A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Baptism number two from Las Violetas from Hermana Espinoza and Hermana Bowers

A picture is worth a thousand words right? Ha ha so this week I tired to take more pictures of just our daily week. We had a baptism of another youth this last Saturday and it was a beautiful experience to see her baptized and receive the Holy Ghost!

Enjoy the photo's!

The baptism of a youth named Anayka! Shes been wanting to be baptized for a while, but couldnt becuase her mom wouldnt sign the form. However when she had her birthday and was adult she chose to get baptized!

Our companionship with the mini missionary we had for one day! She is getting ready to leave for her mission in Bolivia this next week! It was so much fun to have her tag along with us.

On our last p day up on the hill over looking the city

The view of the city and my area. We have a large area around the white water tower

Me and my companion with the cui -one member had above his house. One day I really want to try cui!

The family that owns spike and Tommy. We are teaching them about the gospel and helping them to take steps to get married, so that Cynthia, the mother, can be baptized. Diego, the father, is a menos activo and they have an adorable son who just turned 1 named Alesanjdro. 

a typical lunch one day along with lemonade and fruit

The family that kinda owns Tommy, the Satan dog, also they got a new dog named spike! Spike is a lot more friendly than Tommy is, and loves loves loves to slobber

Some kids in the street were trying to Pogo stick, and well I busted out my moves and showed them how it was done! I felt kinda silly but my companion assured me that it wasn't breaking any rules or anything. lol

Round two of Pogo jumping

The stairs you have to climb to one members house

Tommy the dog from Satan that we have to have someone come and take care of every time we try and teach two of our investigators

And as always, thanks to Jaylene Bowers for keeping up the Blog!

Mucho Amor De


Hermana Bowers

Blog For This Week

Hello Everybody! 

So this week was pretty crazy and hectic!

Me and the other north american girls making snicker doodles this last week for p day!

The first awesome thing was the p-day that we had last Monday. After emailing we went to the house of the senior couple and we had a fantastic meal and played games. We had Snickerdoodles, YES SNICERDOODLES IN PERU!!!! and chicken tacos with Pineapple cake. It was soo good. Afterwards we played this game where 10 missionaries were sent to another room and were blindfolded. One by one they were brought back into the front room and were told that they were going to talk to the king. we were guided by the husband of the senior couple and then had to bow before the king and kiss his ring. Afterwards we were able to take off our blindfolds and we saw that Elder Ruiz, our district leader, had the ring on his toe!!!! The joke of the game is that you have the ring on the finger of a person as normal, but before they can take the blindfold off you hurry and put the ring on your toe, making the blindfolded person think that they kissed someones foot. Ha ha! I was one of the blindfolded ones, and half the fun is waiting in the other room and hearing screams and laughter from the other people. You're wondering, what is coming what is coming, and then after you figure it all out. After the king game, or trick if you want to call it, we played two rounds of mafia. It reminded me of college and was a good laugh. 

Our district leader as ¨the king¨in the game we played

Also this past Tuesday I hit my official 3 month mark since I left for my mission. Not going to lie, they have been the hardest 3 months of my life (one sixth of my mission!!!!), but I have learned SOOOO much.  Ha ha not going to lie though, I'm looking forward to the point in my mission where I can say ¨wow time has flown!!¨¨. My trainer assured me that after 3 months things start picking up. But hey ya, only 15 more!

So Easter and all of those festivities are celebrated very differently here in Peru. It has been my first Easter in a prominently catholic society, and here they celebrate what is called the Semana Santa (the holy week). People don't have school or work usually for the major part of the week, and there are huge hoards of people walking around the city with palm fronds chanting prayers or songs with pictures of saints. There was even a bonfire in the park the other night where people gathered and there was this one man dressed in a white robe doing something or another. 

A service project that we did this week was go to a members house in a different area and help weave this palm frond things so that they could sell them during the Semana Santa. It was really difficult at first to learn because of the whole language barrier thing, but eventually I got it, and to my surprise it was very calming. Maybe when I'm older I'll take a basket weaving class or something... :)

Me and Panda, the dog of one of the families were reactivating, ha ha panda is my favorite dog in all of Peru!

However the craziest thing of all this week was Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we had the missionaries from the C.C.M. visit our area and we went with them to help them visit and teach menos activos. So once again I got to be the senior companion of two greenies who have never seen the flied before. It was an interesting experience, one sister, a gringa from Ut. only knew how to say Hola. However me and the other Latina sister tried to teach her how to introduce the missionaries to a contact and I hope that they had a good experience in the long run. Not this Saturday, but the next we have the C.C.M. missionaries again.... So well see how it goes! Both me and Hna Espinoza were exhausted afterwards! It was kinda crazy trying to be the leader of two greenies since I so recently just in the C.C.M., but it gave me the opportunity to see how much I have learned and grown in that short amount of time.

Elder Wadell & Multi Zone

And finally Sunday rolled around, and bum bum bum bum!!!!!!!! We had to give talks.

Talks are really not that scary for me... in English. Spanish was a whole different story, but I had the help of my companion and she helped me write and practice pronouncing the words. I think everyone was able to understand me and I hope that my message was received by somebody. Yesterday was just a hoot because we had investigators that came that we had to show around and explain church to, class to teach, and we have a baptism this Saturday that the person needed their interview but had not showed up, so we were trying to find them and use someones phone to call because ours doesn't work and... well... it was a crazy day to say the least. Ha ha the day or rest ---is a lie, especially for the missionaries :)

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend and that those who are in school are hanging in there during finals and whatnot!

Much love,

Hermana Bowers

De Gutting the Chicken!

Whew where to start----

    First transfers. I didn't get transferred but hermana Luna did :( She was one of the hermana's who lived in my house and knew the most English. However the new hermana we got is a gringa from Utah fresh out of the CCM. She was just like me a month and half ago and it's a little interesting because now I'm the translator in the house, but I cant really speak Spanish... so well its a work in process. but I'm grateful that I can actually speak English with somebody now! YES!

My zone right before transfer's°!°°

So this week also we had interview with the President and a cleaning check. We passed (ha! after cleaning for 3 hours straight the day before) and I got to talk a little bit with the President. He gave me DyC section 59:1-3 to read and help me along! I recommend it to anyone else who might be experiencing some difficult times.

Also this week we had the opportunity to help the youth in our ward out with a project they were doing. They're selling chicken to earn money to go to this thing called campamento (its a blend of youth conference but camping from what I've been able to understand) and we helped de gut and wash the chicken. Yes we degutted the chicken!!

chicken guts!

Me and my companion rubbing the sauce on the chickens we gutted

Now the heads and feet were already cut off. but we peeled the skin of the legs of the chicken, cleaned out the intestines, lungs, and well other lovely parts of the chickens, pulled out the feathers that were still in the skin and then washed the blood off.

After that we had this huge bucket of tapitio smelling stuff that we massaged into the chicken and then the leaders drove the chicken to where they were cooking and selling it. We helped out for an hour one day, and then for 3 hours the morning of the activity. from what I could understand it went well I hope that the youth from our stake have a blast getting to know youth with the same standards and have their testimonies strengthened! Kevin our recent convert is going and I hope he has tons of fun.

The bishops wife, the bishop's mom helping out with the chicken

One thing that happened this week that wasn't that fun was my companion had to go to immigration and so I was left in our area with another sister. She had the same amount of time in the field as me and I had to be the senior companion. That meant I was in charge of the day and planning the lessons AND teaching... and well it was dreadful. Plan A, B, C, D, E F all fell through and nobody was in thier home to teach. I tried calling people on the payphone, but well... I don't speak Spanish and just ended up wasting my money. I felt so bad for this missionary who was with me, and well I just couldn't do it. I sat down on the side of the road, had a little cry, and tired to think of what we could do for 2 hours. Finally as we were meandering around the city we ran into a member and she was happy to talk, so that killed some time until my companion was back from imigrations. She asked how it went and well... I only had two actual hours out in city (because we had lunch and then language study and stuff that kept us busy till 3) and I failed miserably. HOWEVER, I'm trying to look on the positive, and just see it as a learning experience. Success is not about not falling, but picking ourselves up each time we fall. Also I learned a good lesson on what makes a good younger companion. It's so much more enjoyable when the younger person takes the imitative once and a while and tries to help out rather than just follow you around.

Know I appreciate all who read this blog, and special thanks to my mom for putting it up each week and thank you to everyone who has written me letters and e-mails. I cant respond to everyone the way I would like every-week, but know that I will get to everyone in due time. Keep me in your prayers :)

Lunch at one of my favorite members house! don't remember the name but it was good good good!

Mucho amor de
Hermana Bowers

General Conference Weekend!

Me with a gorilla statue that is in the mall next to my area. I'm just being silly pretending he is sweeping me off my feet for some romantic cita (date)

General Conference Weekend!!! I hope that everyone was able to have a good experience listening to the words of the prophet. Now more than ever I am so grateful for a living prophet, and it is so cool to see and hear (well not for me) him after teaching so many people about how we have a prophet in this day and age.

For me conference was completely in Spanish, so I wasn't able to understand much. So if you feel so inclined, shoot me an email with your favorite quote or talk :)

My companion and I looking especially fine for general conference

However, this gave me the opportunity to really appreciate the songs during conference. Those aren't translated into Spanish and it was SO SO good to hear the beautiful voices of the choir (the Latinos here have a little hard time singing on key). My favorite hymn was Lead Kindly light. That song is starting to become the theme of my mission.

Also, the Brother (Wadell I think) who gave the closing prayer at the end of the first Saturday session was the same general authority who came and talked to us last month! It was cool to see him and know that I've shook his hand and was able to talk to him for just a bit.

Funny story time: My companion and Hna Luna tried to pull a trick on me. They got a fake mouse from a member and put it in the shower right before I was going to use it. The funny thing is that it didn't scare me the way they wanted. I saw the mouse in the shower, gasped, but then just kinda shrugged and went to get toilet paper to grab the mouse by the tail to throw it away. When I picked it up was when I realized that it was fake. It's funny for me to see just how much my gross tolerance has changed. Before - I know that I would have shriek screamed and dashed out of the room,but now after living in Peru for a while, well... its the normal standard of living and stuff like that you just have to get over. They got our other Hermana pretty good though, and we all had a good laugh.

My companion and Hna Luna tried to play a trick on me with a fake mouse ahha :

This is a moto taxi that we sometimes take to get places in a rush. sometimes all four of us try to squeeze in the back and it probably looks pretty silly but its fun!

In addition to conference, we also had a work visit (visita de trabajo) where my companionship swapped one Hermana with a companionship of Hermana trainers. So I got to go to a different area with a different Hermana and spend the night there. My companion was Hna. Shriver who is a fellow gringa from UT. Shes been here for 10 months and I learned so much from her! 

The view of the hills/ town in Peru. this isn't my area exactly but a taste of what the city looks like

It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good to be able to speak some English and ask questions about how things should be run. What was also a good surprise was the other Hermana who spent the night at my house left little post-it-notes of love and encouraging quotes randomly through my books, clothes, desk etc. So I'll be going about my day as normal and then find this cute little note of love or a sweet quote randomly. I'm really grateful for her love and thoughtfulness!

All the Hermanas in the house!!

Thank you all so much for your love and constant encouragement. I got LETTERS this week and am humbled and so grateful for those of you who took the time to send me a note. I'm learning now more than ever that our Lord often answers our prayers through others, and its so encouraging to see how many people there really are rooting you on and wanting you to succeed.

The members in the ward that helped us meet and teach Kevin!

I'm so grateful for our prophet and that we have all the restored keys of the gospel on the earth today. Its so great to be able to teach people about the importance of prophets and how we have awesome prophets like Joseph Smith or Moses to use as examples. Now as a missionary I've seen just how much effort and love and prayers go into helping each person that we teach learn and have a better life, and I know that this church is true.

Me Elder Sitton, Kevin and Hna Espinoza

Much love,
Hermana Bowers

We don't have a lot to do on p days because our zone is so small... so we just kinda sit around sometimes

(PS I finished my first transfer in the field!!! We find out after our internet time who is staying and who is going... so I'll update you in my next email. However I'm 99% sure that I' m staying right where I am.

(See pictures below)

My companion used my camera to take pictures of buildings that she liked in our area. she wants to combine all the pictures and model her future house after them

My favorite house in our area