Merry Christmas From Sunny Florida!!

 Hello!!! :) 

Ahhh I don't even know where to start! But I love you all so much and hope and pray you have an amazing Christmas! :) Remember the best gift we can give is to LOVE!!!! It totally doesn't feel like Christmas here, but I love it anyways! The first day of winter was Saturday and it was like 85 degrees. I thought Christmas time would be so hard being away from home but it's not really that bad! The best gift we can give to the Savior is to help others come closer to Him, so of course I am loving that. And I have never felt closer to Him so that is a great gift that I have already received! Don't worry, I am excited to see my family on Wednesday too ;)

Sister Jacklin, my trainee!

So, we had an amazing week. First of all, Yvette got baptized! :) Don't worry, I will be sending pictures home soon. I am waiting till the Christmas mail chaos is over! Anyways, it was amazing. She had her interview and almost didn't pass so we were praying so so hard, but she was totally fine! :) Then she bore her testimony at the baptism and I just cried. She is so solid. We also went to a temple tour that same day and it was really special! She was confirmed yesterday and also sang in the ward choir! It seriously is the most amazing blessing to be able to see the changes that the Atonement can bring to people's lives.

So that was Saturday. Sunday was also cool because the elders met a lady and invited her to church and she came! And we got to teach her last night! Her name is Carolyn :) Then Friday was crazy! We had a meeting for trainers and trainees. That was good. Then we had a mission conference Christmas devotional with all the missionaries in the mission! It was so cool seeing all of them! Especially Sister Rogers! I miss her so much! There were just a lot of musical numbers mostly, then food and socializing. :) But, the best part, they announced that we will be able to go to temple!! :) We can only go on our last day in the mission then if one of our converts goes for their endowment. But they changed it so that we get to go twice a year in January and July! :) You should have heard the gasp that came from all the missionaries! It was awesome. So I will finally get to see the new video!! :) We also had interviews with president this week, which went well. Yeah, it was a crazy week as you can tell. Oh! Friday we also had the Night in Bethlehem! It was a stake activity and it was so cool! They did a live nativity and acted out some other things, then had a little concert, snacks, and the gym was set up like Bethlehem! It was really neat! They had an after party but we had to be home at ten :( So that was a bummer! But it was still really cool!

Another miracle for the week, we started teaching the Thomas family! They are the family of the Erbiti family in our ward. They have come to church a couple times and they invited us over to their house! We got to teach them and they fed us dinner. We are going to spend Christmas Eve with them and meet with them again this week :) So pray for them! I honestly don't remember what I have talked about in previous weeks, so I'm sorry if I repeat or forget to talk about certain people! It's just we have so little time I try to talk about the highlights! Can you believe I have been here for 8 months?!?!?!? Yeah, I cannot!! Today we are going ice skating... So that should be interesting. Last time I did that was sophomore year with Kameron and he just pulled me around the whole time so... Yikes! I will probably rip my jeans since they are so tight now. Ugh. Holidays! ;) Gotta love getting that winter coat!

xoxo

Love, Sister Lowry 

 I love Yorkies!

 The kind of house we tract...(in Waterford Lakes).

 Saying goodbye to Irma! :(

 Our sushi goodbye lunch.  Me, Sister Rogers, Sister Nikitopoulos, Sister Yates Sister Harvey, Harper Yates.

 Two of my favorites.  Sister Turpin, her baby Mack, me, Sister Lopez, Eve Turpin.

 Sweet Frog Fro-Yo!

 Saying goodbye to Sister Walker!

 Saying goodbye to the Beduns!  Isabella, me, Emily, William.

 Saying goodbye to Sara!  Our other companion!  She's heading to Mexico City!

 My best friend!  I sure miss that girl!

 Sunset..."all things denote there is a God."

 Us & our sister training leaders, Sisters Conant & Higley!

 So close to Disney!

 My cute little Cade I got to play with me at the Prader-Willi Syndrome conference!

Come Let Us Adore Him!

The puppy Keilani!! (I don't know how he spelled it!)

Oh my gosh! How amazing is this time of year?!?! I love it so so so much!!! The music, the love, the decorations, the spirit, the snow! Oh wait... ;) Anyways, I have read so many good things in the Ensign! Please don't forget the reason for the season! Christ has given us everything. What are you going to give back? Also, don't just remember Christ's birth; remember His life, His teachings, His Atonement! It is all so amazing.

The relief society dinner. Yvette is the one next to me

Ok, things are going great!! :) We basically rocked it this week. It is amazing what obedience, diligence, and fervent prayer can do! We saw so many miracles this week! First, Yvette!!! She agreed to be baptized a week earlier than she was supposed to, which is this Saturday, the 21st. She basically asked if she could haha! It was amazing. I love her so much. She is so prepared. One of the best experiences of my whole mission was yesterday at church. In Gospel Principles we were going around introducing ourselves and when it was Yvette's turn she said, "I'm Yvette Rivera, I'm from New York, and I'm getting baptized on Saturday because I have finally found the true church." AHHHH!!! I almost fell out of my chair. It was incredible!! But, the adversary is working really hard on her this week. She is staying strong but she really needs your prayers!! Please!! :)

Next, the Bakers. They moved into the ward a couple months ago and got in contact with the bishop. He asked us to visit them but we have called and stopped by a million times and they never answer! They are busy. Lauren is pregnant and not a member but has taken the lessons already. We finally got a hold of them and met with them! They are great! He is a little protective, but it's kinda understandable because it's a high risk pregnancy. Anyway, she just wants to review the lessons and hope to see it from a girl’s point of view and understand it better! I guess she was intimidated with the elders and her husband teaching her. They came to church though and she is super excited to have us over basically every day! :)

Then the Erbiti family has been working on their nonmember family and they have come to church twice and to two activities! Yesterday we ran into one of them when we were biking and she said we need to come over because her husband has questions! :) So we are on Wednesday I think. The members are getting tons better. They are still treating us good. And coming along on the missionary efforts ha!

Rex and Vijay, our fire knife dancing friends!

This week I also learned how to fire knife dance from some of the Samoans in our ward ha. Another Samoan family's dog had puppies and their son named one of them Keilani... hahaha. It was funny :) I guess he has a little crush... Sister Jacklin is doing pretty well! She just goes for everything ha! Although I can see the difference between just the year of age. Like all my companions have been my age or older, and she is Toni's age. So it's interesting! But we have a good time. I feel a little weird that Kaden and Zack are home and Jordan will be home this week. Time is so weird. I remember each of their farewells! But it's okay, the next ten months will fly by way too fast I am sure!!

This is truly the Lord's work and I wouldn't rather be doing anything else! I love it so much and I have never been happier! I hope you all are doing amazing. Keep up the good work! It does not go unnoticed! And thank you for sending Christmas presents! They are under our little plug in Christmas tree that Brenda sent me! :) The only one I have opened is my grandma Lowry's Christmas candy... Oh my gosh we are loving it!! Oh, and I should be skyping on Christmas about 10am your time, but I will let you know for sure later on. Have a great week! :)

Love, Sister Lowry 

"Christmas Time is Family Time. Family Time is Sacred Time."

Hey all! :)

So, I heard it's freezing there? I am so sorry :( It is so hot here still ha. It does not feel like Christmas time at all! Thank goodness people here decorate pretty good! And the first presidency Christmas devotional last night helped too. I hope you all were able to watch it! It was so amazing! I also gave my talk yesterday on missionary work and Christmas, and I thought it went pretty well! Two of my favorite things from the devotional were Sister Wixom saying, "We miss something if we don't see Christmas through a child's eyes." And Elder Nelson, "Christmas time is family time. Family time is sacred time." It really is. Please take the time this Christmas to spend with your family! I know friends are important too and work and whatever else, but some of us don't get to be with our families, so take advantage of that! But we do have a place to go for lunch on Christmas where we will be able to Skype so I am really excited for that! :)

This week was pretty good. I am training Sister Jacklin, and she is awesome! She is like a natural at teaching and contacting. She isn't scared of anything or at least she doesn't show it! She is from Payson and went to Salem Hills High School. She played soccer and basketball but tore her ACL twice so that just sucks :( But she runs with me for exercise thank goodness! She just graduated in May so she is young! Oldest of five kids and talks a lot, kinda like me ha. We have a good time.

So we dropped Jerry. He just was too stubborn about the Bible. :( But we are still teaching Yvette and she is doing great! She is excited to be baptized and it should happen by the end of the month! She came to church and participated in the lesson and everything! Now we are just doing a lot of finding again because she is like basically our only investigator.

Our ward Christmas party was this week so that was a lot of fun! There were a couple less active families that we invited who came and some members brought their nonmember friends! :) We stayed after and there was a DJ and we danced! It was so fun! I taught everyone how to do the cotton eyed joe! They were kind of shocked at us dancing and having fun ha!

The best thing was I think Friday night we went to the Medina's for dinner. I love them so much! They have a house on their street that does an open house to show their decorations and they have like 30 Christmas trees in their house with all different themes! I tried to take pictures but they did not do it justice. It was the coolest thing ever! Then they drove us around showing us where their friends lived that we could go visit! It was such a miracle that someone was finally referring their friends! I know as everyone continues to pray hard to know who they can introduce to the missionaries that miracles will totally come from it!

Well, I don't have much more to report on! I pray you all are doing well and loving the season! :)

Love, Sister Lowry

PS: Send me your Christmas cards! :)

Pictures from the party and from the house. This was a peacock themed tree and Brenda I thought of you!!

A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Florida!

My favorite lady Aofia Mauigoa!

Good morning! :) 

So I have to give a talk in church next week about missionary work and Christmas. I was reminded of a quote from general conference by Elder Ballard. I think it kind of links the two together :) 

"Trust the Lord. He is the Good Shepherd. He knows His sheep, and His sheep know His voice; and today the voice of the Good Shepherd is your voice and my voice."

This is the time of year that people are thinking about the Savior most. We need to take advantage of that! It is easy to share the gospel during the holidays! :) 

We had a pretty good week here in Southern Orlando! It was the last week of the transfer, and it's cool to look back at our numbers and see how much things have grown and improved in the past six weeks! I am staying in Hunter's Creek because I got asked to be a trainer again!!!! :) I am so excited! I loved training. I get to meet my new companion tomorrow! So I will be here for the next 12 weeks! We are gonna whip this ward into shape haha. 

My district!

So, I forgot to mention last week that I finally went to the dentist and got my teeth cleaned! It felt nice! :) Dr. Beardon said I have had some good dental work done, so props to Dr. Tavoian! :) I said thanks but that it's unfortunate I had to have any dental work done... But, I have no cavities! :) And he said that I am in his top one percent of oral hygiene patients! :) Yay!! :) That was a really good compliment for me ha! So, moral of the story, brushing AND flossing every day is totally worth it!!! ;)

About our "investigators." Jerry got really sick this week, so we haven't been able to move forward too much with him :( Iliana and Ivet have bailed on us a couple more times. We finally dropped the Rivera family, but then the mom and daughter came to church yesterday! So that was a cool surprise! We really just need to do some more finding people, but we haven't been able to contact that much because Sister Adamson hates biking... So my new companion better like it! It seems like our most effective way to find people. Knocking on doors is just not effective. But the members are coming around it seems like! :) We have our ward Christmas party this weekend and a lot of people are inviting their non-member friends and family, so that should be good! Like I said, holidays are best for missionary work! And pumpkin oreo shakes... :) I have made a few of those lately... 

The feast!

Thanksgiving went well! It was kinda weird because I've never had it without my family! So it was sad for little bit but we have some good family here so that helped! First a family invited us over for breakfast. They are the Gomez family and they are so cute! We are trying to help them get to the temple! Then we ate at the Schorn's house. The husband is Brazilian and a non-member, and they had a ton of Brazilian friends over, so they were all speaking Portuguese the whole time! But the food was good! :) I was sad to not have my Grandma Sandy's sweet potatoes though :( After that we visited a few more families, and of course they wanted us to eat too! I tried to say no, but I just can't deny pie... Especially pumpkin! It's like my favorite food! And all the Samoans do not take no for an answer! 

The day after Thanksgiving Sister Adamson was sick like throwing up. So that was pretty unfortunate. So I just studied and organized and all that fun stuff! I also got a wedding announcement for my friend Regan's wedding! It was adorable! She was like the best person I met at BYU, for those of you who don't know who she is ha ;) This last week we spent a lot of time at the Medina's house. They are such a great family! They have 3 kids. The son is going into the marines with my brother Vince, and the 2 girls are both cheerleaders so we have fun talking! I also helped them with their tumbling slash tried tumbling and I was so sore the next day! They have a friend they are sharing the gospel with too so that is even better! :) There is another family named the Erbiti's who we are trying to help get to the temple too and they set a date to work towards so we are super excited for them! :) So as you can tell, things are coming along! And Christmas is in like, 22 days! ;) I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!! Have a fantastic week. 

Love, Sister Lowry 

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