E-mail from Hermana Bowler

 Hello from Tegucigalpa!

We want to let you know that Elder Carter has arrived safely in Honduras. After spending a night with us in the mission home he is now in his new area with his trainer.

I have attached several pictures. It won´t surprise you to know that he spent several hours helping in the kitchen on his first night in Honduras. He is going to be a great missionary.

Sincerely,

President and Hna Bowler

He's on his way in a few short hours!

MOM! Hey I have a little bit to be on here right now. So as you know I leave tonight at 2:30. We depart for El Salvador at 5:20. Out flight number is AV433 and we're flying Avianca. Then When we get to El Salvador, we're departing at 8:45. flight number AV454 to Tegucigalpa!! It's finally here!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

I'm leaving on a jet plane....on Tuesday!

Okay so I guess there was a tiny mix up. Haha totally my bad. So I leave the CCM on Tuesday morning at 2:30. I love it here but I cannot wait to leave!! We fly to El Salvador and then have to hustle to our terminal and board like 20 minutes after we land. It will be an adventure!! So this week has been really weird. It's gone by super fast and I haven't been able to retain much. We've worked so hard on spanish and I've learned a lot, but I'm so tired by the end of the day. Best part of the week. one of my teacher Hmna. Vanderas brought a guitar!! So I tuned it up and played it for 2 days straight. Oh it was so nice to play again....Yesterday we had the opportunity to introduce some new Elders into the CCM. That was a really cool experience. It's so wild that 6 weeks has already passed by. They thought my Spanish was excellent, but they were as green as green gets. We also taught a couple "Investigators" yesterday. haha it was soooo awkward. First off. One was named Cassandra and she was 21 and the other was Abish and she was 16. The whole lesson they were giggling and staring at Elder Quick. Then they said they were both member. (Totally knew that...Abish....) and then everytime we brought up a principle, they explained it to us. So...bad teaching experience! But for class we started working on street contacting. When we started that, it felt like I had learned nothing here. It's so hard to express to someone in 3 minutes a message that is going to change their life for the eternities! But Elder Quick and I practice with the construction workers here when we can. It's all becoming so real! I can't wait to get to Honduras and just baptize and baptize! Thanks for all that you've done for me! the prayers help so much!!! And the pictures were so nice to receive! So I totally lost my camera cord. This is so weird. I thought I brought it in here, but maybe not! I'll try and send pictures as soon as I find it!

One more week until I'm a real missionary!

Hello everyone! How are all you doing? So this week has been 10000x times better than last week. Remember how I said my comp was struggling a little bit? Well he's making a complete turn around and he's really showing his love for the gospel! He started reading the Book of Mormon I think last week and he's already at 3 Nefi!! He's such a stud. Thank you for evreyone that has prayed for us. So Not much happened this week. Yesterday we taught a 16 year old named Gustavo. He has a friend that is a member and he wanted to know more about what we believed in. We shared with him our testimonies on the BofM and he was really excited. He read parts of the introduction, then Moroni's promise. We challenged him to read it and he accepted! Buuuut we didn't have a copy prepared to give to him. So I looked down at my personal copy and decided I could get another set. So I gave him my leather bound BofM and told him to take care of them and keep them forever. Then today, I bought a new set from the Tienda. Today we also got to finally leave the walls!! The city was so busy and kind of sketchy. But it was so cool. it got me so excited to be a real missionary!! The temple is actually under renovation right now, which sucks because we didn't get to do a session. We just took a tour of the Visitor's Center. That was amazing! I love the culture here. Well, as much of the culture that I'm exposed to. But we took a lot of pictures! (Mom you're going to love me this week.) I absolutely love it here! Oh and I don't know if you guys want to know like the not so spiritual stuff that happens, but here's a few things. The food is completely hit or miss. Usually breakfast is awful and lunch isn't better. The food has been better since my first week though. The shower is probably the worst. The temperature isn't steady at all, so it'll feel nice for like 15 seconds, then burn you for 3. Then freeze you for 3! Haha. The sink and shower water is pretty gross. It's light brown, but they say it's completely clean. Elder Johnson and I usually play ping pong for gym time. But I don't think there's much else we're doing besides studying every second of the day. OH Elder Anderson is coming on Saturday. That's going to be a really cool experience!! I love this gospel and everything that we're doing here! Thank you everyone for your love!

Oh PS! So it would be super cool if everyone could send me a bunch of pictures of whatever you're doing! I want to stay caught up with your lives!

Estoy Muy Feliz Hoy!

GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! Wow. That was such a powerful session. I can't believe how many apostles testified that Thomas S Monson is the living prophet. I can't wait to share this gospel. Honestly the talk that hit me the hardest was Tad R. Callister's. That was such a powerful testimony of the divine calling of parents. I love my mom and my dad so much!! So this week has been a little rough. My companion has been struggling a little bit. But on Monday I fasted for him and get this. Breakfast is usually awful. They served French Toast. So I was pretty bummed about that. THEN for lunch they served burgers and curly fries. Like what's going on?? Then the whole time he was telling how delicious the food was. I wanted to put him in his place, but esta bien! I definitely felt very blessed after my fast. So, Uncle Jerry, I shined my companions shoes this week. hahaha But all in all, it was a good week. The time seems to be going by so fast. Crazy to think I'm halfway done with the CCM. Everything is kind of just a blur! But yesterday we got to teach an actual investigator. She has had no experience with the church and she was just curious what the CCM was. So she asked for a tour and got lessons! We taught her about prayer and how she can feel the spirit and the Lord's love as she prays. She kind of brushed it off and I stopped her and testified to her right there, and promised that if she prayed with faith in God, and with sincere intent, she would feel the spirit. That kind of stopped her in her tracks. (She's probably around dad's age) Then we challenged her to say the pray at the end of the lesson. She said maybe. So we taught her how to pray, what to say. The end of the lesson came and we asked her again and she said yes. Her prayer was very simple, but when she finished she said she felt something in her heart. She felt joy. We told her it was the spirit. She said she hasn't felt the spirit this much in her life. It was the most spiritual moment yet. I absolutely love this gospel and can't wait to share my testimony with the people of Honduras!!

Love you all. and thank you for your prayer.

P.S. So a district in our zone left on tuesday and it was pretty rough. We had all become such good friends. Here are some pictures with them! The guy with the red hair is Elder Garbero and he sings just like an angel. He has a scholarship to sing at BYU. They are all serving in Fresno!

Mas Pictures

So the first one is Elder Quick y yo getting caught hard in our first mexico rain storm. 

Then the next is my conference snack pile (Hermana Morgan y yo stocked up and had two bags full for conference. They lasted only through Saturday.)

The last one is our district picture this week. We tried to make a rainbow with all our colors.

I can't complain, but sometimes I do. Lifes been good to me so far.

Hola Familia!! So this week has been immensely better than last week!!! Not too much has happened, but I feel the spirit so much more in my life. The end of last week I was pulling out my hair. It was so rough. But on Sunday, we had a devotional and Elder Bednar talked. THE GREATEST TALK I'VE EVER HEARD. And then after the devo, we watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration. (Not going to lie, that actually was really hard to write in english.) But I was soooo stoked to watch it!!! I love that movie so much. After we had a little district meeting. it was definitely the most spiritual meeting we've had. We actually came up with 3 themes for our district. 1) Take it Easy. 2) Life is Good. 3) What Would Donny And Marie Osmond Do? I think these are going to really help us out for the last 4 weeks. I'm already a third of the way done!! WHAT!?! aha but I am so so soooo excited for general conference. Like this is probably going to be the greatest general conference of my life. on tuesday, we watched another Devotional by Elder Bedner (He's the greatest apostle, just to let you all know) and he laid out a loose blueprint of how to take notes for general conference and I can't wait to use this method. Also as a district, we decided to come up with one question for the district and it's "How can we help unify our district?" so we'll all be writing our thoughts down and after, in our district meeting, we're going to have 12 different views! I'm so excited. It's going to be so spiritual. So This week has been so much less stressful. I can teach the lessons in spanish now. It's seriously the biggest miracle. I'm far from fluent because small  talk kills me. I can talk about the gospel all day, but other than that, I'm screwed. hahah but esta bien. My spanglish is spot on by the way. Umm non gospel stuff.....our district was playing ultimate frisbee and my companion ran into a fence. He busted his chin open and needed it glued shut. It was pretty gnarly, but he took it like a champ. hahah Thank you everyone for your support! i love you guys, but I love this gospel more!!