Love the Ward!

Hey Guys!

So I'm kinda bummed because I don't have a ton of time and I feel I have a lot to write about. Story of my life. We'll see what I can get in today though. So thank you for being willing to help mom. I really appreciate it. This week has been good. The work is just awesome here and the ward is just stellar! It's sweet. So before I dig in, mom, Send the oils. I'll use em if they'll help. Also if you can get lavendar that'd be sick cause that helps me relax. I also got the pics for you and I'll try my best with the video. We'll see how that works. Also that's so sick Zack is headin out now! I'm so proud of that kid! I tried writing him forever ago but didn't get a reply. Hopefully he got it.

So I just wrote a couple things in my planner I most wanted to touch on. First I wanna talk about a couple families in the ward. First the Cindrics. They are prolly my favorite family in the ward. They take such great care of us it's ridiculous. We call them Mama and Papa C. So mom, Just know I'm in great hands out here no matter where I go. We go over there like 2-3 times a week. They all got baptized July of 2012. They are just so amazing. I can't describe it. Another sweet family is the Lewis family. Now, We're not super close with them but we go over cause they are the most missionary minded family I've ever met. We started teaching one of they're neighbors who's Asian. (I'll tell more about them in a sec cause that's a cool story) and we went over last night to see if they'd give a family proclamation to them, We try and set our members up for success (like have them give out the BoM's and such) So before we left yesterday we asked if we could do anything for them (like we always do) and they just asked us to pray for them. Pray that they might have the missionary experiences they hope they would. It was really tender and spiritual suprisingly because they just opened up how they felt. I've never had a member ask me to pray for their missionary opportunities specifically so it was really cool.

So I forgot to write last week. But a week ago from Sunday we had the chance to hear from Elder Robbins of the seventy. It was pretty awesome and he talked about Resposibility and Accountability. And he made this "Excuse List" and if we learn to never go on this list that every aspect of our life will be ours and we will have total control of our situations. It was cool cause it helped with everything that happened recently. But yeah. It'll be something that won't only help out here but after the mission with work, school, marriage, church... Just everything! So I forgot to share that last week.

So this last week we actually had a good week! It's been getting pretty cold. This winter is going to be the worst. We actually had snow this last week... It's not even November yet.. It's just going to be a long brutal one.. So we'll see how it goes! So like I said we are now teaching an Asian family. Elder Chhay got super excited cause well.. He's Asian. So we tried a few times with them and they kept saying come back later, come back later, and we'd try and try. But one day the husband answered (we usually talked to the wife) and he said come back today around 5. We said ok and we totally forgot. So we stopped by at like 7:30 and I felt we should say a prayer. So we prayed that they'd be open to our message and they'd feel the spirit cause Asians usually aren't interested nor care for religion.. So we knocked and the wife, Thuy (pronounced Twee) came out and was like, "you guys are still out doing this?" ha of course we are. So we talked a bit and actually got a return appointment for Saturday. So we went back and taught her. She was raised up practically Atheist but knew quite a bit about Christianity. She didn't agree with most Christian's belief that if you just believe in Christ you're forgivin. Which we explained it isn't true. It takes a lot to repent and change. It was pretty cool. We had a good lesson there and we're going back next week! We are also working with some families that E. Chhay started before we got here. There is a family that is super close to baptism! Robert and Angel is there names and we had a couple good lessons with Robert. We just gotta get them married so they can get dunked! They're super solid though. The recent converts here are so sweet. I hope I get to stay in this area. So yeah. We also had a 24hr exchange with Piqua (area in the zone) and it's none other than E. Monahan and his comp E. Oscieszanik. So I included pics from that :) I ran out of time but I hope that I put the detail I wanted in. I'm doing well. Still working on a few things personally. I told Nana just how everyone talks about this potential but it's hard to push through the day sometimes and feel like I'm actually going somewhere. I feel stuck still sometimes, and I'm still overcoming the little setback that happened. But all is well. I love and miss you all. Thanks for the support!

Love,

Elder Derrek Bowler