June 2, 2014

Dear Family,
This week was good as they always are. Had some pretty sweet stuff
happen, Tuesday was just  a really regular day.  We had another guy
that day just show up to the church saying that he wanted to be
taught, he had been taught by missionarys before in Ivory Coast and
saw the church so he just stopped on by, so we taught him and he ended
up just being really sweet. That was probably the high light of the
day on Tuesday.  Wednesday I had the opportunity to go on Exchange
with Elder Jensen, and that was really good. He conducted the exchange
because he is my District leader so that was good. We went and saw
some sweet familys in his area and were able to have a good day. I
enjoy Elder Jensen. At the end of the day is probably when the
craziest thing of the week happened. We were closing and I heard the
phone ring in the other room and 10 minutes later Elder Tolar came in
and told us that there was emergency transfer news going on. At first
I was thinking, o my gosh I just got here if I get moved I will be
pissed. Anyways the transfer news was that on Friday Elder
Jensen would be going to down to Thinker Village and be companions
with Elder Cooper and then Elder coopers Branch missionary would be
coming up to Elder Khasiahi. That left us with out a District leader ,
so I got assigned to be the District leader until next week when we
have transfers so I guess right now I am a District/Zone leader. Its
not really to much though, the only thing that is going to really
change for me is that I am in charge of the district funds now and
that isn’t bad at all. So that was crazy.  On Thursday we had quite the
adventure trying to pull money out of the bank, every 28th is when we
get money out. Well the ATM we usually go to get money was out of
money and there wasn’t really any other ones close. TO add onto that
me and Elder Tolar had a total of 85 LD on us (like 1 U.S dollar) and
that wasn’t going to do much. Well a strait miracle happened and one
of the guys who fixes apartments for missinoarys showed up and he owns
a truck, so he was able to give us a lift to an ATM that had money. It
was sweet. From there though the rest of the day was very frustrating,
we hit bounce city. It has honestly been a long time since I have had
a frustrating day so I wasn’t used to it at all.  Friday was a lot
better though, we had 8 lessons that day and they were all really
solid. Right now me and Elder Tolar and trying to really just restock
our teaching pool with serious investigators so we have turned into
contacting machines, we contact about everyone and their brother haha.
We have found some really good people though and a few potential
families so I guess only time will tell on how they will turn out.
Also we received news from the AP’s that there was going to
be even more changes in our zone for this upcoming transfer. They are
going to be splitting the other Paynesville area and adding
missionarys there so that means that we will now have 6 missinoarys in
our apartment. Plus they will be opening up 2 new areas in Thinker
Village. So in all we are going to be adding 6 missionarys to our zone
so now I have to be a zone leader over 18 missionarys so that will be
something new for this next transfer. Anyways, this Saturday was
awesome. We had 2 more baptisms this week. Darlington Taylor, and
another Guy named Edward. It was such an awesome baptism and they were
both pumped about it. Especially Darlington, he has been ready for
like 3 weeks (which is when we started teaching him).  He bore his
testimony after the baptism and he said something that really stood
out to me. He got up there and he said “ I am just so Proud to be up
here today and I am just proud to become a member of this true church”
His whole family are Baptist but he found the truth and he is proud to
follow Christ. Just makes me think that I should also be a little more
proud of my membership in the church, and we all should be able to
stand up in front of people and tell them how proud we are to be able
to have the truth in our lifes and just how much it means to us.
Honestly, I have come to realize that if I didn’t have this gospel, I
really wouldn’t have anything to stand for. This gospel means so much
to Darlington that he has already dropped out of college (which it is
very hard to be able to get into college here in Liberia) just so he
can start to prepare for a mission. So in short, Darlington is a
strait up stud. IT was just a really good solid week and a great way
to end it with our baptisms. This week is the last week of the
Transfer so we will be having some big changes next week when I email
so I will be excited to tell you about what goes down this week. I
love you guys very much I hope you all have a very wonderful week.
Till next week,
Elder Bowring