{week 30}

What a week! So if you guys didn't know, last Monday I had the opportunity to attend the Jordan River Temple with my zone. So since I'm all the way out in Grantsville, we had to get out of the house by 6:30 a.m so we could make the 8am session. We also had the other elders out from wendover come stay the night at our house because they would have had a 3 hour drive into salt lake if they left that morning and they're both foreign missionaries so we drove with them into the city. Missionary sleepovers are the best hahaha. So we ended up leaving later than planned in the morning and we were late to our session but it actually turned out to be a cool experience because we got to see 2 couples going through the temple and it wash h a cool experience to see them! My comp got kinda trunky because he has a girl waiting for him who he's gonna marry when he gets home so it made him think of her so I teased him for it. What also made this temple trip better for me is that I went in with a question for the first time and it was answered!! Crazy testimony builder. Easily the best temple session I've ever been to! I LOVE the temple. They're all so beautiful and the spirit is always so strong in the literal house of the lord. How lucky are we to have them so close to us?! Out on a mission, one of the things you learn besides church stuff is how to dress classy, how to play basketball well and how to budget your money. All necessities for life to come right?! Haha On Wednesday this week, we sent out a group text to all the youth we knew in the area and we got together for a sport activity and we got to play indoor soccer which was super fun. There was about 10 of us there and unfortunately 0 non-members but our goal is to get trust from the member kids and eventually have em bring their friends. It was a ton of fun and just nice to kick back and have some fun playing soccer with the youth. We had the chance on Saturday to do some service for a less-active guy and we went there and he showed us his backyard and it was full of weeds in their garden and I hate picking weeds but I knew that he needed help so I remembered the scripture in Mosiah 2:17 - "When you serve others, you serve God" and that made e work so much easier. After it was all done in about an hour or so, he ordered us pizza and thanked us a ton. Service is great and you always feel good after doing it! Those are the highlights from this week ladies and gents. Have a great week and don't forget to always chase what matters (; 

Elder Bowler

{week 29}

My life be like... So this week was another good week out here. I had the first opportunity this week to go on splits with some priests in one of the Wards and it was great! I went out with a kid named McKay and he just turned 16 and he is a pretty shy kid and he is 6"3 and he can dunk!! It was super cool because I got him to open up and talk about the gospel and you could tell how much fun he had that night. He's gonna be a great missionary someday. He's already got plans to go right after high school! Such a cool kid and such a cool experience. I wish I would have gone on more splits with missionaries before I left! Also this week, we had the baptism of brother Beech. I only got the chance to teach him twice but he is a super awesome guy and I'm happy I was able to see his baptism! He was confirmed by a patriarch and it was one of the coolest blessings I've heard! It was a great Sunday. Elder Brumbaugh and I have been having so much fun together and he's an awesome missionary and he is really teaching me a ton! I've truly learned how important it is out here to get along with and love your companion because when you do, teaching is so much better and the members love you and when the members love you, that equals more referrals which results in more people to teach which results in more baptisms and re-activations!! It's a complicated cycle but trust me, it works! (; haha. This morning we are going to the Jordan river temple for an 8am session so that's why I am writing this so early to you guys! What better way to start off your day than a session at the temple?! I love getting your emails every week! If there's ever anything that you guys have questions about anything, just shoot me a quick email and I'd love to answer any questions you have! Love you guys (: 

Elder Bowler

{week 28}

Week 1 in Grantsville, Utah and 7 months out in the mission field! Crazy. Almost 1/3 of the way there! But anyways, here's some news about the area. My companion is Elder Brumbaugh and he is from West Texas and we get along great. We're pretty much like best friends already which is awesome. We have a ton of fun every day and we get a ton of work done too. I love it out here in Grantsville too because it's like small town country and the people out here are so nice and welcoming! Our area is so much bigger than any of my areas back in Taylorsville which I love and we cover 9 wards out here which is crazy. A few of the wards out here remind me a ton of the Justin Ward back home just because there's a ton of youth and the building is built the same as the one in Texas. This week on the first full day I was here, we taught 5 lessons and we put 3 people on date for baptism! Grantsville was originally part of the salt lake mission so I don't know anyone out here but they're all super cool guys and it's just crazy how much differently they do missionary work compared to how my last mission president made us do it. They prayerfully select baptism dates and make sure they're progressing before they put hem on date for baptism which I like better than just putting everyone on date and then they just go less-active after we baptize them. It's great to be out here. So on Saturday, we went over to this referral we've been trying to contact for a while and they were finally home so we went in and talked to them and they were building a BBQ so we went out and helped them and then they said they had to go talk to someone real quick so we just stayed out there building the BBQ and they were gone for like 45 minutes and we built that whole freakin BBQ and then they came back and were like "wow guys, thank you for building our BBQ but we're not really interested in coming to church" like dang we were so bummed out because we thought for sure he was interested but it's all good haha. It's been an awesome week! Love you guys

Elder Bowler

{week 27}

Hello Everyone

TRANSFER WEEK!! So to my surprise, I am getting transferred once again as well as my companion elder Kelley. They are pink-washing us out which means they are taking both of us out and bringing 2 sister missionaries into the stake. It's weird because I was only here for 9 weeks so I really didn't even get to know anybody accept this one guy named Rick and his daughter is The girl we baptized a few weeks ago. He's pretty bummed out about us leaving the area just because sometimes were the only ones he can vent to and talk to and now we're leaving and sisters are coming in so he can't really do that anymore... It's sad to leave but not nearly as bad as my first move so it's not too bad. So guess where I'm headed!! Wellllll... I'm going to the Grantsville Utah stake which is about a 45 minute drive out here. It's in the middle of nowhere and we still don't have a car haha but from what I've heard from people, they say it's like small town Utah kinda like Texas so I'm pretty excited but pretty nervous too. My new companions name is Elder Brumbaugh so I'm guessing he's foreign so we'll see how it goes! Not much has happened this last week, the work has been pretty slow over here but the thing that sucks is that we just found a family of 6 who are from Iraq and they just started reading the B.O.M and they came to church yesterday! Like just our luck that we find a family of 6 that can all be baptized right as we leave \uD83D\uDD2B  not too much to write about this week but hey I love the emails! And I love all of you! Thank you for all the love and support (: 

Elder Bowler

{week 25}

Whazaaaappp friends and family! 

We had our first zone conference as the new west mission this last week. For those of you who don't know what's going on, as of July 1st I am in the Salt Lake City west mission. All the mission boundaries in Utah were re-drawn to make them more equal in boundaries. I have a brand new mission president and instead of just 3 zones , we have 9! And we have missionaries from 4 different Utah missions trying to come in and be one mission which is really tough because we all came from 4 different mission presidents so we all have different ways of doing missionary work but it's fun to get together and meet the other missionaries. I met a missionary from Bakersfield named elder Franco and I asked him if he knew the Galyan family and he said he knew Jill and Neil! Haha it was awesome. Maybe we will be able to be companions some day! Our new mission president is so much different than my other one... He focuses a lot more on loving the people and doing your best and just having a great mission rather than my other mission president who was all about numbers and chastising us all the time lol. In other news, our investigator Alex is progressing really well and she is being baptized this Saturday by her dad and I will be confirming her on Sunday which will be my first time confirming someone so I'm pretty nervous but I've gotta have courage like the stripling warriors in Alma Ch.56; Rely on the lord and everything will be alright! Then on Friday we had the chance to take Alex to temple square and it was awesome. The spirit is always so strong at temple square! The sisters who gave us the tour liked Alex so much that they asked us if they could come to her baptism and we didn't know that they could do that but of course we said yes! We're excited to have Alex's baptism this week and everything is coming together great! 

Love, Elder Bowler

{week 24}

Good afternoon ladies and gents! 

     Sorry for the letter so late. Interesting week this week haha so on Tuesday, we were 

tracking in some apartments like we usually do, and this guy answers and he's like
I'm Roman Catholic boys, don't bother and so we were like do we hear a accent? And he 

immediately smiled and was like haha yeah I'm from New York and we just started talking to him and then his wife pops out and is like don't talk to them honey, you know what your
mom told you about them, if you talk to them they will talk back and then she
slammed the door. And we were like what the heck, like we are
human beings, of course we're gonna talk back to you. Hahaha so many people
are scared of us and they hate us out here but it's whatever. We tried.
Then on Wednesday we were tracking again and this chick answers the door with
the most mad dog face I have ever seen and she opens and slams the door right
away and right before she answered, we were cracking jokes so we were both
smiling and she still slammed it! Then we went outside that building to go to
another one and we saw this lady sitting on her balcony so we waved and it was
that same lady, we just didn't realize it and she just flipped us off and
walked inside. So as you can tell, we've had a pretty interesting week haha.
But on other, better news; Alex is our on date investigator for July 18th
and she is so golden that we don't have to worry about her at all!
We're stoked to be able to go to temple square with her next week and to
get her baptized in 2 weeks! I also had the opportunity to meet the
new mission president and he is like night and day from president Moffat.
He is so kind and nice. We met him at a baptism and we went to say hi
and shake his hand and he's like "Nope, we hug around here" and he
gave both of us a big hug. It was great. I can tell the rest of my
mission is going to be great! If any of you young men out there are
questioning the decision to serve a mission, DO IT! If any of you knew
me before my mission, nobody thought I would serve a mission but I did
it and I don't regret it at all! Well I hope you guys have a great
week! Write me some letters! 4592 Balsam Avenue (: Love you guys!

Elder Bowler

{week 23}

Good day friends and family! 

As of today starting at 12pm, I am now apart of the Salt Lake City WEST mission!! Instead of being in the smallest mission in the world, I am in the 2nd biggest mission in Utah. Provo is still the biggest. I have a brand new mission president from South Jordan Utah. He has never been a mission president before and from what I hear, he sounds like an awesome guy! So cool news, all the 9 missions in Utah are getting new boundaries so that it is a more equal amount of stakes in each mission. In the new west mission, we have 190 missionaries with 9 zones instead of 75 missionaries and 3 zones. We will have about 65 stakes instead of 22. There will be missionaries from the west mission, the central mission, the north mission, and the south mission. Four different missions & missionaries coming together into one mission which is the new west mission. My mission president said nothing like this has ever been done in the missionary department where so many new and different lines are being drawn so I'm excited to be apart of history. I'm not sure when I get to meet the new mission president but I will keep ya posted. I bet you're wondering why my letter is a day earlier than it usually is.... Well starting today, all p-days will be on Monday instead of Tuesday which is great! So anyways, this week has been pretty good! Crazy story, so we're in this apartment complex and we here this kid like crying pretty loud so we go over to see what happened and there's this like 5 year old kid who's stuck in one of those baby swings and he couldn't get out because his legs were too big so elder Kelley and I picked him up and we lifted the swing upside down and let gravity do the work and he got out! Hahaha his mom was so thankful for us being there. She was already a member so we couldn't teach her but it was a pretty funny experience. Unfortunately Benson didn't come to church this week so he is off date but we found another new investigator who is the daughter of a recent convert and we got her moms permission so now she is preparing for baptism on the 18th of July. She is as golden as they come. We are not worried about her at all. She is 10 years old and her dad who is the recent convert will get to baptize her which is even better! Not too much going on this last week but the coming week should be great! Keep the emails and pictures coming! Love you all and miss you tons! 

Love, Elder Bowler