October 17, 2011

HELLO FAMILY!!! I can't believe the Alabama Chapter to my story is coming to a close... But I'm excited for what the Lord has planned for my future. Where ever the Lord needs his errand, Jakie Bowman will be there. I may not be the best missionary, but I'll do my best to become what He needs me to be. Not a whole lot to report what's new with the area. Eric is going to be coming to church this next week! Just a little spoiler alert, I am sending home a tape this week and I talk a little more about everyone in that. What I like to talk about this week and I feel to express my thoughts with the very little time that I have, is from a quote by Elder Oaks. "We should focus our efforts on being what we are called to be... Not on what we feel qualified to do." As I've pondered about the matter, it has really drawn me closer to this work, my purpose and the Savior. I find myself as accountable as the rest, but we often find ourselves going through the motions. Doing what is expected of us. What we feel will be enough to "get us by." I can testify that going "through" this life and going(receiving) through the motions(ordinances) is not why we are here. If that is why we are here, to obtain a body and receive the ordinances, what is the point of even having us live past the age of accountability? That is not what His plan intended. I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to extend this fraction of the equation further. I will wrap it up with what means the most of better understanding this, but in small terms. We were qualified when we accepted Christ plan. That's why we are here. We are qualified to live on this Earth because we are all God's children. But to be qualified=Child of God. Whether we except the gospel (right now) or not, everyone we see and know is God's child. But the difference between qualified and focusing on that calling(magnifying) is being a child of Christ (Gal 3:26-29, sorry for time) If we look at it (as best we can) from the Saviors perspective, He was qualified, because He was chosen, the Only Begotten and for the other reasons you all know. In a nut shell, because He is who He said He Is. He Is Jesus The Christ. But how He became What He Is now is a lot more then what he was qualified to do. Yes, He was the only one qualified, but it was far more then that that made life with Heavenly Father possible again for us. When He was in the garden, He was qualified to take upon Himself the sins of the world. But how he did it was more then just being qualified. He focused on the will of the Father. Matt. 26:39. He focused on each one of us. I wish I could have at least 30 minutes to express but a hair of a head the teachings and testimony of the Spirit on the matter, but if I could leave one thing, it would be never think you are never qualified. You were always qualified. As Pres. Eyring said, "Don't worry about how inexperienced you are, but think about what, with the Lord's help, you can become. I love you all so much. I am grateful for your prayers and your support. I know there are some very difficult times for me ahead, but for the first time, I couldn't be more excited to face them. With Christ, all things are possible. I do not know the meanings of all things, but I do know that Heavenly Father loves His children, and Christ wouldn't have done what He did if this wasn't true. On my honor I will do MY best. Like Pres. Eyring said, "I can’t be a perfect servant every hour, but I can try to give more effort than I thought I could." Hooray for Israel!!! Pelo Reino, eu combatera (it has an accent) Elder Bowman

October 10, 2011

MY FAMILY!!! HOW ARE ALL'YALL!!! This week went by FAST!!! We got 3 new progressing investigators in which we met all of them this week! One of them is Eric. We met Eric Tuesday night. We we're almost done for the day and were doing some tracting. When we first knocked on his door, we gave him our little shpill and asked him about his faith in Jesus Christ. After his response he invited us in. (THIS DOESN'T USUALLY HAPPEN TOO OFTEN HERE) We asked him about himself and got to know him a little better. He didn't mind, but he really wanted to talk about what we believe. To explain Eric; Eric is probabaly in his mid-30's and very smart, yet very very curious about life I guess you could say. He grew up and was baptized a Methodist. He lives by himself in a nice humble house. Hey is into computers and I'm not exactly sure what exactly. To say it the nicest way possible, Eric is kind of a nerd, but that's what I love so much about him. He is like someone I've never met before. Anywho, back to the story. He asked us many questions about our church and what our stance was on a lot of political issues. It wasn't until 10-15 minutes in that we started teaching him basic things in what we believe in and the Restoration and the BoM. He had so many questions and was very respectful. The whole time I was thinking, just keep this as simple as possible. We talked for perhaps 30-40 minutes with him that night. We gave him a BoM and was able to tell him the invitation/promise. We also gave him a mormon.org<http://mormon.org> card. So we met with him last night and boy, did he do his homework. But he did his homework the right way. Usually when we give people a mormon.org<http://mormon.org> card, they just go google us and that usually leads to wikipedia and that sorta jazz. Never good. BUT!!! He went on to mormon.org<http://mormon.org>! Like I said, he is very smart so when he was asking us questions, he was even quoting Brigham Young and giving us dates and stuff. Pretty much the lesson we were giving him last night was "deep doctrine" but we kept it very simple. It was like he already knew our message, but had questions about putting pieces together. He asked us a question about if God loves all of us so much, why did he regret creating us? I was very puzzled and asked him what made him think this. He refered to Genisis 6:5-8. He had read out of the NIV Bible, which instead of the word repent, it used the word regret. You can also see what it says in the foot notes and stuff cuz that was what I was trying to explain to him. I really wasn't sure where I was going with it cuz while I was talking, I was thinking, why would God need to repent. I was explaining the matter of this verse for about 2-3 minutes still pondering on the fact why would God need to repent? I was praying for the Spirit to say something the entire time. About 3/4 of the way into the confersation, I had realized what the Spirit had put into my mouth and what I was saying. I was explainging that repentance is the washing away of sin, not everything. If God would have washed away everything, including the righteous, we wouldn't be here. It uses the word repent as the analagy of washing away sin (the wicked people) After that last word, I just looked at him and said a prayer in my heart during the silence. Then he responed and said that that makes sense, and that he needs one of our Bibles. THE SPIRIT TESTIFIED!!! Like one of the Brothern said at GC, we do not teach infront of or behind. We teach BY the Spirit. I had something else I really wanted to share with you all this week, but I guess it will have to wait until next week. The field is WHITE!!! We just need to go find it. I love you all and am grateful every moment for you. I hope you all have a wonderful week this week! Com amor Elder Bowman omhiwdMb

October 3, 2011

ONE OF THE GREATEST WEEKS!!! I don't have too much time to share nearly everything I like to, but I'll just share two, maybe three of them with you. Just before I got here, Elder Anderson and Christensen (they were companions before me and Perdue got here) found a couple from Brasil! They had only met with them once before so not a real solid foundation. When we went there Monday, we took a member who served in Rio with us. It seems that there are a lot of people who speak Portuguese in our ward. When we were first talking to here I was switching into Portugues and English with her, just with the small talk. When I began to give the introduction and what we were going to talk about, she asked (in Portuguese) if we could do it in Portuguese. (She isn't very comfortable with her English) While my mind was in shock, my heart began to deliever the message in Portuguese as she asked. My Portugues isn't very good and the member seemed to have lost a lot of his "missionary lingo" in Portugues, but the Spirit is the one who talked to her and to us that night. I wish I could go into more, but we do have an appointment with her tonight :) How about conference? Quick story too.... I didn't have questions exactly, but was hoping that they would talk on a few specific things. Even though my testimony was stregthened from all the wonderful talks of the first day, no one had really talked about what I was looking for. I remember having the thought go throuh my mind before Priesthood that I need not worry because we still had a full day tomorrow. Low and behold, the first three talks was exactly what I was hoping for. My heart swelled. Ha! During Brother Callister (I think that is his name) with about 30-40 people in the chapel (most people watch it at home here too) I gave a fist pump into the air during the middle of the talk! I wish I had more time. I have so much to share and the Lord's work is growing everyday in the Madison first ward. I know that this is His work. He lives. I love you family!!! I hope all is well. -Elder Bowman omhiwdMb

September 21, 2011

HELLO FAMILY!!! Wow! is the field crazy or what?! So much different from the MTC. I'm in a ward in the city of Madison. There is a rocket business (kinda like ATK) or something like that in the city and they have a lot of LDSaints here so the like to think that this is Mormonville, but don't let the name fool ya. It is different from the true south, but when they said there was a lot of mormons, I guess our views were a little different. I love the ward and the area though! Goodness, I didn't want church to end yesterday! The speakers were awesome and the members had to be one of the most "friendshipiest" wards I've ever been too! Ha, in DP class the teacher had me say the opening prayer and when I was done he said, "Don't sit down! Come on up here. This is what a greeny is everyone!" Everyone got a pretty good kick out of me. I guess I was just a little excited to be there and like the song says, working like missionaries do. The work is great here! Like I said, a little different from what I thought it was going to be like, but the field is white! So with the time that I have I like to share my experience in the Temple. First of all, I can't express the small chance of me having gone to the temple while here. In my Pat. Blessing it says that I will have the opportunity to go inside many doors of the Houses of the Lord. That declared more truth to me my second day in the field. The temple is about as big as the monticello and we had two zones there. We had to use folding chairs in the rooms. Another small miracle accured when I was asked to be the first one to go through . . . because of where I was sitting. As I was in the Celestial Room by myself for maybe a minute of two, the thought of when I first went through ran through my mind. I remember being by myself in the terrestial room, having so many questions about the church. (Im running out of time) But at the same time I knew where my family was and that they were waiting for me. I then heard a voice say to me, If this is what followers of Christ do then I will obey. I then felt a warm hug and within moments, was with my family. As I was with myself, I thought of my family. Not just of my family right now, but of my eternal family. To wrap this up, I thought about how Heavenly Father knows exactly where all his children are and is waiting for us to come home. I love you family!!! I got to go! God be with you