2012 - First Quarter Highlights

Real American Food - Subway!!

Mission Office

3/4/12

Dear Family   

My companion is elder bird :) pajaritos hehe. We get along great. sometimes (hardly ever) we disagree. he is from Utah and well he likes to work a lot. Like me! so we are usally pretty anxious to leave and work at 5 every day. The name of the area i am in is Villa Belgrano. And the cool thing!! THE TEMPLE IS IN MY AREA!!! well.. at least the ginoumous hole thats in the ground :) but its great for doing contacts. Its also fun because there is a older couple that are here incharge of the construction, and well the wife makes food from the states for us every other sunday :) they are from ARIZONA!!! thats why i asked if you knew the Fenn´s because his brother served about the same time as dad :)

This week was good. A little difficult because trying to wrap up the visa things and also getting ready for the transfers. I am super grateful for the letters you have sent. i hope that you have been able to get my letters, and if not, please let me know. I want to respond to all of them :) you are my family and i love you very much. 

We have the same investigators. Well one of them was baptized :) so now one less investigator and one more recent convert to help YAY!

the main people we are working with right now is the Alegre Family César (who was recently baptized)

Ana - his wife who is a little rough Carolina - who has come to church but needs to keep coming and Maxi - who needs to come to church.  We also need to find more new people, or we are going to baptize everyone and have no one left. ;)

I love you!!   Elder Rowse   

 p.s. they have scorpions here too!!! i was soo happy to see one!! no need to worry, i am safe. just thought i would comment my joy to find an insect that also exists here. 

 The JOY of serving a mission!!

Service Project - planting trees at park with ward members.

3/18

This week was pretty crazy but we were able to get some good work done. The new elders that were coming came super late. Some came on Tuesday, others Thursday and others Friday. Darn visa problems hahaha. so it complicated the week but luckily i have a companion that has a good desire to work and whenever we found time to leave and work we left! One night we were running in between appointments and my companion stopped to contact a house and it happened to be a family that had listened to missionaries 15 years ago and they even remembered their names. They had recently had a lot of family members pass away and well now we are teaching them. The same thing happened with another guy that we contacted, his friend had died the day before and so we taught him and he actually came to church!! :) A lot of the families that we were working with have told us a lot of things. A different day that we left we passed by the Alegre family (Cesar, Ana, Carolina, Maxi) and the mom stayed for the lesson and they told us pretty much everything that happened. It was a "wow only as a missionary" experience. A grown family talking with 19 and 20 year olds that dont even have families and yet they trusted us and told us. We invited them to pray as a family and they totally changed by the end of the week. So lots of miracles but we still need a lot more. This sunday i realized that miracles are worth a ton more that just 2 meals. Its almost a guarantee and i would fast for more days but i also need strength. :)

What you had mentioned to me about the temple is exactly what i have been feeling when i got here. I should be giving another talk in about 3 weeks (my first talk i wanted to talk about the missionary work because they were alittle behind) but I then want to help the ward realize the great blessing they are going to receive to have a temple so close, and how it will require a little more consagrasion. 

 Things have changed a lot. They missionaries were getting visas for 2 years (just enough) but then they recently changed them to 1 years and well... the last guy organized everything pretty good but now i just need to get it done. :) 

I love you soo much!!

Little Lady, Nancy, likes to dine with the Elders.

Nancy is this sweet old lady that lives in the apartment above us. she invited us for lunch. 

 

4/9

The families we are teaching are going good. I sometimes feel inadequate to teach these things. These are real people with some major real problems. I know the gospel can change lives; i just pray and hope the spirit can help me know what to say. That is the help i ask for. In specific, how i can help an investigator Paola Radicci. We found about 4 new families this week, but no one came to church this Sunday (Mom, looks like we were feeling the same thing yesterday) It hurts. I know they will be blessed. I then think, if me, with my little capacity i have to love, ache when they don’t come, How does my Heavenly Father feel, him with an INFINITE love. If he sees you helping his children, think of his INFINITE gratitude he will have. I invite you to think of someone, (it may be someone you home teach or someone). Put your arm around them, and guide them. :) I promise you that if you do that and tell me of your efforts, i will be making extra efforts in my work here. The Lord needs me to be effective. The Lords needs his sheep found. 

I love you all, I love this gospel. There is nothing more beautiful or more marvelous than this gospel. We have a Heavenly Father that loves us and will bless you as you keep your covenants. I love you

Elder Rowse :)

 Home evening with the ward (barrio) and Cesar's son.

Notice picture of new temple on the wall (left side).

The week was alright. Pretty normal actually so that was great! Monday we played with the zone the rest of the weeks we were able to leave every day at 5 and get some good work done. There was a really neat lesson that i really needed. We were walking towards a visit and we decided to knock a door. (we did a really really catholic approach hahaha) we said. HEY! We are going around blessing the houses, would you like a blessing for your house. The lady said sure! So we went in and we started talking. While we were teaching, i am 100% positive it was not me, somehow everything clicked and while we taught and testified the spirit was really strong, and it filled me with a happiness that made everything worth it. I now want to go out teaching because i know it can fill me with this joy. :) Her name is Adreana and i am pretty sure that with some more lessons like that she can get baptized the 12 of may :)

We also had a family home evening with the barrio on Saturday (i will be sending pictures) and it turned out great. The whole Alegre family came!!!! Even ANA!! (Honestly at first i was pretty bummed because there were only 2 member families but then after 20 min they showed up and i was way happy!! Sunday, Ana didn’t come but the two kids did. That was also another fun moment. We were in the supper getto getting a family to go with all their kids (mind i had a talk to give) so we were there until about 9:32 until we realized what time it was (church starts at 9:30) so we told the family we would come back in a little, we ran out of the villa (the van was parked out of the villa and in a safer place, mostly because we didn’t want the family to ask us if they could go in the van because we are not supposed to take people) so we ran out the getto got in the car, got there just in time to take the sacrament and then give my talk while my companion left with a different elder that was not giving a talk. I was a little discouraged because the whole family didn’t want to go to church, so when we arrived at church i was a little down but as soon as i saw Cesar passing the sacrament and then saw his two kids it made me super happy!. The talk went really well. 

I think i forgot to tell you but last week we did a musical number and it turned out really well :) um... lets see i cant remember too much else. and i want to write sherry and Teresa so take care i love you all :)

I hope you know i am working as hard as i can and with as much excitement as i can (it is super draining, but it is definitely worth it) I LOVE YOU ALL!!

The Cordoba Temple - This is the beginning!

Kevin is serving in the area where the temple is being built.  He talks much of 

preparing the people to have a temple in their midst.

Kevin is about the only Elder who knows how to drive stick, so he drives the mission

van when needed and keeps it clean too.

Transfer And New Companions

Saying Goodbye to Uritorco

Two Companions! Elder Slaughter and Elder Bird

Pretending Some Excitement

1/29/12

I love you all so much!!! Sounds like all the family visits are going good. I have been making a lot of changes this past couple weeks. That is so exciting for the ward!! Kyle is going to Hong Kong. He is going to have a wonderful experience. Be sure to tell him the mission is great! It is difficult but if he gives it his all he will absolutely love it!!

I am very grateful for the wonderful support that you have all given me, and also for the support of the ward! I know the prayers are helping me. :) Well transfers came and following the pattern i got a new companion and a new area hahaha :) so this should be pretty good. i have two companions, Elder Slaughter who is training me for 2 weeks and Elder Bird who is my actual companion who will be teaching with me. I was pretty sad to leave Uritorco. I had gotten to know a lot of people, and we have baptisms set up for every week in February, but i know that the Lord wants and needs me in my new area, so i will do just that. :) This day has been pretty crazy, with a lot of running around. i had to get up at 5, shower and then call a taxi, and go to my new area. I then had to go with Elder Slaughter to the main bus terminal at 6 where i was there until 12 or 1. We were helping all the elders and sisters travel to their new areas, calling people and making sure that everyone traveled and arrived safely. it was super super super hot, and i had to stay in my suit coat. I was soaked, and tired hahaha :) needless to say i had a smile and was happy the whole time. i then have a lot of work to do, since there are 13 elders and sisters going home and then 30 new elders coming :) but I am excited to work in my new area and meet the investigators.

I have a ton of things i can do to be better. I pray that the Lord can take my weaknesses and make them strong. I have also started to have a new point of view. Every person i talk with can come to Jesus Christ, and i believe 100 percent that they will be baptized. I love the work and i love to be the Lords Servant.

Spiritual message.. There are three types of people in the world, the servant, the worker and the friend. The servant does something only because he has to, because he fears that if he doesn’t do what he is commanded he will be punished. The worker only does something for an increase. All he wants is the blessings and for this cause he is obedient. The friend, does something because he loves the other. With our Heavenly Father, who are we? I hope that we can all become like the friend, to do what he wants because we love him and we know he loves us.

I love you! Elder Rowse

2/5/12 Dear Family,

Wow this week was fantastic!!! there was a ton of miracles!!! so some of the miracles were the following. First I survived the crazy week of transfers, then the couple of nights that i had time to go work we did a lot of work, asking references from everyone!! Until some people just started to feel our spirit of asking for references that they would just come up to us and give us references :) it was really neat. We also found a family that was waiting for a change. How we found them was a reference of a reference and doing a little of service and that is how we found them. It was awesome!!! :) Sunday morning was a little rough, we went looking for some investigators and they all fell through. None of them could go or wanted to go, we got to church pretty late. We were in a different sacrament meeting and a guy came in that no one knew, so after church my companion and i went up and started talking to him and he told us that he had read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it and had felt that the book was true. So Sunday he left his house looking for a church. He got to one church but no one was there so he went looking for another church building and happened to find us. We talked to him, put a baptismal date and then found out he lives in our area!!! :) yay!!! There has been a ton of miracles :)

There is always a lot of things to do and this has helped me feel lost in the work. My companion is great! I am learning a lot from him and i look forward to continue working with him. So this coming week I need to study a lot about Argentine driving laws and term and the whole new language of car term in Spanish. I have to get my license this week because the only other elder that knows how to drive stick is going this coming week.

:) i love you so very much!!