Welcome Home, Elder Bowie!

Hunter Week 30: Homeward Bound

Well, it’s hard to believe, but this is gonna be my last email! My final week here has been awesome! Tuesday I had my final interview with President Palmer! We talked about after mission life and what I need to do. Thursday we did what we call, Trunky Temple Day! We went to the Bountiful Temple with everyone going home and the President as well. It was awesome. We had a ballin testimony meeting after. There are 17 going home, and 4 of us will be flying to Atlanta. Friday we had our last district meeting! In the evening we went to a member house to burn suits for our 2 year mark! Don’t worry, mom, I just burned my ripped suit pants. Haha! Saturday, we had a mini mission! It was a lot of fun! We did that for most of our day! It was awesome to be with youth preparing for a mission! Sunday, I was able to bear my “farewell testimony” at church! It was awesome!

Well, see y’all soon! I’ll be flying out at 7 am Tuesday from Salt Lake to Atlanta! Then from there to Arkansas! I should be in Arkansas around 3. Thanks for all the love and support! The mission has been amazing! I’ve learn so much! Can’t wait to share with y’all want I have learn! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake

Hunter Week 29: It's the final countdown.

Hi, everyone! It’s me, Elder Bowie. It’s been another good week here in West Valley! It’s been pretty hot this week with every day in the 90’s, so we’ve been drinking lots of water! Tuesday Elder Golding had our regular interviews with our mission president. Since I’m going home this transfer mine will be this week. It was fun though to go to the mission office, and see some missionaries. Also! Tuesday was my b-day! Hard to believe I’m 21 now! We did a b-day dinner at one of our member’s, the Nelsons, home! It was really awesome of them! Wednesday and Thursday were both slow days, so we mostly just walked around our area.

Friday we had our district meeting which was good as usual! Our lessons that evening canceled unfortunately. Saturday, we helped out some people move out to Magna. Luckily they didn’t have much stuff so it didn’t take long to load and unload their stuff. We then did a district blitz for the Sisters. We just went knocking doors in an apartment complex, but not too many people were home sadly. Then in the evening we went by a few people. Sunday, of course, was good. We had church and a Stake Correlation Meeting in the afternoon. So, it’s been a pretty good week. Thanks again for all the love and support! Love y’all! Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stakes

Hunter Week 28: Almost Summer!

Good morning everyone! Hope everyone had a great week! My week has been tiring, but great! We have done a lot of walking in our area this week which is nice! We had a little bit of a cold front in around Wednesday or Tuesday evening, so the weather wasn’t too bad as well. Not too much success unfortunately, but we are trying to work hard in our area. We are trying to do some work in the one Samoan ward we have. Not a lot of success so far but we are going through the area book as well as some referrals we have. We’re hoping to get some work sparked there.

Thursday evening we had a new investigator lesson which was awesome! They are going to be moving out in a month sadly. They wanted to start meeting with us and to get baptized. So, we are going to start the lessons with them and see how it goes!  The walked around for the rest of our evening.

Friday we had our district meeting which was good as usual. Saturday we did some service for a few people. So, that was good to do. Sunday, we had church, of course. It was great to hear everyone’s testimonies! We also went to the Youth Devotional which was awesome! It’s been a great week here in West Valley and I’m looking forward to this week! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stakes

Hunter Week 27: Memorial Day

Good morning everyone! Hope y’all had a greet week! My week has been good here in West Valley! Well, nothing too much has happened since I lasted emailed on Thursday. We are still doing good in our area. We got a few return appointments which was great. Friday, we had our district meeting which was good as well! Sunday a family in our area had their son come back from his mission from New Mexico. We got to met him and hear his homecoming talk. So, that was good!

Today is going to be an All day P-day which is nice! We will be doing some activities with our district and later our zone today. Hope all of y’all have a great Memorial Day!  Thanks again for all the love and support! Have a great week! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake

Hunter Week 26: Temple Trip

Good morning everyone! This has been a great week! Our p-day got moved to today since we went to the Temple in Bountiful today! It was a lot of fun!

We have been doing very well in this area! Elder Golding and I have doing well! Sorry this will be a short email since we are currently running back and forth!

Love y'all! Have a great week!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 25: Happy Mother's Day!!

Good morning everyone! We had a great first week of this transfer! Elder Golding is great! Can’t remember if I said where he is from, so I’ll do it again! Haha! He is from Eagle Mountain, Utah! Originally from Evanston, Wyoming so he isn’t too far from home! Haha! We get along very well, and have been doing good together!

This week was pretty slow. We had a lot of lessons fall through. We have been going by some of the Ward Mission Leaders and Bishops which has been good. We’ve have been having fair weather as well which was been nice. We had a cold front come in and dropped us from 80s to 50s and 60s. It should warm up this week again, I believe.

We also had a baptism in my last area I was able to go to! It was for a 15 year old young women that Elder Miller and I taught in the Samoan area! It was awesome to see her get baptized! I gave a talk on baptism there, so that was great as well!

Probably the highlight of my week was Mother’s Day! We had a great day! We had church with the Mother’s Day programs and then after our meetings we got to call home! It was awesome to have my last call home! So, that was awesome! Then we had our dinner and we did some family history work after dinner as well. It was an overall good day! Thank everyone again for all the love and support! Hope all y’all had a great week as well! Talk to y’all next week!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 24: Last Transfer!!

Good morning, everyone! We had our transfer calls Saturday. It was pretty exciting since this is my LAST one! So, this is what’s happening: Elder Heeding is leaving to go to serve in the Granger Stake! I am staying here in Hunter, and my LAST companion is Elder Golding! He’s has been out around 6 months or so. He is from Wyoming. So, it looks like this will be my last area! I’m definitely going to miss Elder Heeding, but I’m excited to have a new comp basically for my last month. Glad to be staying here! So, that’s the news with transfers! I’m officially been out the longest in the mission now so, that's weird! Haha!

This week was great! Nothing too exciting happened this week. We had a few lessons this week. We did a few service projects with some folks in our area. One was helping move some furniture from the basement to a moving van. Its has been a great time serving with Elder Heeding! I’m excited for this next transfer since we should have a lot of fun things going on. Mothers Day, the Jordan River Temple Rededication, my birthday, and a few other things. Hope all y’all had a great week as well! Love y’all! Thanks for all the love and support! It means a lot to me! I love serving this mission, and I hope for my last transfers that I’ll do my best! Peace!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 23: Service Brings Blessings

Good morning all of y’all! So, this week was a week of service! Basically the entire week starting on Tuesday when we did service with our district. It was wonderful, and we helped out a lady to do her yard work for her. So, that was fun and we moved some big rocks, but besides that it was just the normal day. And then, Wednesday we went out to Magna to help out someone else with their yard work. That was a lot of fun. We also made the plan is salvation on the sidewalk in some random park, but it was kind of cool. And then we did some more service helping someone move out of an apartment by that point it was dinner time. So we got a ride to take us to dinner.

Thursday we did some weekly planning and set up some lessons for this week. Then on Friday we had our district meeting which was great . We talked about the Holy Ghost so that was good. And then Saturday we have some other people move out and in our area so that was fun, too. And then in the evening we had this elders quorum activity that we went to. We talked with a couple of less active families that came so that was great.

And then Sunday we had a great Sunday and we gave talks about ordinances, covenants, and service. Elder Heeding did a great job! And today were hanging out at a park in Kearns with the Zone. But ya, its been a great week! Hope everyone else had a great week as well! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 22: Serving Snow or Shine

Good morning everyone! It has been another great week here in West Valley! We have been going around preaching the gospel as usual. Last Monday evening we had a few lessons which was great! One of which is a less active family we have been working with. Tuesday we mainly met with some more church leaders from our 12 wards we cover. Its been good to get to know everyone and to help get the ball rolling. Wednesday we also met with a few ward councils member. We did some of our weekly planning as well. We set some goals for the next week. Thursday we were going to head to the Jordan River Temple open house, but since it was rough weather and our person was sick as well we didn’t get to go. We rescheduled for next week. So, hopefully we will head down there finally this week.

Friday we had our district meeting which was awesome! We had lunch then we helped out with some service for someone. We were moving fertilizer for someone garden. He had a big truck load of it so it took a while. We had a lot of fun doing it.

Saturday we walked around and contacted the 25 or 26 referrals we got from the ward council members. We did that all afternoon, and it was perfect weather for it too. It was in the 60s or low 70.s and we did that until dinner. We met with a lot of people and had a lot of fun doing it. Then we did some service for someone after dinner. Then we went to the church to write out and print off our talks for church. We talked in the Highbury Ward which was awesome.

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 21: Blessings and Lessons

Good morning, everyone! We’ve had a great week this week here in the Hunter and Hunter East stakes area. It’s been awesome! We have been going by different auxiliary leaders within the 12 wards we cover. So, if you do the math it’s 84 people to go by. And so it’s been taking up quite a bit of time to set them all up, but it has been great and we’ve had a lot of success. We met with about 20 or so people so far! It’s been awesome to get to meet everyone and we have extended a challenge to each person to pass out a Book of Mormon to someone and to pray about someone to give it to. So far no one’s rejected that challenge so that’s good. Ha ha!

I have been teaching a couple lessons this week to a few investigators and less active families. So that has been good. We have a few people who are trying to get ready for baptism by the end of this month or beginning of May. We’ll see what happens, and I’m trying to find some new people. It has been great to serve here, and I love all the members here. On other news, we recently spoke in a ward sacrament meeting this Sunday! We talked about missionary work in being disciples of Jesus Christ. So it was awesome doing that!

It has been great serving here and getting to know the people in this area. I am glad for the opportunity to be here and to help those I’m supposed to help. And thanks again for all the love and support! It means a lot to me, and all I can ask is to just keep doing the things we’re supposed to and read the book Mormon! I know it’s true, and if you keep reading it and praying about it you’ll know that too! So, thank y’all again and I hope everyone had a great week, and I will talk to y’all next week!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 20: Easter Hosanna

Good morning everyone!  It has been a great week here in West Valley! Monday we had a lesson with some less actives which was great! Tuesday we did some planning and had a few lessons in the evening. Both were very good, and we have one of them now on date for the end of April. So that should be good! Wednesday, we did some service for a few people. One of them we helped someone dig a hole to their water line which was broken. So that fun and we got really dirty from that! Haha! Then we had one lesson in the evening with an investigator which was great! His name is Don and we are currently trying to get him to come out more to church with no luck yet. Thursday we had our Zone Conference which was great! Really enjoyed that! We talked about the Restoration of the Gospel and Joseph Smith! It was some really good stuff and trainings.

Saturday was Service Saturday. We helped probably about 5 different families with the West Valley trash pick up they do here every April. That was good! We moved tree limbs, couches, TV’s, and just about everything. We helped out one person clean out their gutters from leaves so that was also good! Sunday, of course, was great! We had church and then a stake meeting later on. Then we called a lot of people after dinner of those that are on each ward councils in our 12 wards to set up an appointment with them. Except for the Elders Quorum since of the recent changes most of the wards don’t have it situated yet. So, the bishops, WML, Relief Society, and Primary were the main ones we focused on. So, our plan is to go to each one and tell them about people that we are working with in their area and then share the restoration as our message. Then ask for some referrals. So, hopefully we will see some good come this week by doing this.

Well, that’s my week! I hope all of y’all had a great week as well! It’s been great doing service here in West Valley and the members here are awesome! Love y’all! Hope you have a great week! Thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 19: Conference Weekend

Good morning everyone! I hope y’all had a great Conference weekend! It’s been great here in West Valley! We started the new transfer this week and we have been doing pretty well here! Not too much success this week, but we are always trying to find new people to work with and help those that we are working with to progress in the Gospel. Conference, of course, was probably one of the biggest highlights this week! It was amazing to sustain President Nelson as our new current Prophet of the Church! Not to mention, all the huge announcements that he made this year!! Lot’s of changes and 7 new temples! Two of which are the first in Russia and India! It’s crazy to see the growth of the church all around the globe! I’m very excited for this next era for the LDS Church!  We weren’t able to bring anyone, but we still went to the Saturday Afternoon session! We watched it in the tabernacle which was really cool! I’ll attach some pictures so y’all can see! Our area is doing pretty well, and we are hopefully taking someone to the temple open house in South Jordon this week which should be good! Hard to believe it’s April! I’m excited for what this month has to offer! We are doing our best and trying to be better. I hope you all had a great weekend as well! Thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Bowie
Hunter East and Hunter Stakes
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 18: Easter Hosanna

Good morning y’’all! This has been a great week here in West Valley City! We had a lot of great stuff going on and the work is going good! Of course, we had transfers calls last Saturday and me and Elder Heeding will be staying together for another transfer! So, we are both super excited for that! We also get a new ward in our area the Mapasaga Ward which is the Samoan ward for Hunter and Manga! So, now our area is really big! We are looking forward to working with them now as well! So, it’s going to be awesome covering this new ward!

We had our Stake’s community event, The Easter Hosanna! It was a big concert with groups from around the area which was pretty awesome! We invited a couple of people to come to that. So that was great! We had a couple of lessons this week with potential new investigators, and we are still looking for new people to work with. It’s been really good and the Lord answered our prayers and we got a solid referral for a guy who is 28 and as a LOT of questions and wants to learn more about our Church. So, that was great! We are working with some less actives who have an 8 year old daughter. We are working with them to get them active and to get her baptized with the Bishop’s help. So, that was awesome!

The mission has been doing great! I’m excited to stay here for one for transfer. So, now I'll be here till May 8th So, this might be my last area, but we will see what the Lord wants. It’s been great serving and I love the people of this area! I hope everyone else has a great Easter Week! It’s amazing to turn back and to look at the life of the Savior during those last moments of his life. Love!

Elder Bowie
Hunter and Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 17: Preach My Gospel

Good Morning! It’s been an amazing week here in West Valley! We have been working hard trying to find some new investigators (people that are interested in learning more about the church). We have been knocking doors and walking the streets looking for people to teach and to help come unto Christ. We found one after many hours of seeking. haha! It’s a part member family with a 9 year old daughter. We will be meeting with them this evening at 7. We are excited to start working with them!

Elder Heeding has been doing very well! He’s has adjusted to missionary life really well and is a great support and missionary! We are getting along well and are working hard! We were able to give our testimonies in the Hunter 15th ward which was great! We will be speaking in the 5th ward next week! So, we will have spoken three times by the end of this transfer which is great! Elder Heeding does great talks as well!

I have been trying to focus more on the Book of Mormon recently and I am currently in the middle of Mosiah and finished reading the story of Abinadi.  We were able to use that story in a lesson with one of our recent converts, Ray, and we read chapters 13-14 with him and talked about the commandments and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We told him of how Abinadi talked to the wicked King Noah and his Priest and taught them about the Law of Moses and the Savior who would fulfill the Law. He also read Isaiah 53 as another witness of his words to the King. It’s amazing to see how the Book of Mormon is a companion to the Bible and supports it. Using both brings the doctrine of Christ into focus.

I love being a missionary and it’s crazy to think I only have 3 more months of it! I love serving and helping the people around me. I can promise you that if you read the Book of Mormon every day that the windows of Heaven will open and you will find answers and peace in your own life as it has mine. I love this Gospel! Our last Prophet Thomas S. Monson said in his last public address we need to read this Book daily. I love y’all! Thanks for all the love and support! May God bless you!

Elder Bowie
Hunter East and Hunter Stakes 
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 16: Walk of Faith

Good Morning, everyone! This has been another awesome week here in West Valley! We didn’t have many lessons but we had some excellent experiences! To start, Monday evening we had a lesson cancel and we went out contacting and we went by a lady named Demetra and she is cool and is a single mom of 5 or 6 kids! She really isn’t that interested in church and works two jobs so she is rarely home but her mom stays with the kids. So we had a good talk with her and she knows the Bishop in the area and hopefully when things clear up in her life she will be ready to join the Gospel, but for right now she isn’t interested in Church. Then Tuesday last week was our pday which you already know about. We went to downtown Salt Lake. Then we went out contacting and it was pretty good. Wednesday we decided to do a “Walk of Faith”. Since we had nothing planned for the whole afternoon we just walked around for a few hours. Nothing too much happen. We had a correlation meeting and talked about some of the people we are trying to work with and got to know the ward missionaries a bit better.

Thursday we did some service for Brother Gomez in helping put away some costumes and stuff from the event downtown for the Spanish community. So that was a lot of fun and we messed around with some of it and took some cool pics. haha! Then we ate lunch and we did our weekly planning and then contacted in the evenings. Friday we had our District Meeting which was a bit small since the sisters in our district were at the Jordan River Temple preparing for the Open House. It was good and then we did some more walking and not too much happened. Saturday we decided to walk the boundaries of our area. In the afternoon since both our afternoon appointments canceled. So 10, 11 miles later we finished and went back home with just a little bit of time left until dinner. While we were walking we were able to give someone a priesthood blessings which was awesome! He saw us walking and asked us to come in and he told us he was struggling and he was a member. So, we were able to give him a blessing and directed him to his bishop. So, that awesome! Sunday we had church and we did some walking in the afternoon. A few meetings then we walked to dinner. That was fun. Our lesson at 6 told us they weren’t interested so we walked to our lesson at 7 and they canceled since she had to work extra. Then we went by our ward mission leader, Brother Nelson, and did a correlation meeting which was good.

So ya, we did not have many lessons this week, but we were able to still work and walk around and do some good that otherwise couldn’t have been done. So, it’s been a good week and it’s been nice weather so it makes walking a couple miles not too bad. haha! I hope everyone had a great week! Thanks again for all the love and support! And, in case you didn’t see I have now less than 100 days left on the mission. haha! So, I’ll do my best to make it count!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 15: Salt Lake City!!

Good morning everyone! We had a great time in the Salt Lake City Temple today! So that is why our pday was moved to today. It was awesome to go to the temple. We had to wake up at 5 and get to the train station at 6 to ride to Salt Lake, and be in the temple for the 7 am session. So that as great and I printed off two family names for Elder Heeding and I.

Our week went pretty good. We had stake conference which as fun to go to! We are still looking for new people to work with and we have a few on date for baptism here soon. Sorry my email will be a little short this week since I’m still downtown doing some stuff! We are doing well together and I am really enjoying my time with Elder Heeding.

The work here in West Valley is picking up, and its crazy to think we are halfway done with the transfer! Hope you all have a great day! Love you!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 14: Contacting in the Snow

Good Morning! It’s been a very snowy week here in Utah! We probably got 3 or 4 snow storms in one week! So we have been shoveling a lot of driveways as service for people! Elder Heeding is doing great and we are getting along! He is a very hard worker, and is an awesome companion to have! Monday we did a little service for a member to help move some stuff, and then we went tracking in some apartments in our area which was fun and got one return appointment. Tuesday we went contacting and went by a couple of our bishops and ward mission leaders to introduce Elder Heeding to them! We had one lesson as well with Braxton, our recent convert, and did one of the new member lessons.

Wednesday we did a service project for Brother Gomez in helping out in a Spanish cultural event that will be in the Conference Center downtown. We just put costumes in protective bags so that they are ready to be transported down there. So that was a lot of fun to see all the cool costumes. We did a companionship study with our Zone Leaders, Adamo, and Crowther, which was great! We had both lessons we had set cancel on us, so we did a lot of finding in the evening. Thursday we had our Zone Conference which was great! We talked about the commandments and the white handbook. It was awesome! We met with our new investigator, Chris Rzepkowski, and taught him the Restoration. He is the son of our recent convert, Rebecca, and he is 11 and wants to be baptized as well! Then we went out contacting after our lesson.

Friday we had our District Meeting which was great! It snowed very hard that day so after we did some weekly planning we went out and just shoveled people’s driveways from about 2 to 5. Then we met with our other new investigator, Aymen and taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His cousins weren’t there so we will have to get them up to speed. Then we went out contacting. We found two new investigators. First Demetra, a black lady with a couple of kids. Then we found Willie who is from Tennessee and has a pretty deep southern accent! Haha! So we will be meeting with both of them this coming week! Saturday was an all contacting day! Went by a couple list of names we had form wards and knocked out most of them. Sadly not that many were interested but now we narrowed it down to about 2 or 3 families we are trying to teach now.

Sunday was church and sadly not that many people came to church this week! So we are going to share a scripture from Moroni about church to all our people and invite them all again to go to church. So, hopefully we can get some more folks coming. Then all of our set lessons fell through we had for the day. So we contacted a few people, and got one return appointment. So that was good! But ya, my week was awesome, and we are going to have a lot of people on date for baptism soon! Our goal is 14 for this week so we are praying that the Lord will help us as we go out this week and invite people. I hope everyone has a great week! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 13: Chicken Feet

Good Morning everyone! It’s a cold snowy morning here in Utah today! I hope everyone had a great week! It’s been a wonderful start to the transfers here! On Tuesday we went to the Mission Office to met Elder Heeding. We had to do some introduction stuff and some basic training. Afterwards we had lunch together with all the trainers and greenies which was nice! Then we went back to our place and got everything unpacked. It was a little crazy with three of us so Elder Heeding had to sleep on the couch! Later that evening we had a lesson with Braxton, our recent convert, and we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him. Elder Heeding did a great job at teaching! Our lesson at 8 canceled, so we mainly contacted the rest of the evening.

Wednesday we went contacting in the afternoon. And went by most of our potentials but not much luck since most people were at work. We were supposed to go out with a Ward Mission Leader but he canceled so we mostly contacted folks all day long.  Thursday we had weekly planning which went great, and we talked about all the people we are working with and set goals for the area and us as a companionship.  We taught Rebecca the last recent convert lesson. However now we are going to teach her son, Chris, who is 11 because now he wants to be baptized as well so we will still be seeing them. We taught a new investigator, Don Peck. He is a golden investigator! He asked us how he can be baptized! Haha! So we are going to start teaching him next week and set him on date ASAP.

Friday we had Heeding’s first District Meeting which went great! Then we went out contacting in the afternoon.  In the evening we met with Aymen and is cousins, Wor and James. We taught the plan of salvation, and they knew their stuff and asked lots of questions. We also set them on date for baptism in March! So it’s going well with them!

Saturday was the big day for Elder Denkers! We ate lunch at In-N-Out his favorite restaurant with our District Leader. Then we went to the Mission Office and helped him get rid of some stuff since his suitcase was too heavy. haha. After that they drove him down and dropped him off for his over 15 hour flight! So it was great to see him head to the Philippines, but I’m going to miss him for sure!  Later that evening we met with Jeremiah and set him on date as well for March.  So that was great! Sunday we had church and then a correlation meeting at 3. Then we went contacting in the evening and found a new family to work with the Owens. So it was a really good night!

Hope all y’all had a good week! Thanks for the love and support! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

P.S. I got to eat some chicken feet this week. haha!

Hunter Week 12: Working Hard

Good morning everyone! It’s been a great week here in Utah! It’s been a pretty warm week here. So it’s been nice! As I’m sure all of y’all are curious about what’s happening this transfer I tell you the big news! So, I’m a staying in Hunter East Stake and Hunter Stake. I am going to be training again here! My new companion’s name is Elder Heeding, and he is from Missouri! I’m looking forward to meeting him and helping him start his mission! I am super excited to met him tomorrow! Elder Denkers will be with us till this Saturday and then that afternoon he will board the plan for the Philippines! I am definitely going to miss him, but I know he will do great out there! So we will be a trio for most of this first week. haha!

Besides that, the rest of our week has been wonderful! We have been finishing up the new member lessons with Braxton. And with Wyatt, our new 9 year old investigator, is doing well and we are doing great through the lessons and he will be on date soon! We helped someone move this week! It was our recent convert Linh and we just helped move some heavy stuff out of his apartment which went well! He is going back to California to help his dad. We also are on our last lesson with Rebecca another convert. We have gone on visits a few time this week which went well and we are still trying to find new investigators to add to our teaching pool. Sunday was great! We had church and then a stake correlation in the afternoon. We got some referrals from that which will be great to go and contact later this week.

Other than that this week has been great! Later today we had some members throw Elder Denkers a farewell party/dinner of sorts. Brother Nelson is doing a cookout, and since Elder Denkers will have his birthday in the Philippines they are doing a mini birthday party before he heads out. We are looking forward to that! I hope everyone has a great week! I’ll be sure to take pictures with Elder Heeding so y’all can see his face. I think he is from Potosi, so if anyone knows where that is let me know. haha! I love y’all and stay warm!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 11: Open Doors

Good morning everyone! It’s been a great week here in West Valley! We had our interviews with President Palmer, Wednesday, which is always awesome! He told me and Denkers that he is probably going to whitewash our area which means two new elders replace us! However, we will know for sure this Saturday! It’s hard to believe that this transfer is almost over! It goes by too fast sometimes!! Had some exciting news this week! Elder Denkers got his Visa for the Philippines! So he will leave just a few days after the transfer on the 17th! He’s super excited!

Thursday we had a really successful night! We had a lesson, and we had Brother Nelson drive us around and contact some of our referrals. We ended up contacting almost everyone on our list! We got a return appointment for one former Investigator, Aymen! He is a 10 year old black kid, and we set up a lesson with his mom for Friday.

Friday we had our lesson with him and it went great! He currently has his two cousins living with him while they are looking for a home. They happen to not be members. as well! So we taught all three of them. Wor (10) and James (13) are his two cousins’ name. We taught the Restoration, and it went well and we gave them Book of Mormons. We set up the lesson for next week and we are hoping to get some real progress going. The mom is a member btw.

Saturday we started the new member lessons with Ray, our recent convert, which went very well! We watched the Restoration movie thing and we discussed it with him and it went very well! Then we met with Braxton, another recent convert, and taught the Plan of Salvation. Both of them are doing well!  We also taught an investigator named Jeremiah who is 10. We taught the Plan of Salvation which went well and they said they would be at church!

Sunday, we had Church and Jeremiah and his little sister were dropped off by their dad to church. Their dad is less active, but he wants them to get involved in the Church. The rest of our day went great and we met with Brother Nelson later that day which went good. I hope everyone’s week went great! I love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 10: Like a Rough Stone Rolling

Good morning everyone! I hope your week has been great! It’s been another wonderful week here in West Valley! We have been going out on visits with some of our ward mission leaders. Monday we went out after pday with our new one, Brother Nelson, and that went great and we set up a return appointment with a Hispanic family that invited us back so that was awesome! Tuesday we met with Ray for his last lesson before his baptism Saturday! It went really well, and we finished up the commandments with him. We also set up a time for his interview as well as the program.

Probably the best part about Tuesday is that we got a car from our AP’s! Apparently, their car was in the shop during transfers, and so they had a spare and gave it to us! It has been a huge blessings! We are so glad to have it!! Then we also had a new investigator lesson with Oscar with our ward mission leader as well! We met at the Church building and had a great lesson with him! He had those typical golden questions about: How he could improve his life with his family? How can learning about Christ help me? I just want to be happy with my family? We were able to talk to him about that and did our first lesson, the Restoration, with him and it went great! So, we are super excited to start working with him! Wednesday we had two visits set up in the evening. The first one was with the 5th Ward. We met up with the Ward mission leader and went out and visited people with not too much luck. So we set up a time next week to have a correlation with him and the ward missionaries. Then we went out with the 11th Ward and that went well. We contacted the few names we had and had a great time.

Thursday we had our interview with Ray which he passed! So that was awesome and we just confirmed some things for the baptism. Then in the evening we met with Rebecca, our recent convert, and did one of the new member lessons which went great! Friday we had our district meeting which went great as usual. Then we helped out a little in a service project afterwards helping this member family with their flooring which was good. Our lesson at 4 canceled sadly. Then nothing too successful happened in the evening. Saturday was a great day! We had Ray’s baptism at 12 which went great! The Spirit was very strong, and it awesome to see him get dunked! Then in the afternoon we contacted a few names that we had a lot of success! We contacted everyone on the list. We may have a potential new investigator from that as well! Her name is Maria Soto. She is Catholic and lives with her son who is a member. She doesn’t want to abandoned her traditions and cultures, but she felt like us coming over and visiting for a minute was a sign from God that she needed to met with us. So we are going to start teaching her this week! Super excited about that!

We had Stake Conference in the East Stake in the evening which was great! Then Sunday we had the rest of it. We had to leave early to get to Ray’s ward for the confirmation! That went really well, and President Palmer came as well which was awesome! So, now he is officially a member of the church! So, this week went by pretty quick, and I hope all y’all’s week have been wonderful! Thanks for all the love and support! Love y’all!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stake
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 9: Its Snowing!

Good morning everyone! It’s been a great week here in West Valley! It was a little slow this week mainly because my companion, Elder Denkers, got down with the flu a little bit. However, we had a great week! Tuesday we had our Zone Conference. It was awesome to hear from all the speakers and to learn things to apply to our area. Of course, it was great to hear from our mission President!  Wednesday is when Elder Denkers got sick really bad. I had a little bit of it as well, but he was sick as a dog all day long. So, that was really slow, and we had to cancel our lessons. We have a lot of great concerned members that came by and gave us drinks and and chicken noodle soup!

Thursday he was still a little sick but we did go to our lessons. We taught Rebecca, one of our recent converts, one of the new member lessons. Friday we had District Meeting which went well! Our lessons canceled on us Friday sadly so we didn’t get too much done. Saturday we met with Rey one of our investigators which went pretty good. He is set on baptism for next Saturday, so we are excited for that! We will met with him next week to start planning it with the ward. Speaking of baptism, we went to one as well Saturday. It was someone in the Samoan area that me and Elder Miller found and started teaching. It was awesome to see her get baptized! She was an 11 year old that had less active parents coming back to church. So that was great to see that happen!

Sunday we had Church, of course! We had a stake correlation in the Hunter Stake which went well! We talked about how the members can be more on board with missionary work which went good! We are also setting up visits with different ward mission leaders to go out and find some new people to teach! So that went great! After the correlation we went out with Brother Roos, one of our WML’s. We went out contacting and we found Oscar who was a referral we had. We found him home and we set up a time for us to come back and start teaching him! So that was fantastic! But ya, our week went great and of course we got a great snow storm Saturday which was wonderful! Feel’s like winter here finally! Hope all y’all had a great week as well! Thanks again for the love and support!

Elder Bowie 
Hunter and Hunter East Stake 
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 8: The Lord's Work

It’s been a great and pretty warm week here in West Valley! We had a lot of great experiences this week! Monday we had our lesson for that evening after P-Day fall through. So, we went contacting with our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Gomez! He is a great guy! So we went contacting to some referrals we had but not much success came from it sadly. Tuesday we had a pretty similar day. We were going to met with Braxton the 10 year old that we baptized last transfer to do one of the Recent Convert lessons, but it fell through. We happen to be with Brother Gomez and he was free as well and we did the same thing as the night before and contacted names this time with great success! We contacted most of the names. Not everyone accepted us, but we got them checked off the list and had something to report to the Wards. We did get a few lessons set up which is always great as a missionary.

Wednesday was a good day. We had one lesson set up last night for today but it fell through (surprise, surprise) but we set up a correlation meeting with one of our wards in the Hunter Stake which went awesome! We had most of the ward council there and we talked about the people we were working with or trying to. haha. We talked and we got referrals for 4 family with people that are not baptized for us to go and contact in that ward which is great! So we are currently working on contacting those names. Thursday we had our weekly planning day for the afternoon where we plan out what we are going to do next week. In the evening we taught Rebecca who we baptized at the end of last transfer the recent convert lesson. It went very well and she is doing very well and is on track on getting sealed with her husband in the temple.

Friday we had District Meeting which was great. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and working with members. We had lunch and watched President Monson’s funeral at one of the senior couple’s house. It was really awesome to watch it and see the funeral. I am definitely going to miss him! Later we met with one of our investigators and we had a great lesson and we taught the Plan of Salvation which went well. They had a lot of good questions & are still coming to church. Saturday we went downtown with one of our investigators, Rey, to the Church History Museum for him to see about the Prophet Joseph Smith  and learn about the history of the Church. It was really awesome and their video about the first vision is the best part! It was really good for him! Plus it’s always fun to go downtown. We did this in the afternoon and then afterwards we had dinner. Later that evening we did our weekly progress reports and emailed them out to the Ward mission leaders in our area.

Sunday we had church, of course. Brother Gomez, our ward mission leader, got released so we went to his ward to see that and talk to our new WML Brother Nelson. We watched the YSA devo broadcast as well which was great, and it was a lot of fun to listen to that! It’s been a pretty good week and I hope everyone is staying warm back home! I’ve been pretty blessed here with warm weather for the most part. Love y’all, and I hope you have a great day!

Elder Bowie 
Hunter and Hunter East Stake 
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Week 7: Gospel Fire

Good Morning, everyone! This past week has been awesome out here in West Valley! We had transfers happen, and now I am with Elder Denkers! He is from Anaheim, California and has been out for 3 months! He is a visa waiter for the Philippines and is a great guy! He definitely has that Greenie Fire with him! Haha! We have been doing great this week! We have been meeting all of the leadership in our area and have been discussing the work in each of our 11 wards which has been going great!

Since we had a lot of baptism last transfer, with Elder Gee, we are doing a lot of the new member lessons, and we are now trying to find new people. We found a new family this week and are now working with the two family members. So, that is where we are at in this area. We still have a couple of investigators, but we just keep looking for new people.

I had the cool opportunity to go to a baptism in my last area (the Samoan area). There was an 8 and a 9 year old that Elder Miller and I found and taught. Their baptism was pushed back because of Christmas. So, it was super awesome to be there and to see them again! I got to do the Restoration presentation there which was great with another Elder. Our Mission President, President Palmer, was also there which was great!

So ya, my week has been great! I am looking forward to this transfer and working in this area! I hope everyone else had a great week! Thanks for all the love and support!

Elder Bowie
Hunter & Hunter East Stakes
Salt Lake City West Mission

Hunter Weeks 5 and 6: Christmas and Now Transfers!!

Good mornin’ everyone! Sorry about not sending an email out last week! But, Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is had a great Christmas! This week has been amazing! We have been having a great past couple of days here in  West Valley! Friday we had our district meeting which was great! Afterwards, I burned my pair of pants for the big 18th month mark! We burned them at our ward mission leaders house, and it was a lot of fun! We went out to Costco afterwards for lunch! It’s was a super awesome time! We also did a little correlation meeting with one of stake presidents to set up a monthly correlations with the ward mission leaders so we can get people on the same page. haha!

Saturday, we had an another baptism! It was a 10 year old that we were teaching and had member friends bring him to church! He is a super awesome kid, and it was amazing to see him get baptized! Yesterday we had Church and we went to three ward’s Christmas programs which was great to see! We had lunch with a member afterwards. Then in the evening we had a half pday so we hung out with a member family, the Rogers, and had our Christmas Eve with them! We had nachos and drinks. We read Luke chapter 2 and watched the Church’s nativity videos.

Of course, I had the opportunity to call home today! It was amazing to see them and to talk with them for a little bit! Hard to believe that was my 3rd call home! It’s been a great 18 months! Hard to believe I only have 6 more months left (5 1/2) till I go home! I hope everyone as a great day, and I love all of y'all! Merry Christmas!

Alright, so for this week, we were super busy! We had another baptism this Saturday as well for someone that me and Elder Gee found at the beginning of the transfer and she was super solid! She is a young mom with 2 kids and her husband is less active. However, they both wanted to come to the LDS Church, and so we came into the picture. It was really awesome! The service was great and was simple! It was perfect! Another major thing that happen was that we got our transfer calls! I will be staying here in Hunter, but my companion, Elder Gee, will be leaving to the Jordan North Stake. I am really going to miss him. My new companion is Elder Dankers. He is a visa waiter for the Philippines, and is waiting in our mission. He’s only been out for one transfer, so I will be follow up training him which should be fun! I am excited to have a greenie and for this next transfer!

Hard to believe that it is 2018 now! I hope everyone had a great New Years! I love all y’all! Stay safe!

Elder Bowie 
Hunter & Hunter East Stakes
Salt Lake City West Mission