Tree of Life - Ward Activity and 9/12 Letter

What an awesome Tree of Life! (Kevin's companion on far left.)

Can you find the Iron Rod? Nice church building!

Want to partake from the Tree of Life?

9/12 Letter

Today has been pretty crazy!!! and AWESOME. ok wow there is a lot to say and i don't think i will have enough time to say it all so what i dont get in this week i will try to get in next week. alrighty. So this week has been good, the language is really really difficult. Basically i ask a question to get to know them and then i pray that i will understand what they say. It has also been rough this week because no one has been at their house, and we cant find anyone!! This week we had a zone conference and a branch conference and a huge branch activity, so our numbers were not all that great either, because we spend all day traveling and having the zone conference, and all day for the activity and all day for the branch conference. oh well..

OK so neat story. You remember Norma right. the sister that gave us some of her last bits of bread. i think i said that she came to church. Well, we passed by her house to see how things are going and if we could help with anything. She was cooking some food and she had this big smile and she said elders i want to tell you about how loving the Lord is. On Sunday morning she had 15 pesos, and she was going to take the bus with her family to church, but the bus left early and they were not able to make it. so, she called a less active family that lived next to her and ask hey will you go to church with me and we can split the cost of the taxi (because taxis are expensive) (so side note, she did a little missionary work and invited a less active to church!!!) Anyways so the taxi cost 15 pesos one way. She then told us when they got home she had no food and no money, and that they were just sitting there thinking what are we going to eat. Just then she got a message from a friend who she had not seen or talked to in a long while. The message said. I have a lot of food and i´m bringing it over. She then told us that every day since Sunday she has been blessed with food and money. She told us she just kept thinking "wow!" we helped her make some dinner and then her kids came in the door and told us that our bus was coming, so we quickly shook hands, ran across the street and took a bus back. I am so glad to see that she is being blessed. This gospel has to be true. She came again to church this week :)

Lets see the zone conference was way good. We had to get up at 4 and take a bus to La Rioja so that was not too fun. but the conference was great!! We were trained by elder Foster of the 70. It was really good, and i got a lot of good ideas of how i can better my work. we then took another 3 hour bus ride back home (but the bus was super nasty :( and i did not like it at all. it reminded me of when Marjorie would tell me about bus horrors. This was pretty bad... hahaha)

So we had this great activity with the branch that we planned!!!! It was like a family home evening. We invited everyone!! And the members were so great, they really made this happen, they visited pretty much all 300 members and gave them an invitation. They made the tree, the fruit, and the cake at the end. All we did as elders was organize it, come up with the idea, and carry it out. (a quick summary of what it was.) We did an iron rod activity. First we had a little message about the spirit. Then we had every one leave the chapel and we quickly set it up. We used a hose for the iron rod and we taped it to chairs. We had obstacles and temptations. I tempted people with money and tried to get them to leave. We also had a party temptation with some popular music; we had a short cut temptation and a final temptation. then the people that let go of the rod were lead to a seating area were they were to call to their family thus adding another temptation. it was great!!! I hope i can send the video. Afterwards President Salas shared a message about the tree of life and related it to the activity. Overall it was a great success!!!!!!

Oh!!!! one of our investigators that i have taught from the beginning had his interview two days ago and will be baptized this Saturday!! I’m very excited for my first baptism. I love you all so very much, but i need to go!!!

Love

Elder Rowse

September 5, 2011 Scenes in Chilecito

Now this could be challenging to iron white shirts with.

Want to try some bus surfing?

Missionary bag ready for a day's deliveries.

Not a bad looking kitchen.

The bedroom of 4 elders - tight space!

The ancient and modern shower head - sometimes cold, sometimes hot!

YAY!! i loved reading your letter!! I´m glad i´m here. Oh, Dad, our shower has the old pipe that you showered with. We of course now have a "high tech" shower head. and the water goes through this square water heater on the other side. For the most part our water is pretty warm, just our water pressure is pretty bad. but i dont mind. it is still a shower :)

Ok some quick requests and info., if you ever send a box, be sure to use a customs report (its a green paper) and be honest. but just say there is nothing of value in there just missionary supplies (i.e. lint or something hahaha) You don't have to send it with the green paper, but then i dont pay customs.

Ok now for the week report :) so this week has been pretty off and on. So one experience that i want to be sure and tell about is with a visit we had with a less active member. We had a visit with her last week when we were helping the elders quorum president do his home teaching. We invited her to church but she didnt come last week. So we visited with her. just us as missionaries. And we had a really really neat experience. So we were visiting, and the real reason came out why she didnt come. (side background, she is a single mother with two kids) She had recently lost her job, and had no money. She had made bread that morning, and sold it for a couple pesos. Her friend had brought over some bread in the evening and she was planning to cook it and eat it with her family for their meal for the day. When we got there she was just finishing cooking it. She told us this and we taught her about the church. We felt inclined to promise her that if she came to church, she would find work, her family would be blessed, and she would be blessed with the strength to quit smoking. I shared about David and how he received blessings. She then took one of the three loafs of bread, cut it and said a long these lines, you are representatives of Christ, please eat. We couldn't say no, and we didnt want to eat a ton. She cut the slices and gave it to us. It made me think of the women and the prophet and how she kept having food to make more bread things. It was a super neat experience. She came to church yesterday :) It was a humbling experience, to see someone with nothing, give to us, with the faith that she would be supported. I want to be more like that.

The rest of the week was pretty rough. So i can pretty much now teach the lessons (with difficulty, and not very clear) and talk about the gospel with people but i am having a TON of difficulty understanding when they are telling me about their life. I spend all my efforts trying to translate just parts of what they are saying, and then it is difficult to listen to the promptings. It is hard to discern what to say because i´m not sure if i understood them right and i dont want to say something that has nothing to do with what they were really saying. It was a pretty down week. We had about two days where all our appointments fell through because the people didnt answer their doors or ¨"were not there". My knee started to hurt more, and ya, it is rough, but i know this is the Lords work. He has a plan. Missionary work is hard. i just need to put my shoulder to the wheel and push. I hope the language can come soon so i can start teaching with the spirit. I don't want to waste the Lords time.

One exciting thing is this week one of our investigators should be having his baptismal interview! Hopefully all goes well. well i am running out of time. The food is great! well the food that the members cook. hahhaa! My stomach is taking really well to it (definitely a blessing, i have eaten food that i know was not clean, used utensils that were not clean at all but i just eat and use them because i know the Lord will protect if i am doing what i am supposed to).

The branch is pretty small so during the week we usually only get 3 or 4 (if we are lucky) meals with members. Breakfast, i usually eat either an egg or oatmeal. I have gotten pretty good at making oatmeal taste pretty good (just throw on some dulce de leche, or this good jam or something like that). Lunch is either rice or pasta made by yours truly.. the elders hahaha. One day we had no tomato sauce or anything to spice up the rice, so between four elders we ate 1 kilo of white rice! yeah!! hahaha. One day we had fried fake hot dogs with rice hahaha. oh!! One day we made empanadas and it was WAY yummy (the elders were jealous of my empanada making skillz) thanks mom!! I know i´m losing weight, but i don't know if it is from walking a ton every day or if it is from lack of food. I´m never super hungry or starving (except fast sunday, which still is not that bad). Oh!! last week i had my first asada/o :) :) :) WAY WAY WAY yummy!!!!! well. But i do still like getting letters more than anything :) I hope all is well. I love you! keep me posted on the family happenings. May God bless you this week

Love Elder Kevin Rowse

Life in Argentina

New Missionaries in Cordoba

Mon, Aug 29, 2011 
To: Van/Sarah Rowse


One of the more exciting things that happened i forgot to include in the last letter. ok so... Sunday morning we woke up and we didn't have any gas... which means no cooking and no hot water... but we have to take a shower ever day. So sunday (of two weeks ago) i took an ice cold shower. I am surprised that the water did not come out frozen. It was FREEZING!!!!! we then had to cook our lunch at the church, which wasn't too bad. so this is where it continues to get exciting. :)
Monday was a holiday down here, so the gas companies were not working. therefore.. hahaha FREEZING cold shower on Monday. by then i figured out a way to make it a little less freezing. I would get wet from the sink (method was splashing water) i would then get soap everywhere. turn on the shower, hold my breath (mostly because it was impossible to breath with the cold water) and then rinsed as fast as i could hahaha. On Tuesday we called 3 different gas stations to come and whichever one got there first got the money hahaha. needless to say on Tuesday i had a warm shower :) yay.
Ok now i´m going to jump ahead to yesterday. So I was cooking my eggs, getting a nice Sunday breakfast going on, but all of the sudden all the electricity died. Throughout the whole city! So I cooked and ate in the dark it was pretty fun experience. also since the whole city lost electricity i could not play the piano Sunday morning. lets see.
This week has been good. It was pretty rough with being sick and having a sore knee. but i am feeling better today, i stil have the sniffles. You should definitely tell david i understand why he likes hankerchifs (spelling) i used one every day this week. They are great!!!! Lets see.. i think it was tuesday, we didnt plan very well and we ended up walking a good 20 miles. No joke. and no one answered the doors. we were having no success what so ever. and i want to say we had a cool experience where i said.. no elder lets do one more... but kinda cool, was the last door that we did knock on the person answered! so that was pretty cool. Wednesday and Thursday we planned a little better and i started doing my talk to everybody activity and we had a lot of success. Not like baptizing success but more like talking, having contacts, teaching beginning lessons, finding future investigators.
The language is still a little difficult, but i completely believe in the gift of tongues. yesterday was actually really exciting because i communicated more than i ever have. I understood (for the most part) everything that the people said. Saturday the other elders in our area had a baptism. they baptized a family and it was really cool to see the gospel bless the life of a family. The work definitely is hard physically and emotionally. We have not had a lot of success but we are working as hard as we can. There is this one family that I thought were going to be really receptive we had a great first lesson, but we have not been able to meet with them, or they are not at home when they said they would. We don’t have too many full on lessons (we had 16 this week with non members), but when we do have them. it is very exciting.
I love it when I teach someone about prayer and they have never prayed i LOVE it! These people are receiving ways to feel the love their Savior has for them. There is nothing better than inviting people to come unto Jesus Christ. That is why this gospel is true! i love this gospel.
One last cool story. So i started teaching piano lessons on sunday (i teach piano and the other elders teach English) I have no clue how i did it. I have never taught a piano lesson in English but here i am teaching members and nonmembers to play the piano, and explaining it in Spanish!!!! there are miracles around us every day! It is sometimes difficult to see them, but when we look hard, and pray for the ability to see them. The miracles seem to be overwhelming. Don't get me wrong, life is rough here, its hard. but i love it all the same. I want to share this message so bad with the people, and i cannot wait until i can speak openly with them, share my thoughts, my complete testimony, and invite them to come unto Christ. I hope you can begin to see the miracles in your lives! I love you all! more than you can imagine.
les quiero!

Flight to Argentina

Sunset in USA, Sunrise in Argentina, Airport

First Letter From Argentina - 8/22

Argentina is great!! this is a lot of hard work but i love actually teaching real people. The last couple days in the MTC i worked as hard as i could to prepare for the field. On friday we had an in-field orientation to prepare us and give us ideas to use while out in the field. It was very helpful. I took a lot of notes and have already started to implement them. My last sunday i took lots of pictures with my zone, they all were great elders. Oh i forgot. Thursday was my last day to go to the temple for 2 years (or until they dedicate the Córdoba temple, but i don't think they will have the temple finished by then) Having a temple so close is definitely a huge blessing. I hope you will go often.
Ok lets see monday. travel day!!! So i didn't have to report to the travel office until 1130. I got to talk to you over the phone!!! I assume you arrived home safely. Well lets see after the 2 hour flight to dallas i had a long 10-11 hour flight to Buenos Aires!! They served dinner and breakfast, and i attempted to get sleep. A couple of the pictures i will be sending will be my last sunset in america and my first sunrise in argentina!! (poetic? ya i know!) Well we arrived in argentina and well we had to get through customs and passport people, the only problem was.... none of us knew how to speak spanish fluently. A couple of us went first to try and figure out what we were supposed to do... the good news is we all made it through. i don't know how, but we did. after walking through security there was the buenos aires mission president waiting for the elders, but our president was not there. So we kinda just stood around, an odd bunch of Americans not knowing what to do. hahaha oh well. Then a guy with longer hair came up, and was talking in spanish.My companion and i figured out that he needed our passports. he said he was from the church so we gave them to him, and he left for a little bit into a shop. (good news, he was from the church) we then put all our luggage in a car that left and then we got on a bus (we thought we would be taking this bus all the way to Córdoba (it was way small and uncomfortable) the driver didn’t speak much and drove CRAZY!!! Everyone here drives crazy. we arrived at a smaller airport and she told us to get off. We got off and then another person found us. and took us to a check in place and we got plane tickets to Cordoba. we then had about 2 hours (so we thought) until the plane, the guy bought us some empenadas. they were way yummy and we were happy to have some substantial food. We got through security and found out our plane would be another 1 or so before it got there. so we waited/slept. we didn’t know how to use the telephones (and someone said it charged their parents) so i didn’t call. We then got on the plane and had an 1 flight to Córdoba. where... we met our mission president!!! yay finally. We took some pictures and then headed to the mission office.
My companion and i were put in a taxi by ourselves (sound familiar dad?? haha except this time the taxi knew where to go) we tried to talk to him but it was very difficult. We got to the mission office (very nice) and had a training session thing (capatación). we ate more empenadas, and then we got to sleep in a bed!!! they rented a nice hotel for us with warm showers!! (it had been awhile since we had had a shower and a bed) we got to bed pretty late due to the walk. In the morning we ate breakfast and went into the city to do some police thingy. We first took a bus into the down town (i had the bus experience) hahaha. Basically there were tons of people packed into a bus, and the bus driver drove crazy, accelerating fast and braking fast, piling more people into the bus and then taking off again. It was interesting, yet fun! Definitely different! We accidentally took the wrong bus, so we got off and took a taxi to the police station. Same thing happened again, my companion and i were in the taxi by ourselves while the assistants went with other elders. once again i tried to talk to him but it was very difficult. once we got to the police station we sat.... well that was exciting hahaha after the police station we went to a church to meet our new companion and trainer.
My new companion is Elder Gallacci, and my new/first area is........ Chilecito, La Rioja. (oh i forgot to mention, I told my mission president that my dad served in argentina and had actually opened La Rioja and Catamarca, this is true right?) Cool fact about Chilecito - its a little chilly hahaha (get it?) Actually right now it is super cold, there is snow on the mountains around.
So dad i have a question, did you serve in La Rioja, and do you have any names of investigators or members you baptized? if so, i would love to get their names. So back to were i was at the church building. I got my new companion and we were going to take a bus around 12 at night, but we found out that there was a bus leaving right then, so we quickly ate lunch and then the AP´s drove SUPER SUPER fast to the terminal (we did make it!). We then took a 6 hour bus (yes, more traveling... oh well, good opportunity to sleep and have my companion tell me about the area and what was being done). the six hour bus actually took 7 hours so we missed our bus from the capital La Rioja to Chilecito, so we staved with the elders there in the city. I slept on the floor, with dogs barking all night, and we had previously killed a spider on the ground :) Needless to say, i did make it, and i´m glad i had that fun experience. We woke up at 5 and quickly got to the terminal to take another 3 hour bus to chilecito and then the travel would finally be over!!!!!! we made it!!! I had a warm welcome with silly string and signs with the other two elders that live in the apartment.
Chilecito is so far from the mission home we have two pairs of elders for the whole city, and also because the city is rather big. There is not a ward, only a branch, there are around 250 members but 200 of them are inactive. So we spend our time, meeting inactives and teaching their family and also teaching new investigators.
I absolutely love doing actual missionary work, even if it is super difficult to understand them all. I do get complemented a lot that my Castilian is very well and they ask me where I learned it. I tell them that my dad served here in Argentina and he taught me (they always like that, and then usually ask me another question that I don’t really understand, sometimes hahaha). oh!!! Another cool thing. The branch has not had anyone who could play the piano for a very long time. WELL!! guess who can play the piano :) I can! It was super fun to see the faces of the members as they walked into church and heard prelude music. Thanks mom for keeping me playing the piano.
Since we cover the whole city we walk A TON!!! On friday I must have walked 20 miles, maybe a little exaggerating, but close to that. I am going to work as hard as i can, serve the people as much as i can and let the Lord give me strength and support me. So please keep that in your prayers, I have also been getting a cold and it is no fun. But same thing,I will work as hard as I can and let the Lord take care of the rest. I love you all so very much family!! The work is going good. I love teaching people and seeing the gospel change their lives!!!!! I hope all is well, if there is anything i can do please let me know!!! les quiero muchísimo!!!!
Elder Rowse