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

Welcome to the Islands!

Sister Adamson, my new companion!

Hi!
So I am surviving! This week was super long. I usually don't look forward to Mondays, but I did this week ha. The P-day before transfers and transfers are always crazy. But I got to say goodbye to mostly everyone. It was hard. I love that ward so much. As I did the one before that! I'm sure that's how it always is! But I am settled in now and doing fine! Because I know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers, this week I was asking Him what I needed to do. Basically I just got the answer of Christlike attributes! So that is a lot. Obviously I can't do all of them at once, but I want to work on being more humble right now. So it was cool because I saw an awesome scripture in Luke this morning. I'll paraphrase. "He who exalts himself will be humiliated, and he would humble himself will be exalted." So I thought that was pretty cool! :)

My goodbye lunch at a sushi place!  Dad and Brenda, I thought of you!

We have been doing a lot of organizing, but that is like one of my hobbies so I don't mind that! One of the senior sister missionaries was like, "They leave you somewhere long enough just to get the place in order then they send you somewhere else to do the same!" I feel like that is pretty true ha. So we have been doing cleaning, area book/map book stuff, etc. We haven't been able to meet any of the people the previous sisters were teaching, so that is a bummer. But we have met with some members, active and not active. So that has been fun. It seems like this is a great ward, but they just need a little push on the missionary efforts. I probably let the ward mission leader know that a little to directly at church yesterday... :\ Most of the ward is hispanic or polynesian. AKA I am going to get even fatter! And my companion is not a runner. So I didn't luck out again :( But, we have a fitness center at our apartments-thank goodness!)

 

Every night our district leader asks us what miracle we saw that day. It is sometimes annoying and hard to answer, but I love that he does that because we should all always find a miracle in every day. Or at least just find how we noticed the Lord's hand in our lives each day. Yesterday we had a cool miracle. We prayed about where we should go tracting after church, and we went to a street called Blackheath. We found an awesome guy named Hector and taught him. We invited him to be baptized on November 30, and he said if he gets "the burning sensation from the Holy Spirit" that he would. He was a pretty spiritual guy! Super nice too. So keep him in your prayers please! He is basically all we've got because we can't get ahold of anyone that the previous sisters had. But there are totally people prepared to hear the gospel. We just have to exercise our faith. We are told to exercise for atleast 30 minutes five times a week right? So we should exercise our faith just the same or more!

 

Saturday was good. We got to do a service project for a really ghetto elementary school. It was a lot of fun! All the missionaries in the zone were there and we laid sod, mulch, planted flowers, and weeded! And Saturday night was so awesome! There is a family named the Vaiaoga's from Samoa. They had us over for dinner/their son's birthday party. They have a huge extended family in the area, so there were alot of people there. And tons of food! And entertainment! We played ball with the kids, ate, talked. They made us dance! And my companion even sang! It was tons of fun. There is the cutest lady in our ward that I just love. Her name is Aofia. She is a fitness instructor and we always talk about exercising and diet! She is the one who pulled us up and made us dance ha. I also ate mussel and octopus! It was interesting! Other than that nothing too exciting is happening here! I hit my 6 month mark! Crazy!

I hope everyone has a great week and a fabulous Halloween!

xoxoxox

Love, Sister Lowry

PS: Sorry, I don't have pictures of the Samoan party :( :(

Transfer Week!

Sister Berry and me matching.  We are a lot alike!

 

The Halloween wreath I made.

 
Hello!


Well I hope this email finds everyone happy and well! As winter is coming, make sure to get lots of water and vitamin C! :) I have to get another flu shot next week. Ugh. I was on the couch for the rest of the day last time I got one! But my great friends Regan and Grace and Maddie came and ate Graham Canyon ice cream with me, so it wasn't too bad! Good memories! :) Can't believe that was over six months ago! I hit my 6 month mark this week! Which means only one year left! :) CRAZY!!! Time seriously flies. Well, I am getting transferred tomorrow! :( I am so sad to leave Waterford Lakes. It is such an amazing ward. I love all the people so much. Can't wait to come back and visit! I was thinking like next November or December? haha ;) But, I guess need to learn something from a new area and new companion! I am whitewashing again. Which means both of us are new to the area. Whitewashing is really hard. This will be my third time doing it. So pray for us! Oh, my new area is called Hunter's Creek btw.

Sister Rogers' birthday! 

 

 

Quote for the week! :)

"Our duty is to preach the gospel to all men...That is what God expects of us." -Pres. John Taylor :)  

 

 

We had a pretty good week! I definitely realized how our attitude directly effected the attitudes of the people we met! Irma is doing well! :) She hasn't been reading, which is bad :( But I suggested that she read while she eats her breakfast! That is what I always did at BYU to make time for the scriptures. She seemed excited to try it! :) Don is not doing so well... I think we should drop him. Keep serving but not wasting time with his questions/concerns that just take faith. We have done all we can. But I am leaving it up to Sister Rogers what to do because she is staying in the area.

 

We tried on Don's glasses...:)

 

Funniest thing happened yesterday. So like our first week here we met a lady named Rhonda who was super nice and seemed interested just busy. So we text her every once in awhile and invite her to church/activities. And we stop by if we are in the area. She said someday it will happen and work out and that she loves our texts! Yesterday we were by her house and thought we'd stop by. She was talking about her kids and family and started talking about her youngest son who is in the ROTC and his girlfriend is in the hospital... We were like (at the same time) "Are you Austin's mom?!?!?!" She is totally Austin's mom! So she went and got him and we talked! We were supposed to go visit Tori in the hospital but she hasn't been up for visitors :( So I won't get to say goodbye. I am super bummed. But Rhonda took a picture of us with Austin to send to Tori and she loved it. It was just so cool to see that connection and how the hand of the Lord was totally in it! I hope things work out with all of that. Austin said he's been reading but we haven't been able to meet again :(

 

Elder Freeman's birthday!  October 12--my mom's b-day. 

Lainee's b-day is also in October sometime!

Our pretend candles :)

 

Conference Sunday!  A member, Sister Walker, always makes

a conference themed apple pie!  It says, "Called to Serve."  :)

 

We also got a referral from a guy in another ward to visit a family. We did and they were so shocked and grateful that we just stopped by to see how they were doing! (They live right next to Rhonda and the mom's name is Rhonda, how funny). But we were able to have a prayer and share a scripture with them. Rhonda also told us that like 30 minutes before we knocked she was telling her husband that she wanted to start going to church again!! Ahh!! So we invited them but they had a family emergency :( This family really needs the gospel and I really hope that it works out for them too.

 

How happy Sister Rogers is when she gets a letter from her missionary in Peru!

We visited the Leak family again this week. I think I've talked about them before. Nonmember dad and son, less active mom. It was so cool because Bro. Leak was so sad that one of us was leaving! (We didn't know which one yet). He was like, "I've had a lot of missionaries come around but you two are by far the best!" That made our day :) We also were able to have a dinner and lesson with the Walker's and their daughter and son-in-law who is a non-member also. It was so good. They aren't in our ward but we commited them to go to church and him to get Sundays off. He agreed! Then before we left he said to me, "I have met with a lot of missionaries and the only one that ever seemed to really be confident in what he was talking about was the very first one, until you!" So that made me feel super good! :)

The elders got hold of my camera...

 

Our District

 

A picture of Elder Freeman that Elder Vance took...they are fun boys!

 

We had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders this week. I went with Sister Rich again, and I learned a ton! Not even necessarily from the work, but just from talking with her and getting advice from a more experienced missionary! She reminded me of a lot of things that I needed to be reminded of! It helped alot. Looking back on these last two transfers here, they have been so tough! But they have also been amazing! We really have been so successful. We have planted a million seeds, addressed people's random concerns and questions about the LDS church, and met almost all of the less actives in our area and built amazing relationships with them! (Which is the first step)! Super cool. Now I get to go eat sushi for lunch (I think of my parents), and pack my suitcases again! Wahoo! :) Sorry this is so long... Have an amazing week everyone!

Love, Sister Lowry

A Relief Society activity!

Fun Game?

Pretty sunset we saw while feeding the ducks!

 

Hey!

I don't know how fond I am of this "Hey, let's everyone get married while Loni is gone" game!!!!!! But congrats to my Regan and also to my Uncle David! :) Next it will be Grace and then Kendra. It's whatever. I am where I am supposed to be! :) And I still love it of course! The weather here is amazing right now. I love the members so much I never want to leave them. And I still love my companion too. Transfers are next week so we are nervous/excited to see what happens. Something I learned this week is that submitting our will to God is the one unique thing we can lay on the altar for Him. I really liked that because sometimes it's hard to remember to forget myself and just do His work.

 

It was an interesting week! Monday we went bowling for District P-day and I bowled a 146! That is a personal best :) I thought you would be proud grandma Sandy! Tuesday Sister Rogers had to go to the doctor again to get an absess thing on her leg drained. It was really cool to watch. But she got pretty sick afterwards so we had to spend the next couple days resting. We still went to Don's and had a good lesson. She just sat on the porch and cheered me on while I mowed the lawn. Thursday we helped the Ko family with their English. That was so fun. Just made me remember how much I love teaching! But English is freaking hard!!! I don't know how people learn it.

 

Sword fighting with the weeds at Don and Sue's

This weekend there was a big festival called the Oktoberfest at our little community. It was super cool! Friday night was just an alcohol fest but Saturday was awesome because it was more of a family thing. We wanted to just stay for like ever and walk around (it reminded me of the July Jamboree in Cedar), but missionaries have a curfew for some reason?? ;) We got free spine tests and basically our backs and necks are messed up ha. I'm about ready for a chiropractor and also a teeth cleaning. You know what that means? It's been six months!! :)

 

We were soaked from the rain so when we got to dinner

the member put our clothes in the dryer and gave us robes! :)

Check out the snake around my neck!

 

We also were able to have a lesson with Irma again finally! It went really well. We haven't been able to see Austin :( Big bummer. We had stake conference yesterday and got a new stake presidency. But our ward actually got moved out of the stake. But transfers are coming anyway so basically it's just a big mess! But Elder Soares who spoke at general conference spoke at our stake conference and it was really cool! :) Yesterday was also Sister Rogers birthday so we got to hang out and celebrate a bit! It was fun. I have some cute pictures. I am sending my flash drive so they will be on my blog soon. Today we watched mormon channel at a members house and wrote our letters, so that was fun! :)

I hope everyone is happy and well! I love you all!

Love, Sister Lowry

Baby turtle we found on the sidewalk!

 

My cute companion...

 

Best Friends!

 

The elders fell asleep while waiting for us to come get the car!

No wonder, they were listening to conference talks!

 

Ugliest duck ever that charged us!

 

Saying good-bye to our recent convert family, the Caldwells!  They had to move :(

God Loves Us! :)

Helloo!

Ok, how blessed are we to have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much that he sends living prophets to guide us in this day? I am still overwhelmed with the spirit of general conference! It was such a neat and different experience watching it as a missionary! It went by so fast! And the spirit in the chapel is much stronger than on my couch! I think my favorite was Elder Maynes’ talk on spiritual endurance. I loved how he compared it to physical endurance, because I've always kinda’ been in to that stuff! It is so important to exercise our testimonies as well as our physical bodies! :) I also loved President Monson's of course. I hope everyone will remember his words, "Will you falter? Or will you finish?" whenever you are having a hard time! Remember the Lord will never forsake you! :)

It was another tougher week, so Sister Rogers and I were very grateful to be so spiritually uplifted with conference and also ZTM, which is monthly. Monday we were able to make fall wreaths with the Holt family! :) They agreed to actually investigate and listen to the lessons! :) It was so exciting for us! Our wreaths are adorable as well. Bad thing about it, the family changed their mind a couple days later and texted us that they were no longer interested and would be finding a different place of worship :( But they are a very sweet family and said we could stop by for a snack whenever! They will come around someday :) We also dropped Pamela because she wouldn't do anything or keep our appointments :( I made a general conference journal for Don, and he loved it! He recorded all of the sessions, but had to fit them in with his football games! I used to love football, not so much as this point haha! ;) So hopefully he will get to watch! Some of the talks were perfect for him! We also helped a few people put up Halloween decorations this week! That was fun because I have always loved doing that stuff! :)

 

My "One Dessert a Day" diet is not working out very well....... :\ We had a birthday party/dinner for Elder Freeman, an Elder we serve with. So that was super fun! :) I'll have pictures of this stuff on the blog soon. Well, Laurel will. She is amazing! :) We met some super great people this week. We are told that we should find them that will receive us. Find the prepared people. These people seemed so prepared! But, of course, they don't live in our area so we have to hand them off to other missionaries! But, it doesn't matter the missionaries, as long as they get the chance to hear the gospel! :) Speaking of prepared people, when we were tracting this week we met two ladies who kept trying to bible bash with us. Ugh. It's so annoying. They were "reformed baptist," and I made the mistake of asking what that entails.... Well we stood in their driveway for like an hour listening to them preach to us! They didn't even take a breath! We finally got to bear our testimonies, which is all you can do in a situation like that. And no matter what, people can't turn down a testimony. They didn't even know what to say! They were crazy though. Just made me realize that much more that our church is the true one! They were saying the bible is the only word of God and if anyone else tries to teach more then they are wrong and dadadadada. Modern day revelation is such a blessing!!! Sister Rogers rocked it bearing her testimony too. I was so proud :)

 

Anyway, I have to save the best for last of course. After a particularly hard day, Thursday I believe, (when we lost the Holt's and Pamela), we were getting ready for bed/writing in our journals. A less active young woman named Tori called us. We have visited them a couple times and they come to church every once in awhile but seem pretty "active" other than that ha. Anyway, she told us her boyfriend was interested in listening to the missionaries and learning more about our church!!! Oh my gosh we almost died!! :) Just another proof that diligence brings miracles!! :) So we got to teach him last night, and it was one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission. He is so sincere and prepared, especially for a 17 year old! He is excited to read the Book of Mormon and find out what he really believes. He has a full ride scholarship to the Naval Academy for lacrosse! How cool huh?! :)

Well I love you all. I hope you are enjoying your short fall weather, colorful leaves, football, soccer. horses, school, work, and whatever else! :) The church is truer than true! :)

Love,

Sister Lowry

PS: Happy Birthday soon to my amazing, faithful, dedicated, loving, tough, best mom and to my sweet little Lainee Williams!!! :)