Oh yeah, tons of crazy opportunities to serve and some good memories here with my comp!

Oh yeah, tons of crazy opportunities to serve and some good memories here with my comp! This is his last week on the mission so we are gonna stay super busy and work hard to the last day! yeah!!!  My comp has his birthday tomorrow and goes home May 3? so this is our last P-day. :o Everyone is finding out my comp is leaving so we are getting invited everywhere!  Oh we got some sweet Polish sausage just like at gramps house, it was awesome! 

We have some less active members who we were able to do some service for... we sort of made them let us pull weeds! I am super grateful that I always had to pull weeds at Grandpas all the time... ha-ha!  You realize that some of the hard/not fun things in life prepare you to be a better missionary... only after you get on your mission! 

Oh, I had ice cream with our "homeboy" Brother Cook.  He is super funny and tells all these awkward stories, but hes a good man and helps out when he can.  He invited me to come back and live with him when I am done with my mission.  I dont think he realizes I have a lot of work left to do :)  He has some funny stories, but I'll have to save those for when I get back home.    

Cicis..... aww how I miss that place!  Well at least I know our record for eating pizza slices is safe because we were like at 300-400 slices as a priest quorum that one time... that was nuts! 

We have a couple investigators that we are working with and hopefully they keep progressing and get baptized! This week was awesome hope your week goes well!!

Te amo,

Elder Bowden

Well all the other squirrels that thought they could mess with us... we fed to this really tiny snake :P This snake belongs to a member in the ward we are working with.  He has tons of awesome creatures...(turtles, tortoise, and Nemo!).

Never give up because the Savior never gave up on you!

Oh gosh that is awesome that Grandma Carmen will teach me some steps of Latin American dancing like Brazilian Zambia!  Thank her for me! 

That was a lot of $$$ you made for scouts and high adventure...So can you have an auction for my homecoming fund?? That would be really nice to have some sweet cash! You should have tried to auction off Grandpa, that would have been awesome! Oh and that is great... long distance high adventures are the best and the most memorable.

For seminary, this might be a good idea to do the hand signs with the scripture mastery or have the class compete as teams against each other in putting the words of each scripture in the right older or where each team has to say it from memory one word at a time, sort of like hot potato?  

Oh so this week we had an awesome experience. I was biking down the sidewalk and I look over and there is this creature staring into my eyes for at least a second... then it realizes I am just too macho for him and terror fills his eyes and he turns around....right into my companions bike! Poor squirrel, might have made it but he was no where to be seen... 

Yeah I am learning all I can on my mission, where ever I am, so I can be prepared for everything else this life has to send at me. Diligence is what I need right now, because my comp is about to leave and we need to get as much done as we can and stay busy till the end! Never give up because the Savior never gave up on you!

Te amo,

Elder Bowden

Oh it was so tasty!

This is our massive 4 by 4 at In-n-Out

I just broke it somehow???

Giant chess set I was given by an investigator!

My comp with "Mr. Pain"

My comp after he got his going home phone call

Old people are the best!

So I have decided to share some of the funny experiences I forgot to write about... 1st story: So we were doing service at this place for old people who cant care for themselves.  We were helping out and one of the senior citizen ladies started hitting on my companion, it was awesome! Later we had to dance for them to like 60's music, so it was really strange but hilarious, cuz we both just did a bunch of random stuff! Afterwards one of the old ladies tells me "You didn't learn those moves at church!"  Old people are the best! 

This week was a good learning week for me.  I got to spend time with an Elder who has a lot of love for people and is a super charitable old man! It just helped me focus on helping other people instead of myself!  We need to remember every soul is important in the sight of God, not just the Investigators! We bike in the rain and get all cold, but we know that our comforts are far less important than helping the people we teach!  I need to fix so much to make myself a great missionary, but the Lord works with us day by day to make us who He needs us to be :) The mission is hard, but it reminds me of a conference talk where Elder Holland asks us why should we complain about our trials when Christ suffered so much more than we ever will! 

Everything is going well!  I gave an awesome training lesson with the Spirit.  I learn so much when I teach, so I finally understand how awesome it is to teach smart people! I hope your having a good time without me!  It's hard to believe I have been on my mission for over 100 days now... time flies! Have a beautiful week for me!

Com meu amo,

Elder Bowden  

The Lord is preparing me to be an effective missionary I hope!

So conference was awesome!!!  I am glad it had a lot about families and fatherhood and stuff but I don't have to worry about it for a LONG time!!! haha!   I don't have a favorite talk, I liked tons of them and I need to go back and study them more in depth to get the most out of each talk! All the sessions were awesome, but my favorite session would be Monday morning all those talks were loaded with beautifulness!  

Yeah I will get my VISA when my work here is done! I have a whole state to baptize before I can leave so it might be a while... I have realized that I am not doing EVERYTHING the Lord needs me to do, like staying 100% focused everyday-all day is hard but the Lord is working with me to be the most effective servant that He knows I can be! 

Oh thanks for the package, it was awesome!  I gave half of it to my comp, I wasn't sure if that was intended for him or you were just giving me the choice? It was really tempting to keep it all, I mean those twix's are Beautiful things. I am still trying to figure out the new camera. We email at a library so I will have to find a time to send emails through wifi sometime. 

We are working hard everyday and fasting to become better missionaries.  It's been awesome because some of the things my comp said had helped him be a better missionary I had already started doing! The Lord is preparing me to be an effective missionary I hope! He is so patient with me and is helping me overcome my trials with ease, its sweet! haha and humbling.... its the best and the worst! But it's helping me become the man who the Lord needs to do His work during and after my mission! Its super fun and awesome but super hard!  Opposition in all things... we have to have the bad so we can enjoy the good that much more!  As one of the members here says, "Prepare for Glory!" And that's what this life is for so one day we can have the Glory! It's been an awesome week! 

 Anything I can do for you???? Hope you have an awesome week!  I'll try and send some pics!

Com amor, 

Elder Bowden

Noodle Lasagna!!!

We bought tons of cookies!  :)