Another Transfer gone

Well, that was a fast transfer. Elder P became assistant at transfer meeting this week, so that was pretty exciting. He was a fun Elder to be with, we got a long super well, it just went by too fast. Elder S is amazing, my new companion. He was trained by Elder F, my first Zone Leader, who told me my second transfer when he was training him that we would be companions, pretty cool. He is from Orem, Utah, and also went to BYU and stayed in May hall. We have a lot of fun together. We did have a little rough of a beginning though. We did not have to much success finding people at the beginning of the week, and we actually ended up leaving more blessings than either of us have ever left before in a week. It was kind of sad because we just did not find many cool people out of it. We had one day where we left 11 blessings, and either no one was responding , or they were Spanish. The Sisters in our area were able to capitalize on the Spanish we blessed and they have some cool people to teach now. But finally, after a long time of knocking doors and talking to everyone we could see, and getting a lot of negativity, and then finally on the 12th blessing, we saw a miracle happen. We found saw a home with a truck, and Elder S said it looked English, and I said no, it looks like a Spanish home. We went up to it, and we were both right. They were of Spanish decent, but spoke English. She opened the door, and then her husband drove up as we were talking to her. They both were excited for baptism when we extended, and have been looking on where to go, they just moved in, and had a new baby. We are super excited for them. It was a good weekend, where we did a lot of looking inward, and finding how we can improve. We saw so many miracles as we humbled ourselves, and just put the Love of others and of God before anything else. I love this work, and I love how it makes me grow. God always has a plan, and he works in mysterious ways, that always seem to make us grow in amazing ways. I know that Jesus Christ lives, and that he knows us, and exactly what we go through. I love him. I love you all, and the example you give me.

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

This week has been a crazy one. We did not quite do as good on finding as we should of, but we still saw some miracles happen. We had some people preparing to be baptized this Sunday, but slowly they all started to fall. One was not doing so well because he had some problems with the Word of Wisdom, which we taught him early in the week, so we knew that General Conference was going to be pivotal to him. We came and talked to him about it right before again, and he set aside everything he had planned to come to General Conference. He came to every session, which was a miracle because Elder P and I had been praying to have someone come to every session. After the final session, we sat down and talked with him for a while with our Bishop. Bishop bore pure testimony to him, that with ours and that of the prophets and apostles, he knew he needed to change. He got baptized right afterwards, we had started feeling up the font before hand. It was an amazing miracle. The baptismal font had not filled up all the way, so we had to do the baptism on our knees, it was an amazing experience. Right after we went to his home and took anything and everything that was his that had anything to do with the Word of Wisdom. He was completely changed from when we had taught him it originally. He is doing amazing now, and has already started sharing the gospel with his friends. It was so amazing that we could be apart of his life. In the zone we have seen a huge need to revamp the teaching pools of everyone. This month we will have a giant focus on New Investigators, and we have a lot of good plans to help followup. We learned a ton in Zone Leader Council about how to improve all of our trainings, and we have come up with some ideas to uniform our trainings together, still allowing plenty of space to follow the spirit, and also how to be more prepared for District Trainings. We are so excited for this month. I love this work so much, and I am so grateful that we are able to be apart in others lives to help them come the Jesus Christ. I know that He lives, and that He loves each one of us, and He wants to forgive us. I know that He has His prophets and apostles here on the earth, leading us now. I love you all

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Miracle Week

This week was a week of miracles for us! We were slightly discouraged at first, because we hadn't had anyone in sacrament for 2 weeks, so we went out and found people right away. We had a lot of good things happen. We decided we wanted to go out and declare repentance to everyone, and to also serve everyone and everything. We had multiple amazing experiences. One family we had been teaching for a little while, but the girls had only come to church once, we were having problems reaching. We stopped by on Saturday for one more try, and the mom was home. We happen to ask if we could clean her car, and she said yes. We cleaned her car and talked to her for a while. It was awesome. She really opened up to us. She then went and picked up her girls and let them go to the Young Women's Broadcast on Saturday night. The girls had an amazing time, and then were baptized the next day after church. It was such an amazing experience. Then we had an investigator call us on Saturday morning and tell us that he couldn't come to church because he couldnt leave his pastor, and he asked us not to stop by anymore. We were heartbroken because we had an amazing experience meeting him, so we told him to Pray about it. He did and he called us back like 3 hours later, and asked us to come by. We came by and he expressed how excited he was to come to church, and new that God had been preparing him for this baptism. We are so excited for the amazing miracles that God is providing, and we know that it is him guiding the work here.

In the Book of Mormon I studied a lot about the humility and diligence this week, really trying to understand even greater those principles. I also read a little more around, and read in Mosiah 4:11 an amazing verse. I was so excited when I read the verse. It all started to connect a little bit more for me. It made me think about the training Sister Anderson gave about gratefulness, and I realized how intertwined being thankful and grateful are to humility and diligence. I am so grateful for the time that I am able to serve here, and will keep giving it my BEST!

I know that God loves us all, and he wants the best for us, and is always giving us the things that we need, even the trials we need, to be able to grow and become as he sees us. I love this work so much and I know that it is the greatest thing that I have ever done. I love you all, and thank you so much

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Introspection

This week was not the week that we were hoping for. This week Elder P and I worked more in our area than we have since we have been together, partially due to miles and not being able to do companionship studies far from home, but either way we worked extremely hard in our area. We started out great reaching almost all of our midweek goals on Monday, and then we just did not have much success after that. We found some amazing people during the week, which we thought were going to be amazing, but we had a really hard time getting back into contact with them. The entire week we tried to introspect, and I think we did it to the point that we wore ourselves out and were looking beyond the mark. We had a huge desire to get people to church this past week, so we invited everyone everywhere to come to church and prepare for baptism, and we had so many people who were committed and excited to come, and then no one showed up. We talked a lot about it after church, and repentance came to mind. We have continued to talk about it, and we feel out of our desire to get everyone to church, we focused too much on the application and not enough on the why, repentance. This week we are going to be declaring repentance the best we can, and making sure that everything we do is tied to bringing people unto repentance, and having urgency to move forward, and not procrastinate the day of their repentance. We did have some amazing spiritual experiences this week. We met with a new investigator who is a Native American Cuban. We hit it off really great because of the things I learned when I was in Okeechobee with the Seminoles, and he even knows some of them. Then in the lesson we had a strong feeling to share Alma 34:32, but it wasn't coming out, and then he asked about the Law of Chastity, and he read the verse before, and after, and he said those were the most powerful sentences he has read in his life, and he now realizes that life is here for us to master our bodies. Later in the week we met with someone who Elder P contacted while he was leaf blowing. He accepted to be baptized, and he is preparing to be baptized once again so he can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. He is really awesome, and called to make sure that we were coming by. Overall we are doing good. We have done a lot of good things and are continuing onward. I know that the Lord will help us, and he always provides miracles when we have the faith. I love the Lord, and I am so grateful that I can be here to do his work. I love you all so much!

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

More pictures from Okeechobee

Hectic week

A sister in his current ward emailed these pictures to me and said she will be like paparazzi when he is around!

This week has been a whirlwind of excitement. We had some amazing things happen in our own area, and we were super excited for all the miracles that we saw. First we had an amazing two lessons with, a referral that we received this our first day together. We taught her the first time on Tuesday, where we set her with a date for the next Sunday because she had just made it to church. She was super excited, but a little aprehensive about her date. It was one of the most spiritual lessons of my entire mission. We testified to her of baptism, and showed her with Mosiah 18:8-10 that she truely was prepared to be baptized. The next day we went over and taught her everything else for her baptism, because she was going to be busy the rest of the week at work. Her husband had prepared her a little bit, but it was an amazing experience that we had with her. We taught about tithing, and she told her husband that the time has come that they must start to pay their tithing. She was so faithful in everything, and she understood so much of it as well. She was very anxious, but she made it to Sunday, and had a huge smile after her baptism. Another experience we had, had to do with our planning. Elder P and I have tried to apply the things we learned at ZLC and in the zone training we studied for, and we have been seeing miracles. We knew thata couple we had met two days before were going to have a hard time coming to church, especially with day light savings time, but we prepared an amazing lesson plan during weekly planning, then during companionship study the next day we went over it, created even a little bit more, and then practiced it with the other Elders in the apartment. They were so amazed by the power of the lesson, and we testified to them of the power of planning. We then taught the couple and they were so overpowered by the spirit, and knew they needed to come, and promised they would.
We had an amazing Zone training this week as well. It was very powerful and us and the zone learned a lot. The assistants came, and really helped out in it, and were always identifying the spirit so people would write down the impressions they had. It was a great week for us.

In the Book of Mormon we had some amazing studies this week. I studied a lot about how Nephi became who he became, starting from 1 Nephi 1-4. In those chapters Nephi goes through a lot to start with, and is put into a humble circumstance, "My father dwelt in a tent." Through the hard times he had, he started depending on the Lord, even, "crying unto the Lord," and the Lord did visit him and he received a confirmation to follow the words of his father, and from that point on, he never did stray. That study combined with Elder P study of 1 Nephi 17, we were inspired, and also shared our insights with a lot of the members of the zone. It really helped us be resolved throughout the entire week.

We have been so blessed here. I love my mission, and I love all that the Lord does for us. I know that He cares for me, and all of his children here, and he is always preparing people to come to him and receive the blessings that he has prepared. I love you all, and I cannot wait to hear from you.

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen