November 4, 2013

Hello once again from Africa. This week was a roller coaster week. It had its ups and its downs for sure.

To start off the week I wasn’t feeling very good. I had a headache and my stomach was doing some weird things so that wasn’t the best. Still went out and worked and everything but my energy level definitely wasn’t there like it usually is. I had my companion give me a blessing on wednesday morning though and throughout that whole day I could feel my strength and energy coming back. It was awesome. I am so thankful for priesthood blessings and I really took them for granted back home to say the least. I should have taken way more advantage of fathers blessings when I could of so im sorry dad for not taking full advantage of that. 

Well on Thursday we had a service project. What it was is that we were digging and getting some sand for a lady who had just built a new house and needed some sand to plaster the outsides. So we had to dig and fill up a wheel barrow and haul to dirt over to the place they needed it. So we dug for a bit and got what we thought we needed but then the lady told us that we needed to get some white sand which is a lot deeper than we were. So we dug the whole a lot deeper and got to the white sand. Well we dug so deep that we had water spewing in and so it was basically like we were digging a well haha. It was pretty fun and Me and Elder Zaugg defintantly went hard. I love service projects but they can be frustrating because some people like to just sit and watch you do all the work but I guess that’s just how it is. So we did that and then we ended going to somebody elses house and removing grass for them which is not easy. So me and Elder Zaugg went hard at that one to while some other missionarys just kind of watched us and some others do it. After wards I was so drained, my energy was just not there but It really felt good to give some service. Another cool experience that happened this week was that the generator wasn’t working at the chapel we do baptisms again so we had to get the water from the well and fill up the baptism font again. This time I ran the wheel barrow and I helped get out water from the well. It was a straight up arm work out doing that. The well was just ground level so we had to get on our hands and knees and get the water in buckets and bring it out. It got to a point that basically our whole upper body was hanging in the hole. It was so fun though, I love doing stuff like that like how many people can say that they had to draw water from a well to fill up there baptism font. Not very many. O the joys of Africa haha.

Another cool experience that happened this week happened the same day as the baptisms. It was our second to last lesson and when the lesson got over there was a truck that had gotten stuck in a little stream by us. Well he was really stuck, It was really muddy so Me and Elder Guymon and two branch missionarys we were with helped him out. We got a bunch of rocks and stuck them under the tires and tried pushing. Everytime we did this we got a little bit closer but we could never get it unstuck. Well finally we got the stupid Forerunner out and when it finally budged it whipped mud everywhere and just blasted all of us. My white shirt had more brown than white on it I was COVERED hahaha it was really funny though. We just got our stuff after and headed to our next lesson and then went home and showered.  It was really cool though because the guy we helped was so thankful. He told us plenty of times while we were there but then he called us again that night and said that he couldn’t stop thinking about why we would stop and help him get his truck unstuck. That was really cool to see some body be so thankful for something like that. We got is number and are going to give it to the missionaryies in the area he stays (of course he isn’t in our area) but i hope that was a little bit of a testimony builder for him.

Well this week was really frustrating for investigators. We had 1 show up for church and it was a kid. I am getting so sick of people not coming to church. The most frustrating part is that they all tell you that they are coming no matter what and then they just don’t show up.  I am to the point that when they tell me something I know the opposite thing is going to happen so I hope my trust isn’t just totally shot when I get home. We didn’t get a chance to sit down with Sensie this week which also was frustrating so I hope we will be able to sit down with him this week. We did get to sit down with Ajavon and Thomas though and I had a really cool experience with Thomas’s lesson. We invited him to keep the word of wisdom last time we visited so we followed up with him on it. He said he hadn’t been drinking any more so I asked him if he has noticed any blessings from keeping it. He said yes, that he has been able to run twice as long now while he is training for soccer and I thought that was awesome. The lord really does bless us when we do the things he asks us to do. It was cool to see that. 

We finally got to watch General conference this week at church. We had no idea until we showed up to the church building and they were setting up for it. It was so amazing, I really took conference for granted back home. It was awesome to see the camera shots of Utah though to ;) It felt so good to hear the prophets voice though, we are really blessed to have a living prophet today. So because we had conference we are doing our special fast for our new building next week (Thanks for all the support on this back home).

This week in my personal study I was reading a lot about forever families and holy crap am I greatful for forever families. The fact that we can live with our families forever is such a blessing to me and it means so much to me. I am greatful that we have to temples to make it possible to be sealed for all time and eternity. In the book I was reading it talked about how this is one of the great things the church has to offer to people because every one loves there families but not everyone is sealed with them for all time and eternity so I am just very VERY greatful for the Gospel and the ablitlty it has to give us forever families.

Well this week is the last week of the transfer so we are getting transfer news this week. It should be exciting so we will see what the lord has in store for me next. I hope you all have an awesome week and that you all are just going hard back home J Love you all.

Elder Bowring