Week 51-Transfer 7

Aloooha!

10/1/13

Hola Familia! 

Welp, another week gone by. I was just thinking about how being on a mission is almost like being in a dream. One that forever changes the rest of your life. Maybe I'm thinking about that because my year mark is coming up...so weird. I can't believe it is already time for conference again. I remember the last October General Conference all too well:) I am super excited for it though. And for the holidays coming up! My favorite time of the year! I can't wait for them to put all the Christmas trees up here in the Visitor Center. It's also a perfect time to do missionary work because everybody wants to here a message about Jesus Christ around Christmas time!

This week has been a pretty great one. So many miracles as always:) So in order to find more people to teach, Sister Cavalcante and I decided to try some new things. First off, we went through our area books for both of our wards and wrote down all the names of the people in there that we didn't know anything about. Then we decided to just visit everyone so we could update the area book more and ask them for referrals if nothing else. We haven't made it to everyone quite yet, but we have been able to get to know a lot more people and see some great miracles. It was funny because a few of the people we visited, they were so confused as to why the missionaries were visiting them and kept asking us who sent us to visit them. We just told them that we were just trying to get to know the people in the area because we were new and we were wondering if we could share a message with them and their families. It's funny how much your love grows for the people the more you serve them. I sometimes really wish we had more time in our area to teach and visit people, but I love being in the Visitor Center as well and am so grateful I get the chance to do both. 

Something that I love about Sister Cavalcante is that she is so goal oriented. She keeps telling me that she has never been this way before but she is so pumped about reaching our goals:) It is so good for me to have that. We have been able to see so many miracles from it! We have been finding so many new investigators at the VC because of it. One of those being from China:) Unfortunately, we are not allowed to contact anyone in China church related, so I am going to see if I can just send him the info for the man he can talk to there. He was so excited though! He had graduated from Harvard and loved learning about spiritual things. He loved the videos we had on family and the questions about "Why do bad things happen?" "Where do we go after this life?" and so on. We were able to give him 1 copy of everything we had but we are not allowed to do any more because the Government doesn't allow it. He was so happy though. As we were getting back on the tram getting ready to go he just smiled up at me and my companion and told her, "look at this gift I got! I'm gonna read this!" There are so many prepared people in China! I am just so happy that I get to meet them here in Hawaii and plant some seeds for them:) 

This Sunday was a pretty good one. We were able to visit so many people and both Beth and Nina made it to church! I wish we had had investigators in the 8th ward as well cause Sister Moyes and I and the ward mission leaders gave some pretty great talks on member missionary work :P. The fifth ward was really great too though because Brigham, Beth's awesome son, gave a talk there and the spirit was so strong! We were so happy when Nina stayed all 3 hours too even though we had to leave early to go to shift! 

I love this work so much! I love Hawaii so much! I can now say that I understand why Sister Patlingrao would always tell everyone "I am going to extend my mission 1 year" haha:) I liked my mission, but I thought she was crazy back then. But I understand now:) As hard as it is much of the time, it is a great feeling to serve:) I love you all so much and you are always in my thoughts and prayers. I love you and pray for you always! 

Les Quiero, 

Hermana Rowley (Shayla)

PS. Guess who I saw at PCC yesterday?! Mindy Gledhill! She was here to sing at BYUH. I didn't have my camera so no picture, but it was fun to see her and talk to her a bit:)

Here are some pictures from where we went today for PDay. Kuoloa Ranch is where they filmed a ton of movies like Jurassik Park, Lost, 50 first dates, Pearl Harbor, and so many more. We got to go on a bus tour to see all the sites. It was pretty fun:) The other one is of Sister Peterson and I holding our "babies":)