My First Baptism!

This week has been so good and so weird at the same time! 

All week we were preparing for Ian's baptism! We had a few lessons with him and you could just see that he was ready and he heart was softening and humbling. 

On Wednesday we got to watch Meet the Mormons! It was a great little documentary with a lot of great people featured in it. If you get a chance to watch it, the last story is super awesome and made me cry a lil' bit haha :) I'm a sucker for a missionary story.

We also had interviews with President Wilson this week and it was so good! At the beginning he always asks if we have any questions for him and I just asked what his advice for me was as I finish up training and how I can have a successful mission. 

He said that I should just lose myself in the work. To never let companions or things at home become problems. My investigators should be my only problems. And just that as I set aside pride and embrace my mission fully, I will be the most happy and the most successful that I can be.

I love that.

Then on Thursday Ian got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yayyyy!!!! My first real baptism on my mission!

Guys, I don't even think you can understand, but when we first started teaching him I seriously thought it would take a MIRACLE for him to get baptized. He was in such a dark place and didn't have very much hope when we first met him. 

But! The Spirit and the gospel changes people. And it softens hearts and turns everything around. It makes miracles happen!! I know that it wasn't me, or Sister Clonts, or Sister Roosendaal, or anybody else that can really take credit for his conversion. We were just guides to help him find his way and it was so cool to be a part of that. 

Elder Chuntz baptized him because when Ian first met with missionaries in the spring Elder and Sister Chuntz taught him. Lets just say all they did was argue and it just wasn't Ian's time yet. But it was so cool to see him come full circle and for Elder Chuntz to be able to baptize him. 

My companion and I taught the restoration to everyone at the baptism while Ian was getting changed after the actual baptism and it was just a great experience to testify of the restoration and to be able to see the outcome when we really learn that it's true. 

Then after the actual baptism Ian got up and shared his testimony. 

And it was bomb.

The whole time we taught him we just had to keep saying "Ian you need to trust God, be humble, and have FAITH! You're never going to be saved by logic. You need faith."

Then he got up at his baptism and talked about how he read Ether 12 and realized that he needed FAITH and he needed to ACT on that faith. Ahhhhhh I was like YESSSS! FINALLY! 

He just needed to learn that for himself.

Then he went through all of the people who taught him and introduced him to the gospel and just thanked us and said a bunch of nice things and it was just sweet. 

So basically, it was an awesome baptism and then he got confirmed on Sunday! Happy day :)

On a less happy note, a bunch of our other investigators are kind of going crazy and disappearing. We went to visit Shyanne yesterday because she wasn't answering any of our calls or texts and we could hear her inside the house telling her little brother to tell us she wasn't home......... so that was really sad. Hopefully she comes back around. 

I don't have much time, but I love you all! Thanks for all the love and support and prayers! 

You da best.

xoxo Sister Fowers

Ian's Baptist October 9,2014

Found a T-Swift calendar!

Fillin da font!

Conference, VA, and BoM!

I don't have a lot of time this week so I'll try and make it quick! 

THIS WEEK WAS SO GOOD!!! 

Oh my goodness, so many miracles here in Richmond. 

First off, I, Sister Fowers, read the whole Book of Mormon in a week. 

Yep. It was tough but it was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever done. Reading it like a novel is just different than studying it like scripture. It made sense to me in ways it never has before. One thing that really stood out to me as I read was this phrase that kept repeating all throughout the book: "...but His hand is stretched out still." I don't even know how many times I ran into that phrase or one very similar to it. All throughout the BoM, people are accepting of the gospel but they eventually reject it and become prideful. BUT, God's hand is always stretched out still. All he asks is for a broken heart and a contrite spirit and for us to repent and come unto Him. So I just loved how I got to see how merciful and loving Heavenly Father was to them, and still is to us today. 

One other verse that I loved was Alma 26:1....

 "And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?"

....then I changed one word.

"And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Utah that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?"

I love that. When I started my mission I never would have imagined all the people, experiences, and blessing that would come because of it. I'm so grateful to be a missionary.

If you've never read the Book of Mormon all the way through, do it! It'll change you I promise. :)

This week we've been meeting with our investigators and so many great things are happening!

Ian is planning on getting baptized this Thursday! Hopefully everything works out. He is a great guy and has come a loooonnnggg way since we first started teaching him. So pray for him please!!

Our investigator Sam came to not one, but TWO sessions of general conference. Yep. She is seriously so cute and I just love her so much. She wasn't really progressing and then earlier this week we met with her and she told us these spiritual experiences she had when she came to church and prayed for the first time. It was amazing. Heavenly Father has prepared her so much. So pray for her too. 

I'm running out of time but conference was BOMB!

We actually watched priesthood session with the senior sister missionaries and it was so good! The choir was elders from the MTC! Ahhhh it was so cute and made me cry. I love missionaries. 

Some highlights from conference:

• Boyd K. Packer is still goin strong, love him.
• Lynn G. Robbins talk about which way we face? So good.
• All the talks in other languanges? SO SWEET! I bet missionaries and people all over the world that speak those languages were loving it.
• Uchtdorf's talk was awesome.
• "I always knew it would be easier to follow the Savior with her by my side."-Eduardo Gavarret. So cute. 
• "Decisions determine destiny"
• all the talks about prophets
• DAVID A. BEDNAR. oh my goodness he gave that talk while i was sitting next to our investigator and it made me so happy. It's true!! We share the gospel because we love it. 

I love conference, I love VA, I love the Book of Mormon, and I love you! Life is good. :)

Reading the Book of Mormon at Belle Isle-James River

Weird Things!

Helloooooo :)

This week was just crazy. I never thought missions would be this stressful. THEY'RE SO STRESSFUL. Hahaha 

Last Monday we went out to lunch with some of the sisters and senior sisters, so fun. :) I sent a picture!

Tuesday we had another lesson with Shyanne and we taught her about obedience and following the prophet and she is just so amazing. She is so sassy and just calls me a goof all the time and says I have a baby face hahaha :) We had her watch "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" by President Monson and she said she loved it. 

We also had another lesson with Ian that night and we taught him about the commandments and the Word of Wisdom. He is sort of addicted to coffee, so he's been struggling with that. He also brought up stuff that he'd been reading on the internet again so I just got kind of mad at him and told him that he needed to be humble and stop trying to be converted by what other people tell him on the internet and start seeking answers from the Spirit, because the Spirit is what is going to tell him what God wants him to do, not what others think he should do. It just hit me when I told him that, how the only way we can truly know if we are doing what God wants us to do is if we follow the Spirit. But Ian is doing better, hopefully he can just gain a strong enough testimony to help him follow through.

Wednesday... oh boy. What a day. Haha first of all, it was raining all day long and kind of dreary. Then we had an appointment set up with our investigator Sam at 2:30. So we asked a ward member to come to the lesson!

Then, last minute, Sam text us and said she had cut her finger and didn't want to walk to the YSA center in the rain, so she wanted us to just come teach her at her apartment. 

So.... the member that was coming said she would drive us there since it was only like a two minute drive away. So we get in the car and start driving through the rain, and we are literally one block from the building when we stop at a busy intersection to turn right and BOOM. We get rear ended. 

Yep.

So this member is like in the middle of turning right, so she just keeps driving and pulls off to the side of the road (bad idea). Then the car that hit us just drives off. Yep. 

They hit and ran our member! Plus, to top it off her car was brand new and we are standing in the rain consoling this girl who is crying because her car just got hit and they drove away. 

And then the member didn't come to the lesson anyway. So...... not the best day ever. Hahaha oh the life of a missionary. :)

On Thursday we had our first lesson with a girl named Marisa, she came to church last week before we had ever taught her and she is literally amazing. She is 18 and a freshman and VCU. She said she loved church and had all of these funny questions for us when we met, but we taught her the restoration and she is so prepared. She was raised Methodist but never really went until her senior year of high school. She told us that the day before she came to church she had this dream/vision of Christ too, so crazy. She has so much faith and is just so open and non-judgmental. I love her. She came to church this week again and it was so great. We are meeting with her again this week and I can't wait to see where so goes. Plus she is bringing a friend to church next time! Yay!

We also met with this little Chinese girl named Tiffany that we met on campus and we taught her the restoration. We were talking about families and she just started to cry, it was so sad. She has a really broken family and the spirit was so strong. 

On Friday we met with this guy named Casey (yes that was confusing the whole lesson). We taught him the restoration and it was just so funny because he was raised in the middle of nowhere and is obsessed with blue grass music. Classic Virginian right there. He is awesome though, because he kept talking about how he would ask God yes or no questions and then he would feel this burning warm feeling in his heart and that's how he would know what he should do. We were like that's the Spirit!! Hahaha he set it up perfectly :) 

Then after the lesson we had a baptism in the ward again!! And guess who came..... Shyanne! :) It was such a powerful baptism and one of them had a water-side confirmation and it was amazing. So Shyanne was crying and feeling the spirit. We kept teasing her that she was next haha :) but we weren't kidding... ha!

Saturday we started the WEEK LONG BOOK OF MORMON READ-A-THON! We seriously just read all day and my eyes just started to do weird things from reading that long hahaha. 75 pages is a lot for one day! But we are still goin strong :) 

That night was also the General Women's broadcast and we watched it at our bishop's house! They had a bunch of people from the ward come and we all had a potato bar! Plus Shyanne came! She was just crying and taking notes the whole time, it was so cute. The ward loves her and she is hilarious. She kept telling me I looked tired hahaha :) 

The broadcast was SO GOOD THOUGH! Ahh, such great talks. I loved Uchtdorf's- amazing! Just what I needed and it got me so excited for conference. :) 

Some weird things that have happened lately: 

1. We were walking back at the end of the night and I stopped and talked to two giant black guys who were about to cross the street. They were super unfriendly but I kept talking to them and then the walk signal went on so we walked across the street with them. One guy was super not interested and his friend was just listening to us, not talking. Then I told him what our purpose was as missionaries and he straight up just started laughing so hard. Like really, really loud and hard. I was like what the heck?? I'm being serious here! Hahaha it was so awkward. Then I just got serious again and told him to look at mormon.org. People are so unfriendly!

2. One day it was raining and we were walking on campus and my companion went to hand this guy walking past us a card and before she could even say anything he straight up ducked from the card and started crawling on the ground to get away from us. Like what?

3. We were walking on campus, past Freshman dorms, on the sidewalk. As we are walking we start feeling this weird mist in the air hit our faces. We were like why is there water in the air?? Then all of the sudden a giant wave of water hits our heads from above. Yup. Someone poured a  bucket of water onto us from their window from the top floor. We were not happy.

Just a few of the weird things we get on campus. 

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY NEPHEW JAMO! That is crazy that he is 3! Tell him I love him :)

Everything is going great! The work is picking up and I just love it. :) 

Hope everyone has a great week!

xoxo Sister Fowers

sisters, jail, church, and meet the mormons!

This week was so good! So many good things happening. 

So on Tuesday, we met with Shyanne again. She is the cutest, sweetest, funniest person ever. I just love her so much. We taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and she just ate it up. She loves the bible and we were basically just having a gospel discussion with her and she was saying more profound things than we were most of the time. She is so prepared! By the end of the lesson she looks at us and says, "Oh, I just need to be baptized! Lets do it!" So yeah she's awesome.  

That same day we met with Sam, an investigator, and Ian again. Sam had us come to her apartment and so the whole time we were teaching her the Plan of Salvation she was making peanut butter cookies. Hahaha so it was a different lesson. But she is super chill and has tons of mormon friends from northern VA. 

Then that night Ian took us out to Noodles and Company (yumm) and we taught him about tithing, fasting, and fast offering! It was a really good lesson and he committed to live it! 

Wednesday we had Sisters Meeting!!

All of the sister in the whole mission get together and have little trainings and workshops and just get to be together! This meeting the theme was the young women's values! So we had little classes about all of the values, had lunch, played games, had a clothing exchange, and President talked to us. :) 

My favorite part of the meeting was when President Wilson got up and talked to us. He was talking about Sister Wilson and how when he was looking for a wife he was looking for 2 things: someone who was as committed to the gospel as he was, and someone who would be a great mom. Then he just started to cry and said "My vision for all of you sisters is for you to be cute moms someday, with cute little kids. I see you as the fun,loving mom who talks to everyone in the grocery store and shares the gospel with them. Then your kids will see you sharing the gospel and they will want to do the same. And then they will grow up, and they will be loving and wonderful people, just like their mom."

I love that. Of course we are out on missions for the people who we will teach, but there is so much more! Sister Anderson told us a few weeks back that, "Someday your investigators will become your neighbors and your district will become your family. Missionary work doesn't end when you go home." So I just love how our missions and the things we do in this short 18 months carry on throughout our whole lives.

Then on Saturday we had some interesting plans! A recent convert that Sister Roosendaal knew when she was here is actually in jail right now and we got to go visit her! I've never visited anyone in jail, but it was straight up exactly like the movies. Sister Chuntz, the senior missionary in our ward, came with us and we all talked to her through the glass on a phone. It was crazy. 

She is from San Salvador and is so cute. She asked us to sing her a hymn through the phone and one of her favorites is There is A Green Hill Far Away. So we sang it to her and she just started to cry. It was so sad, it just broke my heart. It just made me so grateful for the life I've been given.

That night we taught Ian again! At sister's meeting we found out that my old companion who taught Ian with me, Sister Clonts, couldn't come to his baptism if it was on the 27th because of the young women's broadcast. And Ian loves her so I had a feeling that he would move his date.... yup I was right! So now, he is set for Oct 11th! (mom's bday!) But he is struggling with his testimony and just getting into weird anti-mormon material. So we'll see how it all pans out. 

Then on Sunday, guess what! We had 4 investigators at church! Yep, maybe that doesn't sound like a lot but its a new personal record and it was cray cray. 

Shyanne came, Sam came, Ian came, and this other girl Marisa who we haven't even taught yet came! Ahh it was awesome. :) They all had such a great experience. Plus we had Sunday Supper after church, which is when the ward feeds everyone dinner every fifth Sunday, and Shyanne and Sam stayed for it and it was so fun. I just love them. So it was a great Sunday!

Oh and the Book of Mormon read-a-thon starts this Saturday for our mission! So if you're down for it get reading on Saturday all the way through next Saturday! 

Also, I don't know if you guys have seen previews for this new movie called "Meet the Mormons" but it's coming out Oct 10th and its supposed to be awesome! As missionaries we get to watch it before it comes out, so I'm pumped. :) But yeah, invite your friends to go watch it with you! 

Everything is still great here in VA! We have started to buy yummy, fall smelling candles and every night we turn off all the light in our apartment, light the candles, and write in our journals. So cozy. :) I'm ready for fall on the East coast!

Love you all and miss you! 

xoxo Sister Fowers

Hedgehogging It!

Hola! 

What's up errrbody?? Hope everything is going great in the homeland haha :)

This week was so good! On Monday we just spent the day letting Sister Clonts say goodbye to the ward since she was being transferred. We went out to lunch and dinner with a bunch of recent converts and it was just so fun. I love the ward members here. YSA's are so fun because it's just like they're all your best friends! 

After lunch we went to Katie's apartment and held her hedgehog. Yep, so cute. 

Then Tuesday was transfers! Ahhhhh I was so nervous. 

I was just hoping and praying so hard that I would get a companion who would work well with our investigators and I was just so nervous because I would be the only one who knew the area and I hardly know it! So I was just feeling really unprepared. 

BUT, good thing Heavenly Father had a plan haha. 

Turns out my companion is Sister Roosendaal! I had heard about her because she's served in Chippenham YSA before! 

Ahh, it turned out so perfect. This is her last transfer, so she goes home at the end of October and she served here back in Nov-Feb and already knows a ton of people here and all about the work!! So basically Heavenly Father answered my prayer on the reals. Because if it had been someone who knew nothing about the area, I don't know how well I could have worked everything out. Plus she was so happy to come back to Chippy and that hardly ever happens, so it was awesome on both ends. :)

But yeah, she is so awesome! She's from Farmington and went to Davis High School. :) I already love her and know it will be such a great transfer. 

We met with just awesome people this week! 

We had a second lesson with this guy named Josh! I actually taught him his first lesson on my very first day in the mission, and my very first lesson in the mission! Then he went on vacation but now he's back for school! He is such a cool guy and the only way I can describe him is "a real Christian". He straight up says he would join the church if he knew that God wanted him to and he loves everything we teach him, so hopefully he can keep progressing. :)

We also met with this guy named Xander on campus and it was so funny. He is a theater student and we read through the book of mormon with him and he was reading it so dramatically, like you would read a script and it was just cracking us up so hard. Then he kept loving everything I said and would agree with everything I said, but nothing that Sister Roosendaal said even though we were saying the same thing. So funny. But he's super cool :)

Then we got a referral for this girl named Shyanne and went to her house and taught her the restoration. She is super religious and showed us all of these religious books she studies along with her bible every day. It was crazy. She loved everything we taught too. She was so cute, as I was saying the first vision, all I had said was "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head..." and she was like "wowww" and shaking her head and smiling. Hahaha it was so cute. :) She said she would come to church though, but never showed up or text us back. So hopefully she doesn't disappear. 

Then on Friday we went to just drop by a former investigator that Sister Roosendaal had taught when she was here and she was home! Her name is Cathrine and she is so cute. We were just visiting with her and she starting telling us how she's going through all of these hard things and that her parents were probably getting a divorce. But then she said that she had randomly thought about the sister missionaries that very same day and that she felt like God had sent us to her. SO COOL. 

Then on Saturday some of the other missionaries in our ward had 3 baptisms! Ian came and I don't know what he thought. We had to meet with him after and settle more of his weird concerns haha. But he's still on date for Sept 27th, so just pray that it actually happens! 

Then yesterday we had church, a few lessons, and then the ward put on a waffle night to watch the C.E.S. Devotional by D. Todd Christopherson! So that was fun. It was good to watch it and it just got me so pumped for general conference! Woot woot! 

Speaking of general conference, i have a challenge for you all! 

So, as an entire mission we are doing something super awesome the whole week before general conference. We are reading the whole Book of Mormon in a week! 

We're not going to do any finding that whole week. Just appointments we set up the week before. Other than that, we're going to be reading all day every day! In order to read it in a week we have to read at least 75 pages a day.

So..... if you're up for it, try and read the whole Book of Mormon in a week :) it's going to be so fun! 

Other than that, not much is up here in Richmond, VA. It's finally Fall weather here so that is heavenly! Ah I love it. Can't wait for the Fall leaves either. 

I'm doing great though! I still love being a missionary and I think I always will. :)

Love and miss you all! 

xoxo Sister Fowers

Transfers! Sister Clonts and Sister Jenson 

Sister Roosendaal!