The glass is completely full

Date: Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 4:45 AM
Subject: What a Week!

Hello!!

It has been an amazing week with many ups and downs! I love being a Missionary, have I ever told you that? It's the best, you get to learn and experience so much!

The Island is great. Saturday we had quite the storm here, they closed some of the roads because the waves were crashing up onto them! The wind over here is pretty intense and I love it. Oh and I'm still loving driving! Oh yes and I almost forgot, there is snow on the mountains! You'd be surprised at how mountainous this little island is, I love it. Compared to the mountains in Utah they are more like large hills though!


photos courtesy of Mr. Trickett


Well, I'll bet everyone's curious about our Baptism. It was amazing! Everything went so well, this ward is amazing and we love them so much. They feel like family! It felt amazing to get to perform the Baptism and I'm happy to say that I only had to do it once! It all seemed to be over way too fast though, already its been almost 4 days since that happened! Oh and the confirmation was amazing as well, the power of the Priesthood is real and I love it. Winnie is so amazing and she is already a strong member who will do great things for this ward! Baptisms are the best!

Other than that we've been having fun teaching some amazing people. We continue to teach Ben, our other African investigator and he is doing very well. We're actually seeing him tonight, I'm excited. On Sunday we got to teach the most amazing Chinese man named John. We love John!! We were teaching him about Alma 34 and the whole scales of justice and mercy thing and the arms of safety and he understood! He repeated it all back to us and it was wonderful. John is so cool. I think it's pretty funny that I come over to England and most of the people we teach are from other countries! It's great though, and we do teach a few British people. The Lord is preparing more of them for us to teach.

The Tricketts are amazing and we love them too! On Saturday evening we had dinner with them and it was great. I love mushy peas! It was a wonderful meal and after we had dessert they started asking us questions about the church. Long story short, we got to teach them a little about the Restoration and quoted JSH 1:17! The spirit was strong and we are hoping and praying that we will be able to start teaching them soon! Please Pray for that to happen! Miracles happen because of Prayers.

Yesterday we got to do a presentation at a Primary (Elementary) school assembly and it was great. It took me back to my time at Westridge, it was pretty weird to see how far I've come since then! We talked about what we do and what a typical day is for us and what we share with people, just the basics, and it was a lot of fun. British children are smart and we love them too!

Other than that the work is going well. We are hoping and praying to find a nice, prepared Family to teach and your prayers would be much appreciated with that. I know that miracles will happen by our prayers, I've seen it already so many times here on my Mission and I love it! I'll tell you more about all of the miracles I've seen when I return.

Today is the beginning of another transfer and I'm glad we're both staying here. I don't look forward to the day that I get transferred to somewhere else, but I know that the Lord knows what He is doing with these things. There are so many reasons that I've been sent to serve here at this time with those I'm serving with. It's amazing to keep finding new reasons almost every day. I love being a Missionary and I can't help but thank Heavenly Father for it every day. I can't imagine being anything else! I hope to keep learning and growing daily and become a better instrument in His hands every day. The Church is true. Jesus is the Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. He does live and He does love us, no matter what the world says. God does exist and He is our Father in Heaven. He does hear and answer our prayers and I'm so thankful for that. I know that we can do nothing without His help, He truly has given us everything we have. The glass is neither half full nor half empty, it is completely full. Heavenly Father has blessed us with so many things, and even the absence of some things is a blessing. He knows what he is doing, He is smarter than we are, and if we will follow Him and His Son Jesus Christ, we will make it back to His presence and be happy in this life! The power of the Priesthood is real and I'm so humbled that God would trust someone like me with His power. I know that this work is true and it is important, and it has the power to make us happy. I Love being a Missionary!!

Well, that's all for this week, I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thanks for all the letters and keep them coming! If you sent something to the Mission Office within the last month I don't have it yet, we only get to go back to the mainland about once a month. So sorry if I take a while to respond! Anyway, I love you all and keep up the amazing work! More next week!

Much Love,

Elder Rowley