One Year DONE!

So. Many. Adventures!

So yesterday the library was closed, so we have a little time to email today :) But yesterday was wonderful 'cause Elder Bair has two guitars and is letting me borrow one! My fingers are blistered 'cause I lost my calluses. This will indeed be an exercise in self control O_o

Aaaaand I've been a missionary for a whole year! That's uber weird. Thursday was our year mark. To celebrate we went to lunch at Fazoli's, did service at the food bank, and taught this wonderful 15 year old boy named N who wants to get baptized (and came to church this week!)

Part of our mission's goal is to teach as many lessons in members' homes as possible. Because we are teaching a lot of people in our apartment complex, and because we have a member that lives there who is home all the time and loves company, this was really easy for us. But she had to get shoulder surgery on Tuesday. She came home the next day, and on Thursday we tried to check up on her to see how she was doing. This was tricky 'cause you need to be let into the building by somebody who lives there to even knock on doors, and her phone has been having issues, so we couldn't reach her. That night her neighbor had the apartment people open her door, and they found her stuck on the ground 'cause she had fallen :/ we have no idea how long she was stuck there, but now she has to go to a rehab facility. So sad! But it will be good for her to have people who can help her.

On Wednesday we had exchanges with the sisters in Warsaw. One of the sisters I'd been on exchanges with a few times when she was in Columbus, and the other is a 2nd transfer trainee. And these sisters are so solid! So that's always nice to see. They are emotionally stable, work hard, and have the faith to entitle themselves to receive grace to work miracles. That's always nice for us to see. The night I stayed down in Warsaw there was also a crazy thunderstorm :D The lightning was kinda like a strobe light O_o

There was a really sad part about this exchange. We went to check on one of their members who had missed church the past two weeks and who had stopped responding to the missionaries texts and calls (she had previously been very involved in church, and joining the missionaries for lessons). She had bleached her hair, gotten a nose ring and started smoking. We asked if we could share a message with her. She hesitantly agreed. We read part of Elder Bednar's talk about spiritual loads with her and talked about how we need trials to grow stronger. She was fairly unresponsive and said, "I'm done being strong." I didn't know this lady beforehand, but the sister I was with said it was like she was a completely different person. It's was incredible how much somebody could change in 2 weeks.

Saturday was another interesting day. I was a little sick, which was hard, but we began by attending a baptism for somebody in the Mishawaka ward. Right after that there was a wedding for a couple in our ward at the church building which we attended--the reception at which we found a new investigator we'll be teaching tomorrow. Then we left, taught a few lesssons, and came back for another baptism for a young set of twins in our ward, and then another lesson to close the night. I felt like a zombie.

And then pretty much woke up dead the next morning :P Plus I forgot my nametag at church, which made things uncomfortable. It was a really hard day all around. There were still miracles, such as meeting with a new investigator who is really excited about the Book of Mormon, and things like that, but Sister McKendrick and I were just super drained from the week.

Every single day for the past transfer and a half has been such a great adventure, I wish I could describe everything, but we gots district meeting in like 10 minutes so I gotta wrap it up.

Much love! and don't forget to pray!

Sister Bowen

PS W and A AND their friend M got baptized down in Franklin this past Saturday :D purdy exciting

I'm an Indian Princess . . . no really!

What an adventure a mission is!

We've continued to be uber busy everyday! There's a scripture in Thessalonians about recent converts being the greatest joy of missionaries. Often that is true, but often they are the most stressful part! We've got a lovely lady we're working with who was baptized last month...and she really struggles. She knows that God lead her to this church, and she prayed about and knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but she refuses to do any of the other things that build faith (study accompanied by prayer, and obedience) Aaaand she has some pretty severe mental stuff goin' on. And blames my poor companion for all her problems, but not to our face--she tells everything to another member who lets us know. So that's one adventure.

We're teaching another man who is one of the most sincere people we've taught. He loves the Book of Mormon. And he also has been addicted to heroin for 30+ years. So he's been working hard to get off of that. So sometimes he's too sick to meet or come to church 'cause he's suffering so bad from withdrawals. So there's another adventure.

We had a wonderful zone conference on Friday. We were all sitting, ready for the meeting to begin, when President Cleveland motions me up to the stand. He told me that Sister Cleveland needed my and Sister McKendrick's help. So we went out with her and she told us we were needed to help with Elder Hodges' (the senior missionary who is in charge of mission cars) training. Soooo we dressed up like Indians and waited in the hallway until Elder Hodges (dressed like an Indian chief) came up to the stand. We walked in bare-footed while he gave a presentation: "How...not good" and preceded to talk about how he'd been nice (usually he dresses up as a shepherd with a shepherd's crook) but now he was out for scalps...not killing, just scalps, unless our scalps weren't worth it, then he'd kill. And we were his Indian princesses, standing in front of about 100 missionaries. 

President Connolly (of the mission presidency) gave a reeeally good training about increasing faith, and how there are three levels of faith--all involving prayer, study, and obedience. The difference in each level was the degree to which we were involved in each, and our desire. It was purdy empowering. 

Right after zone conference we started exchanges with Elkhart, which was good. I enjoy exchanges, but I don't like starting them. Especially if they're with a sister that I don't know very well. But Sister Williams and I had a good time. I hope she learned something useful. I stayed in South Bend, which was kinda tricky, but good.

There were many small miracles throughout the week, and we're excited for all that's going on in the weeks to come :)

Hope all is well, and much love,

Sister Bowen

Missionary Exile

Well here I am in South Bend! Also known as missionary exile. Most other areas are within about an hour of Indy, but here we are 2 1/2 hours north of it, almost in Michigan. Buuut I get to be companions with Sister McKendrick, which is purdy great. We were in the same MTC district (almost a year ago O_o) And there's only 3 of us from there out here, so we're excited to be together. 

She's from Highland, UT (8 out of 10 companions have been from Utah now) and she's a really good missionary. I'm grateful to be able to learn from her and hopefully pick up some of her sweet skills. She got to help with transfer planning for this transfer. She said that President Cleveland had already picked me for her companion and told her "finally you'll have somebody you can get along with!" He was mostly joking 'cause I don't get along with anybody. Just kidding! He was mostly joking 'cause Sister McKendrick is purdy chill, but gets work done.

I don't really have a lot to say today. I really miss Franklin, but that'll be okay once I get to know some people here. I just really hate meeting people, so that'll be a little rough, but character building--and who couldn't use more character?

I don't really know most of the people we're teaching very well, so I don't have a lot to say about that.

Indiana seems to have forgotten about Spring, and it's been in the high 80s as of late. That's super nice though, 'cause a lot of people are outside, and we've been able to talk to a lot of people. So that's always good!

We've got a lot of good things coming, and a few people preparing to be baptized next month, so we'll see how that goes. We stay super busy, which is good 'cause it keeps me out of trouble, and typically means we're working hard. Hopefully I'll have a better handle of what's going on here next week!

Much love and sunny skies

Sister Bowen

Me and Sister Mumford from a couple weeks ago :)

When feeding puppies is service, you're in a good place :)

Gosh, I hate the anticipation of transfer calls--especially since this was the first time I really had no idea if I was staying or leaving. Aaaand I'm leaving, which is kinda sad 'cause we've got a lot of exciting stuff going on, but I'm always up for new adventures :)

We had a lot of really cool things happen this week. We went over to H's on Wednesday. She started out by asking if we could start coming Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We gladly agreed! At the end we asked the boys if they wanted to be baptized, and they both said yes! So they're getting baptized in a couple weeks :)

Also, B--the awesome marine from Bloomington got baptized on Friday! But unfortunately we couldn't make it :/

And D continues to be wonderful :)

On Tuesday, we spent a chunk of the day inside 'cause Sister Mumford wasn't feeling so good, we were kinda unmotivated as we headed out in the evening to go meet a less active lady who'd moved in from Shelbyville. She wasn't there again, but we met her sister. She said that she was kinda busy 'cause she had some puppies to feed. We offered to help, and she gladly accepted. When feeding puppies is service, you're in a good place :)

On Saturday, we had the missionary dream come true. We had about an hour and a half before dinner, so we parked in a neighborhood across the street, intending to go check back on some people we'd previously met. We ended up spending about an hour in the car just coordinating things for the next day. The whole time, these people whose house we were parked outside kept coming out and going back in, probably wondering what two creepy girls were doing sitting there in a car. Eventually, the lady backed out of her driveway--in her car, of course--and pulled up to our window to see what we were up to. To make a long story short, we are now teaching her. We always dream about people coming to us, and sometimes it happens!

That's all I gots for today. I could be anywhere next week! I've got it mostly narrowed down to IU, IUPUI, or South Bend. We'll see!

Much love, and warm weather!

Sister Bowen

Peectures!

Feeding puppies!

Aaaand sometimes getting out of the car isn't as easy as it should be :/ #skirtsinthewind