{week 14}

Good day ladies and gents,

So this week has been yet another good week here in the Salt Lake City Central Mission! The weeks are flying by like it's crazy! Me and my comp are really getting along great! We are always smiling and laughing and just having a fun few weeks! We've really come to have a great friendship! We plan on hanging out after our missions are done. He's only 4 months ahead of me so we'll be back around the same time! He's a country boy. He loves fishing and hunting and country music. But he's a big time worrier so I'm always making jokes and teasing him and just trying to get him to relax and enjoy his mission and have fun!! It's definitely rubbing off on him. His other companions have been kinda stiff guys and quiet so he said being with me is awesome and I'm his favorite comp so that is always good to hear! As you all know, we cover 6 WARDS now! We are super busy at coordinating with the wards and ward mission leaders. Ward mission leaders are huge in helping us out with getting referrals and teaching appointments. We had one of our new wards tell us this last Sunday that we are the most kind, fun, and good missionaries they've ever had! Our good attitude and hard work are paying off! We have a boy named Devon on date for May 9th to be baptized so we're pumped for that! The work is really going great. Our stake president told us he's so grateful to have such great missionaries in his stake. So great to hear that from him. The stake is really trying to get us as many teaching appointments as possible so starting next week, the wards will be setting up 4 lessons per week per ward so we will be having 24 teaching appointments per week! It's gonna be a lot of work but we're pretty pumped because it's gonna make us great teachers! Practice makes perfect! We found a family in one of the wards that has twins on missions and they had us over for dinner and they loved us! They told us we could come back any p-day and play ping-pong and billiards with them so we're pretty stoked for that! Some tough things have happened this week too like I lost my planner and I have no idea where it could be and my companion knocked my glasses off my head while we were playing soccer and the lenses are all scratched up. It's been a tough but great week but I'm staying positive! Oh another crazy story this week! So we met this atheist guy who is not a member of the church and he told us not to teach him but he loves us because we're just friendly guys so anyways he took us to Cheesecake Factory last week and he blew $140 just on the 3 of us to eat! So he took us back to our bikes and he said to me "hey do you want a Versace shirt and cologne" and I was like heck yeah! So he have me a $200 Versace shirt he never wore and however expensive Versace cologne is. It smells so good Haha definitely one of the highlights of my week! Missionary work is honestly so hard!! But I've found out that hard work is really the best way to make the time fly by and I'm in a way better mood because of it! Hard work, friendliness, and a good attitude are the key to getting people to talk to you and getting to teach them! If you're happy, people want what you have! Good energy is contagious! 

Love Elder Bowler