You Can Lead a Horse To Water...

Oh golly. I don't even know where to start!! I guess I will do my weekly quote first :) 

"After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is the preach the Gospel. Let the saints remember that great things depend on their individual exertion, and that they are called to be co-workers with us and the Holy Spirit in accomplishing the great work of the last days." -President Joseph Smith :)

Coolest example of this. Ami Williams, one of my soccer coaches and best friends, actually took the "find, friendship, finalize" thing and did something about it! One of her co-workers moved to Utah, and after more than 9 months of living there, hadn't been invited to church or anything. So Ami and her boss talked to her about the church. Just because you live in Utah, do not assume that everyone has already been invited or that everyone is already Mormon! :) 

Okay so about my week. I am going to be a trainer!! :) President called and asked both Sister Bolton and I to train. I was super excited about it! But, the only problem is that it means one of us had to leave to open a new area. And it is usually the one who has been here longest. AKA, me. So, I found out this morning I am being transferred to Waterford Lakes, closer to Orlando. I heard it's a nice area. But you know how I feel about rich people. haha;) I'm just kidding. I am so so so sad to be leaving Cocoa, but I know that the Lord needs me there! It is definitely going to be a challenge training and opening an area, but I am totes up to it! :) My new missionary gets here today and I will go pick her up tomorrow morning! So, I will probably send pictures home later this week or next week :) 

Let's see.. We did a lot of finding this week. Which basically means we talked to every single person we saw while biking! And knocked on doors! Not many people wanted to hear our message, but we did find a new girl to teach! :) We are going over there tonight, so I am super excited. She's 19 and her name is Melissa! 

Michael was doing awesome! We took him to a temple grounds tour, and he loved it! He said he felt comfortable there! And we had a great talk on the way there. He said he was still good to be baptized on August 3! But, he changed his mind the next day :( But, it's for a good reason. He just wants to get a strong spiritual confirmation from the Lord, and make double triple sure this is the right thing for him, and what the Lord wants for him! Which is exactly what we want investigators to do! Find out for themselves and build their relationship with God by doing it! :) 

Steve :( he just was not progressing anymore. He has this saying "Today's just not a good day girls." Well, Steve, is it ever going to be a good day?!?!?! So, we basically told him that when he's ready to make this decision for himself, he has our number. Not in that rude of a way of course! Well, Sister Bolton was at least a little nicer.. :\ I kinda treat Steve like I would my brother or something haha. He can handle it! :) So I took that really hard. But, as our ward mission leader said, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!" OH! And Steve's roommate Eric, from the very first, basically told us this week that he knows he's gonna be a Mormon someday, it's just gonna take him a long time! That was soo cool to hear coming from him! :) 

So during the hard times, the scriptures have helped me so much. This morning I think Heavenly Father knew exactly what I needed to read. It was Alma 29, and it's a pretty short chapter, so y'all should go read it! :) My favorite thing he said was, "Why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called?" It was perfect. We are called to teach the gospel to the elect, as it says in the Doctrine and Covenants. People have their agency, which is the hardest part of a mission haha. But, I also read the other day, that someday I will be able to see the fruits of my labors! How cool will that be?! :) This week I am going to be a lot better about not getting discouraged. Because when you get discouraged, your effectiveness decreases, and when your effectiveness decreases, so does your success! :) 

Well, thank you all for your constant love and support! I can't believe two transfers have already passed! If anyone is wondering how my broken companion is doing, Sister Salvesen is doing well! She is going to physical therapy and doing internet proselyting in the mission office! And just trying to get that foot healed up! :) 

Love, 

Sister Lowry :) 

Like a Long Run...

Hello and happy Monday!! :)

I want to start out each email with a quote from a prophet about missionary work. I want you all to realize how important missionary work is for EVERYONE! It is part of our baptismal covenant. And we are trying to help members realize that. So, the first quote is by President George Albert Smith :) I was actually in shock as I read it this morning!

"We will attain our exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom only on the condition that we share with our Father's other children the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and observe the commandments that will enrich our lives here and hereafter." 

Um. Yeah. Our Celestial glory depends on if we share the gospel!!!! Crazy. But amazing :) Everyone should be able to experience the joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Please pray for missionary opportunities and ways to serve. K? Thanks :) 

This week was like a long run. Speaking of! Sister Bolton actually runs outside with me! Finally! :) She is not used to running semi-a lot like I am, but we are working up to it! This morning we ran 2.82 miles! :) Anyways, it sucks while you're doing it, but you still feel fine after, ya know? Basically all of our appointments with investigators fell through, including 2 temple tours. Steve drank. Rachel dropped us. It was hot and humid and I had to get back into working full days with biking ten miles per day. But, as we accounted for our week last night, I felt great! :) The Lord calculates everything to bless us. He still gives us miracles when we have adversity, but we have to pay close attention to notice them sometimes! :) 

We started teaching a family!!! :) They are called the Johnson's. Lee is a freakin hard worker, like you dad. Carla is so cute and nice. They have two boys. And they want to come to church and go on a temple tour with us soon! :) They are just pretty hard to catch at home. Missionaries become the best stalkers though!

Michael has a baptismal date! :) August 3rd! :) He went from one week saying he had already been "saved," to saying, "Yeah I have actually been thinking about getting baptized." He is going to fast and pray about it. But he loves us. He always sends us the nicest texts. This week he asked, "Are you sure you guys aren't angels? Because you came at exactly the right time, and I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there for me in this hard time." Things like that make all the hard times worth it! :) 

Steve. Oh, Steve. Is he all of your favorite? Because he is totally mine! Even though I could knock him right upside the head sometimes! He was doing so well at the first of the week, because he had a job he was working on. Well, when they finished the job, he wanted to celebrate. Of course. So we saw him Friday. He said, "Girls, this is my last day drinking. I'm really done after today." Don't worry, we recorded that! We didn't think he'd remember it. So, Bea, the stellar ward missionary that is friends with Steve, wanted to go over there later that day too. So we did. We just said hi and said we had to go because there were a few of them there drinking. We went to see a few less-actives, then went home. Have I mentioned how overwhelming it is to have so many less-actives? Well, it is. Anyway, Eric, Steve's roommate texted us and said Steve wrecked his scooter pretty bad. Oh my gosh I was so worried!! What kind of friends let their friend drive like that?! So since Bea is a nurse she called around and found out about Steve. He was in a trauma center about 30 minutes away. Saturday she took us and the Elders to see him and get him a blessing. He wasn't in as bad of shape as we thought. And trust me, it took so much effort not to scold him! He just had a concussion, stitches, staples, and a hurt shoulder. He was supposed to be discharged yesterday, but he still hasn't been. So, he has now gone two days without any of his addictions!!! :) YAY!!! We are considering this the miracle we have been praying for for him!! :) So hopefully we will see him tonight. 

We have been biking and doing a lot of street contacting, trying to find people to teach. Sometimes it is scary talking to people at first. But I will get used to it again. Although it is supposed to be the members’ job to "find, fellowship, and finalize." But hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do I guess! Sister Bolton and I get along just fine! We are totally different people. She is totally musical, artsy, creative, quiet. But we are already teaching pretty well together :) We have interviews with president this week. And transfers are next week. I don't think either of us will be transferred because of the emergency transfer we just had, but you never know! 

I hope you all are doing amazing! I think about you and pray for you every night! (Yes, individually. My prayers are so freakin long now!) I am glad you are finally getting rain! I fasted for that on fast Sunday! :) I love you all so much! Have a great week! :)

xoxo

Love, 
Sister Lowry

Back to Work!

I love these sisters!  Me, Sister Salvesen, Sister Tompson, Sister Hiatt

Hey all!

I hope everyone is doing well and is enjoying their last bit of summer! Can't believe school is probably starting in like a month. That went by super fast, as I'm sure you all would say the same! :) First of all CONGRATS TO MY AMAZING DAD FOR PASSING THAT DANG PRAXIS TEST!!!!!!! :) I am so so proud of you Dad. I knew you could do it. Second, my mission president made a website for our mission called floridaorlandomission.com. So you all should check it out! :) 
 

Our patriotic zone at Zone Training Meeting! (ZTM)

We had a pretty good week. I was struggling toward the first with just still not being able to work and stuff. Monday after emailing we wrote letters outside so I could work on my tan, and a letter of mine from Travis Hammer blew into the pond. So Sister Salvesen let me fish it out with her crutches. They were actually good for something ;) I also finally broke down and bought a blender because I have been craving smoothies! And I made some awesome banana bread :) We also were able to start teaching Michael, the one from our apartments! We had a good lesson with him about the restoration of the church :) 
 

Item of interest to everyone...crutches. 

 

 

Tuesday would have been my parents 20th anniversary! Crazy. Sister Bates in our ward texted my dad for me. She is from Cedar City and they are driving there or might be there already, so they are gonna meet my family! :) Her sister is actually in their ward! How funny. Small world us Mormons live in! We also taught Steve on that day and read a talk about light and darkness by Pres. Uchtdorf, which was awesome!! It was inspired that I found that talk for those guys :) Y'all should read it if you get a chance. It's from Sunday Morning session of this conference I think! 
 

One of the first companionships to meet the new mission president!  They are so great!

 

Wednesday we had a meeting in Rockledge to "meet" President and Sister Berry. That was fun :) My zone is great, so it's always exciting to see them. And President and Sister Berry are truly inspired and servants of the Lord. I already love them so much and know they love us! :) 

 

Fourth of July dinner with all the senior couples and President & Sister Berry!  (New mission pres.)  The Sherwoods are the front right.  President & Sister Berry are toward the back in the white shirts!

One of the amazing senior couples trying to work the microwave! 

 

 

Thursday was the day we had been waiting for for awhile! The follow-up appointment! Basically the doctor said she was where she thought she would be, and that it will probably be about a two month full recovery from that day. Yikes! So we had to make a billion phone calls informing everyone and their dog of what the doctor said. President said he would see what to do and call us back. But we figured he was going to have her go home for physical therapy and all that. I felt better when I got a package from my dad saying he passed the test, and with the oreos of course! :) We also started teaching a family of four that night. They are so sweet! :) They were supposed to come to church on Sunday and didn't, which is always the worst :( but we are going over again tomorrow so we are excited :) 

 

 

Friday came, and we were still waiting on President to call us with the decision. Yeah. Ask me. We were both just dying from the suspense! As was our ward mission leader, district leader, and basically everyone else we know! He finally called us that afternoon and said they were going to transfer her to Orlando to work in the mission office and she will live with some sisters (my MTC companion) that live near the office! If any of you watched the leadership broadcast last month, they talked about missionaries starting internet proselyting, well that is what Sis. Salvesen will be doing! So that will be cool that we can get started on that here in our mission :) Anyway, we spent the rest of the day going to Sis. Salvesen's favorites so she could say goodbye to them! And packing of course. She was sad, but also happy that she didn't have to get sent home. I couldn't imagine leaving this area right now. I love it and love the people so so much, so that must have been really difficult for her. 

Elder Lindstrom, Eder Reneer, Lori (awesome recent convert), Sister Portz, Katie Portz, Steve, Me, Grace, Sister Salvesen, Sebastiano, Lori's daughter Olivia, Rachel (Steve's daughter).

 

Saturday we left to Orlando. We went to the sister's apartment, and Sister Salvesen just switched with Sister Bolton! So, I am now companions with Sister Bolton, and Sister Salvesen will be spending her time in the office or with the two sisters over there. Yes, she is in another trio. Ugh :P haha ;) But she is with my MTC companion Sister Bowman so I am super jealous! But Sister Bolton is a nice girl, and seems like a pretty good missionary so far :) We didn't have time to do much when we got back to Titusville. So we went to meet Steve, and went to a bridal shower for a girl in the ward :) That was fun, and gave Sis. Bolton a chance to meet people. She was super sad to leave her last area; she had been there for almost 6 months! But Cocoa is growing on her :) It is the best, after all :) 

Me and Sister Hiatt from the MTC :)

 

Temple tour with Steve

 

Sunday was good! It usually is! Steve made us breakfast before church again! And he came to church, as did Michael! :) This week we will be teaching all of our investigators of course, as well as doing some finding. We haven't been able to do any because we couldn't bike or walk around, but somehow we still found new investigators! The Lord definitely compensates when He gives us trials! :) We just have to continually trust in Him, and His timing! 

 

Sister Bolton! She has been out almost 6 months. From Colorado. She's into the whole art/music deal. Like, opposite of me haha. She is sensitive and soft spoken, but has a good testimony, and has a lot of faith. So, she and my last companion are similar and different in a few ways ha. Today we had district P-day, and the Sherwood's (senior couple) made us breakfast, then we played games at the church! It was fun! :) The Elders in our zone like to tease me for some reason. I think it's because 2 of them are also from southern Utah, so they just like to joke around. Which is fine because I don't mind, and I'm used to all my friends doing that anyways! When we left Sister Bolton asked me if they always tease me that much... I was like haha yeah, but it doesn't bother me! It makes me feel like at home kind of! And she was like, "oh, good. I was worried because I would never be able to handle all of that!" hahaha I almost died. 

Everyone have a great week! :) And I love you all! 

Love,
Sister Lowry

When we pulled up to Steve's and the police were there!  The are regulars.  Ha :)

Me yelling at Steve for trying to put his arm around me!

Steve and Eric!  Yes. I know it looks gross.  I've just come to accept it! 



Where we teach on the driveway.  We had to take Sister Halliday to say goodbye to them before she left!

Grace's baptism. 

The turtle Elder Sherwood rescued off the road and brought to cheer us up! 

I named it Taffy.

We let it go in the pond behind our apartment.

Saving Baby Turtles and Two Red Tank Tops

July 8, 2013

Hey family :)

Yes, I consider all of you my family, because you are so great! :) I hate not having too much time to email. I want to read and re-read your emails over again! And reply to each of you individually! But just know that I pray for you every night and I love you all so much! 

It was a pretty good week. Amazingly, we reached our weekly goals, even with only 4 hours of working per day! But we are still having a hard time getting members to lessons with us, which is very important :( I have been learning something perfect for me over the past week. I've been reading in Mosiah (Abinadi has always been my favorite:), and the Lamanites and Nephites are fighting, of course. Anyway, it talks about how the Nephites fought their battles in the strength of the Lord, and the Lamanites depended on their own strength. And guess who won? It was perfect for me, and anyone who is just going through trials! I have been depending on my own strength to get me through my "battles," rather than using the strength of the Lord and of the Atonement. I read in Preach My Gospel just the next day after that that we need to have confidence/faith in God first, then in ourselves. In other words, rely on the Spirit more than our own talent/ability. So those kind of went together :) I have the spiritual thought at district meeting tomorrow, so I am excited to share that :) 

Let's see.. Last Monday the Sherwoods came and kept us company at our apartment, and Elder Sherwood had rescued a baby turtle off the road and brought it to cheer us up! :) It sure did! :) I named it Taffy. And we let it go in our backyard pond. You will see pictures; I am sending them today on my flashdrive! 

We had exchanges this week. So one of the Sister Training Leaders came here, and I got to work for a full day!!! :) Yes, it was very exciting!! :) Our dinner appointment fell through so I made zuchinni and summer squash and egg burritos. Dad, that made me miss you a lot because you always made that :( Squash is like the one fruit/veggie that is better in Utah than in Florida by the way! :)

The 4th of July was awesome! We had Zone Training Meeting (ZTM), and it was so good. I felt the spirit so much as we learned about having a positive attitude, being obedient, and working with members and the ward council. Sometimes our ward council meetings drive me insane, but I just keep praying for them and for the ward! After ZTM we got to meet our new mission president!! :) He and Sister Berry came to our apartment to check up on us and the situation! And not many people have got to meet them yet! They are super personable and approachable. Very nice, and missing their families :( but we are excited to have them! :) We are still playing Sister Salvesen's injury by ear. We have a follow up appointment on Thursday to see what the deal is. She says she feels like it's not getting any better, and she's worried they will send her home :( I told her just to not worry about it and we will cross that bridge when we get to it. (Comstock always says that, and I have picked it up:) I hope she doesn't get sent home. That would be terrible. We are like rocking it here in Titusville/Cocoa! Anyway, after we met them, we got to go to the Sherwoods and have Navajo tacos with all of the senior couples in the mission! Also a huge privilege! We got to do the lesson as well, which was very nerve-wracking because President and Sister Berry were there!! Yeah! Ask me!! But everyone said we did an amazing job. Even President was like, "if I didn't know better, i would have thought you two had been out a year or more!" Heck yeah :) 

Grace got confirmed yesterday! Super neat. And Steve. Oh Steve. Sometimes I could just kick him right in the butt!! At the first of the week he was doing so great! Said that he felt different and thought different. He was praying and reading everyday! He gave us each a tank top from hawaii in exchange for us helping him get eternal life! Then of course the holiday had to come. Then he went MIA. Then we finally got to see him yesterday. And I pretty much ripped his head off. Haha not really, but you know me! I have no tolerance for word of wisdom breaking!! ;) Anyway, I appreciate you all praying for him, please keep it up! He needs it! He wants to get baptized this month, so we are working hard! :) 

I might have talked about Michael, the guy who we helped move into our apartments and he brought his family to the BBQ? Well he came to church yesterday! And he loved it! He is so so appreciative of our friendliness, and is going to let us teach him! :) Pretty sure he will be baptized pretty quick. He really needs the help of the gospel right now. His divorce is really hard on him. But he really felt the spirit in sacrament meeting yesterday. The testimonies shared were so good! You always worry as a missionary because you don't want anything crazy to be said with investigators there! So I just pray hard and count on the spirit to take care of the rest! :) 

You might be wondering about me? Well, I am fine! Pretty bi-polar (like Toni) haha ;) Some days I'm great, others I'm not. But, like I've said a million times, I am learning to depend on the Lord, and trust in His will and His timing. I am also counting my blessings, because we have been truly blessed, and it helps to remember that! I hope everyone has a great week! And I hope you are dealing with the heat well! I will pray for some of our rain here to go over there! It's only been about mid-90's here and humid as ever. I decided i'm going to buy a blender so I can have smoothies. :) 

 Love, Sister Lowry :) 

Florida Lightning Storms/ Happy Fourth of July

 June 30, 2013

Hey Family and Friends! 

 Well, another week has passed! Crazy how time flies. It is already July! Thank you for your letters and emails and support! You wouldn't believe how much they mean! I haven't been homesick at all really until this last week. I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that, but oh well. When you have time to think, you think about home. The title "Florida Lightning Storms" is relevant to this week in a couple different ways :) We have them every day here, and the thunder is scary, but I love watching the lightning! It's beautiful! And like nothing I've ever seen!  

So yeah, it was a rough week, but actually a good one in ways too! The beginning was good. We met a couple while we were trying to visit a less active family, and they let us help them move! It was cool because no one ever lets us help. I remember when mom died and the sister missionaries came over to see if we needed anything and I didn't want them to help either. But they practically begged me, so I let them clean the bathroom and sweep and mop the floor ha :) And now I am on the other side of the situation begging people to let me serve them. Funny. Anyway, we blessed their home they moved into and that couple had us back over to help them clean their old apartment later in the week. It was gross, but I kind of like cleaning, plus I got to burn some calories. (Not biking is killing me). The lady asked us to say another prayer with her for her friend and her job. It was cool to see how much faith she had in our prayers. They aren't really religious, but it was just a first contact, and they have our number :) 

 

 

 We had to go to an orthopedic surgeon this week for Sis. Salvesen's foot. It was sad. The doctor was great, but she gave us some depressing work restrictions. We can only work for 4 hours per day for 2 weeks until the follow up appointment. She also said that Sis. Salvesen won't be back to full walking/biking condition for 8-12 weeks. Just for a stupid Lisfranc sprain and bruising in her foot! My grade 3 sprained ankle healed faster than that! Anyway, I have had to be strong, even though it hurts me so bad to not be able to work. That's what I was meaning when I said I have so much time to think. I hate it. We just study, and eat, and study some more. Super boring. But the Elders gave us priesthood blessings before church yesterday, and they were amazing. I was crying, of course. I am so so grateful to have the priesthood on this earth! It just shows how much Heavenly Father really loves us that he would restore His power and authority to the earth with the gospel so we can use it to benefit each other! We are truly blessed, even though things are hard :) Oh, I forgot to mention, this is all during the transition of our mission presidents this week. So we had to explain the whole situation about ten times. President Berry seems really great though, and we are excited to have him! :) 

 Saturday we had the BBQ I might have talked about that we missionaries planned. It went really well! I had been looking forward to it for a long time. The members didn't really do their job of bringing nonmember friends, but we brought our investigators, and they had a good time! There was tons of good food, and we played volleyball after! Oh man you should have seen Steve and Grace playing! And our bishop too! It was the best! I had never seen an 85 year old woman play volleyball, but she was rockin' it! Also, as we were taking our trash out on Saturday, (our dumpster is clear on the other side of our apartments, like a mile away) I saw a family moving in, so of course I offered to help! Especially after sitting in the apartment all day. The guy’s wife just left him after 20 years :( They were so nice, and of course we invited them to the BBQ that night! They came and had a great time! :) He texted us this morning and said thanks so much and that being around such nice people helped ease his pain for a while! And he said he was going to try to make it to church next Sunday! :) 

Releasing Taffy the Turtle

 

 Steve! He is doing so so awesome! He is keeping his commitments with word of wisdom, and we are going to make some more goals tomorrow! :) He asked us if he could get baptized next Sunday, because he wants his daughter to be here for it. She is leaving for a year in Germany in like a week. I told him if he wanted to be baptized that soon he had to quit everything right that second. So he said he would wait haha :) But his daughter is so cute! She is 17 and a soccer player! He brought her to the BBQ! It was so nice to meet her and her friend. But it made me sad/happy seeing her with her dad because it made me miss my dad so much. But it was cool because he is building his relationship with her back up by working on changing his life! :) Steve also went out and bought a shirt and tie, and wore them to church yesterday! He looked so sharp! Church yesterday was a rough one for nonmembers... But I just had to trust that the Lord took care of them and they still felt the Spirit somehow! Steve also stayed for the baptism after church! :)

 Yes, Grace got BAPTIZED yesterday! :) It was amazing! Sister Salvesen and I gave the talks. A ton of the ward came because it was right after church. Grace bore her beautiful testimony! :) I will probably send the pictures next week! Because I want to have more to send; I haven't taken very many lately. But I will send one of the baptism just because I know you all want to see it :) Grace's granddaughter, Jackie, is a convert and lives in Utah. She kept calling us being super protective of Grace and saying we don't need to rush the baptism and that Grace hasn't been feeling well and blah blah blah. She really has been kind of sick, but when I saw her playing volleyball, I made sure to tell Jackie she was fine to be baptized haha! Satan just loves to try to keep people from things like that! We can all testify of that! 

 Sorry this email is so long! I guess I just had a lot to say! Please pray that I won't die of boredom. And that I won't forget how to teach or talk to people after all this nothingness! I know Heavenly Father will help us, but I do need to have more faith in Him! Thanks again to all of you for all you do! :) I miss you A LOT!!! Have a great Independence Day and light off lots of fireworks for me!! :) 

 Love,

Sister Lowry