Okeechobee

Well last week I thought I was going to be leaving the Great White North, but instead I made it to the real Great White North, Okeechobee. I am as far north as it gets in our mission, and as far West(besides Key West) as it gets here. They just keep sending me to the farthest reaches of the mission, just a year later this time. It is nice though. A little more rural than I expected when I came to this mission, but it is good, a nice change. All the homes here are further apart and have a lot of land, so knocking takes a little bit longer. That and the fact that this place has been knocked over like crazy makes it an odd mix. It is nice though, I like it. One of the families here is related to one of the families down in Key West. They were amazing down there, they helped us out so much. The K family. They called each other and told them that I made it up here now, it would be cool if they came on vacation up here, I know they do it a lot. So far we have had some success. Suprisingly enough most of the people that we have met this week have been Spanish, which is great because I can still speak with them and I love teaching Spanish people, but there is not to much Spanish in the branch so it will be a little hard integrating them, and I have to teach them everything because my companion is an English missionary. His name is Elder L. He was origanally in the Oralando mission, but got switched when our mission took over one of their zones. He goes home in February, so he still has a little bit of time left. He has been here in Okeechobee for a while, but he is excited to get the work rolling here. We did a lot of things that really changed the dynamic of the work here this past week. With our new investigators we should start seeing progress pretty quickly here. We also have some families that have just been floating around waiting to be taught and baptized, so we are excited to get working with them, we talked to them yesterday and are planning on meeting with them all this week. We have also met some really nice people that have been helpful to us. That is basically all that is going on here though. I love you all, and I am thankful for all that you do for me. I love this this gospel and I know that it is true, and that no matter where we are, even in the middle of an ocea, or a farm town, or a big city, or the suburbs (been to them all now), there are people waiting for us. I know Jesus Christ knows us and cares for us, and he wants the best for us. I love this work and I love you all

Love,

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Goodbye Great White North

So this week I am being transferred, I will find out tomorrow where and who is my companion. I is a bummer because I only was able to be here 2 transfers, and the ward here is amazing, and the area is just so much fun. I will miss a lot of the amazing members here, but where ever I go I guess that is where I will be needed of the Lord. I grew a lot here, and am excited the upcoming challenges and the things to come. This past week we had an excellent week. We received a new part to our area, basically doubling it in area, which made it tons of fun to explore. We found a lot of Spanish, and were also able to double basically every single one of our Key Indicators as well. We went from 0-3 dates for the thirtieth since the last email, so it was going pretty well. My companion Elder G will be able to take care of it though, so I am not to worried, and I am excited to be watching what goes on in it while I am gone. Yesterday was a crazy day that I wanted to share a little bit about. We were in an exchange in the new part of my area. We went down and saw some other missionaries down there that told us about someone who is basically ready to be baptized, but is a little stubborn, so we went over and talked to him. He almost accepted a date for this weekend, said it sounded super tempting, but we just were not able to get past it, the new Elders will be stopping by this week and they should be able to get him there, he is really just playing hard to get. Then afterwards we went to see some less actives, which was good, and on the way to go knocking we were contacting and we contacted some crazy people. We tried to help the people as much as we could, and we stopped to talk to them for a while. This one guy was far from home trying to get back, and we got him into a good path, but most of what we did was talk to him. Afterwards we went and found some people we had blessed on Saturday with our Recent Convert and we were able to help them see the blessings of Baptism, and even this one girl that said she didn't believe in God was excited to learn more the next time because she is looking for something different, and really a relationship with God, so it was super fun. I guess talking about it doesnt seem so different, but being with the actual people, something was different yesterday, and we felt tons of Love for everyone we met. I love the people here so much, and I love the gospel. I guess that is why I am leaving because whenever I love the people so much, that is when President Anderson sends me somewhere else to grow even more love there. I love my mission and I know that it is what God wants from me, and that he is looking out for me. I love you all and I pray for you, Thankyou for your support

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Nightless

This week we had a difficult time. We spent only 2 nights in our area because we had a lot to do. Monday I had to do an interview at 7, Tuesday we spent the day helping someone move, Wednesday we had our correlation meeting, Thursday we had a meeting with a family, Friday we worked our area, Saturday we had an interview, and Sunday we worked our area. It was kind of a bummer being out of the area always at night, but we know that we will be blessed. The other Elders had 2 baptisms last week, and one tomorrow with all the interviews so we are super excited about what is going down. Since we have been having trouble finding Spanish in our area, we got approval to start moving a little bit outside of our area, and they will be changing the borders shortly. It will give us some new room to work, and to not have to work the same few Spanish areas that are worked by every companionship in this area daily. We have been working hard and we are super excited for this last week of the transfer to get some work done. We have some good potential baptisms, we just need to meet with them and get them to church this weekend. We also went through our dropped files and found some people that have some good potential, so we will be stopping by soon to see how they are doing. We should have some more time in our area this week so we are super excited. We have to get some work done because next week is a 5 week transfer and we want that to be a successful one too. It seems like every single transfer gets shorter, and next one it really will, hopefully it will make the ones after it seem longer so the mission will seem like it is lasting longer. Today we have been playing volleyball so it has been fun being able to do so. I am so happy that I am able to do this, and am grateful that God has put me here in this part of his vineyard, the greatest mission in the world. I love this gospel and I love all that I get to do now to help others. I know this is His true work, and I know that God will always guide us and help us as we put him first. He will get us through and situation that we have if we just turn to him and search his help. I love you all and all that you do for me. Thankyou so much

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Picking up the Pieces

So this week we did a lot of work, and didnt see as many results from it as we had hoped. We started out the week super strong, but then finding wise we had a hard time the rest of the week. The weekend was killer due to everyone being out for Labor Day. We did still see a lot of indirect blessings from our work. We went to a dinner appointment and we got 4 referrals, and we also had a referral from 2 weeks ago, that we havent been able to set another appointment with come to church. He really enjoyed it and said he is definatley coming next week, and we are still trying to set up another time for this week. He already has some good fellowship, and is enjoying church. We are excited to get back to him. We also had another FHE with an investigator that went out of town and came back. We started teaching the new way that we do in the mission, but then the member (who was a missionary a long time ago kind of took over). I like teaching that we because it is fun, and I love using the Bible so much to open up interests to the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, but we were not able to teach to her needs as much as we could have. She said she would be baptized, but she wants to take a lot of time, but the next time we are going to be super focused on her needs and make sure she understands the blessings she can have. We were super blessed in that way with members being there for us a lot of the week even though we were not able to get into as many homes as we were hoping to for the week, especially with a super strong start. We also did this crazy exchange thing on Friday called a white wash exchange. I went with a companionship in another district, and the other district leader went with the Elders in my district, and the Zone Leaders took the rest. We did some training, and were able to see more how the companionships interact. Usually on exchanges it is like a new companionship, but we were there doing a lot of observing so we could help them understand the things they can improve together. It was super fun, and we had some super powerful experiences. We blessed these 2 homes where people accepted right away to be baptized, and to come to church and everything. It was super cool, and they were really awesome people. Then later in the day we helped move someone, and when we did that we blessed their home. They spoke better spanish, so I did the blessing, and they were crying afterwards. They said they felt super relieved after being stressed, and they committed to be baptized as well. It was super fun, and I am excited to see the progress with those Elders. It kind of reminded me of being in Key West again too because they are on all bikes right on the sea shore, and there are lots of boats, and they are kind of secluded from the rest of the Zone, just not as much as I was in Key West. We were super blessed this week, and I know that God is looking out for all of us, and that if we put our load on him, he will take it and help us overcome our trials and challenges. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that he loves us. I am so grateful for you all and love you all, and hope to hear from you soon.

The Storm

This week was a pretty fun week. It went by a lot better than last week. We were able to find some cool New Investigators and we also were able to pick up a good amount of referrals. We are pretty excited about the work we did and are excited to go and pick up even more people. The storm did put a dent into a lot of plans. We went only to church on Sunday, and spent the entire day inside, then we left finally yesterday at 5. It was good to go out and work. We were able to leave a lot of good blessings and have some awesome families to go back and visit now, some who even accepted to be baptized.

Nothing besides the storm happened to crazy this week. I went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders this week, and I did some interviews for some people. They were expecting 3 to be baptized this weekend but with the storm and some other weird circumstances they all fell through. Nothing really happened with the storm though. I'm not even sure we even were touched by the actually storm because it was never that windy. It was rainy for sure, but I think it was just the edge of it that wasn't that dangerous. I heard the storm went straight over Key West though, I hope it didn't do anything to bad, it was only a tropical storm though, so besides flooding I doubt to much happened.

We are all happy that it is over now and that we can go and get back to the work. This week is going to be a crazy week, because one of our district members is injured and bed ridden, so we are going to be up there a lot trying to get work done with them, but it will be minimum, and we are going to have to sacrifce a little bit for ourselves to do it, but it should work out pretty well, and we know that the Lord will bless us and we try and serve our fellow man the best way possible and will guide us and help us use our time most efficiently while we are in the area. I love this work and am so happy that I get to be a part of it, and that I can be here in south florida with so many amazing people. I am so grateful for what I have been given and know that the Lord cares for us, and knows the best way, and will guide us through any trouble that we have. I love you all so much and cannot wait to hear from you.

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Rough Week

This week was really rough for us. We did have the confirmation of the baptism last week so that was good, and we did meet and bless more members homes this week, but other than that we didn't do much but bike around in the sun or rain and knock doors. No one seemed to be home this week, but it wasn't too bad, we were able to feel good while working for some reason. Even though it was hard, we knew we were trying our best, and we know that we are going to see the blessings this week for it. It is nice to have a new start every week, especially after the sacrament. We were able to see a lot of blessings in the district though. Last month we were only able to have 2 baptisms during the month, and this month we are already at 7. We have already exceeded our goal and are doing some of the best work in the mission, which is super exciting. One of the areas had not baptized since April, and this month has baptized every week, which has been really cool to see the progress and the faith of those missionaires. We also had a great conference about working with the members, and how we can go to the next level and beyond anything we have already done in the mission as we work with the members even more. We now have a goal to have more member present lessons than other lessons, which is going to be a big change. A super good thing, but it is going to take a lot more scheduled appointments and bringing members out when we dont have the most solid lessons set to be able to do that. It is for the best I know, it is just going to take a lto fo faith, and a lot of planning ahead of time very carefully to make sure we are not just wasting members time when we are taking them out, because I know that would not be good for those members and us. That is all I really have for the week, nothing too exciting, but it was a fun week. I know that Jesus Christ is my and all of ours Savior, and that he can help support us through anything. As we pray to overcome the challenges we have and to have the strength we need, he will bless us so we can overcome anything. I know that we can find comfort and strength in him always. I know that he loves us and guides us. I love you all and thankyou for all you do for me

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen

Rollercoaster Transfer

Elder j and Elder Bowen

Elder G and Elder Bowen

This week was a pretty exciting week. Elder J and I started off the week pretty rough with some bike problems, and trying to get into the area with all the bike troubles, but we still used our tijme the best we could. We had some highs and some lows, like this whole transfer for us. This one investigator that keeps disapearing and reappearing was teh subject of a lot of it. Last week we set him with a date for next Sunday, and we went back and his mom told us he was in the hospital, so then we tried 3 days later and he was back, and had a little problem remembering things because he had been knocked out.
But we went in to teach the end of the Restoration, and when we talked in the beginning about there needing to be prophets he said "yeah, for someone to guide us in God's path. There were not many of them because the people rejected them right?" And through a couple short sentences explained the first half of the Restoration that we felt prompted not to share. He then accepted Joseph Smith as a prophet right away because he had been reading the Book of Mormon since we gave it to him and he loves it. We went to round him up at 10, so make sure he was ready and up, and he was, and we had a member that he knew come and pick him up, but he wasnt there, and we haven't had contact since. It was kind of a bummer, but he is super excited to be baptized, he is just hard to get in contact with. We had a lot of fun though. It may not have been as successful as we were hoping, but it was spiritual and fun. We also had tons of other things happen with other investigators, and we found some new exciting families. This area is pretty cool because we keep finding famlies! Something that was hard to do in my past areas. The district also had some super exciting baptisms this week to start the month off right, so we are super excited to get to work this new transfer that is coming. Elder J is heading out though, which is a bummer because he was tons of fun. Super intelligent and obedient missionary as well. I am super excited to see who is my next companion in this wonderful area.
I love this work and I love all that I am able to be apart of. I
know this gospel is true and that God really cares about us, and that he has a plan ready, and if we are willing to follow the small impressions we get, not always knowing what they will lead to, we will be guided to success and happiness. Heavenly Father knows what is best, and he will help us get there. I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that through his Atonement we can feel the cleansing affects of sin and come closer to God. I love this and I love you all, thankyou all so much for what you do.

Elder Wesley Christopher Bowen