Elder Timothy Bowden's Blog

E-mail of April 25, 2005

Dear Mom and Dad,

Congratulations again mom, how does it feel? It sounds like it's been a pretty wild week! My week has been pretty good too. First of all, we got a lot of work done. We went tracting and found a few (hopefully) solid investigators. I am really excited to go and teach them. We also taught a lesson to a lady that speaks very little English, and speaks Spanish, but one of the Sisters in the ward translated whatever she didn't understand. Then a member gave us a referral and we went and taught him at the member's home. After we taught him about the Restoration, he told us that it sounded great, but his problem with Christianity was that they believe that only they are going to heaven, and all the people that never even had a chance to hear about Christ would go to hell. So he was quite excited when we told him about temple work. It was a very cool experience.

I am very surprised at how much work we were able to accomplish this week. Also, Elder Brooksby and I gave talks in Church. It went really well, and I will try and mail you a copy of my talk. It was cool because after I gave the talk, I just felt inspired to say a few more things, and the Spirit was so much powerful, it was really cool.

Also, transfers came in this weekend. Elder Brooksby is getting transferred, so the Samoans gave him a really cool sendoff. We had an (obviously) huge dinner and they gave him a couple lava lavas and a few bead necklaces they made. It was really cool. Tthe Samoans are great people. Also, my new companion will be Elder Midinski from Idaho. He has only been out for one transfer! So I will be senior companion and driver. I definitely did not expect to be senior companion this early! I am pretty nervous, but I know I can do it. I am excited to see what happens.

Love,
Timothy

E-mail of April 17, 2005 with Pictures

Dear Mom and Dad,

I got the announcement about Mom's graduation. I can't believe mom is graduating; it just seems a little strange. I also got all the passport information, and I have an appointment today to get that done. Also, the talk that Mom enjoyed so much from the Sunday afternoon session was by Elder Bednar, I enjoyed that one a lot too. I was surprised at how good of a speaker he is because he is so young to be an Apostle.

This week was a pretty good week. Our Zone Leader, Elder Turpin, came to go on exchanges with us, so he came tracting with me. I just picked a random street, and we really didn't have any success, until we found a house that had been referred to us earlier to go and bless, but I did not know that. So they invited us in and asked me to bless their home, which I did and then we proceeded to teach them a first lesson. It is very awesome when the Spirit can lead you to things like that.

Another thing that happened this week was that I had my first opportunity to give someone a blessing. I was pretty nervous, and I was shaking pretty bad, but I relied on the Spirit and said whatever came into my mind. It was short, but he said it was exactly what he needed to hear. I am glad I finally had an opportunity to give a blessing. We also had the opportunity to teach four or five different investigators at once over at a member's home, it was a little strange, because we had been planning on showing the video about missionary work, which we did, but we had to change what we usually say to apply to non-members also. I think it went pretty well, and three people were given Book of Mormons.

Other than that, the week has been a little slow, but I know that if I keep working hard, things will happen. Congratulations again Mom.

Love,
Timothy

Short Excerpt from April 10 E-mail

This week we had the temple trip to the LA Temple. The temple was amazing, I can't believe how big it is compared to the Provo and Columbia temple. I also got to see Elder Robinson, my trainer, and Elder Brawn, who was from the MTC.

Last week at Zone Conference, President Christensen gave us a new DVD called "By Small and Simple Things..." to show to the members to get them excited about missionary work. It was made by the San Bernandino Mission, but they allowed us to use it. It's actually worked surprisingly well, and we've already gotten 4 referrals for it, and we haven't even had to say anything after we show the video.

I'm working hard and still love being here.