Week 77 - Placenteros nos es trabajar

Hi family!
Well this week was pretty good. We've been talking with everyone just as much as we possibly can about Jesus Christ. I'm so happy to be serving Him! The cool thing about this week is that we were able to go and eat with Hna Echeverrias family on Saturday. They literally live at the top of the mission and we live in the bottom. So....we had a road trip! But it was really fun. They were very kind.

Also, I go home next week. So, yeah. I can't really describe with words how I feel about my mission. But I get home a week from today a little before two PM. Everyone is welcome to come to the airport if they want. 😊
I love you all, thank you so much for all your support. See you soon!
Hermana Fowlks

 



Week 76 - I Hugged a Giant Metal Man

Hi everyone!
The work here in San Ysidro is still going well.
Actually.......it took a bit of a turn.  This week my heart broke on Saturday night when Susana told us that she had made the decision to not be baptized. Her fiancé had told her that he did not approve of her baptism and that he would not marry her if she chose to be baptized. She made the decision to stay with him. A hard decision I'm sure. But, when things like this happen you start to think about all of the things you could have done to prevent it! "Could I have been more diligent?" "What did we do wrong?" And all sorts of things start to run through your mind.  But then you realize: it's not about me. And it never has been.  I know that Heavenly Father will take care of Susana and that He's got a plan for all of us! And then the next day at church a woman walked in after having been invited by her friend to come to Relief Society.  After Relief Society, the member she was sitting with had been talking with her the whole time about how great it was to be a member of the church and be baptized. So afterwards she comes up to me and says "That sweet Sister back there told me that I should talk to you about being baptized. How long will it take for me to become a member of this church?"  I couldn't believe it. It was way cool. We have an appointment with her on Thursday!

I love you all so so much and I'm so happy to be serving the Lord.
Thank you for all your love and support.
Love, Hermana Fowlks

The Giant Metal Man

 Cool artwork at the beach

 Tijuana behind me!

 Exchanges!

Week 75 - Baptize Converts and Dunk Basketballs

Hi everyone!
We had a solid week this week. We have had lots of opportunities to find new people and that is awesome. We were able to teach our investigator named Angel and we invited his wife to sit with us! And she did! It was really cool because he has been taught by missionaries before and she has never sat in on a lesson. And she agreed to read "The Family: Proclamation to the World." And everyone should read this. Its awesome.

Also, something funny that happened this week... some of the elders in our ward were playing basketball with some little kids, and they all just wanted him to dunk. One of the Elders is pretty tall, but he can't dunk! And he was so embarrassed. So later that week in district meeting he suddenly yells, "Sisters! I just want to baptize converts and dunk basketballs! Is that too much to ask??" And so we joke that is part of our purpose now.

Also, last week, a member from my old area was able to go to the temple an receive his endowments! None of his family are able to go to the temple right now and so he invited pretty much all the missionaries that had served in his area to come with him to the temple. It was such a beautiful thing and I was so happy for him.
And.. Sandra was able to go to the temple to do baptisms! She loved every minute of it. We are so excited for her sister to get baptized in a few weeks and then we can all go to the temple together. 💕
Heavenly Father is so loving and when we do what is right, we are happy.
I love you all!
Hermana Fowlks

Hermana Fowlks in a tree

 Julian and the Hermanas at the temple

 All of the missionaries were there to support Julian!

 Lunch after the temple!

 Cuties!

 

Week 74 - Priesthood Blessings

Hello all!
This week was super good. We were talking to everyone all the time. We had our first real meeting with the mission president, President Stubbs. He's so awesome and full of love. I am so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people!

This week I got a priesthood blessing to give me a little push so that I can finish strong. The blessing really focused on my relationship with Heavenly Father, which I have been trying really hard to develop. I read something a little while ago that said "Sisters, of all your associations, it is your relationship with God, your Heavenly Father, who is the source of your
moral power, that you must put first in your life." So basically if I want to be able to help others, and be a blessing to others, I need to have a good relationship with my Heavenly Father. And it was cool to finally feel that Heavenly Father recognized my efforts to come to know Him more.  And I want to promise you all that God know us personally and that as we strive to have a personal relationship with him we will find peace. We are so lucky to have someone that loves us so much and wants nothing but our success.

I love you all and I'm so grateful for you and everything you do for me. I know God lives! ❤️❤️
Hermana Fowlks

Sisters in the Gospel

President and Sister Stubbs (New Mission President)



Old Town San Diego 

Elder Ferrin and Elder Johnson with Sister Fowlks, Sister Echeverria, Sister Packam and a new convert, Gregorio.

 

Zone Conference

Week 73 - Punching Things Causes More Problems

Hello all!
This week Sandra was baptized! Wahoo! She was so happy and it was so cool to see eternity change for her. We are working with her sister Susana and she should be getting baptized at the end of July. We're so excited for her and she is so ready to be baptized. The only problem is that their family hates us. They wouldn't even let us use the bathroom. But it's okay! The work doesn't stop.

Today we are going to go to Old Town and I'm going to try to find a cute  dress to come home in. (I know, that's super trunky, but I want a cute Mexican dress and Old Town is probably the best place to go to find one. Besides México of course.) but that will be fun! We have to be in by 6, so we will literally be doing no proselyting. Which is pretty lame, but we already helped a drunk man in the laundromat named Joe today so we're still finding ways to invite others to come unto Christ. Sounds like a fun 4th! I've heard Wonder Woman is good, I'll have to see it when I come home. There's a drive-in movie that we drive by every night so I catch glimpses of some movies. I saw like 30 seconds of Despicable Me 3 last night haha. That will be so fun at the Gorge! Please document everything. I want lots of pics!

President and Sister Stubbs are super cool. They're way nice, and Sister Stubbs is so loving. I think they're a little freaked out right now with everything that's been going on and all the new stuff. But they'll adjust. It's just like any missionary that first gets to the mission field, it's a literal punch in the face haha. But then it becomes awesome! It's cool because he depends a lot on the mission leadership council, (which is us) to help him know what to do. So we have to step it up. And I like that. It keeps me busy and I'm able to be focusing on ways that I can help improve the sweet sisters we take care of, and myself so that this mission can keep going up. And also so I can keep going up. The trajectory at which you leave your mission is the same one that you will continue. So if I leave going up spiritually, then I will keep going up spiritually as long as I keep working hard.

The most interesting thing that happened this week happened on Friday. For those of you who have served missions, you might remember that missionary work is stressful. And Friday was a specifically stressful day, and we were going to visit some people and I see a punching bag hanging from a tree. And I thought, "There it is! The release of my stress! A punching bag!" So I walk up to it, wind up, and just punch it with all I have. (Mind you, I have a pretty weak punch.) but, to my surprise, I all of a sudden am in extreme pain. And realize that I definitely made a bad choice. And then, later on when the pain didn't subside, realize I HAVE SPRAINED MY HAND. yep. From my own punch.  How embarrassing.

Anyways, that was my week. I'm so grateful for your prayers. And I love you all! Have a good week.
Hermana Fowlks

 

Sandra's Baptism!

 Puppies!

 Sister Missionaries are the best!

Week 72 - Heavenly Father answers prayers

Hello everyone,
My goodness this week was crazy!  The best part of it though was that we had one of the elders investigators get baptized! His name is Gregorio. He can't say my name right but every time he sees us he says "HERMANA DOWL!" Like super super loud haha and he's great. He's so happy to be baptized! The elders worked so hard with him and he is a changed man.

Also, this week we have Sandra getting baptized! When she had her baptismal interview on Monday she told us that she didn't understand everything, but she said she knew she would learn because Heavenly Father told her to be baptized. And so she is going to do it. We are so excited for her!! She's going to be wonderful.

Besides that, we are just working working working. Oh yeah today was transfers and we have a new addition to our companionship!  Hermana Packam! She's from Oregon and she's really nice. We're excited to bring more of our brothers and sisters to Jesus Christ.

I love you all!
Hermana Fowlks

Week 71 - Praying in the Street

Hey everyone!
This week was good!  The missionary work side of things is actually going pretty great. We were able to re set two more people with baptismal dates and they are so excited!  We took them to the temple and that's when they decided to be baptized. The spirit was super strong. It was cool! And yes we just went back and taught the man with the chihuahuas last night. He has lots of questions but I think he will be baptized.

It's not too hot here, it doesn't usually get over 90 because we're right by the ocean. 😎 it's awesome. And okay, homecoming on the 27th of August...  not panicking about that haha. I'm not ready for so many white people!  Haha just kidding. It will be good. Oh my gosh if you decorated my room Mexican that would be so so awesome. I would die haha.

Something happened a week ago that I forgot to share and I wanted to write it here. We were driving home from something and we drove past this man who looked like he was climbing the fence of the bridge. And the spirit told me to pull over and talk to him. But I didn't. But then the spirit was like "That man is going to end his life if you don't get over there right now." So obviously I turn around, my heart going a million miles an hour, and we start to talk with him. Sister Echeverria was terrified because this guy looked really sketchy and I didn't really have time to explain what was going on. I looked at his hands and they were really dried and cracked open. So I put a band aid on the biggest cut on his hand and then gave him my lotion and hand sanitizer and a bunch of other band aids. We then asked if we could kneel down and pray with him. And so we did, there we were kneeling down on the side of the bridge of the freeway. And as we prayed,  he broke down crying. We invited him to church where we could get him some food, and we gave him the groceries that we had just bought. (How convenient that we hadn't taken our groceries home, right?) anyways. It was really cool.

I know this is His work. He literally carries me through everyday. I wouldn't be able to do it if it wasn't for Him.
I love you all, have a wonderful week.

Hermana Fowlks

Sister Fowlks loves books!

 The old district together again

Superstar Sister Missionaries!

It was fun to see Sister Garcia again!

The Temple with our investigators

Week 70 - Bigger than chihuahuas

Hola everyone!
This week we had a pretty good time. We were able to find a lot of new people to teach, including a family! They seem pretty interested, so hopefully they will commit to be baptized soon. We are constantly finding.

I had a really cool experience with Hna Brosio on an exchanges yesterday. We went to knock on a mans door and we hear just an army of chihuahuas behind it. Someone opens the door and says that we can't come in because the chihuahuas bite. But we were persistent, and finally he came out to save us the pain of having to have our ankles gnawed by chihuahuas. He said he didn't have much time, so Hna Brosio asked if we could pray with him. So we did, and after the prayer, he literally could not speak. It was crazy. Like, he was crying, but he didn't say a single word. He just waved goodbye.
We're going back to see him on Thursday.

I love this work! I'm so happy to be here. The work always has times where it seems like Satan is trying everything possible to make it not happen. And there is times when I feel like I am no where adequate and the thought literally comes to my head "I can't do this." You'd think after 16 months I would have it down. But I definitely don't! It still gets me down when I see people reject the gospel. I feel like I'm at the top of my teaching game, I am the best I've ever been at teaching and finding and helping. But people still don't accept it! Or I feel like I did something wrong and it's my fault they didn't say yes. Satan just works really hard. I know that feelings of doubt or despair never come from Heavenly Father, so I try to ignore them.  Even when it is hard I know that the Lord is with me, and so nothing can be against me that is bigger than Him.

I love you all have a good week!

 

 

Week 69 - Jose Luis 💪

What a wonderful week!

We are teaching like crazy. We are finding like crazy. I'm so tired that I have started praying with my eyes open to avoid falling asleep.  But the highlight of this week was the baptism of Jose Luis.  He was actually from my last area. He was the old guy that bought us Mother's Day presents. He has been waiting to get baptized for about a month now, and he is just the most changed man I have ever met in my whole life.  He used to make fun of his nephews for being members. But then he started listening to the missionaries and he got a priesthood blessing after being paralyzed for over 5 years and was able to take some steps. And he started reading the Book of Mormon, and started being kinder to the missionaries. And was finally baptized on Saturday! We were able to video chat into the baptism and watch it from the chapel in San Ysidro. IT WAS THE BEST.

I know that people can change. I know that God takes care of His children.
I love you all have an awesome week.

Hermana Fowlks

Hermana Echeverria and Hermana Fowlks

Baptism of Jose Luis

Visiting Isidro in the Hospital



Exchanges with Hermana Nougera

Week 68 - This kind of happiness only comes from missionary work and tacos!

This week was so awesome.

We are doing so much work here and there is so much to be done! We have been running around like crazy and I have never been so tired haha.

Yes we went to the border, I bought a shirt and a headband and some rings. Our investigators are doing really well, we are able to set dates almost weekly and add a lot of new people. My companion is wonderful and patient and is a really good missionary. I'm trying to help her learn how to take the lead and to lead others around her. And no we haven't met the new President.  President and Sister Schmitt leave at the end of next transfer. We will probably meet them then.

Last night we had a super cool thing happen. We were teaching a wonderful family and we were already running super late, so we didn't have time to teach much. We decided to just read the first verse of the first chapter of Nephi. And we talked about the importance of "goodly parents." The whole atmosphere of the home changed just from one scripture. And when we committed them to pray as a family, they accepted and called the whole family in to tell them that they were going to make a new change and that they were going to start praying at night. And the dad said the prayer and it was beautiful and I have never felt like I have fulfilled my purpose more than in that moment.

It is the small moments like that when I realize why I am here.  I love you all so much and I love my mission. I love all the people here and I'm so grateful for the person that Heavenly Father is making me.
Talk to you next week!
Hermana Fowlks

 

Lunch with a recently returned sister missionary, Shantell

District Meeting at the Mormon Batallion

 Flautas!

 A ward party, a Kermes!

 The Elders at the Kermes!

 Exchanges with Sister Thompson.

 This kind of happiness only comes from missionary work and tacos!