Happy Easter

Hello everyone! 

How is it going?? Once again, I do not have that much time to write, but I just wanted to write you all and ask you to take advantage of this Easter season to share the gospel with friends and family. Some of you have probably been hearing about or even seeing the new #BecauseHeLives video, but if not, here it is: http://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_FR_3-27-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_. I encourage you all to watch it and to share it with someone else too. It´s a wonderful thing that we are able to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ this time of year. Also, General Conference!! I´m so excited to listen to our prophets and apostles speak to us and I hope you all are too! It´s not all of the time we get this opportunity and I didn´t really realize it until I was out here on the mission. I hope you all are doing great and I love hearing from everyone and I hope to hear from more people too! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Love, Hermana Rowley

P.S. We sometimes get hit on by weird people in the streets, but we heard a pretty funny one the other day from a guy. He said "Oh how beautiful is the word of God." haha Even though he was a weirdo, it´s a pretty good pickup line. ;) Anywho, have a fantastic week!

The Rain in Spain does not stay mainly on the Plains

Hola everyone!!!

As you can probably tell from the subject line, it poured this week. Almost a whole week of nonstop rain. It was a bit hard to do missionary work in, but besides that I loved it. I love the rain so much!! I hope everyone had a wonderful St. Patrick´s Day on Tuesday. This week was fantastic! 

We had a Zone Conference on Thursday and it was wonderful! It was great to meet other missionaries and to see missionaries that I haven´t seen for a long time. A really cool story is that this guy from our ward actually,F, went on a mini-mission with the Zone Leaders in Sevilla. He´s wanting to serve a mission and decided to do this to see how it is. Anyway, we were all there in Sevilla for Zone Conference and the missionary that baptized him a year ago was there and was about to go home. He gave his "dying" testimony and was talking about F and that when they were teaching him the lessons he told them that he wanted to be just like them. He was able to see F as a missionary. It was such a cool experience to witness. 

Funny story: we went to Palos on Tuesday night and the whole night we were trying to get ahold of this reference there, K, that we got from F (see story above ;)). As we were teaching S and A at this park, one of S´s friends comes up and tells us his name is M---, and S tells us that he´s just bringing his friends to us, which is abosolutely awesome. Anywho, we taught M a lesson and then went to get his contact information and it was the same as K, the reference. M is K and the whole time we were teaching him, we had no idea...it was hilarious. Side note: they told me what my name is in Twi (the language in Ghana). It goes off of what day of the week you were born on and your gender. Mine´s Ama. :) 

Every week we have Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) at the church. Up until this point we haven´t had any of our investigators there and only two of them actually came to church. We decided to try and invite everyone that we talked to to this activity. We figured since they couldn´t make it to church because they had work in the mornings, they´d probably be able to make it to Noche de Hogar in the evenings. We tried it and we got three of our investigators there and with them coming this past week and everything, we plan to get a lot more next week. I´m excited to see them all come to church. I know that right now, that´s all that maybe they can do is come Friday´s for NdH, but eventually they´ll come to church on Sundays and have that desire to have this gospel in their lives. My testimony for Family Home Evening has grown a lot, and if you´re not doing it, I would encourage you to do so and even invite friends that aren´t members and introduce them to the church. It´s scary, but so worth it in the end. 

Another cool story, from yesterday actually. We´ve been meeting with this Bulgarian family for a while and just teaching them, but the haven´t really been progressing at all, so they´ve just kind of been a back up plan sometimes or when we don´t have any set citas we go see them. Anywho, we went yesterday and they have basically all of their family leaving in the same house, neighborhood, etc. Mom, Dad, cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents. A lot of people. When we went yesterday, there was a couple of people that we haven´t seen before, but anyway we were talking about how there´s three really important things we need to do: Orar (Pray), Leer las escrituras (Read the Scriptures), and asistir a la iglesia (attend church). We were talking about the church one and they asked about where it was and what times we meet and such and one of the girl´s asked if it was Spanish, other languages, etc. We told her that it was Spanish and we had English. She then said, "Well now you have Bulgarian." They want to come to church on Sunday!! We also talked about Noche de Hogar with them too and they´re planning on coming! They also asked us when we could come back, which doesn´t normally happen with them. It was a great experience.

We had Ward Conference yesterday and us and the Elders and one of the members of the Bishopric sang I Need Thee Ev´ry Hour a capella. It went really well. I´ve having to improve my sight-reading skills in my piano playing. We sometimes sing songs in Sacrament Meeting that I´ve never heard before in my life, not even in English. I haven´t butchered anything completely yet, so that´s good. 

I cannot wait for General Conference and Easter! This is the most excited I´ve ever been for it I think. We want to try and invite all of our investigators to it too. It´s weird though here because It´s at 6:00 to 8:00 and 10:00 to 12:00 at night. I´m so excited though and hope that all of you take the time out of your Saturday and especially Sunday to watch it. 

I´m excited for the coming week and everything about missionary work. I hope you all have fantastic weeks and I can´t wait to hear from you all. Thank you for all of the support and prayers!

Love you all!

Love, Hermana Rowley

another week in Huelva

Well, this week was crazy, but great! There was a lot of traveling that´s for sure. On Wednesday I had to go on a four hour bus ride to Malaga by myself to pick up my residency card. It was great to be able to see some of the missionary´s from the MTC that I haven´t been able to see at all. So the week flew by super fast because of all of the traveling. Sorry, but I don´t really know what to write this week. My thoughts are always scattered all over the place so forgive me please. :) Please just keep praying for us and all of the missionaries in the world. Missionary work is the best and I hope that all of you are being involved in it, even if it´s just in a small way. I´ll probably write more next week but I love getting e-mails from everyone. It´s one of the highlights of my week so please keep it up! Love you all and I hope you have a fantabulous week.

Con amor, Hermana Rowley

Another glorious week in Spain

Sorry I didn´t write much last week. This week´s been great though. We have two new missionaries in our district, one of them being our district leader. It´ll be different than what we´re used to but it´ll still be great!

I´m not sure this letter´s going to me much longer than the other one. It was a good week and we keep teaching and praying for our investigators. The prayers are much appreciated too. We have two investigators, A and S, that I think are progressing really well. S even promised us that he would come to church next week. All of our investigators are so great and all have the desire, they just lose sight in the moment on what´s really important. 

I guess what I´ve learned this week is that the Lord has a plan for each and everyone of us and we need to trust in him and in that plan. This is why I love the scripture Proverbs 3:5-6. Although we may feel lost at times and may feel down, we do have a purpose and a plan here. I´ve learned a lot of things while teaching the people here. The mission is such a great experience and I hope that all of you are involved in the missionary work where you live, because it truly is the best thing to do. Thank you all for all of the e-mails and for the prayers. I really do feel them with all of the amazing experiences that we have here every day. You all are in my prayers and I hope that you all have an absolutely fantastic week. 

Love, Hermana Rowley

THE FIELD IS WHITE!!

Start of a new transfer

Hello everyone!! How is it going? This e-mail is going to be a little shorter than the others because I don´t have as much time right now. This past week was full of miracles. We have nine investigators with a baptism date now! Their all great people, but the main problem is getting them to come to church. Most of them, especially the ones in Palos have to work on Sundays. They all work in the ¨campo¨ picking strawberries. (and they´re the best Strawberries in the world!!) anywho, if you could keep them all in your prayers, specifically that they can come to church on Sunday. So it´s now, E, C, M, V, M & T, A, J, and F. The work is moving along great here. This little city of Huelva has grown a lot on me and I´ll be sad to leave it when the time comes, but that´s still a while away. :) Thank you all for everything that you do and for the e-mails! Keep them coming! :) Have a fantastic week everyone, I know I will!!!

Love, Hermana Rowley

A fantastic week in Spain

Hello everyone!!!! This week was great, just like every week here in the mission. Time is flying by SUPER fast. This coming week is the last week of my first transfer out in the field. The days, weeks, and months go by super fast out here. I love seeing pictures from everyone and seeing the change in everyone already. It´s hard to imagine what it´s going to be like when I return home. This week was full of miracles.
On Tuesday I went to Sevilla for intercambios with the Sister Training Leaders. I was with Hermana Birnbaumer and she´s from Bolivia. She was a really great companion for the day. Their area is a pueblo called Dos Hermanas(kind of ironic), and it´s really clean and pretty. Huelva is a bit more dirty and bigger, but I still love Huelva. One of the best experiences was that we went looking for someone and then ended up going into someone else´s home and teaching her a little bit and we asked her to be baptized and she said yes! Even though it´s not in my area and I won´t be working with her, it´s still really exciting! It was a really long two days that was just really crazy. I traveled a lot, which is really exhausting.
We received a couple new investigators this week. We went and taught these two sweet elderly ladies that my companion had contacting during intercambios with the other Hermana.
These two ladies are sisters, M and T, and T has a little mental problem, but she is so sweet and pure. They need the gospel in their lives so much and they just need help. When we go to teach them, I just want to help them with everything that they might need. We even will probably end up helping them paint their house because it´s really dark in there and it´s really hard for them to even read, so I´m excited for that. We also after teaching them asked them to be baptized once they knew for themselves and they said yes! We´re super excited for them and are praying hard for them. Our other investigator with a baptism date, A, we have not been able to get ahold of him at all, so we´ve had to drop his date until we can get ahold of him again. E is moving along great! We´ve taught him basically all of the lessons and he has such a desire to be baptized. He´s one of those people that the Lord truly prepares to receive the gospel. The only thing holding him back, is that he needs to attend church the next two weeks in order for him to keep this date, so please pray for him to do this.
We went to Palos again on Saturday and taught V a lesson and I think he really felt the Spirit, even though it´s really hard to communicate things to him sometimes. We have to teach in basic terms because he doesn´t completely understand everything. That day, I had called on the phone all of the people that we had met that first week in Palos and asked them to meet us that night. The miracle is that every single one of them showed up. C, M, V, M, S, D, and J. It was an amazing experience to be able to teach all of them about the Restoration and about Baptism. They were all very accepting of it. There were some that have been there the past couple of weeks that weren´t too interested in it before, but this week they seemed to listen more to what we were saying. J even committed to be baptized on the 21st of March! The others that have not yet decided if they want that want to learn more before they do anything, so every single one of them wants us to come back more and teach them, so we´re going to go to Palos every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. It is definitely worth the trip and money though. All of these men came about from our dear friend, E, who did missionary work before he was even a member. It´s amazing the people that the Lord places in your path as you try your best to serve him. That was our huge miracle of the week and I am so excited to talk about it.
Anywho, we went to Sevilla again for Stake Conference this weekend, which was really great! There was a really good talk given by the area seventy about enduring to the end. Speaking of which, has anyone done what I challenged last week in my letter? I know that if you try your best to do this, the Lord will help you. I´m praying for you!

Thank you everyone for everything that you do! I love you all!!

Con amor, Hermana Shanda Rowley

Another glorious week in Spain

Sorry I wasn´t able to write much last week, I didn´t have much time. I´m so excited to hear that I have a new nephew, Cam Aaron Rowley!! Congratulations Mike and Rose! I´m a little sad that I won´t get to see him for a while, but all is well. I´m also a little sad to miss out on the homecoming of my awesome brothers, Devin and Derrick! They´ve been serving the Lord for the past two years in Tennessee and Mississippi and now have returned home with honor. It´s really cool that they were able to come home on the same day though! I´m sad that I´m missing out on all of these exciting events, but I know that I´m where I´m supposed to be at this time and I am serving our Heavenly Father with all my heart, might, mind, and strength.
This letter probably isn´t going to be very detailed because I normally use my journal to remember everything, but I forgot it...I´ll try though. The past two weeks have been pretty great. My Spanish is improving poco a poco (little by little). My companion is great though and helps me a lot. My district leader, asked me to teach Gospel Principles yesterday...about 20 minutes beforehand...in Spanish...I was terrified. Especially when E. Landinez said that there probably wouldn´t be hardly anyone there, but this ended up being the biggest class since I´ve been here with 13 people there. We normally only have about 7-8 people. It actually turned out not too bad. There was a lot of participation and before I knew it, 45 min. had passed by. We didn´t have any investigators at church yesterday, not next week (because we have Stake Conference), but the week after we´re going to try and get a lot of them there, especially those preparing for baptism.
I told you all about E, who has a baptism date, which was for the 21st, but has now been moved to the 14th of March. Remember the one friend of Eric´s that came to church, V.? Well...he also has a baptism date! We still have a lot to teach him, but I hope that he finds out for himself that this is the right path. We were able to meet with this "antiguo", which means just an old investigator, A, and I guess in the past he would cancel a lot of the citas and just wouldn´t follow through with commitments and so the past missionaries dropped him, but we met with him once and had another cita set up for the following week. The day came to meet him and he called us when it was about an hour before the cita, but when we answered, we didn´t hear anything and our phone was about to die, so we just decided to go and meet where we had planned anyway. We tried calling him back but it wasn´t working and then our phone died, so we just waited for him and he came! He told us that he was going to cancel on us, but his phone was being weird, so he came anyway. We taught him Lesson 3, The Gospel of Jesus Christ and asked him to be baptized, and he said yes!!!!! We´re going to meet with him again this week, but we´re definitely praying for him to follow through with it. So...on Saturday, we had some citas set up with some people in Palos, a little pueblo about 1/2 an hour bus ride away, but we didn´t get off at the right stop and didn´t get to Palos until 7:00 when we planned on being there at 5:30...Palos is where most of Eric´s friend´s from Camaroon and Ghana live that we met a couple of weeks ago. We were able to teach two lessons though, and one of them was to C. Like most of the people from Africa, he´s the only one here in his family, but we taught him the Restoration and about baptism and he said he would be baptized!! It´s so exciting!! I know that as these four people take this big step in their lives, that they can feel the difference and I know that they´ll receive many blessings because of it. I just ask that you all pray for all four of these people, because each one of them is so very important.

My companion said that this is the hardest area that she´s been in and she has 3 months left. It´s picking up a little bit though. I just ask for the continued prayers on our behalf and for the people and members here in Huelva. We can feel your prayers and can see the blessings we receive from them. I want to challenge every single one of you that reads this to do something. I challenge you to someone that is not a member to do something that would bring them closer to knowing our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Whether it be asking them to read The Family: A Proclamation to the World, reading the Book of Mormon, inviting them to church or a ward activity, etc., whatever it may be I challenge each and every one of you to do it and if and when you do, I would love to hear how it went. I know it´s hard sometimes. I´m a missionary. I know. But I also know that when you trust in God and put forth the effort and show him that you are willing to do what he asks, he will bless you with experiences that will either grow your testimony or someone else´s or even both. Involve the missionaries if you can also. They can be a huge help in accomplising this. Thank you all so much for being such great examples to me!

I love receiving e-mails from everyone and thank you to those that do write. It means so much to me, and I know I say this every week in every letter, but it´s the truth. I love you all and hope you all have a fantastic week!

Con mucho amor, Hermana Shanda Rowley