I can see Cuba from my house!

So transfers came and now I am with Elder Bo down in Key West.  We cover almost all the keys.  Except for Key Largo.  It is amazing.  We live in a trailer of one of the members, but it is super nice.  We can't actually see Cuba from out home, but at night if you go to the South side you can see the lights from Cuba.  We are closer to Cuba than continental U.S.  I didnt take any pictures because I left my camera and suit in the Homestead Elders apartment, which is where we leave everyone and take a bus down.  I forgot it there, but have it again now.  I will take pictures soon.  I feel great down here and am super excited for teh work here.  It is cooling down a lot now, and it feels less humid.  The salt air is a lot nicer too here, I love the smell and feel of it.  There isnt to much Spanish but there is some.  My companion is Mexican and is fluent in both English and Spanish, so he is helping me out alot.  He is from Arizona.  But so we got there the first night at around 7:30 and went and visited a recent convert right away.  The members there are really strong and love the missionaries.  I'm really excited for what is going on down there.  Then Thursday we had a full day.  As we were heading out we were in a neighborhood and Elder Bo says, "this is where I park my car."  I looked over and there was a Lamborghini parked in a garage.  It was awesome.  So we did some contacting, had some good lessons, and were back home.  The next day we were out knocking doors in downtown Key West, and someone said yeah comeback, but right now I'm super busy.  Goombay starts really soon.  Well Goombay is a Bohemian holiday celebrated down here and it has a lot of food and whatnot.  But it also starts off what is called Fantasy Fest(dont look up what it is), which we thought started today, not last Friday.  So we quickly called and got directions to knock contact anymore and start heading back to pack.  We had some lessons that day, but were not able to do near as much as we wanted.  So we packed up and came back up to Homestead on Saturday.  So we spent the past two days with the Homestead Elders split apart, one of us in the East, the other in the West.  I went in the West because there is more Spanish there and one of the companions is from Peru and is only learning English now.  Elder S.  So I went with them and we worked the area for two days.  It was really exciting to see how they work together.  Homestead West was closed last transfer and just reopened, so they have to do a lot of contacting and whatnot.  But so I worked with them and then this morning we got the call to come back up to Sunset, my last area.  We are all still in the same zone.  So I'm back in the same library emailing with Elder B and Elder S and their new trainees.  So this week we will be up here, and hopefully get to really help out.  Maybe I will see some of those baptisms after all.  But so until next Monday we will be out of the Keys, so I wont get to send any Key pictures until the next next Pday.  But it is beautiful down there and is really exciting.  We say they are training us to go to Cuba or Bahamas.  Which ever opens sooner for our mission  But so we are really excited for what is going to happen.  While we are gone we are having an investigator get baptized.  She is great, and has a great desire to be baptized.  We call daily and the members are helping her out.  We are super excited to be back down in the Keys.  So that has been my crazy week, cant wait to get back to working.  Love you all and thank you so much for your support.  I know this gospel is true and cannot wait to share it down in Key West.  I have seen how the Book of Mormon really helps people and know that it has brought innumerable blessings to my life.  I love you all and thank you so very much, cant wait to hear from you!

 

Con Amor,

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

A little late....

Well sorry last week I wasn't able to write a letter, but I am really excited to write now.  So I'll start off with last week.  It was a crazy week filled with miracles.  I dont really remember days any more though, but I'll say the two coolest things that happened.  First we went to go see C, who is a Media Referrals aunt in the same house.  We dropped off the Bible that was ordered a little while ago and C really wanted us to come back. It took us a little while because we would knock and she wouldnt be there, or she wouldnt have time.  Well this time we went and no one answered again.  We were pretty discouraged because she is so great.  We started walking away and we started talking about the coconuts in the trees above.  I said something about how I never had had one here in Florida.  Well the member we brought with us is with us a lot.  He is a recent convert and is awesome.  He is from Venezuela and really cool.  But so he said well lets get one.  He took off some of the dead palm fronds so he could climb it.  Usually we would have just gone away, but we were walking because Jose, the member, his bike was broken.  So we were walking with him.  He started to climb the tree after the fronds were out of the way.  Well after a minute this lady walks out crying.  We then realized it was C.  She said she came out because she saw Jose in the tree, and remembered him from the 2 times we had stopped by before and talked with her.  Well apparently the night before she was praying about that someone could help her take down the dead palm fronds because she was going to have to pay a lot of money.  The tree wasnt even on her property, but because she is where she is, she has to take care of the trees.  She never expected us to come.  We cleaned up all the trees and she expressed what a miricle it was for her.  We were then able to teach her the First lesson finally, and before I could invite her to be baptized, she said, well I will finish this book in about 3 weeks then I need to be baptized.  So we set her for this upcoming Sunday.  Well so later we go back and she had already read to Mormon, and it was like 3 days later.  We didnt have much time with her but left the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet.  We came back and she had completely filled it out and we reviewed it with her and then went over the commandments.  She said the study with the pamphlet was the best read yet.  She is super prepared and we are really excited for her.  Another family we are teaching had an interview with one great brother in the ward.  In the interview he invited them all to be baptized the 21st.  They accepted.  On Tuesday we had a FHE with both of them and it went great.  We talked about what needed to happen for the baptism and really got it set up for the 28th.  But they are already coming to church and they picked that day who is baptizing them. It was really exciting.  Now that brings us to this week.  Alot of that is from this past week to, but so we have been walking all week because Elder B's back tire is destroyed.  The catch doesnt catch anymore.  So we walked.  It was alright, but made it a little frustrating at times when members would cancell because we were really depending on them. It all worked out in the end though, and have had some great lessons this week, like some of the ones listed above.  Yesterday we had exchanges and I went out with the district leader Elder H.  He is awesome.  We had appointments with the family of 6 with dates, and C.  They both fell through, but we worked through it.  We went to go see a referral the Bishop gave us and were able to finally get in.  We werent knocking loud enough before apparently because it took some loud knocking for the dog to hear, and for the lady to get to the door.  Well we got in yesterday and had the first lesson.  It was exciting.  It was a spiritual lesson and we were able to extend baptism to her and her mom.  She wouldn't accept a date yet, but she is really excited and said she will pray and get an answer.  She has a lot of faith, we are excited for her.  So that brings us to today.  So I am being transferred.  We will find out tomorrow.  Everyone is the zone is changing companions.  Pretty crazy.  Cannot wait to see what happens.  But so next week I will be somewhere else having fun.  Well I Love you all and thank you for your support and everything you do for me.  I am so very grateful for your prayers and letters.  I can feel your strength.  Thank you all so much.  I love this work and this gospel.  I know that it is true, and that we are here on this earth to prepare to meet God.  I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and cant wait to bless us.  I can see so much of his love here, for me, and for all those that I am able to really get in contact with.  Love you all

 

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

No longer a Columbus Day fan!

This is all I got from Elder Bowen today:

I dont know if im going to be able to type later, the library was closed, and we only have 1 computer at the church.  The zone leaders took most of the time and left me and Elder B about 10 minutes each to write, and we have to write president first.  We have an appointment now with a family that has baptismal dates, so I need to head out.  I love you all, and really hope I can write later, but I dont know if I will be able to.  

Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for Columbus but so sad that the library was not open today!  Makes for a long week. 

Tonight, I'm going to talk to you candidly!

It sounds like Elder Holland's talk was one of Elder Bowen's favorites from his title! 

Elder Bowen could use some letters this week, if you find time to write him, I know he would appreciate it!

Wow what a powerful weekend!  As missionaries, General Conference was like Christmas to us.  My only regret is none of our investigators came to the church to see it.  Hopefully they were able to at least catch a little bit of it at home.  Some of the messages we felt were made for our investigators and are really going to try and encourage them to see it.  The temple announcements were very exciting.  Provo temple #2 sounds amazing, and all the others sound really exciting.  This week has been an interesting week.  Elder B suffers from Chronic headaches, which can get really bad during the day.  So this past week he had an appointment at with a doctor on Tuesday, and then he had an EEG on Thursday, which is really cool.  Today he will get an MRI and is doing a sleep study tonight.  So that has kept us a little bit off the street.  But we continue to do everything we are committed to do.  We invited someone to be baptized everyday except  Saturday and yesterday, due to obvious reasons.  We are up to 3 dates now, whereas just a week and a day ago, we had 0.  The invitations have really been spiritual experiences.  We also spend at least an hour every day knocking doors.  So besides the doctor on Tuesday, we only were able to have one more appointment.  Then Wednesday was a day of dropped appointments.  We went to go see a member referral we hadn't seen in a week or so.  Her place is really hard to get into because there are 3 security guards and gated all the way around, so we can only get in with an appointment.  Well we didn't have one, but decided we needed to try.  Somehow the security guards phone wasn't working and since we had the address he let us go in.  When we got there she had just walked in the door.  We couldn't come in because there was no man there, but we sang a song and set a solid appointment for Friday.  After that we stopped by a few houses and no one let us in.  Then we got a call from this awesome investigator saying she was toooooo busy.  AHHH man that killed.  We ended up going to a former investigator instead and had a great lesson.  He had always been saying we are all on the same team before and just let us in because he liked our company kind of thing.  But so we went in with 2 Nephi 28 in mind, and read it.  It isn't the nicest chapter, but he really responded to the not so feel good message.  We boldly expressed the difference and invited him to be baptized, he said that he needs to pray more to receive an answer about the  Book of Mormon.  It was really powerful and exciting because we left and he was now considering getting baptized for real.  This week we have also been getting dumped on.  My planner is destroyed.  It has been fun though.  Thursday we went to the EEG which is where they put all these crazy electrode things on your head and tell you your brain activity.  It was really fun to watch.  Then everyone that said they would meet with us Thursday, didn't pick up their phones.  We did get into a house for knocking though, so that was cool.  Then Friday President Anderson and his wife came and inspected our apartment and had interviews with us.  They went well and Sister Anderson really expressed her gratefulness for our area books.  We then went to the member referral we had set up on Wednesday, and her daughter, who referred us to her, was there.  We had an awesome lesson about the Plan of Salvation, which ended in talking about the temple.  The daughter bore powerful testimony of her love of the Gospel and how she knows she will see her Father some day again.  She then accepted a date and is going pray to make sure it is the right time.  She is so ready, and she has a lot of support.  Saturday we were stuck at the chapel all day for General Conference because it was out of our area.  Then yesterday was great because we had general conference and had a great house that we had knocked on a couple weeks ago.  We visited with him, and he really felt the spirit.  We are coming back in  a couple days and he said that he really cares for us now.  We met a lot of amazing people this week.  One day we talked to a guy who worked for the CIA for years.  Later that day we talked to a man who had been the best teacher in Cuba.  He had all these Soviet Union diplomas and stuff.  He was kicked out of Cuba though for writing books about how his students needed more resources in Cuba.  Then at the EEG the doctor was 75.  She was just about as good at technology as someone at her age can be.  She was quite good with her touch screen phone and really enjoyed the usefulness of her computer.  She was from Venezuela, and she came here when her brother flew her over because he was in the MLB.  Now he is the only Venezuelan player in the Hall of Fame.  There really are some amazing people here.  Today Elder B is getting his MRI.  We told him that he should bring some kind of animal with him and have it bite him while he is getting it done, so that was he can get its powers.  It started out being a Spider, since Spider Man is where we got the idea, but then we told him he should bring a Cheetah to be super fast.  It was pretty funny.  So that has been our week, pretty fun.  It is crazy that we are almost on week 5 of this transfer.  Time can really fly here.  Thank you all for your support and love.  I love you all and the gospel.  I know the words of the prophets and apostles are true. They are very powerful and exciting.  I know that bringing souls to Christ is very important and how we can feel some of the greatest joys.  I know Heavenly Father loves us, and cares even about little quarters on the ground for us.  I'm grateful for this gospel and all the love I can feel from my Heavenly Father.  I know this church is true and that the Book of Mormon is a testament to that.  Thank you all again, and I hope to hear from you soon

Con Amor,
Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission

7951 SW 6th St Suite 110

     

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33324