Hawaii, Honolulu, Laie Temple, Spanish speaking Mission!: Week 23-Transfer 3

Aloha Familia and Happy Belated Birthday Dad!

Just so you know, I was thinking about you on your birthday and a really awesome birthday card is on it's way to you:) Sorry it's late, again. I hope you and mom enjoyed your time relaxing and I hope Tiff and Scott enjoyed the Show:) So jealous! This has been quite the strange week. Sorry I didn't clarify but sis Mark is fine, they past it off as stress related and told her to see a doctor in a week or so. She just needs to stop overdoing it! Sounds like Tyson wanted to join in the group. Never a dull moment at the Rowley home yeah? So cool Missy is serving a mission!!! Is she going English speaking? What brought her to decide to go? So cool!!!!

So this week has been quite new for me. There are definitely pros and cons to being stuck inside a cubicle half the day. We don't really get the chance to get out much and I definitely miss serving in a ward. Its so hard to see the people Ive been teaching since December and our ward mission leaders all working with different missionaries. Sister Bradley and Manoa (a new 19 yr old) are covering that ward now. They are both great missionaries and super fun, but it is sad to hear them talk about the ward and everything that I have grown to love so much. Brandon did come visit me at the visitor center and it was so good to see him. I miss being able to teach him and the others in that area. On Sunday now, since we don't have an official ward, we just went to church in a local ward at 8. I don't even know what ward it was. On the flip side though, I love being online. Seriously, it's my absolute favorite part of the day. We get chat after chat and so we are constantly teaching. You know, most missionaries have to go knock on door after door, and go to appointment after appointment, but we get to teach at the click of a button over and over again. We get some interesting ones on there and it's fun to find out which ones are just there to Troll (or come on line to prank) and which ones are real. The Trolls are kind of humorous and it's fun to fit the gospel and our testimonies into those. Sister Mckeever has even got some of them to agree to meet with missionaries.

The cool thing about being online is that you always have to be in tune with the spirit and discern the needs of everyone who comes on chat, no matter what they came on for. For example, just yesterday we had a gay guy come on chat asking about our beliefs on gays and such. We shared the mormonsandgays website with him and he thought it was cool how we loved everyone and didn't hate gays like so many do so then he was about to leave chat when we started talking with him about the Book of Mormon. We shared some really awesome Mormon messages with him about it and asked about his beliefs in God and prayer and such. He asked how we prayed and we told him and then asked if he would like to pray with us right now. Now I know it sounds weird but praying online is probably one of the coolest experiences I have had yet. We usually tell them we will be kneeling and they are welcome to join us and then one of us usually prays while the other types. I have rarely felt the spirit so strong during a prayer as I do during our online prayers. Anyways, this one was a little different because after we asked him that he said, "sure why not" and then he began..."Heavenly Father..." I looked at my companion and said "Whoa! He's praying what do we do?!" We both dropped to our knees and watched while he said a beautiful sincere prayer to Heavenly Father. We typed amen and then asked how he felt. "Happy" he said, "I think Ill do that from now on." Well we talked for a while about God and such and then He said he had one more random question for us. He said that he had a hurting stomach right then and asked if that was something he could pray for or if that would be to trivial for God. We testified that nothing was too trivial for God and then offered to pray for him right then. He agreed and this time Sis. Mckeever prayed while I typed. The spirit was so strong and halfway through the prayer she asked Heavenly Father,very boldly I thought, to help his stomach so that the pain could dissipate. After we said Amen we just sat there. The spirit was so strong! Then we watched as he started typing again. He told us how amazing that was and then said that halfway through the prayer, he didn't know if it was coincidence or not, but the pain in his stomach lifted a ton. We testified of the power of prayer and the truth of our words. We testified that there was a God in Heaven, a Loving Heavenly Father who loved him so much. He said how comforting that was to think that. We invited him to meet with the missionaries but he said that he didn't want to commit to going to church or anything, but he did want to keep praying, So then we asked if we could get his email so that we could keep talking to him and maybe chat again. He agreed and gave us his info. It's so cool to be able to literally see the spirit working on people. I've had so many experiences like this already!

As far as Spanish, Sister Mckeever is really good at making sure I have time for language study and trying to help me out in any way she can. She took 4 yrs of Spanish and so she knows enough that I don't feel like I'm talking to a brick wall when I talk in Spanish to her:) I certainly do get to use it a bit more though. The other day we got a Spanish chat from a guy in Argentina who insisted on talking to only me because Sis. Mckeever apologized for her grammar cause she was using google translate and he asked which one of us spoke better Spanish and she of course said me and he said, "Yo quiero hablar con Shayla" (We use our first names online) Anyways, he said that he had a friend who was Mormon and he wanted to know how he could be baptized. I told him we would love to teach him more so he could prepare to be baptized and also we could send the missionaries in Argentina to him to teach him. He said that was OK but only ended up giving us his number and then disconnected the chat. So that will be interesting.

I love this work and am learning so much. It's weird going from a pad of all internationals to all palangies (Whites) and I really miss my pad mates but we still have fun. Sis. Mckeever is a super good cook and true to her word she goes running with me every morning! She sounds so much like I did in the MTC when Hermana Dunn made me go running with her all the time. I would just about die and then say "thank you companion for making me go with you!" and low and behold, thank you Hermana Dunn, I now love running and it's Sis. Mckeever that about dies and then says "thank you companion for making me go with you!" :)

Well I love you all so much! I know I say it all the time but you are seriously the best family in the world! I am so grateful what you have done as parents to make us strong in the gospel has really helped us grow stronger through our trials. I love you all so much. So I bet you have seen this before, but being an online sister now, I have seen this video like 50 times and love it every time I watch it and it really helps put things in perspective for me. Enjoy!

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#mountains-to-climb

Love you all!

Les Quiero!

Hermana Rowley (Shayla)