This has been another fun week here in Jordan! I am really enjoying my time here and it seems to be just flying by. I thought the other day of how fast the weeks have been just flying by lately. It seems like the longer you have been out the faster the time seems to go by. My companion is still pretty new in the mission and is always talking about how slow the time is going by for him and I always get confused because it is just flying for me. It does seem like a long time ago, though, that I had my birthday. It was a great day for me here though. We had interviews with President Pagaduan in the morning... just the regular every other month interviews... nothing interesting happened. SO it was fun to see him and sister. Elder and Sister Dyer (the senior couple here) had made a delicious squash cake and had bought tons of fruit. So we got to eat grapes (first time I've had grapes since 2010) and had delicious cake. The cake tasted a whole lot like carrot cake... SO I had to tell everyone the story of when Dad made a carrot cake for a little girl that we home taught. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one. Sister Pagaduan also made me homemade brownies... DELICIOUS. The work even seemed to go super well that day and at the end of the day I went to a LA family's house and they made my favorite food. Bicol Express. Sister Ogaya made is just PERFECT too. I brought some candy for the kids too. I shared the Swedish Fish and the Gum balls. I also gave all the kids squirt guns... That was a big hit. It was quite the evening of good food and games. So I had a GREAT birthday and I will never forget turning 21 in Jordan. It was a fun fun day.
The work is still having a tough time here. It seems like anyone that we visit decides to stop going to church...haha. That is HORRIBLE. But seriously, out of EVERYONE we went and taught this last week 2 of them showed up at church yesterday. SO Elder Johnson and I sat down for a couple hours yesterday and had a long chat on how we needed to adjust what we were doing in order to get some different results and see some progression here. We figured out some important things that we feel our investigators and members maybe don't quite understand yet and we have set some goals to fix that. We taught some lessons last night as well and I feel like they went pretty well. To be fair to us... we have had some super weird weather and that might be contributing to why we are having a tough time. It has been storming all weekend long and it seems like ANY minute the heavens will just open up and pour down rain.
I think this is good for us here in Jordan though. We are learning a lot about how we need to change more and adapt more. My companion seems hesitant to ever change what he is doing so it has been tough to get him on board for the new plan. I don't mean to point fingers or anything but I can definitely see that this is something important for him to learn right now and when we can both be united in our change I expect to see the work take off. So I am trying my hardest to help him accept that we need to do things differently in order to expect something different to happen to us. So that is my main focus this week... to help the both of us change what we are doing and then we can expect different and better results.
We are, however, working our hardest and we are definitely not slacking work wise. We are tracting a lot and trying our very hardest to help others come closer to Christ. I just don't think we are doing it the most effective way right now. I, myself, am doing lots of thinking and studying on what exactly we need to be doing differently in order to help the people here change and repent. I feel like every area is different and what we did in Hamtic won't necessarily transfer to Jordan. So that is always tough and I don't feel like I am quite there yet. I don't understand how to help these people effectively yet. So that is another goal for this week. Strive for some more understanding and to act accordingly. So we still got lots of things to work out and I think we will get there slowly but surely. I feel like this area has kinda died... for like 3- 4 months now. It is just so hard to revive an area. My goal is to just get some life in it and to get things rolling... that will be a good accomplishment and then I can go home. Just like Hamtic... it was kinda dead and until right now it is just thriving. I still get emails from Elder Domincel and it is doing really well apparently. They are baptizing a guy that E Domincel and I started teaching and gave a baptismal date to. So that is super exciting! That is what I want to happen here in Jordan. Then I will be happy and content.
Well I am excited for another week of the missionary grind. I am sure this week will just absolutely fly by and then August will already have been started. This is CRAZY. Graham leaves in September and then I go home in October. It is sure going by quick. Also, I can't believe I almost forgot this... Elder David A. Bednar is visiting here on August 30! WHOOO!!! I will get to have an apostle visit the mission. We get a training from him on that day. I am so excited. And the funny thing is that if I didn't extend I would've flown home on August 29th. Would've missed him by one day.... in fact most of my batch is gonna miss an apostle visiting their mission by one day. HAHA SUCKERS! I am glad I chose to extend and I am sure I will love getting to see him. This is the first time an apostle of the Lord will ever set foot on the island of Panay. How cool is that? And I will be ther. If you remember too, he came and spoke to us in the MTC the week before I left to the Philippines nearly two ears ago. It will be sweet to be able to shake his hand and meet him for real this time. This is a nice end of the mission present from God.
Well I love you all and can't wait for next week's letters! I love and miss you all so much.
Halong,
Elder Lowry
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