December 15, 2014

Fishing on P-day today

High tech fishing pole

Dear Family,
Well this week was a pretty good and crazy week so i will start off with the craziest thing. We were cleaning at the chapel on Saturday morning when the branch president asked me a quesiton about something we were doing as a misison and so i didnt know what was going down so i called up president hill and asked him, Long story short i got my awnser along with him telling me that i am going to be getting transfered on Wednesday. I am not going to lie i am excited for the
new opprotunity but i am a little bummed to be leaving. I am going to an area called Dansuman (not sure if that is how you spell it) to be the DL over there. It is more in Accra and is like City from what i hear so not to pumped about that. My new companion is named Elder Langi (from Tonga) so that should be chill. I am in just a 2 man apartment so that will be a new experience for me. I have only stayed in like 4 to 6 man apartments. To add on , the only others in my district are 4 sister missionaries. Not sure how i feel about that. I guess i will just have to do my best to whip them into shape haha. I am really sad to be leaving though, i wanted to stay atleast until after christmas, i love these people here in Nsawam so much, the branch is just awesome and of course i love my Recent Converts to, they are just so awesome. We had an awesome plan for christmas to, we were going to baptize our deaf  investigator who i have been working with since i came, then go to the Berretts to have a christmas party over there and then i had it lined up to go and skype at Joshua's on his laptop but now i dont think i will be able to skype any more for christmas. My apartment is really sweet to and we were all ready for christmas. It is definitly a bittersweet feeling leaving at this time. I had to say goodbye to my branch yesterday. This is my first time saying good bye to a branch officailly. My first transfer on mission was weird and they did it on a Saturday.  My next one was when i was emergency transfered to Tolar and then my next was when i was kicked out of an entire country haha. LIke i said i was with President Thompson when i recieved my transfer news so when he found that out he said that to send me off he wanted me to give a talk in sacrament meeting , so i had to give a talk yesterday and say my goodbye. It went really well though. It is going to be a crazy week this week.

Anyways, Tuesday was a really good day, we had our christmas conference and they split it up in 3 days and did it bi zone. My luck, me and Tolars zones got put on the same day so i got to spend the day with him. 

We went to the temple and did a session first which was really nice and then we got to watch the movie "meet the mormons" I about died when it showed the Navy head football coach, making me miss football. THen we had a lunch and did a few other things, it was really good. The best part was being able to see Tolar though. I miss
him alot as a companion. Definitly a life long friend.

We had an awesome week with our deaf investigator Darius. A complete miracle that we have an elder just 15 min. away who speaks sign language so we had the chance to bring him up on Friday and teach him by sign languange and he is just eating it all up. We also sat with him after
church on Sunday and had an awesome lesson with him. THe spirit was there so strong. A huge testimony builder to me that the gospel is true. THis guys has been coming to church for 7 weeks now with out
really getting a good understanding on the gospel but now he is and he is just progressing so fast. He is even getting his LA buddy coming back. Also we are starting a Sign language class at the branch and he is the teacher for it and we did our first one this week and it was just awesome. I am really going to miss him alot. I am just going to miss everyone here alot, Especally Joshua. We tried to go fishing again this mornign with him but had the same luck haha, but i just love hanging out with him and he is honestly just a good buddy now. Anyways, i am going to have a big change this week so next weeks email will probably be pretty informative as well haha. O ya, i got my thanksgiving package on Tuesday with my football in it. Thanks so
much, strait loving that thing. Best present ever, i even sleep with it haha. Anyways, love you all and i hope you have a wonderful week.
Love,
Elder |Bowring

December 8, 2014

Dear Family ,
Well this week was a pretty normal week I wouldh have to say , nothing
to much out of the oridanary. It was really good though. I am really
getting along with my new companion Elder Peterson and we are doing
hard work together. This week we got our bikes going again, its been
about 3 weeks since I have ridden my bike because my companinos bike
was busted but we finally got a new one so that was nice to get riding
bikes again. This week I would have to say our biggest focus was to
just teach so that is basically all we did all week and that is just
how I like it. I sit here and think , I am just greatful to be on a
mission where I am at , where I can just teach all day long. If I
wasn’t teaching I am not sure what I would do.  This week we have
focused a lot on seeing Felix and Celistina , our son and mother who
we are teaching. They loved church this past week, especially the
mother. We have one small problem though,and that is anytime we go
there for a lesson, we have to fight for time to talk haha, Celestina
can straight talk. We will start off talking about Word of Wisdom and
she will want to make a contribution and about 20 min later she has
moved from the word of wisdom to how everyone in her community calls
her a witch because she teaches her son to follow christ haha she is
all over the place but I do the women, she is funny.  We are really
working on seperating them from there chruch though and that might
take time.  These past two Sundays what they have been diong is waking
up at 4:30 and going to there church which is all the way in Accra and
then they will leave and ride in a Tro-tro for about an hour to come
attend church down in Nsawam. They love the church a lot but are
having a hard time leaving there church completely , although
Celistina did turn in a letter of Transfer to her bishop so that they
can stop going. We will defintly be praying for something there, we
are trying to baptize them on christmas but that wont be possible
unless they stop going to there church. WE will see what happens, but
I know that they will come, its just a matter of time. We are also
really focusing on  our deaf guy now to. We are pusing him to also be
Baptized on Christmas day. We found out that one of the Elders near by
can speak sign languange so we are going to have him come up and teach
him everything and then we are going to baptize him christmas . What
is cool to is that we are going to have him start teaching sign
languange as a class on Sunday after his baptism so that the branch
members will also know sign languange and then it will just open up
the door for a bunch of deaf people here in Ghana. There is actually
quite a bit in our area so this could just open up the door for all of
them getting the gospel. I am really excited to see how it all goes.
Only thing that is making a little nervous is that we have transfers
news coming this Saturday and I don’t want to leave, if I left I would
have to miss all these peoples baptisms. I am hoping for atleast one
transfer here, and it would also just be nice to spend christmas here,
we have an apartment full of all americans and I just love the branch
here so we will see what god has planned for me. Sunday this week was
pretty good, Darius Celistina and Felix (the big 3 ) All showed up for
us this week and it was also fast and Testimony Sunday. Everyone one
in Ghana had  Specail fast for Liberia and Serria Leon so that was
really cool. My new ZL is from Liberia to and the odds, his home
branch back home was Paynesville 2 (hint,that was the last branch I
served in) and he knows just a bunch of the same people I do so it was
cool to talk  to him about that. This week will be a pretty good week
though, we have a christmas conference tomorrow in Accra that will be
really sweet, I am mostly pumped because Tolar is going to be there
and I will get to see him again. Dude strait goes home in 5 weeks, I
cant believe it. Anyways, I am trying to think of anything extra
ordinary that happened this week. I was riding my bike one day on the
side of the road and I got hit by an orange that somebody chucked from
there car, that was cool haha. Anyways, i hope that you all have a
great week, love ya tons.
Elder Bowring

December 1, 2014

Dear Family, well this week turned out to be a lot different than I thought it was going to be but it was still a really good week.
Tuesday was the last day that me and Elder Taylor were together so he kind of said his goodbyes to every one in the area and what not. On Wednesday we went all the way to the stake center which is about an
hour away for transfers. It was kind of a hassle , we had to get a taxi and put all of Taylors luggage in there and then our Branch missionaries luggage as well and then we had to pick up another missionary on the way. Luckily the taxi driver was one of our investigators so that helped a lot. Well we got to the stake center
and I found my “new” companion Elder Mmbulika and talked to him for a bit and he seems like he was a pretty chill guy. Right after I got finished talking to him one of the AP’s came up to me and said President wanted to talk to me. IT took me about an hour to see him but I finally did and he told me that some things had happened to day before so there was a little change it the transfer and that instead of me receiving Elder Mmbulika , I would be Receiving Elder Peterson. So long story short my new companion is Elder Peterson. He is from Spanish Fork Utah and has been out for 14 months now. I was a little taken by surprise but we just went with the flow. So because of that, now our whole apartment is American and everyone is from Utah haha. Elder Peterson is a chill guy though and he works hard so that is all I can ask for, we are getting to know eachother better but he is a
really good missionary and I think that we are going to do really well together so it will be exciting. Anyways, fun fact, we were out of water this week from Sunday all the way until Thursday. For some reason they just weren’t pumping us water so we just didn’t have water for anything. Finally we just couldn’t do it any more so we called a
water truck and payed them 280 Ghc to fill up our Tanks in the back and then we also saved a bunch of people in the compound haha, so we finally got some water on Thursday so that was nice. Just in time for Thanksgiving. We didn’t do to much for Thanksgiving but we figured we had to do something so we just got some good  sausage and some French fries and did some hot dogs and French fries with some sparkling cider haha. It was pretty good but nothing like Turkey and football. This week other than that has just been a really good hard working week. It was pretty awesome on Friday we asked to Branch president to come and Help us proselyte. For some reason I have just like always been intimidated asking them to come with us because I don’t like to bug people I guess haha but he was totally game and happy to come and help us and he really helped us a lot. We saw a Mother and Son who we have been teaching for a little while. There names are Felix and Celistina
and they are really sweet. It just kind of taught me that even though I am uncomfortable doing something like maybe asking a member to come and help with us or something like that , that I need to just do it
any ways because it was so worth it. That is something my mission has taught me a lot to trust myself more and to just get out of my comfort zone and do things that I don’t normally do. Sunday was a really good
day, Felix and Celistina came and our Deaf guy did again  (he has came 5 times, still trying to figure out what to do with him ) but on top of all that we were able to get Big shoe and Caius all Confirmed, I was just stoked about that. This week we having been working a lot with big shoes wife Patience to try and get her and the his 2
daughters to come. I was pretty sure that she was coming this week because we had a really good week of teaching her but I guess on Sunday morning her pastor came by to pick her up for church. I felt bad because big shoe seemed pretty bummed about it but we are just going to keep on doing our thing. Well I hope that you all had a really Thanksgiving , I was missing you guys a little bit but its cool, I cant believe that it is already December and just how fast this last year has gone, to say that next year it 2015 and that I will be coming home next year is just blowing my mind . Time flies for sure. I sure do love you all and I hope that you all have a wonderful week. Lvoe
Elder Bowring

November 24, 2014

Elder Taylor, Elder Bowring,

Dear Family,
Well this week has been a pretty crazy week, i mean who would of 
thought i was going to see you guys yesterday haha. That really was a
nice surprise and made my week Well, to start off this week, we had a 
really good week. We had our district meeting on Tuesday and the Berretts
 joined us again. Well we got quite the specail treat from them after wards,  
Some how they were able to snag some A&W rootbeer and we made some 
root beer floats with  some fan ice. It was so good, i almost forgot what it
tasted like. They were really sweet though, i literally cant eat that
much sugar now,its been so long. Well Wednesday was the day we had
planned for our baptism for Big shoe (daniel) and Caius. It was really 
miraculous. The whole week we have been having a hard time with our light.
They just kept taking it for some reason.  On Tuesday night we had light so 
we were just praying that it would last at least until morning so we could fill
 the baptism font up for the baptism.  Well about 4 in the morning we 
had the light taken away from us and when they take it they usually
take it for at least 12 hours so i was just laying in bed thinking
about what to do, well some how miraculously the light came back at about
6:20  in the morning so we rushed over to the chapel and started to fill up the
font, so we got the font all filled up and was feeling pretty good about
our selves , but then came the actual baptism that night. We came to
the chapel around 6 and we had no light, the funny thing was that
every one else around us had light but for some reason they took the light 
away from the chapel and there was no way to get it back. Luckily , the 
member, Bro Braun, who stays in our compound had a really nice
lantern type thing that we were able to bring that lit up the relief
society room and then we had somebody stand on the side steps of the
font holding a Flashlight to spotlight the people being baptized. All in all
it was a really unique baptism but it was a very good one. I was just happy
that it went through and Daniel and Caius are just happy as can be now.  
THis week was stake Conference and so we had our 2 days of it.
On Saturday they asked all missionarys in our zone to go into town to the 
stake center so that we could come together and sing that song we had been
learning in Twi. It actually turned out pretty good though (even though this
Language is a joke haha ) and i think that everyone enjoyed it. For some
reason the locals here just get the biggest kick out of white guys trying to 
speak twi. So because of that we didnt get to much proselyting done 
but we still got some good lessons in. Saturday night we got transfer news.  
We had to stay up until like 11 to recieve it but the news is that i am staying  
here in Nsawam but i am getting a new companion. They are taking Elder
Taylor to Tantra hills. ITs really wierd to see him be going, i really
enjoyed my time with him and loved being able to train him. He is just a hard 
working missionary and i have learned alot from him. He will be a great
missionary. My new Companions name is Elder Mbeka or something like
that haha, i will have to spell his name right next time, i think he
is from Kenya, not many people know much about him so i guess we will
see. This next transfer is only going to be 3 weeks so it will be really short
and i could be gone after that but i guess we will just see what the lord has 
in store for me.  Sunday was a really good day, we were able to
have a stake conference and in the stake conference we got a specail
broadcast from the General Authoritys . Elder Uchdorf and Elder Bednar
spoke to all of africa and it was just really spiritual. I love listening to our 
modern day prophets. Today was really fun, we went hiking on a mountain
here in Nsawam. The Elders Quroum 1st councilor took us. It ended
up being like about 19 missionaries who came. We had about 8 sister
missionarys come to so me and another Elder took it upon our selfs to
help them out so it was a little slower paced than i would of liked but we all
 had a good time and it was fun. I forgot how nice it is to just be out in nature
its been so long. It was awesome though. Well this week is definitely
going to be a big week of changes. But so mission life goes on. Sure
do love you all, i hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving . Love
you all
Elder Bowring

November 17, 2014

This week was a really good week to say the least. The work is
definitely moving forward. On Tuesday we had zone meeting which was
good. Honestly I am still getting used to the differences between
Liberia and here. The way things are run here are just a lot different
and I am just trying my best to go with the flow I guess you could
say. Something that we did that was kind of cool was that we learned a
Christmas song in twi so I guess that was alright haha. Other than
that twi just frustrates me, it’s the dumbest language haha. Anyways, 
Wednesday  was a good day as well. I had an exchange with Elder
Bianucci in my district and I went into his area. It is always cool to
see the other side of the area because you know all the people in the
branch who live there but you don’t really know where they live so
that is always good to get to know the other side of the area. We had
a good day though, I always enjoy going on exchanges , you get to know
the other elder a lot and get to learn things and always get a chance
to help them out as well. That is one thing that I have noticed on my
mission, is there is just always so many opportunity’s to help people
here , whether its members, investigators, less actives or just other
missionaries, I just always love the feeling of being able to help
somebody else. It was really sweet that day to because that was the
first time that Elder Taylor took the area on his own and was leading
on his own and he did a fantastic job. He had a really good day in our
area so I was really excited for him. He was pretty pumped up about it
to.  The next day on Wednesday was pretty normal, Elder Taylor had his
first chicken foot this week, they are not as common here as they were
in Liberia so I was pumped when I saw the chicken feet and I bought
them strait. While we were eating them to I had a Jehovah witness come
up and contact us and just tried to like convert me. What I ended up
doing was asking her for her bible (which is a different translation)
and I pretended to just be flipping though it just skimming it but I
knew that it was missing some verses because they had taken some out
and I went to a place in Mathew and found that it was missing and I
shut her down haha, just told her I didn’t want to listen to any one
who took away from the word of god and then I left her with a
pamphlet.  Friday was a really good day, finally got to see Joshua and
Alex that day. We were having a lesson with Joshua’s friend and then
somehow Joshua asked a question to us, he said that he had a dream and
he wanted to know the meaning of the dream. He said that he went on
his knees and prayed a few nights ago to know if the church was true
and then he described to us the dream that he had that night.
Basically what the dream was , was it was a very specific part of the
endowment session. I honestly didn’t know how to awnser him because we
just don’t talk about those things but the only thing I could tell him
was that it came from god and that he would find out what it meant in
the future. I am starting to think that god has something special for
Joshua in store, he is a really deep thinker and even yesterday we
were sitting with him after church and some how we got onto the topic
of angels appearing and then we talked about how to recognize an angel
from the devil and from god. The crazy things is is that my companion
for some reason had the feeling before going into the lesson we should
talk about that, so idk if god is about to send an angel to this guy
or what haha. He had chicken pox this week though so I felt bad for
him. Church yesterday was really good, Caius and Big shoe both showed
up looking like studs. Caius came in a full suit and was there before
the break of dawn and big shoe had a nice white shirt and tie on, I
was so happy to see them and everything is looking great for their
baptism this Wednesday. Another sweet thing that happened this week
was that we had a LA family come who we have been working with for
some time. Its been 8 years for the wife to come to church and we
totally got them to come yesterday. I was so jacked up to see them and
we are even going to have a family home evening with them tonight.
Their 14 year old daughter isn’t baptized either so we are going to be
working to get here baptized as we work to reactivate the family. The
thing that is hard is that the husband is a chainsaw operator and is
gone on Sundays a lot but he said that he is going to try hard to come
back home for weekends to go to church. Anyways, really exciting
successful week. Only thing that sucked this week is the amount of
light out we had. We literally had light ratio of probably 30 % on to
70 % off. It sucks so bad when the light is out at night to because
you cant sleep with your fan so you just sweat all night long. Plus
our water doesn’t run when light is off either so it just sucks.
Worldly problems right ? Anyways, we are looking forward to some
baptisms this week, we also get transfer news Saturday, so
anything can happen. Half of me wants to stay and half of me wants to
go so we will see which half will win. I hope that you all have a
great week , sure do love you all, Love Elder Bowring

November 10, 2014

Dear Family,
Well this week was a pretty good week full of a lot of things but I
guess that is just how everyweek is. This week was sweet, to start off
I forgot to tell you last week that Alex and Joshua got callings in
the branch. Joshua got called to be a helper for family History since
he is really good with computers and then Alex got called to be the
Keep fit instructor. What Keep fit is , is it like on Saturday
mornings we always go for cleaning the chapel and after we are done
cleaning we do keep fit or just like a little bit of excersie , its
more just like stretching but its still good so that is really sweet
that they got callings so fast. Even I heard that a few of mine and
Elder Tolars converts got callings in Liberia to. The Desmonds both
have callings now, Richard is the 1st councilor in the Elders Quorum
and his wife sister Deconte is the 1 Councilor in the Relief society.
Then Abraham is the Young mens president and is starting on his
mission papers. It seriously such a good feeling to see your converts
excel and keep in the church. Cant compare it to anything. This week
was focused on getting our two guys ready for there baptism. We had
Caius and then Daniel (Big Shoe) All week long things were just going
great to helping them prepare. We sat with them and everything was
great. They were both very excited about being baptized. We even had
Caius coming to institute and he was loving it there. Well , then
Sunday hit. Yesterday was such a stressful freakin day. We got to
church and there was no sign of Caius or Big shoe. I gave it some time
but it got to about 9:15 so I decided to give them a call. Well Caius
told me that he got stuck at work all the way in Accra because
somebody didn’t show up so he couldn’t leave early to come so there
was no way he was going to make it, then Alex showed up to church and
told us that big shoe wasn’t coming because he didn’t have a white
shirt and didnt want to come unless he had a white shirt and felt like
a member. I was so frustrated yesterday I was about to the point I was
going to drop kick the next person who walked by me. Anyways, I am
doing my best to learn patience and learn gods timing on everything.
Because they missed church this week we just pushed there baptism back
to next week so it isnt to big of a set back and we will make it all
work. I just really was looking forward to seeing the baptism this
week but its cool. That’s missionary work for ya. This week was really
good still though, at the first of the week we decided that we need
find some more investigators and its amazing when you set a goal and
do all you can how god can just make up for the rest. We really found
some really good new investigators this week that we are excited for.
One guys name is Stephen Gilo. He is Joshua’s good friend. We have
been seeing him around for some time and he even came fishing with us
last week. Any time we would come around he just didn’t really mind us
and didn’t seem to interested in us so we didn’t mind him to much.
Well this week Joshua made a comment that he was giong to bring him to
church so we asked stephen if we could meet with him and we did right
there on the spot. Turns out this guy has been pretty well prepared by
the lord. His little brother is a member of the church and is even
serving a mission in Kenya. He just moved from in Accra and so he
hasn’t had a church he is going to. He has some really good quesitons
and is just really open to our message and even better he came to
church with Joshua this week and he loved it. He even told us that he
was going to be bringing one of his friends to church this next week.
It just came to show me , you never know who god is preparing to
receiev the gospel and sometimes we need to be willing to just open
our mouths and have the courage to share what we know, even if the
person doesn’t seems like they care or not.  Well this week I got some
devestating news, President Hill relayed a message to the Berretts
that I needed to get some new shirts.  I have worked so hard to get my
shirts the shade of yellow they are now , I just don’t want to restart
, those shirts have my testimony built inside of them to how great and
hard missinoary work is haha. So I got to get a few new shirts today
so I will be poppin in some brand new white shirts this week.  Well, I
hope all goes well. Brittain, keep your head up man, everything will
be good. I know how it feels like to be in your shoes but you got a
lot more things ahead of you in life to look forward to. Anyways, I
sure do love all you. I hope you all have a great week. Love Elder Bowring