Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Oh my gosh! I am just so thankful today! For all of the emails and letters and love! You all are so amazing! :) I got a "Thanksgiving package" from my family, and it was such a wonderful surprise! :) I was studying gratitude this morning in my personal study, and I was thinking about how people are probably posting on facebook one thing they are grateful for each day and all that stuff. But we should have gratitude all year duh! I need to be better at it for sure. "He who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious" D&C 78:19. Let a spirit of thanksgiving guide and bless your days and nights. Work at being grateful. You will find in yields wonderful results. Live in thanksgiving DAILY! I encourage you to all read Mosiah chapter 2 this week and to try to keep a gratitude journal not only at this time of year, but always! :)

Let's see. I have been out 7 months!!!! AHHH!!!! Today in our letter to President he asked what we are most grateful for. That is always such a hard question, but I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve. Especially in this beautiful place! I love it here! Brenda sent some pictures of the kids building a snowman, and I was a little jealous because I love doing that every year. But then I thought about how much I love the weather here, and I was fine ha :) Except this week was a little chilly! It got down to like 60! Yikes! ;)

Ok so last Monday we went golfing, and it was pretty fun! I was the only one who knew what I was doing though! Thanks to Trevor Smith teaching me back in the day ha! :) We also ate at a Chinese buffet called Joy Luck twice last week. It reminded me of home because we used to always go to that Chinese buffet on Main Street by Lin's. The food was good, but I got sick after we ate there on Monday and Wednesday. Ugh. I guess it's the MSG or something! Hopefully no more members take us there! We also had FHE with a family from the ward. It was so cool. The mom, Sister Cedeno bore her testimony to her kids and it was so spiritual I started crying and they probably thought I was a freak! I also made these delicious peanut butter bars this week with a recipe my dad sent! And those actually got me to drink milk! The mission nurse, Sister Nielson, told me to start taking a calcium vitamin if I wasn't going to drink milk.... Oops! Never been a fan. But my knees have been killing me and I feel like a grandma, so I don't really have a choice! Oh! I also finished my first mission journal this week! :) I was super excited about that! We had an apartment inspection too! We passed of course but almost didn't because my companion didn't make her bed or put her laundry away.....

So, on the "grateful" note, this week we met some great people! :) Hopefully we will be able to follow up with them and start teaching them. One is a family that just moved from Venezuela, and they are so sweet. We played volleyball with them at the park when we met them. They are catholic, but we will see! :) Then there was another family on our ward roster that we didn't know who they were so we went to visit them and they were so sweet! The mom isn't a member, but she was super nice! The two girls are so solid too. They have tons of pets! One is a parrot named Sparkle, and when Sister Adamson was holding him, he pooped right on my leg! AHH!! It was insane. But, at least I can now say that a parrot has pooped on my leg! :) We are also working with a couple families in our ward that need to get to the temple. It's really cool being able to testify to them of the blessings of the temple and getting their family sealed. They will get there soon I hope :)

Not to sound ungrateful, but the investigators we've been working with are being slackers. We might have to drop all of them ha. Iliana and Ivet, the two sisters, have bailed on us like 3 times in a row. But want us to come tonight, so we'll see. The Rivera family bailed on church, again. We taught the mom on Saturday, but it was almost impossible to feel the spirit with her kids running around screaming and climbing all over everything. And they still haven't read or prayed. But, Jerry is doing pretty good! He came to church and liked it! He is still reading and praying, but just needs an answer. So pray for him!

Well, I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving week. You definitely deserve it! Best of luck with everything coming up! Wrestling, dance, finals, etc! :)

Love, Sister Lowry

NO GREATER JOY

Hola!! :)

Wow! So much to say in so little time! First of all I want to thank all of you for your prayers! I can definitely feel them and really really appreciate it!! :) I am also supposed to remind my family and friends to send Christmas packages addressed to the mission office by December 10th. But I don't want or need anything, so it doesn't really apply ha! :) Man, I can't believe the holidays are here already!! Insane!! Also, remember to check out our mission website for updates on what is happening here! :) www.floridaorlandomission.com

Today our email from President Berry had a quote from President Hinckley that I love. "Reach out and bless others in all that you do, that, because of your efforts, someone many live a little closer to the Lord and have a little greater happiness in his or her life." I promise that there is NO GREATER JOY that comes than from that of serving others. I have been way too selfish lately and am working on it! I never knew I was selfish or prideful! A mission teaches you lots about yourself that is for sure ha!

This week we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. They are so great. I learned so much and it was just what I needed! My relationship with my companion is improving and I see lots of miracles ahead of us! :) A couple super cool miracles that happened this week are that a less active family that we had never met called us and asked what time church was, then they came yesterday! We also were able to teach Hector's family on Saturday night and they came to church on Sunday! It was kinda crazy with their 3 and 4 year old boys... But after time it will get better! Their 11 year old daughter really liked it though! :) So if you want to pray for our investigators their names are: The Rivera family, and Ivet and Iliana (two sisters). :) Gracias!

 

On Friday and Saturday we got the amazing opportunity to volunteer at the Prader Willi Syndrome Conference here in Orlando. Prader Willi Syndrome is similar to Down Syndrome in that they have a defect on a chromosome that causes intellectual disability. They also don't have the thing that tells your brain you are full, so they just keep eating because they never feel full! We had 60 missionaries there and made up most of the volunteer force! :) They were very appreciative because they said they couldn't have done conference without our service. I got to work with the little kids from like 2-6. We basically got paired with a kid for the two days. My buddy was Cade, and he was the best!! He reminded me so much of Daxton Decker, and it made me feel like I was at home babysitting Erin's kids again ha! :) We just played games, read books, did puzzles, ate snacks, and had naps for two days! We also got to meet Mickey! :) We were on Disney property at a hotel! Crazy! It was super cool, but I am happy to be back to regular missionary work ha! Another cool thing was that a volunteer dad is from Aurora, Utah, right by Richfield! His family was so cute. Their last name is Bagley. He is cousins with the Lovell family from Enoch! So we talked a lot about them! He told me Cole Lovell passed away last week and I was so sad to hear that :( He wrestled for my dad and I did gymnastics with his sister!) They are an amazing family and are in my prayers!

Today we went to Aofia Mauigoa's work! She is like my favorite person in this ward. She is from Samoa and is a fitness coach and sells Herbalife and has 6 kids! Basically we are like twins haha. So we had lunch with her and she evaluated me and basically told me yes I am overweight hahaha! Oh my gosh she is crazy, and I love her. This ward is great, but has a ways to go with their missionary work! We are having a hard time getting members to fellowship investigators and less actives :( But they will come around! Things like this just take time, patience, and of course faith and charity!

Well, God bless you all! You are in my thoughts and prayers always!

xoxo
Love, Sister Lowry

Oh, PS: We get to be an internet proselyting mission pretty soon! How cool!! :)

 

 

 

Life is Like a Roll of Toilet Paper...

 Hi family and friends!

It's crazy how fast time flies. That quote about how life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end the faster it goes, is definitely true for a mission! Congrats to my brother Brady for being undefeated in football! That is super awesome. And I hope you all are staying warm! It got a little chilly here this week. Like clear down to 70 degrees. Here is my missionary quote for the week; kinda long but still good :) 

"We as a people have one supreme thing to do, and that is to call upon the world to repent of sin, to come to God. And it is our duty above all others to go forth and proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the restoration again to the earth of the plan of life and salvation... We have in very deed the pearl of great price. We have that which is of more value than all the wealth and the scientific information which the world possesses. We have the plan of life and salvation... The best way in the world to show our love for our neighbor is to go forth and proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, of which He has given us an absolute knowledge concerning it's divinity." -Pres. Heber J. Grant :)

 

Here we are still working on getting to know the members and the area. They are super great. I don't remember what I talked about last week but there are tons of Polynesians and Hispanics here so they make us eat so much. Halloween was pretty lame we just stayed in the apartment and planned for the upcoming week. But the ward had a party/trunk or treat the night before so that was fun. We biked a lot this week. We didn't get to meet with Hector but we still visited them and his wife is warming up to us, so we are hoping we can teach all of them! There are a lot of recent converts in this ward so we have been trying to visit all of them. One is named Janice and she is great. Husband is from Poland and not a member so we are hoping we can teach him. He is such a talker though so it might be kinda' tough ha. Not to mention the accent. And I am soo bad with accents. Yikes. There are a ton of less actives and part member families in this ward so we are going to try to work with them. I'm still overwhelmed with the whole whitewashing and bigger area thing, but we are just taking it one day at a time.  

 

The best thing about this week was that we had Zone Conference on Tuesday. Elder Walker from the Quorum of the Seventy came and trained us and he is awesome. He was a mission president in Tokyo! Pretty cool. I really felt the spirit and needed that upliftment! You wouldn't think that you would get spiritually hungry when you are a missionary, but you do! Well, I do at least. Some things I got out of it were just like little quotes. "Be a little better than your best." And Pres. Berry reminded us to Stand Fast in all that we do. Also, Elder Walker is in charge of temples so I asked him about mine. (When I say mine I mean the Cedar City one;) He said they are behind on designs but that it is going to be an extra pretty one! And this weekend my companion got sick :( I think that our intensity levels are a lot different, so I am going to have to tone it down a little bit. But something that Pres. Eyring said would help us be successful missionaries is what I will end my letter with!

"Be faithful, work hard, and smile." It is simple as that. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Sister Lowry