Week 32-Transfer 4

Aloha familia! 

Wow what a week! Thank you soooo much for the pictures! I had everyone gather around to see them so I could brag about what an adorable little nephew I had! Of course in a visitor center with so many sisters around he was greatly appreciated:) Also, Isaac is getting sooo big! They are so adorable though and I wish I could be there to see them in real life but that will have to wait. How's Tonya doing with her baby coming up next? Tyson sounds like he had turned into quite the star singer:) I don't know why he didn't sing me a song over the phone...

So this week has been so crazy for me as well. Last Monday was when I went to pick up Sister Jones and we spent that whole day just unpacking, emailing you and trying to get things settled in. We were going to go visit some of the investigators in one of our wards that night after shift but unfortunately I got super sick towards the end of shift. I had a terrible cold and headache and was running a fever which I don't remember the last time I had one of those. So I was given strict orders to go home and sleep as long as it takes to get better. I was in that bed for the next two days!:( It was so frustrating because we had just been put in the ward and we had investigators that didn't even know about the change of sisters and we couldn't go visit any of them! In a way though I think it was a blessing. Sister Jones is going through a very difficult adjustment for her and I think Heavenly Father knew she needed a small break. And of course, He always blesses you with your good desires and the second night I was sick, Sister Hendersen, who was in our area before and is now companions with Sister Bonrostro, asked if it was ok to go visit one of the investigators in our area and he ended up committing to baptism! 

The next day, I was feeling much better so we went to work and began going after the people in our area book:) We got to meet a few more of our investigators and now two of them, Nella and Tom, are praying about a baptism date we tried to set with them. They do know the importance of baptism though and both of them are taking the Book of Mormon class at BYUH and both are very good at recognizing the spirit. We also got a new investigator as well who wants to learn more! Communication is a little slow since most of our investigators are Marshellese, but they are so sweet and fun and ready to hear the Gospel! It is interesting teaching them though. We went to Toms house one night and taught him a lesson out by the side of his house, but he didn't have any chairs so we just sat on the cement. By the time the lesson was over (It was a really good lesson by the way), my legs were hurting so bad I could hardly walk and about 2 or 3 times I saw a giant cockroach scurry by. The joys of teaching in Hawaii:) 

They also really love trying to teach us Marshellese words! Yackwei means something similar to Aloha and we learned a few others as well. I am of course terrible at remembering and so they would teach us and then I would try to say it later and say it completely wrong and then they would all laugh but then say, "No, so good!" haha, they even gave us a Marshellese/English dictionary so we can practice:) I told them that I was also learning Spanish and they said, "now you can know 3 languages!" "Yay" I said, "muchas gracias!" and one of them smiled and pointed at me and said "French!" haha, I didn't have the heart to tell him it was Spanish:). The biggest thing we are working on with the Marshellese is getting them to church. They all slept in on Sunday even though we had even arranged for rides for them! Well we are working on that, they are all praying about it:) 

It is a bit strange going from being stuck in a cubicle all day long to walking to go to everybody's houses. Even before being online we had a car so this is quite different:) Saturday was also a very sunny and windy day, the perfect day to go to the beach, or just get a really bad sunburn:) People keep joking that I went to the beach cause all of the sudden I got really red:) It is good to be out under the beautiful Hawaii sun though! Sister Jones and I are sure having a good time of it. We love our wards and have so much work to do! It really is such a blessing!

As far as Visitor Center goes, we got about five new investigators this week. One of them is this really sweet girl from Florida but originally from Cuba. I was taking ticket in between trams at the PCC and she read my name tag out loud and then said, "oh, that's the Mormons right?!" I told her it was and she smiled and said, "I have many friends who are Mormon!" I invited her to come back and join the tram tour going to the temple and she said she definitely would. Thankfully, she ended up coming with her family on the 6:20 tram which was the one my companion and I took! She was so sweet and talked to me the whole time. She was so excited to learn as much as she could and said that she goes to institute all the time and loves how our church makes everything so fun. She is Catholic and says that it has too many problems and is so boring. I ended up giving her a book of Mormon and told her to pray about it. I get to keep in contact as well so that will be fun:) She said that someday I should go and visit her in Miami and then I will be immersed in Spanish and learn it faster;) Guess I'll have to make a trip to Miami...jeje:) 

In other good news, CHRIS IS BAPTIZED!!!!!!! Finally! It has been so long and he has been ready the whole time! I am sad I wasn't able to go, but it is done! Him and his girlfriend, Rose, came and visited the VC yesterday to say hi and get a picture with me:) I'll see if I can attach it. He said that even this date was so hard to keep because the night before he found out that 9 people on His program could no longer be there! Thankfully the elders put it all together anyways. He said that no one he knew was there, including his family, but the elders had gotten some people from the ward to come and it was still a real good, spiritual experience. I am so happy it finally happened! Satan was sure working hard to keep him from being baptized! He is definitely going to do great things:)

Well I love you all so much! I am so happy for my new lil nephew and cant wait to finally meet him! I continue to pray for you always! 

Les Quiero,

Hermana Rowley (Shayla)

Week 31-Transfer 4

Alooooooooooohhaaa!

Wow, I'm not sure even where to start! First of all, I LOVE you all so much! It was so good to talk to you and to hear all of your voices and everything! I seriously have the best family EVER! So I know I already told mom and I'm sure she has told everyone else by now;) but last night and today has been such a blur! Last night, Sister Bonrostro and I went on shift at the VC and Elder McDonough pulled us aside and said he needed to talk to us. So he took us into "God's Plan for His Family" because that was the only room available:) and he said, "Alright, Sister Rowley, we have a special assignment for you. You and Sister Bonrostro are going to be splitting up." Both of us were kind of in shock. I have been training Sister Bonrostro online for only a few weeks and we have just grown so close! So then he told us how Sister Jones, who was out Full Prosylising on the Hilo side of the Big Island, was coming back to the visitor center in an emergency transfer. Sister Mckeever was going to be taking her place and I was going to be her new companion! That left Sister Bonrostro to train Sister Hendersen not only online, but finish training her period. She will be great at that though! She has got so much more confident online and she is so sweet and loving! 

So he told us this last night and said that I was going to go with Sister Mckeever in the morning to pick up Sister Jones and bring her back here. So I had one night to let it sink in that I was getting a new companion, going offline, and whitewashing a new area. It will also be my first time in a family ward as well so that will be new and different. Thankfully I love sister Jones! She is having a really hard time because of some things she went through in Hilo, but she just needs a lot of love and she will be fine:) She seemed so scared to come back but the more people she sees she is becoming more and more like her old self:) Plus we get to be pad mates with Sister Shin and Kim again whom I already adore so that will be fun:) 

I feel like I just talked to you so i'm not sure what else to say. Today we are spending our time trying  to get our feet on the ground. We both need to move pads and then figure out if we have any appointments tonight...Luckily, the area we are going into was just sister Mckeever's area and she is an amazing missionary and is very organized so we should be fine. 

I love you all so much! Thank you for being the best family ever! 

Les Quiero!

Hermana Rowley (Shayla)

Week 30-Transfer 4

ALOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA!

I am so excited to write this letter finally:) Sorry it's so late. I'm so sorry to hear about Uncle Robert! How is Aunt Brenda doing? It sounds like he is probably happily out of pain now. That is so cool that he got to say his goodbyes and tell everyone he loves them! One of Heavenly Fathers tender mercies. Thank you so much for recording Tyson's play for me!!!!! I can't wait to watch it! As far as recording me speaking in Sacrament meeting, that kind of would have been impossible since I had no clue I would be speaking until about 2 seconds before I gave it:). That's so crazy about Tiffany! When is she supposed to be due again? I'm so excited and wish I could be there to greet my new little nephew but you had better at least send me pictures:) I'm so excited to get to talk to you on Sunday!!!!! I think I will probably call around 2 pm my time which is 6pm your time I believe. Would that work? I want to make sure I don't call while Paul does. Let me know if that doesn't work. I'm going to try and get permission to check my email before to make sure.

This week has been so good. It is really interesting how chat works. People say that each online sister attracts certain types of people on chat. Well, Sister Bonrostro tends to attract the argumentative ones...haha. We seriously have been getting soooo many people who come onto chat just to try and "give us controversy to bring us closer to God" (Yes someone really did say that). It is funny cause Sister Bonrostro can get super sassy and it really comes out when someone starts arguing:) Thankfully she likes to talk out loud and asks me before she sends something. I just say, "did you feel the spirit as you typed that?:)" She says, "oh your right" and then gets up and paces to cool off for a sec:) Haha, she is so cute though! I love her sooo much! She has such a strong testimony and is so humble. I am learning so much from her! I also have a great love for my padmates:) One of them is Sister Mckinney, the one I came to Hawaii from the MTC with, and the other is Sister Peterson, who is the step daughter of Billy from the Taebo workout videos:). She has quite the dramatic life and is so good at telling stories. Anyways, we have so much fun with them!

So Sister Bonrostro and I have been teaching one girl on chat who is so cool! Her name is Kat and she just turned 17 years old a few weeks ago. She has been taking all the missionary lessons online since January and she knows its true. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, she has watched probably every Mormon message on lds.org, she is now in contact with like 40 missionaries and she is so thirsty to know more. Problem is, she is under 18 and her parents are COMPLETELY against it. At first she was kind of doing it all with out their permission, but then she decided she was going to tell them so she fasted and prayed and got all the missionaries to join her and then picked a day to tell them. Well, lets just say it did not go so well. They were not happy with her and told her before they would even discuss it she had to spend a few weeks doing nothing but reading the bible and talking to their Priest to learn more about their religion, then they would be able to discuss it. So she started doing just that. She was so cute though, she would find us online and ask us questions about the bible cause she wasn't allowed to read the Book of Mormon. Well, then her birthday came around (17th) and she emailed us and said she had some AWESOME news! So we got her on chat and she said that her dad had been talking to her and said that they wouldn't get in the way if she wanted to be baptized when she was 18 as long as she spent the next year learning about their church. She then reasoned with them that it was only fair if she learned about the LDS religion as well and they agreed it was only fair and so she could finally have the missionaries over at her house! She was so excited and said it was the best birthday present ever! She also told us that she had decided that she was going to go to BYU for college and she was going to go on a mission when she turned 19! Well, a week or so later she emailed back and said she had more news for us. When we finally got her on chat she said that she was talking to her dad one day about the missionaries and he agreed to go with her to church on Sunday! He had seemed to be in such a good mood that she started talking with him about how much she wanted to go to seminary and the activities during the week and that is when he changed his mind and said she was never allowed to talk with a missionary again. Well, I think he softened a bit since then cause she is allowed to chat with us but she said that she is super sad that she can't go to seminary or church or anything. I asked her if she was allowed to read the Book of Mormon and she said, "to my hearts content!" She said that with the way things looked, she probably wouldn't be baptized until she moved out of the house and so, if she gets into BYU, she would be baptized in Utah around July of 2014! Do you know what this means? I will be home by then! Maybe we could all go to her baptism together!:) She is so fun and it just amazes me how strong and positive she is. She knows it's true and nothing can hold her back! It's amazing to me how much Satan works to stop people like her and Chris from being baptized! They are going to do great things for sure:) And by the way, Chris's baptism has been moved to May 18. Not sure why at that time since I haven't been able to get a hold of him since the zone leaders told me but that's when it is. He is going to be baptized though and I am so grateful that I was able to get to know him and witness all of it!

As far as my Spanish goes, it is coming along slowly but surely. I actually had a rough day a few days ago. A Spanish family came in and I felt that my Spanish was not getting any better! I couldn't believe that I was at 7 months almost and still had trouble communicating as much as I did. I was so down and was having such a hard time. However, Heavenly Father is so wonderful and loving! Also that night, another lady that spoke Spanish came in and I was able to speak to her as well. She talked about how she is catholic but is looking for another church and how she loves how beautiful it felt in the Visitor Center there. I asked her if she would like to learn more and she got so excited and said she did! I told her there were missionaries in her area and she got even more excited and filled out the card all the way. I then made sure it was ok if I kept in contact with her and she said Yes of course! She said she was trying to learn English and I was learning Spanish so we could teach each other as I taught her about the gospel:) She was so enthusiastic and so sweet! I also found out later that out of the 3 Spanish people in that family I talked to earlier, 2 of them self referred  I still felt a little bad about my Spanish, but that tender mercy of the Lord really helped me realize how I could do it. With Him I could do it! I have known that all a long but I think sometimes its good to get another conformation like that:). I am so grateful to be serving here! I love the sisters here and I love the work! I hope you are all doing well! I guess I will find out more on Sunday:) I love you so much and pray for you always!

Les Quiero,

Hermana Rowley

To mom:)

So mom, Happy mothers day coming up:) I am sending you a little something so get excited:) and also, Happy Birthday to me! So...as you might see in my bank account, I kind of already bought my birthday present...So Sister Bonrostro, as much as I love her, is much like Chelsea in that Shopping is her therapy. So today we got to go to Ross cause Sis Gamba needed new shoes and her and her companion both are unable to drive so they chose us to drive them. So my companion, not only likes to shop for herself, but she loooooooooooooves dressing other people up! I promise she found some really cute stuff for me and she made me so excited to buy them that I couldn't resist, but only with the mindset that that was my birthday present...so I have some pics sister Mckinney took of me modeling:) I think Chelsea would be proud:) So for my birthday I guess all I want is a really great letter from everyone:) I love you so much and can't wait to talk to you! You are the best!