Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Staying Power

A pretty short letter this week... 

Dear Mumzy and Family,
5 transfer area. Oh yeah. :) And Elder Osthed is my first 3 transfer companion!!! :D (Translation: Sam is staying in his area with his companion for another 6 weeks. He's been there since he arrived at the end of July!! He loves it so this is okay with him, but we were all pretty sure he'd be moving so this came as a surprise!)

Happy half birthday Sadie! :D STOP GROWING UP. :P

Best experience of the week:
Probably Weekly Planning. I don't like it in and of itself, but we decided to walk our area while we planned. We found one new investigator while doing so from a TTI, and Elder Osthed and I had an awesome comp inventory that lasted like an hour and a half. So. Life's good.
I've made a commitment for this to be my BOLD transfer. This past transfer I shrank and let Elder Osthed take the lead in everything, because I was too scared. But now I will be BOLD and DO the Lord's work!!! :D

Worst Experience:
Saying goodbye to some people, now I gotta go and say Just Kidding! Ha. Ha. Ha. Awk...

Miracle March:
We've been going around and teaching members about it. And our commitment to each is to invite a friend to meet with us, or to a FHE or church, etc. The Primary President had us come into both Primaries and invite them to bring a friend to church.

Love you all!
Love,
Elder Stowell

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

2015 - Off To A Great Start


This was taken at the Ward Christmas Party. Love it! :)


Dear Mum and Family,
It's been a great week! 
Yes, Elder Moschetti is a AP now. I didn't tell you that? Oops. :)
I'm glad that everything worked out fine with the van! KEEP ON TRUCKIN' GIANT VAN!!!!! (Our van broke down on New Year's Eve and fortunately ended up being a quick fix. Yay!)
Man, I always miss the bats, don't I? (We had a bat in our house last week. Super exciting!)
I really, really, really like that quote by C.S. Lewis. Thanks for it. :) ("Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, the death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.")
Questions:
*Transfers?
Not until next week. We were supposed to find out the news this coming Saturday, but now it's been moved to next Monday evening so that missionaries don't stop working and so their wards don't stop finding investigators for Miracle March.
*How was your New Year's mission party? :)
It was pretty good! Had hilarious skits by each zone, good lunch, fun games, it was essentially like another P-Day from 10 to 3:30
*Best experience this week?
We had AMAZING miracles last night! We went on splits, and one of our appointments fell through so the ward missionary I was with said that he wanted us to visit one of his neighbors. So we then spent the next two hours knocking on the six houses down his street, and he took the initiative and told his neighbors that he wanted them to meet us and to let us come and teach them. We got two new investigators and three potential investigators from it!!!!! And it was all from the initiative and courage of the member!!!! And Elder Osthed and our Ward Mission Leader went out and taught a very LA family and also a new investigator and now he's a progressing investigator!!!!! And in sacrament meeting it essentially turned into Missionary Work Testimony Meeting, and for High Priests they let us come in and talk about Miracle March and the whole plan and by the end everyone had been challenged by the teacher to find two new investigators for the missionaries to teach!!! THE FASTING AND PRAYERS WORK!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D Our ward fasted for the Faith to find and that they would find ten new investigators for us to teach. Essentially the entire mission fasted for that, along with most of the wards within the boundaries!
*Worst?
Too many butterfingers. :P

Ok. So. We got home one night and what happens? I get hit by snowballs. In Arizona. Because it snowed! Another companionship's investigator went up to the mountains and brought back snowballs for them. So they used it on us as we got home. It was so nice. :)
Other than that.... I can't think of much else for today. The peanut butter fudge was a huge hit. (Sam asked for the recipe and made it for some ward members and others. They loved it!)

Love you all!!!
Love,

Elder Stowell :D

Here's a screenshot Sam took when we Skyped with him on Christmas. It was even taken at 11:11, Savannah's favorite time of the day. :) I look a bit cheesy....At least I wasn't crying! And then there's Sadie. Oh my.