Elder Timothy Bowden's Blog

E-mail of December 19, 2005

Dear Family,

I can't believe it is almost Christmas either! Thank you very much for the Christmas packages. I haven't fully opened Cami's since I want to wait for Christmas to open my stockings. So I am excited to open them on Christmas.

The weather doesn't seem like Christmas here either. Our Christmas party for our mission was last week. It was pretty fun. All the Zone's did Christmas skits, and they all did a really really good job. We had a lot of fun. We then had two Christmas parties for our Wards. They were pretty good, and we got tons of food. On top of that, our investigator, Michelle fed us a Christmas dinner also. I have been so stuffed!

Yesterday though I think I got food poisoning, I was sick all day, and still feel pretty iffy today. Hopefully I'll be completely better by tomorrow. We have two baptisms this week! I guess that means we'll have a white Christmas! Anyways, I don't really have anything else to say, except I'll be calling Mom and Dad around 9:45 AM our time. I'll only have an hour, but I hope that should be enough. Anyways, I love you, and look forward to talking next week.

Love,
Timothy

E-mail of December 12, 2005

Dear Family,

This week has been a good one, the missionaries in our district are working really hard and we are hoping to have 7 or more baptisms by the end of the transfer. Elder Green and I are having more success tracting then I have had my entire mission. One person invited us in without us even introducing ourselves. They had moved from San Diego, and had gone to the San Diego Temple open house years ago and were interested in the Church, but never were never offerred a Book of Mormon by their friends, so we gave them one and are going back after the holidays. The work doesn't really slow down here, as long as everyone keeps working hard. Mr Krueger's Christmas is also helping.

We are having our Christmas party this week, and we have lots of stuff to do to prepare for Andrew's baptism next week. I am excited for Christmas time, it is my favorite time of the year. I will most likely be calling you in the morning from a member's house. Church goes from 8:30 to 9:40 on Christmas, and then we have until 11 before we need to be to the next sacrament meeting, so that should give me the hour I need to talk to you. Have a great week!

Love,
Timothy

E-mail of December 5, 2005

Dear Family,

We had kind of a crazy week this last week. We ran out of miles on our car, and my companion does not have a bike, so we walked around for two days. Also last Sunday, the primary lost our dinner calendar, so we just had to do without, and hope no members got offended that we didn't call. We eventually found it, the primary had given it to the relief society, and one of the counselors put it in the relief society closets. For Christmas we are having two special Zone Conferences with Christmas dinners and we're not really sure what else. We will find out eventually I suppose. I'm also not sure, but I think my mail might still be messed up, because I haven't gotten any mail in more than a week, which is strange. Anyway, we have a baptismal date for one of our investigators named Andrew who is 12 years old. He wants to be baptized on the 23rd of December because it is Joseph Smith's birthday. I hope it will work out on the day, since there is a special broadcast and everything, but I'm sure we can figure it out. Our District is doing really well, we have 7 baptisms planned for this transfer, which would be almost half the zone's goal. Obedience really does pay off. I also hit my year mark on the 1st of December, which is really exciting, I can't believe I'm half way done, I'm going to have to work harder!!! Thank you for all the support all of you give to me. I love you all

Love,
Timothy

E-mail of November 28, 2005

Dear Family,

Thanksgiving was really great here. We ate at a family in the Wildomar Ward, the Brewers. Sister Brewer asked what my favorite pie was and so I told her the chocolate pie that mom makes, so she went and got the recipe and her daughter made it for Thanksgiving. They liked it a lot, but said it was really rich. Anyways, we really enjoyed Thanksgiving here. I don't really have anything exciting to report this week, we have been busy with meetings since it was the first week of the transfer, so the missionary work was limited to tracting, and nothing exciting has happened. We were able to hand out a BoM in Tagalog, I'm not really sure why we had one in our car, but There it was. So that was kind of cool. Anyways, today we are going to an Airforce musuem, because my companion is really really into airplanes. So that should be fun. Thank you very much for the package. I have already set up my Christmas tree and am trying to figure out where to put the lights. Thank you Cami for the cookies they are very good. I love you all, have a good week.

Timothy

E-mail of November 21, 2005

Dear Family,

I am doing fine here in California. It was the last week of our transfer here, so we tried our best and worked really hard. We have of course tracted quite a bit and yes we do have many teaching oppurtunities while tracting. We have been able to get many new investigators doing that. We have three investigators progressing towards baptism right now. One of our investigators though, we are having trouble with because she works as a nurse 24 hours a day for 15 days straight (in a members home), and she wants to be baptized, but we are unsure how we can do it. Transfers went well, I am staying here for another transfer with Elder Green which means I finally broke the streak!!! Anyways, that is all the news I have this week.

Love, Timothy