th, we went to the wedding
of our investigator, Claudia! It was kind of cool to be there for it. I haven´t
been to very many weddings to start off with and so it was very interesting. She
was so beautiful and so happy. What made it even more special was that we knew
how much this meant to her, that she could finally be baptized, which she´s been
waiting on for years!
This past Saturday, we had a
Tri-Zone meeting in Murcia with our new president, President Andersen. Him and
Hermana Andersen and their family remind me so much of my own
family. They have 7 kids and 18
grandkids. There's nine kids and almost nineteen grandkids in our family. He's
really outdoorsy and likes to talk...sounds like my dad. :) They live in
Idaho...they have horses and like to go horseback riding. She reminds me a lot
of my mom. Her personality and the way she thinks I think is really similar to
my mom. Her looks though kind of remind me of my Grandma Rowley. They are really nice people and are definitely
called by God to be here as our leaders. This was the same Saturday as the 4th
of July, so in the middle of when we were all eating, an Hermana went up and
started to play the national anthem on the piano and pretty soon every American
missionary (and some others) were standing up singing with pride our national
anthem. So even though we may not be in our home U.S.A., we were still able to
remember it. Anywho, we heard that President and Hermana Andersen were going to
go to our ward on Sunday in Elche, so after the meeting, I asked them when they
were going to go to Elche and they had planned on tonight, so I told them and
invited them to Claudia´s baptism at 7:00 and they said that they´d love to
come, so they even offered for us to ride with them back to Elche in their car,
so we did and enjoyed getting to know our new mission president a little bit
more.
Claudia's baptism was the best!
Words can't describe how happy I am for her. She was so happy, and when she
found out that the mission president was there at her baptism, so was so shocked
and I knew she felt even more special. We sang Hija de un Rey (Daughter of a
King) for her because that´s her favorite song, and she ended up crying. It
wasn't my best performance, but I think the Spirit was there and that helped it
sound better. I was super happy for Claudia though, and she
was super happy also, you could see it on her face. She's been waiting for this
for a long time, and now it finally happened.
So, about three weeks ago, we lost
our phone in a park, so we´ve been doing the best we can without one, which is
actually super hard to do. We´ve gone to the church a bit and used the phone
there, but the work´s been kind of slow without being able to set citas, but we
finally got a phone on Saturday, so know the work should pick up a bit. This
week is also the start of a new transfer and Hermana Cook and I will both be
staying here in Elche for this transfer. As you can see from the title of this
letter, it´s really hot here...The bad part about it is that it´s a humid heat,
which is a lot worse than dry heat, so you´re basically sweating all day long.
I´m kind of a little accustomed to it now though, but it´s still
hot.
Well, I hope that this letter has
caught you all up a little bit, and I hope to here back from many of you soon.
This really is the work of our Father in Heaven and I hope and pray that you all
are having missionary experiences of your own, and when you do, please share
them with me! I love to here missionary experiences. I love you all and hope
that you have a fantastic week.
Love, Hermana Shanda
Rowley
p.s. the pictures are of a sunset
here in palm tree captial, Elche, Fatima´s baptism, and Claudia´s baptism
:)
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