New Pictures!

 

Cutting Linzy's bangs!  It was a haircutting party!

  

Ward Picnic at Moss Park

Relief Society birthday party

Iliana's baptism!

St. Patrick's Day!

Ducklings!

Sebastian Gomez, birthday boy!

  

District P-Day

Our investigator, Sal, at his new job

Medina family

Adao family

Johnsons

Taking my companion to the doctor!  #dejavu

 

      

Fort Lauderdale Temple Open House with the members and investigators!  It was amazing!

I needed a new Facebook profile picture!

I wish I was just entering the field!  Can't believe it's been a year already!

JOY!

Good morning! 

Wow, I am just so overwhelmed with joy today! I feel so blessed! Man, God must really love us or something! I got some great emails from my friends and family that just made me so happy! Thank you! And I am just so proud of everyone! I love hearing good news about sports, graduation, missions, weddings, etc. Plus, it is beautiful outside today! 

Our week went quite a bit better. The transfer is now over, and we are starting a new one! Sister Christensen and I are staying together, thank goodness! We have learned so much this past transfer and are so excited to keep applying what we have learned! It was a bit of drought, and we are kinda starting fresh, but we are so looking forward to all the miracles the Lord has in store for us and this area! Our faith and our patience have been tested a lot, and we have really come to know our Savior better and understand our role as His representatives! And we are like best friends, so that is definitely a plus ha! 

So there are actually some people on campus now! So we talked to a ton of people. Few were interested, but we are hoping to meet with them this week! There was a big science fair thing here this weekend, and we met some Utahns! One guy talked to us for like forever, but he wasn't active anymore :( It breaks my heart! He said his kids still go to church though, thank goodness! But sometimes parents don't realize the affect they have on their kids! Anyway, our investigators aren't really progressing and none of them got baptized when they were supposed to, so we are going to just kinda leave it up to them at this point! But last night we met 3 UCF football players and are going to teach them tonight! Yay! :) Oh, and Irving. He is awesome. He is less active but we started teaching him, and he is coming back! :) Yesterday in Sunday school we all went around and said our names and our favorite thing about the church and he said, "missionary work because they always seem to find you when you need it the most." It made us feel so good! 

I honestly don't even know what else to say! Everything is just the same here! I feel seriously so amazing. This is very hard, but that just forces us to apply the Atonement and rely on the Lord. I honestly don't think there is any other way besides a full time mission where you can learn that as fully as we do. Please share the gospel. There are so many people out there who need it. If we don't invite them, then who will? Our invitation to them to come to church, and activity, listen to the missionaries, etc., is an invitation for them to enter the kingdom of God. If someone was drowning would you ask them if they needed help, or would you jump in and save them? 

Love, Sister Lowry 

P.S. My missionary facebook account blocked me, so I am having to use my old facebook. Which means going back through all my pictures, friends, etc. to make it missionary appropriate. Ugh. It has been miserable. Anyway, just a heads up that I am on that page now and no one is allowed to communicate with me through that! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Well, I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! I know i did! It was so nice to see my family, but that was like the shortest 30 minutes of my life! My talk in sacrament went pretty well, and my companion sang beautifully! She didn't let me sing with them. She says she was protecting me ha ;) We also had two sweet ladies come to church. They are from China and studying at UCF. It was their first time ever setting foot in a church, and they loved it! They are adorable. We had another long, rough week. We worked so hard though. School starts back up today, so we are excited to be able to work on campus again with a bunch of new students! :) I honestly don't even know if anything happened this week that is worth telling you all about. The elders are teaching James now, the one that was supposed to get baptized a few weeks ago. Cody is supposed to be getting baptized this weekend. This is the last week of the transfer, so we are hoping that neither of us get transferred. We love each other too much! 

I hope everyone is doing okay! I heard you got a ton of snow. I was in shock because we biked to church yesterday and had to bring a change of clothes because of how sweaty we got. I know school is probably finishing up for a lot of people here pretty quick, so just finish strong okay! Something cool I studied this morning in Alma was about Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty. He wrote down his goal/purpose, and hung it where everyone could see it and be reminded of it. If we don't right down our goals and put them where we will constantly see them, then they are just wishes. I have always been a believer of that! Have a great week! 

Love, Sister Lowry 

Happy Mother's Day Week!

Hey all! I want to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! Especially the ones who really have been like moms to me! Brenda, Becky, Gia, Jackie, Laurel! And of course my grandmas! You ladies are amazing! I can't wait to call home on Sunday! It will be exciting to see my family again! I feel like it was just yesterday that I called though! I'm not sure what time I will be calling... Probably in the afternoon sometime. Also, I got asked to speak in church for Mother's day... So that will be interesting! If anyone has any suggestions, let me know! :) 

So like I said, school is out, and we have just been trying to find people to teach. It has been a struggle, but we are just being diligent and working hard! The Lord is testing our faith and patience, just like he did for the people of Alma in Mosiah 24 I think it is. That is just how it has to go though! Pres. Monson shared a poem in October conference how a tree can't grow right and be strong if is doesn't have some wind and stuff! It's so true. We met a couple of pretty cool girls that we are going to try to follow up with and visit this week, so pray for us haha!

My comp gets a little discouraged because she has been here for 4 months and no one that she was working with has gotten baptized. It can be hard, but I just have to keep reminding her to look at the difference she has made! Last night at the CES devotional we were talking to Colten, one of the members who helps us out a lot. He actually served in Oklahoma with Jayden Payne! Anyway, he always tells us stories and gives us advice to pick us up! He lives with Zarek, who also served in that mission. Zarek has just recently kinda started coming back to church with Colten. They had us over for dinner a couple weeks ago, then Zarek took us out this week. They are both so smart with the gospel and missionary work! So we had a lesson after dinner and asked Zarek to come, and he did! So at the devo last night Colten was telling us how we have really helped Zarek and how he was like reading the Ensign and his scriptures and starting to do all that stuff again! It made us feel so good that we had made a difference somewhere ha! 

So that devotional was pretty good last night, and we also got to watch the Fort Lauderdale Temple dedication! It was amazing! I had never watched one, and it was so special. I learned that when we dedicate a temple, it's like us going to the temple. We dedicate the building to the Lord, and we dedicate ourselves to the Lord when we go to the temple. I miss the temple! But I get to go in June with the Justus family! My first baptism! :) Can't believe that was almost a year ago. This time is so special to me, and I thank Heavenly Father every night for giving me this wonderful opportunity. But I feel like I can never express enough thanks! 

Oh, I got to go visit Alex and Christy yesterday from Waterford Lakes! I keep hearing that they aren't doing very well, so since I am in that stake again, our district leader gave me permission to go visit them! They seemed pretty happy to see me. Other than that, nothing really exciting happened this week. We ate out basically everyday, because that is just how the members feed us. And my companion let me cut her hair this morning! So that was exciting. Oh, I failed to wish my gorgeous sister Isha happy birthday!! :) I love you missy and am so proud of you! 

Have a great week! 

Love, Sister Lowry 

Dad's Birthday Week!

Well of course I want to start by telling my dad Happy Birthday on May 2! You are my best friend, my hero, and the most amazing person I know. I look up to you more than anyone and hope and pray that I can be half the parent that you are! And I am so proud of you for how far you have come! 

This week went by pretty fast. It was finals week at UCF, so all the students were busy studying and taking tests, and we weren't really able to meet with anyone. Now there is a two week break between semesters. So basically no one will be in our area or on campus. It's gonna be rough. I just keep telling myself that the Lord must trust us to be in this area at this difficult time of the year, and that is helping us get through it. The members are pretty helpful though and we are all trying to figure out how we can keep us 6 missionaries in this ward busy. It's a challenge, but we can totally do it! Our investigators are doing pretty well. James didn't get baptized. He decided to go home for a couple weeks. He said he still will be baptized, but not yet. Cody and Hayder were so busy studying that we barely got to see them. They should both get baptized in May sometime. We are working hard though and still having a good time! 

We had a couple funny incidents this week... One of them was when we were biking to visit a guy we used to teach and ended up talking to his neighbor who was about to smoke a joint. Then his two friends walked up with their pants basically down to their knees. We were trying to contact them like we do anyone, but they talked so much and had quite a few questions for us! One of the questions was, "Are you virgins?" haha I almost died! Then one guy said, "Well, if I woulda' known that you would have been snatched by now!!" Then I was really dying! We said a prayer with them and left. It is so funny being around students all the time. Especially since I'm used to BYU students! 

So, as I've reflected on the past year of my mission, I have just been so grateful for this opportunity and trust that Heavenly Father has given me. A lot of people have asked me what they can do to prepare for a mission and I never know what to say. But I was studying this morning and I think that along with studying, the best thing we can all do to prepare ourselves for missionary service is to purify ourselves. To nourish our spirits. Make sure they are clean and strong. The quicker we learn how to recognize the spirit and be in tune with it, the more Heavenly Father can trust us with His sons and daughters. 

Well, good luck to everyone taking finals! Have a good week! 

Love, Sister Lowry