So to start off I am sorry I was not able to write yesterday, we had a mission conference I found out about the day after pday last week so I didn't tell you. But it was great, we got there and we were told not to bring phones in, so we sat down, President Anderson got up and said we will be having Elder Ballard coming so get ready. It was great. He gave a great talk about missionary work and he talked alot about being bold and how we people often listen to our message because of who we are, and we need to be personable with them, teach with structure, but never have it memorized. It was awesome to have him and our Area General get up and talk to us. This was Elder Ballard's unassigned weekend and he visited 3 missions and traveled through Florida and Georgia. It was so cool that he came to talk to us as his last stop, then he was off back to Salt Lake City. We all also got to shake his hand, and he said that his wife's maiden name is Bowen when I shook his hand, so that was pretty cool. It was also cool because the area authority was supposed to go first, but Elder Ballard got up and said, "the nice thing about being a general authority is I have general authority, I couldn't do this thought if President Monson were here." But so he proceeded to introduce the area general and expressed his friendship he has with him. Both told some really great stories. Elder Ballard also talked about reading the scriptures and how every time he reads he will be reading and say "How long has this been in here?" because we always get something new from them, even the apostles do. We were able to use that in a short lesson with a recent convert, it was pretty cool. But now to answer some general questions: Our apartment is nice and we are able to do whatever we need to in there. We get mail just as if you were sending mail straight to me, it just takes an extra day. As long as you send it with United States Postal Service, if it come through UPS or FedEx I have to wait until there is a mission conference to get it. I'm not totally sure how big our ward is, but it is decently sized. The chapel is probably 3/4 the size of the Stake Center we went to in California. It gets mostly filled up. I'm doing fine riding my bike, yesterday I fell because of the rain, and that's how my pants got a little ripped, but overall well. We get fed really well. Members can only feed us after 6 or 5 I cant remember which if there is a non member or an inactive member is there for us to teach a little. Members are pretty good about either doing that or feeding us earlier. The other Elders in our ward do not eat as well as us, but they are doing well. I cannot think of anything I really need. Um as far as fast food, the only few I know we have for sure are McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Subway. We are able to do laundry in our apartment so we can do it anytime we need to over the week. We didn't see anything but rain, but that's pretty normal, so I don't think Hurricane Emily ever got to us. So that is the general questions I think. As for my week, I don't remember anything special from Tuesday except we ate a lot of food. Wednesday we had exchanges, I went to the Coral Reef area with our District Leader Elder M. It was fun, he had a lot of appointments set up for us, and the whole time we were in a car, haha what a different experience that is. It was pretty interesting getting to see a whole new area. Thursday we had a baptism interview so Elder M drove me back to my area, and gave the interview. Then on Friday we did service in the morning and I cant remember what else really happened. But then on Saturday we had a BAPTISM. He had heard the lessons like 2 or 3 times before and he had a pretty strong testimony. Most of his family was baptized a little while ago, but he said he wanted to finish the Book of Mormon first. He knew it really well, I was surprised because we asked him questions and he would bring up stories from the Book of Mormon, so that was exciting. We had to teach him quick though because I didn't know him until Tuesday, but since he knew it all, he agreed to everything and really knew most of what we were going to say. We had to clean out the font though because there was an 8 year old baptized like a week ago, and apparently the drain doesn't work anymore, so we had to pale it out and clean it out, so Saturday was a lot of work for the Baptism. Elder B baptized him. The other Elders have pictures from it, I will send some later. While Elder B and F were changing afterwards, F opened up and said he felt weird, then expressed desires to serve a mission. He is 15 so he was disappointed when he found out he has to wait 4 years. We told him its a good thing and he can get focused on it now and get to know the scriptures and whatnot even better. It was a really cool experience. We went home that night and called some people and committed I think 7-9 people to come to church the next day, I cant remember for sure if all said yes. But so church was about to start and we got a call from one that he couldn't come because work had called him in and he was behind because of the rain. Then church started and no one showed up. We were disappointed, but then a family walked in that has been hard to get in contact with again. They said they would come. So we sat with them and they really enjoyed church. Yesterday their son went to basic training so it was good he finally came. They all talked about a peacefulness they felt. They clapped for the Musical number, and some members started clapping too. the kids were embarrassed but it was ok. Alot of people came and greeted them because they clapped and people knew they were investigators then, so it all worked out great. Later that day, we got some great referrals from a late lunch appointment we had, so we are going to go and check them out pretty soon. Then yesterday was the Elder Ballard talk so that was pretty cool, and then we accidently forgot the phone in the car, so we had to get it because we needed to reach some members to come with us out to teach. Most of our lessons fell through though because we were not able to get a member to come with us. So we visited some recent converts and gave them a short message, then we had an FHE thing yesterday with some less actives, that went well. But so today I don't know what we are going to do. We haven't really done anything exciting on Pday yet. Last week we ended Pday really early to meet F, the kid that got baptized. So maybe we will do something fun today, we talked about playing soccer with a recent convert. So hopefully we get to do something fun. I have some more time now so I will try and send some more pictures. Thank you for everything, I love you all. sound like you are all doing well there. Stay strong in the Gospel. I love it so much and I know that this is Jesus Christ's church here on the earth.Elder Wes Bowen
Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission
7951 SW 6th St Suite 110
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33324
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