Samoan Week 6: Fireside

Brothers and Sisters, Manuia le taeao (good morning)!

This week has been great! We had transfer calls this Saturday, and I will be staying here with Elder Bingham!  So no changes for us! However, there are a lot of changes to the mission since we got a lot of new missionaries (greenies). So the zones got realigned. So now we are in the Redwood Zone instead of the West Jordan Zone. Guess what!? Elder Lester, one of the missionaries that I trained, is the one of the Zone Leaders! So that will be awesome! There is also now, the Copperton, South Valley, and the Desert Peak Zone. So lots of changes! Elder Knudsen(from Branson) and the Arkansas sister are still in my district as well!

Besides from transfers, this week was pretty good. We opened up some apartments for next transfer with our Zone leader, Elder Ledbetter and Kozakevitch, and we moved furniture in them so that they are ready. We also got a little sick this week which was a bummer. Elder Bingham was pretty sick and was throwing up. So we gave him a blessing with the Zone Leaders, and just relaxed most of the day and watch LDS movies. So that was fun. He got better then next day though, so that was good.

We have been doing well. We are going on visits with members and setting them up so that has been fun! We also had a great mission fireside Sunday about families! It was really uplifting! I saw a lot of people that I knew from previous areas! It was awesome! The mission is going great, and I can't believe that another transfer has gone by! Hope all of y'all have been doing well! I love all y'all! Thanks for the support and everything! Have a good week!

Elder Bowie
Samoan Wards
Salt Lake City West Mission

Samoan Week 5: Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride

Good Morning everyone! This past week has been awesome! This week I went on exchanges with Elder Knudsen which was great! He is from Branson which is cool, and we had a lot of fun together even though we only had one lesson that day! It went good though and our one lesson went well with this Tongan guy and the Spirit was really strong there! We taught the Plan of Salvation and we had a lot of member support there to help out and to bear their testimonies as well! So, it was a ballin lesson!

Saturday Elder Bingham had a baptism in one of his previous areas, and we were able to attend that which was awesome! It's always great being able to go to a baptism because of how spiritual and how fantastic they are! So, that was defiantly a big highlight of this past week! We also played volleyball with some folks in our ward that night and that was a lot of fun. We got to get to know some people and just relax and have fun which is always nice! So now my volley ball skills are on par now (haha!) since all the Polynesians love it! We get invited to play a lot which is great!

So ya, besides that we didn't do too much this week besides the usual missionary work stuff! The mission has been great, and it's hard to believe that now 14 Months have already gone by!! It goes by way too fast sometimes! I love it though! I hope all of y'all have been doing well! We have transfer's next week, so I'll know by next Saturday if I am staying here another 6 weeks or moving somewhere else! It's exciting! We are getting a lot of new missionaries, so we'll see what happens! Anyways, I love all y'all! Hope y'all have a good week!

P.S. Also have fun watching the solar eclipse today!! That'll be fun!

Elder Bowie
Samoan Wards
Salt Lake City West Mission

Samoan Week 4: Polynesian Baptisms

Brothers and Sisters, Talofa! (Hello in Samoan) Good morning everyone, how has y'all’s week been? This has probably been one of the most ballin weeks ever for me! So, this week I went on exchanges with our Zone Leader (ZL), Elder Leadbetter, and it was awesome! What a great guy, and I really enjoyed being with him for the day! During our day together we contact what we call Potential Investigators (PI's) and they are people who someone has told us to come by or someone we met that asked us to come by and start teaching them and what not. In this area we have a pretty long list. So, Elder Leadbetter and I contacted all of them that we could, and this is like a dozen people! It was crazy!!! Because for us as missionaries, no one is hardly ever at home, especially in the afternoon. Even if they are, they usually don't open the door. (I wonder why! lol) That was a wonderful miracle for us! Sad thing is that now we need more referrals to contact. haha! We had a lot of success though, and we also set up 4 return appointments out of a dozen to go back to. So not too bad. It was a great highlight of my week!

ALSO! Very important! We had multiple baptisms this past Saturday! 5 people total!! So first was our baptism in the Samoan ward we cover in West Valley! (Granger 11th Ward FYI) A mother and her son we have been teaching recently were the one's that got baptized, and our senior couple baptized the mom and the bishop baptized the son! It was beautiful! And of course, we had a huge lunch/feast thing afterwards which was homemade for half the ward! Haha! So that was great as well! It was a great experience for them and for us! It was also great to see their confirmation Sunday as well and for them to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost! Then I had a baptism back in my old area in Granger/Hunter South! It was Jose Cababa who I set on date a week or two before transfers and he was baptized! Then afterwards he was confirmed and given the Aaronic Priesthood, so he could baptize two of his sons, Isaiah and Daniel, which was a great miracle to see that as well! He has been meeting with missionaries now for over 4 years, and it was great for him to finally make that step! So It was awesome to be able to attend these baptisms!

Of course, one of the coolest things this week is that we had a decent rainstorm come through which doesn't happen very much here in Utah! Haha! The streets got somewhat flooded even though it didn't rain that much. So it was pretty cool to watch!

I'm very grateful to be here in this mission and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I love every day and every second of my mission! It's hard to believe we are already half way through August! I know that what I am doing is probably one of the best things I could be doing right now. I love the work. I'm having a blast in the Samoan area, and I am doing well with Elder Bingham! He is a great missionary and is helping me out a lot! I hope and pray that all of ya’ll are doing fantastic as well! I love all of y'all! Thanks again for the love and support! I appreciate everything that y'all have done for me! Thanks for the impact y'all have given me!

Elder Bowie
Samoan Wards
Salt Lake City West Mission

Samoan Week 3: Power of a Testimony

Brothers and Sisters, Talofa! This week was awesome! I had a baptism back in my last area in West Valley which was great, and I was able to go! It was great to attend that! It was April who was the single mom that we were meet with back in the Hunter South Stake.  Elder Bingham also had a baptism in his last area which we were able to go to as well which was awesome! This week we also had interviews with President Palmar which was awesome! It's always good to talk to him! The next transfer is coming up and there will be a lot of new missionaries so a lot of new areas will be opening up. So everyone is excited for that! It's hard to believe that this transfer is half way over! It's going by fast!

We also had a funny experience this week. One of our senior couples set up a lesson with some Samoan Seven Day Adventist missionaries! So that was crazy, but it went well. They had a lot of questions and one of them used to be a member, but is now less  active. The other nonmember one liked what we said and it made sense to him. So hopefully one day he makes contact again with missionaries! We gave them our number if they ever had more questions. But it was a fun little experience that happen this week! We ate a great lunch that was prepared afterward which was awesome, too!

The mission has been awesome! I love every second of it! It's been a huge testimony builder. It's weird now being one of the older missionaries in the mission! It goes by too fast! I'm the oldest in the district! Haha! The second oldest came out last September and everyone else came out in 2017! Lol! But it's great! I love it! I hope everyone has a great week! I love all of y'all!

Elder Bowie
Samoan Wards
Salt Lake City West Mission