Long week...but good :)

Hey Erryone!

 

So this past week has been pretty good. Long but good. A lot has seemed to happen. But at the same time it went fast. So last Monday not a whole lot happened detailed our car and I made it spotless. Glad I worked at Ford! But anyways that night we went over to a part-member house, the Wells. It's interesting cause the Dad is R-LDS and everyone else is LDS. But one of the sons GF was over and we're now teaching her! Don't know how solid she is but it's kinda cool. We started talking about cars. He has an '08 Corvette ZO6... It's such a sick car and he's making it faster. I of course had to bring up my Raptor and he said he has a neighbor around the corner who owns one that's lifted a little in the front and stuff. I then proceeded to go over and check it out cause I had to see it. And it was beautiful... I cried a little. It's exactly how I wanted it to. White with the Decals... After Market wheels. Lifted to equal the front out... Just everything. It was beautiful. haha

Tuesday we had Zone Conference. It was pretty good. We learned some cool new things. We learned one to share with the members so that they can help share the gospel. It's called the "Willing and Brief" Invitation. So say you're talking to a friend, just about normal things and they bring up something that ties with the gospel. Like a trial, or troubled kid. You can stop and say "Yeah I totally agree, I've been there before. Hey that reminds me, would you be Willing to listen to a Brief message about ______" if they say no, it doesn't matter and you can leave the door open and carry on with your conversation without pushing any further. If they say yes. Say "Sweet, I have these two _____ (insert uplifting term) Missionaries that can share a 15-20 minuted message and I'll come too. It'll be good." then you get the info and let the Missionaries know. It's pretty cool. So there's something you guys can try now. :) President kept coming up to me and tried to show how much he cares and etc and I just felt he's only doing that cause I'm on his radar now and He kept bringing up the fire thing and all that again. He does it everytime a large group of missionaries are near. And while he was talking he (and all the AP's and such) kept looking over at me and I'm like... "Really...?" It's just ridiculous cause it just has been stressin me out and I'm getting stressed cause I feel like everyone thinks I'm a bad missionary when I'm working my tail off for it all. It's been inteteresting. Pretty humbling and something I definitely didn't plan for. But it's been good in the long run. I'm just stressed and Lately just have felt like I let everyone down, especially God. So I'm trying to fix it all and overall I'm doing pretty good. Anyways. I got to see my old buddies and we also won the cleanest car award. So that was cool.

Wednesday we had a 24hr exchange with E. Montgomery and E. Cook. They're good kids. I have pics from that too. but other than that it was a normal day.

Thursday was another normal day. We went and saw a couple members who got offended in church so we talked with them. It was good. And we went inside early cause it was Halloween and just like last year it was crappy weather. Last year it was the tail end of Hurricane Sandy and this year we had the tail end of a Tornado In Vandalia. It happened when I was asleep but when we woke and saw all the crap everywhere and all the leaves. I figured it had to be nasty. (That's when I found out later it was a Tornado. I'm still looking for one. I've been near two of them so far, but haven't seen one. Oh well)

Friday was normal. The only cool thing we did was bake cookies and printed out a picture of us to give to the Cindrics because they've done so much for us we wanted to repay the favor. Then we helped them out by cleaning their house. I did work on their bathroom haha. :P

Saturday was pretty fun. We went and did service for a less-active family we're teaching the lessons for. We chopped wood for him for a couple hours. It was a good work out. and there was one stump that we spent 25 minutes on. I got good hits with the ax and finally we had to use the ax as a wedge and that's where the 20 minutes of pounding the sledgehammer comes in. We each took turns hitting it and I finally split it. It was fun. Then we had a super sweet lesson at the Lewis' with Robert and Angel. We had a Mormon Message Marathon and the spirit was strong. Hopefully they'll get married soon! They're so close to baptism it's nuts.

We're also working with out neighbor Genavieve. All three came to church and loved it. So it's cool. So hopefully they'll progress well! We're praying for it. President wants to hit 500 baptisms again which is definitely possible. It's cool cause we're the fastest growing mission in this part of the world. That's what happens when a CEO runs a mission! He's definitely good at what he does. We've been working with lots of people but none are super solid or worth telling more about. Haha Anyways. I hope things are going good back home! I'm doing good here and love the area and ward and companions. Thank you for all your prayers and support! Love and miss you all! I'll have to send pics next week! Sorry

 

Love,

Elder Derrek Bowler

 

PS. Mom could you get me the book from missionaryfitness.com for Christmas or something. I could use some help on that and also something to help with stress cause annoying. Thanks!! Love ya!