Week 34-Transfer 4

6/4/2013

Alooooohaaa!

Aloha familia!

What a horse for Alexa???!!! That is the best prescription ever!!!!! So fun! And I'm so excited for Tonya and Kyle to move to Utah! By the way, I was never told...am I having a niece or a nephew?? I can't believe it is already June! So crazy! I really feel like it was just barely December!

So news for transfers......................................I'm going out full proselyting! I was not expecting it at all and am kinda overwhelmed now. I will be going to the Kahala area which is in Honolulu. Hermana Rodriguez should be excited cause that's the area that she was in! I guess that's turned into the "Hermana" area;). I don't know who my companion will be but I will find out in transfer meeting on Wednesday. It is going to be so strange because we are getting 7 new sisters here at the VC and I won't know any of them when I come back! I am kinda sad because Sister Jones and I only got to be in this area for 3 weeks! I was just saying yesterday how much I LOVE our wards and the people here! I love teaching the Marshallese so much! Tom finally set a date to get baptized on June 15th and Nercy is soooo close! I am really sad that I will miss their baptisms and I won't be able to teach them any longer but I am so grateful to have had the chance to teach them! They are all so humble and fun and it has been so fun to learn bits of Marshallese:) They all get big smiles and shout "Iakwe!" When they see us. Yesterday we got to tell them the story of Ammon and King Lamoni and Aaron and King Lamoni's father because that is what they are learning about in their Book of Mormon class that they are taking. They all decided that they really like Ammon a lot and were really in to the story. It was so cute:) 

It's amazing how the Lord works and blesses us. I am so grateful that I got to be with Sister Jones for this short period of time. I have been learning so much more about relying on the Lord. It was hard because of me being sick for those few days and then Sister Jones injured her neck at the beginning of this week and she could not move for 3 or 4 days. I got the privilege of helping her the way you helped me mom, after my surgery last year;) It was difficult being stuck in the apartment for that long and Satan tried really hard to discourage us. However, as soon as we could we went right back to work and received so many blessings and miracles! People we had been trying to get a hold of for days were finally home and we were able to make several appts. And then there are the wonderful Marshallese who are all growing in the gospel and so ready to learn. Heavenly Father has really strengthened me this transfer so much! I am a bit nervous for the big changes but I am excited as well. I know that is where the Lord wants me and that is all that is important. 

So just so everyone knows, don't send anything to the Visitor Center any more. Send it to the Mission Office and it will get to me. That address is:

1500 S Beretania St Ste 416

Honolulu, HI 96826

I love you all so much! I know I say it all the time but you are the best family ever! I still pray for you every day and I will pray harder this week for Alexa. Sounds like she is going to be having a rough time of it. 

Thank you so much! I love you all! 

Les Quiero!

Hermana Rowley

So this is me and Sister Jones and the food is fish that the Marshellese men caught and the women cooked and fed to us...yes it is still looking at us and yes I ate it and told them that I loved it...it was...fishy...

Week 33-Transfer 4

 5/27/13

Aloooooooohhhhhhhhhaaaaa!

Aloha familia! 

This week has seemed pretty long for me too. I love all the pics you send!!!!! Alex is sooooo cute and I brag about him to everyone! I want so bad to be able to cuddle him! Make sure to give him a big kiss from me ok?! That picture of Alexa and Chelsea is so cute as well! What beautiful sisters I have! I love and miss you all so much! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIFFANY!!!!!!! Did you get my card that I sent? I thought it was pretty cute and all the little girls made me think of you for some reason:) So excited to hear about Tonya and Kyle! That will be sooooo fun!!! So, thanks for the offer for sunscreen:) I think I will be ok now though. The other day sister Mark looked at me and said, "oh Hermana, why are you so red?!" I told her that that is what happens when they take me out of a cubicle and make me walk all over Laie in the blazing sun:) It is turning into a tan now though:) I'll have to take a picture of my "mission tattoo" the tan that comes from the sandals that they give us here:) Only in Hawaii:) 

This week has been full of trying to contact people and teaching lessons. We literally have been running from appointment to appointment. There are a few people that we haven't been able to meet cause we cannot catch them at home or they don't show up to their appointments but we are still trying. We have been teaching the Marshallese the most. Tom and Nercy in particular. It is pulling teeth to get them to show up at church! Not because they don't want to go, but because it is at 8 in the morning and they have such a hard time getting up that early. We got Nercy there by arranging a ride and then calling her in the morning to make sure she was ready. She said she enjoyed it so we will see how this pans out. 

We did find out that they LOVE "I am a child of God" I was on exchanges with sister Ogawa and we decided to sing that for them the other day because they were so busy with midterms and we didn't want to interrupt them too much so we just sang and prayed and they just went on and on about how amazing that song was! Funny how a little primary song can make such an impact. 

That day with sister Ogawa was really great too cause we got to use her car and we visited so many more people! We went to this one house with this less active and as we were walking out it started raining really hard. A member nearby asked if we needed a ride and I turned and said, "no that's ok, our cow is down the road. Well, car! I mean car!" haha, we were laughing so hard and the member just looked at us weird and said "ok, have a good day." Sister Ogawa was like, "ok Sister Rowley, let's go get in our cow now so we don't get wet!" :D 

Sister Jones and I are really getting along so well and it has been so good working in this area where we have so much to do. Thankfully my sickness only lasted those two or three days. Things at the visitor center are going well also. Problem is, since I am no longer an online sister, I don't have as much time to contact all our investigators! We definitely need more hours in the day! I did find out that Kishore, one of the investigators from India that Sister Mckeever and I had found on chat, was just baptized on Tiffany's birthday! The 25th! So exciting! He also got the call as a Sunday School teacher and he is so happy to be a member of the church! I also just received an email from Brandon. He is in New Jersey now with his family and was asked by the Stake President to speak at there Stake conference! He said that he got to bear his testimony with his whole family there and it was such a good experience! 

I am still loving this work! It is amazing to me how I can still be learning so much! I got a chance to kind of use my Spanish this week since they have been doing construction on our pad and all the workers are Spanish. I was doing my language study one of the days, reading out of the Book of Mormon when one of the workers said, "Sister, your speaking Spanish...Why?" After that all of them started speaking to us:) A lot of them were not members so it was kinda fun to be able to talk to them a bit. 

I love you all so much! You are all such great examples to me and I am so grateful! I miss you all an continue to pray for you always! 

Les Quiero,

Hermana Rowley (Shayla)

Thanks so much for telling me about Alexa's blessing! I can't wait to hear more! That is so cool! As for food that I miss, I really miss your enchaladas but don't send those it just won't be the same:) I'll wait till I get home for those:) The sandals I have are just fine so no need for those. I honestly don't know what to ask for my bday! If P90X is not too expensive, that's the only thing I could think of that I would like. I am going to return half of those close cause I really don't need them and the skirt is slightly tight and I don't feel good about spending that much on something that is too small. Hopefully I will be able to go to Ross soon! I do have a bunch of warts that I am getting sick of. I am going to look at foodland to see if they have a remover that would be affordable but I don't know. I just want to get rid of them. I would love any of the pictures that you have been sending me! I put them in my book that I have here and show them off to everyone. I love you so much mom! I miss you so much as well! Thank you for being the best mom ever! 

love, Shayla

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)