Iowa to Romania

Elder Dixon and Bowen in Galati! HEYYYYY EVERYONE I AM IN ROMANIA! It is so crazy I am here and it took so long to get here and this will definitely be the longest review of the past 10 days or so which is craaaazy. But here we go! On my last Sunday in the MTC, I was blessed to be able to feel the Spirit so strongly. The entire day, my district said that I was going to speak in Sacrament meeting and unfortunately, they were correct! I gave a talk in Romanian about faith and honestly I felt really good afterwards. Faith leads to action and this church is an action based organization, hence why faith is such an important principle in the church. If we truly have faith, we will act and not wait to be acted upon. My district was also able to sing in sacrament meeting which was awesome! We sang How Firm a Foundation in Romanian which was awesome. We also gave each other blessings of comfort for the journey ahead and it was a blessing for me to be able to do those to some of my fe...

Elder Bowen and his Bodyguards Ward and Atkinson Hey hey hey it is your buddy Elder Bowen with the scoop on the missionary life of me! Bodyguards on break.  And one of my favorite scriptures. Sunday was a very spiritual day with church and all the church activities and devotionals. It was the last Sunday with the old Italian missionaries and it was a little sad cause I really loved them and did not want them to leave. But we were able to hear them bear their testimonies as they prepared to leave the MTC. We also were able to watch a talk by Elder Callister called Consecrated Missionary. It basically made the difference between a great missionary from an absolutely amazing missionary. It all boils down to how much you love the church and how much you are willing to serve the Lord and how much you love Him. It was an awesome talk and I felt very inspired to watch it. Don't mess with us Romanians.  Our new album cover. Monday was hard because half o...

Well hello all you beautiful people!! This week has been a roller coaster so I will bless your lives with my wisdom!   Romania! To start off, it is my 1 month anniversary!! 23 more months to go! But who is counting honestly?? Sunday was fast Sunday in the MTC and boy was it an interesting one. I never truly appreciated the cafeteria food more than probably Sunday. But it was such a spiritual day and I loved being able to share my testimony to my branch. For the lessons throughout the day, we were blessed to have President Martino, President of the MTC, in all our branch meetings and lessons. It was honestly quite scary cause it was my first Sunday leading as a zone leader. But all his comments and counsel were very awesome and we were blessed to have him with us for the day. The devotional was also pretty awesome cause the Martinos were the devotional speakers! They talked about striving to be perfect in this world even though we may mess up along our path. I also lik...

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 choos...

HEYYYYY YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS???? It is email time!!!!!!!!! This week was full of entertainment and I have a lot to tell you so listen up! Sunday was another great day in the MTC! The talks in our sacrament meeting were focused around the Holy Ghost which really brought the spirit to the meeting. We also got the opportunity to watch a talk by Elder Bednar called "Recognizing the Spirit". I learned really one big thing from that talk and it was to QUIT WORRYING ABOUT IT!!!! If you are given a prompting and it tells you to do something good, then do it. It is the Holy Ghost working among you and you should not doubt that fact. I really loved how even though that talk was years in the past, it stills applies to today! I was also called to be Zone Leader of my entire Zone , which freaks me out cause I am the youngest elder out of all of them but I feel blessed to be put in that position. My zone is gonna rock!!  (A zone is a group of missionary districts, and districts ar...

You know what time it is?? It is email time!!! I finally have had a full week in the MTC so I have a lot to talk about. A lot to talk about and not a lot of time to talk about it so I'll be as precise as possible. Sunday was my first Sacrament meeting in the MTC and boy it was strange having it without little kids crying a bunch! Sacrament meeting was focused on repentance and all the talks were wonderful. The biggest thing I learned from that was that repentance is a happy thing!!! We should be happy repenting and changing our lives for the better. I realize it may be hard, but things will get better if you have a change of heart for the best. I can attest to that fully! Other than that, Sunday was a chill day. We had a devotional and the speakers talked about fully converting ourselves to the gospel. It was really inspiring that we have to be our first convert before we can start converting others.  Monday was probably my roughest day so far. My companions and I had a le...

First P-Day (Cole's Words) HEY EVERYONE!!! I am so excited to finally have a p-day and be able to actually email! My first 3 days were very hectic and crazy but this is only the first 3 days of 6 weeks. Let me lay down some details of my first few days. My name tag with the scary (Romanian) spelling of "Elder" On Wednesday, it was absolutely a culture shock to me. Everyone was saying hello and I felt very loved to be there. But right when I got there I had to go to class, which isn't so bad except my teacher only speaks in Romanian and refuses to speak any English. So my first moments of the MTC were very scary! But after all the scares I learned I am in a companionship with 2 other great elders. Elder Ward and Elder Atkinson are awesome guys and I love it already. My district or class has 7 people going to Romania, 3 elders and 4 sisters. Most everyone is from Utah or Idaho except me and Sister Sheffield so I'm still surviving. Class went well a...