Baptism :)

Hey Mom,

So I found the recipes ha so thanks for doing that. I'm excited to use them. And also for the food. I appreciate that too. I think I'll get it either today or tomorrow. We'll see. So this past week was ridiculously long (it's the first week of the transfer so it's always the longest) and a ton has happened. I'll start with the not so great stuff and finish off with the good stuff. I'm not sure how long this letter will be so sorry if it's shorter or longer than you hoped. Anyways. So this last week was a hard finding week. We didn't get any new investigators and not a whole lot happened. The weather was kinda all over the place. We had freeze rain on Friday so that was fun but melted at noon. I'm getting better at waking up and making studies. It's been a challenge in this area especially with my companion in the same boat as I am. He is just burnt-out and done with this area. The words "I hate" are the most frequent out of his mouth. Which gets old quick. Plus the "honey-moon" phase is gone so little things are just wearing me out. It's like living with the old Alec... and Then being with him 24/7. It's rough! especially being with the same gender for that long over 2 years! haha talk about crazy deprivation from girls! Oh well, it's part of the deal. It just gets old quick. I also got the "official" dear john from Lexi. Not gonna go into detail on that. But it's all good. I'm doing better than what most people out here would have thought I would do. I'm more frustrated than hurt. Yeah still hurt a little. Especially at a couple things. But I'm doing alright. And have been doing well. I punched a wall and cut my knuckle open again. But I'm good, I don't need sympathy. The lord has something planned for me. Don't know what, I wish I did but where would faith play in right? I'm sorry to all who thought I was too negative with all this. I'm just honest with everything. And I don't want people thinking a mission is peachy keen and a bowl of sunshine everytime you hear the alarm go off at 6:30. I had a rough start as you know and being doped up on meds doesn't help. Ha the Wellbutrim gave me more suicidal thoughts so yeah. It's hard to stay positive when all you've had was roughness. Especially with some companions too... But Refiner's Fire has it's purpose right?... I'm more positive in this past couple weeks and have felt better than I have thus far on my mission. I am glad I stuck it out and got through the crap. Sure missions are still hard. But I can already look back over the past 6 months and see growth. And I know the Lord is shaping me into one heck of a dude. I'm excited to see how much growth will have happened when I get off that plane in 18 months. Crazy stuff. I know I got put through a Refiner's Fire early cause the Lord is making sure I'm the person I need to be later down the road. Plus I had a cool little in the MTC during conference that's keeping me going and keeping some level of faith here. So I'm still learning and growing. Dad if you could answer those questions, I could still use that help. Cause I still have some learning to do. But I'm getting there! So positive. Just a couple points. But we were able to get Allen and Timmy baptized on Saturday! yay! Baptisms can be headaches setting up especially when you have to fill the font and it takes 4 hours and then you run out of hot water 15 minutes in so you have to shut it off and on repeatedly just to keep a decent temperature. Then you have the baptizees show up late and then two members of the bishopric late because they forgot about the baptism and Bishop was even doing the Baptism! haha so we started 45 minutes late. The water was cold, but they got dunked. So it's good. We had a great turn-out. Even the Primary President (who was throwing a fit over it all) showed up. Mike Wihl (our catholic investigator) showed up too and 91% of people who attend a Baptism get baptized themselves. Cool little stat for you all. So he's a sweet investigator. He's going all out on learning about mormanism. He's checked out a ton of books from library's (don't worry it's valid stuff.. I checked) we've also taught him the first two lessons and the third time we went over we went over real intent and the importance of the Book of Mormon. So hopefully that'll help. He's come to church 4 times but still needs to find that testimony and to relearn a ton of stuff. Pray for him. He needs it! But he has absolutely no complaints about the LDS church. Which is cool. Other than that. the work is stuck. We lost contact with Deven and Jonathan which sucks but it happens. Thank you all for the love and support! I appreciate it all so much! Thank you for your prayers and service. Help the missionaries! Members are our greatest strenghth!!

 

Love you all!

Elder Derrek Bowler

and here is the picture from the baptism. It goes Elder Peterson (cute face right?) Timmy, Allen, Then Me! :D haha I looked like I got hit by a train. We were at the church for over 7 hours trying to get things good. And it's also the day after I got the letter from Lex (not that that has anything to do with how I look Just thought it was ironic) oh I forgot to add. Mike is super sweet and feeds us, So everytime we've had a lesson we've had to pull double dinners. Cause members usually feed us and hour before... So full... It hurts.