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Week 4 going strong!

Hello all you amazing people!! It is that glorious time of emailing so I will make all your lives great by telling you how my life is going!

First off, General Conference was amazing (a semi annual worldwide church conference where church leaders speak - https://www.lds.org/general-conference?cp=eng-in&lang=eng) !!!!! All the speakers were great and I absolutely loved every second of it. General Conference was like a rock concert for missionaries in the MTC. It was so great. My favorite talk for me personally was by Stanley G. Ellis (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/10/do-we-trust-him-hard-is-good?lang=eng). He talked about how hard is good! Life isn't easy for a reason because the Lord wants to push us so we can reach our potential. It is super hard to feel that way as a missionary where the language is killing you and you have to wake up super early and are in class 6 hours a day. But if you work hard, the Lord will bless you in time. It is better to choose the harder right than the easier wrong. I also liked Elder Rasband's talk about Divine Design (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/10/by-divine-design?lang=eng). God has a plan for all of us and we have a purpose to be here. It is so comforting to know we aren't just objects on a world for no apparent reason. We have purpose and our purpose is to love and serve our fellow men and invite them to come unto Christ. And if we do, we will be blessed for eternity. What a wonderful promise!!

Monday was a bitter sweet day. It was sweet because the lessons to our investigators were very good and we felt the spirit a lot! However, it was also the same day we got some rough news. My district learned that Sora Zink, a sister in our district, wanted to go home and was working on a way to go home. It was really rough to hear and we were sad that it was happening. However, Sora Zink wanted a blessing and I was fortunate enough to give the blessing. I blessed her with comfort for not only her but her companion, Sora Staley. Nonetheless, we all felt the spirit and it was great.

Tuesday was a step up because the MTC was lucky enough to hear from Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson for our devotional! She talked about overcoming the overwhelming life we have in front of me. We talked about how we are sometimes supposed to be cut down by adversity and trials in order to grow into our true potential. It's sweet to know we are loved enough to be cut down so we can grow into something beautiful in the future. It was also a good talk for Sora Zink to hear because of her situation she was in. I don't know how much it helped but I knew it helped me a lot.

Wednesday was a much better day because of how our lessons went. My companions and I finally started to teach with the spirit in the lessons and it helped us realize how great that feeling is! I finally can feel confident teaching without a script and just speaking from the heart of what I know is true. It is a work in progress but a step in the right direction. On a funny note, my companions and I accidentally talked about weed in our lesson. We were talking about the word of wisdom and instead of saying herbal tea, we said weed tea and that lead to us basically telling the investigator we would clear it up in our next lesson. Oops?
The trio studying

Thursday was an interesting day because we spoke in only Romanian for our classes!! it was super tough and I knew I was going struggle but it was so great and so helpful because we needed to start getting into that habit. We taught out investigator more about the Word of Wisdom and cleared up what we really wanted to say to her. She understood for the most part and is going to try to live it for the next week. It was really awesome cause coffee is a huge part of her life. On the rough side of things, Sora Zink still was in the MTC and things were getting frustrating. Sora Staley was really stressed for the most part the entire day. i feel really sorry for her and my prayers are out for her as the week goes on.

A picture of a lot of Romanian grammar stuff featuring Sora Colt
Today was and is a nice day! We were able to watch the funeral services for Elder Hales (one of the senior church leaders who passed away last week)and it was really sweet to hear all the nice things said for him. He impacted so many lives and was a great apostle. He will be missed.

Eu stiu ca Cartea lui Mormon este cuvantul lui Dumnezeu. Eu cred ca Dumnezeu este Tatal Nostru Ceresc Iubitor. Eu stiu ca Biserica este adevarul

Eu va iubesc!!!!!! I love and miss you all!!

Love,
Elder Bowen

cole.bowen@myldsmail.net

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