8/18/14 - Photo from Oxford, MA

We made thank you cards for the members! Here is one of the photos. lol. Sister Boldt and I are having a joyous time on our missons!

Have a good day all! :)

Love Sister Bower

8/17/14 - Photo texted from a ward member

A Sister Burt from Oxford ward in MA just text this picture to me and said "I had your daughter over for dinner tonight and wanted to let you know she is doing great"

8/11/14 - Letter from Oxford, MA

Our week with our mini missionary was STELLAR. She is the best and I absolutely adore her. She is 16 years old and has long blonde Rapunzel hair. We told her that she sleeps like Sleeping Beauty, because every time we went to wake her up in the morning she would have her hair all majestically around her and her hands would be resting on top of her. SO CUTE. I remember one morning during studies, we were all on our knees to try and figure out what it was that Heavenly Father wanted us to share with this family. So while I was on my knees, Heavenly Father told me that our mini missionary would know. And in my head I just kept arguing with Heavenly Father saying that she wouldn't know because she had never met the family, and she was brand new and I didn't want to put her on the spot. But nothing else came to mind. So when we were all done praying, I looked up and immediately asked her what she thought we should share with this family. She sat there and pondered for a moment and then told us about a scripture that came to mind, and her experience with it. It turns out that that was the exact scripture that they needed to hear. It was AMAZING. She is a killer missionary.

I have an AMAZING experience to tell you about! So, this past Wednesday, we were able to go over to a family's home for dinner. After dinner, we shared a message with them about trials. The father is a tall, bald, has a go-t, has tattoo's all up and down his arms, and he is just really intimidating looking. WELL, he is the nicest man on the whole planet. He adores children, especially his and his wife's. They are the cutest family ever. He was baptized and received the priesthood not long after they were married. Well, he is now completely inactive. He says that he thinks he can be a better Catholic than a Mormon. He says that the Mormon church is just too overwhelming for him. His older son enjoys going to the LDS church, and has expressed interest to Sister Boldt and I about serving a mission when he turns 18. He is fifteen I believe, and he wants to serve a mission and receive the priesthood. He is just a good kid. And then his little son, who is 13, follows what his Dad does. The dad just received full custody over his boys not too long ago.  I don't want to go into detail about their story, but just know that they come from a very very hard life. ANYWAYS, back to when we were there teaching the lesson. Like I said, we were sharing a message on trials with them. Before we got there, Sister Boldt told me that she felt prompted to tell the family about her story. She didn't want to though. She didn't fully trust the father, and she thought that he would us it against her. We think that he views the two of us as two Molly Mormon's who are out serving a mission. He especially thinks that about Sister Boldt, since she is from Utah. So, Sister Boldt told me that she was absolutely not going to tell them about her story. During the message, I felt a prompting to tell Sister Boldt she needed to share her story with them. So I tapped her chair under the table so no one would see, and I knew she ignored me because she didn't want to say anything about it. But then the father told us that we should all share some of trials. And so he started with his boys, then told us his, then his wife told about one of her trials, and then I told mine, and then he looked at Sister Boldt with a grin on his face and asked to hear her trial. He was being rather joking about it, as if to say, "what can a Molly Mormon like you have anything to say abut trials?" Let me just say that Sister Boldt has never in her life cried when she has shared her story with anyone. She just doesn't cry. She has built this wall to block her emotions while she tells her life story. But it has been slowly breaking since we have met this family. So, Sister Boldt shared her story, and she was looking at his boys the whole time because I know that she finds comfort in talking to children. Children are her comfort spot. I, however, was looking at the father the whole time. I thought he would glance over at me because I was staring at him so much, but he was so completely glued to what Sister Boldt was saying, that nothing else mattered to him at that moment. I could physically see his wall come down, as tears poured down his face for this young girl who has had such a hard life, and was putting God first. Afterwards, we left them with a commitment to send up a prayer for help whenever they were to think of a trial or were going through one. The father has never agreed to any of our commitments, and he wasn't going to. He kept giving us excuse after excuse. So after Sister Boldt shared her story, we extended the commitment again. And he told us that he would do it. The spirit was so strong in that home. On the car ride home, we were asking our mini missionary what her impressions were, and what she thought everyone was thinking and feeling. Eventually, I turned around to look at her as she answered and saw her with tears rolling down her face that she couldn't stop from coming. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "I just love them so much, and I have never even met them before. I would do anything in the world for them! And I hardly know them." A smile spread across Sister Boldt's and my own face. We knew how she was feeling, because that was how we felt the first time we met them too. I can honestly say, that I would jump in front of a bullet for this family, because I love them so much. And as scary as that is, it is truly amazing to be able to feel that way. Because not only do you feel your own love for this family, but you can feel just a fraction of the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus have for this family. I can't even imagine how much love our Heavenly Father has for them. I wish I knew, and I wish I could wrap my head around it. Moving forward to yesterday, Sunday the 10th. We were putting our things down in our seats, when we turned around and saw the wife from the family we had this experience there, with a big grin on her face. She doesn't come to church much, because the father didn't go. So we were glad to see her there. But then, the youngest son came up to us and was so excited to see us! Sister Boldt and I were amazed, because we never thought in our whole mission that we would see that little boy at church. So we told him that we would sit with him and the mom and his brother. When we all sat down together in the chapel, She looked at us and said, "that is not enough seats, we need one more." Sister Boldt and I looked at each other with confusion because both of her own children where either in Sweden with their grandparents, or at their dad's house for the weekend. And as we both looked up, there walked in the father with the biggest smile I have ever seen in my life. I immediately had tears in my eyes, and so did Sister Boldt. He came over and shook our hands, he was so happy that he almost gave me a hug, and then he remember that he couldn't. I wish I could have given him a hug though! But anyways, he shook our hands and told us that if Sister Boldt could come to church after all that she has been through, then so could he. And he told us that he was back. That day was the best day of my whole mission. Sister Boldt and I literally went home that day and jumped on our beds and were so happy that we were LITERALLY, bouncing with joy! We thanked Heavenly Father many times that day. It was truly amazing. I wish you could experience the love that we have for this family. I truly wish that you could understand the excitement and joy and love that I feel for these people. It is my favorite part about being a missionary. I just adore and love it so much.

Well, that is all I have time for this week. I love and miss you all terribly!

Love Always,

Sister Bower

8/4/2014 - letter and photo from Oxford, MA

My week has been super busy, as usual. On Monday we finally just relaxed. We haven't had a relaxing P-day in a long time. In fact, today is going to be rather stressful but it will be good stress. And do ya' wanna know why?! Because Sister Boldt and I are getting a mini missionary today! We are picking her up at 1 o'clock today in Stafford. She is from somewhere in Connecticut, and is coming to join us Monday through Friday! It is SO exciting. We already have some good pranks lined up for her. It should be loads of fun. I am so EXCITED that Kaitlyn is going on a mini mission! And I am more excited that they do those in Washington! They are HUGE here in New England, everybody does them. So I am super excited for Kaitlyn. Too bad she couldn't do it for a little longer. Being a missionary is the best thing EVER! AH! I AM SSOOOOOO EXCITED FOR HER!! It is so much fun!!! She is going to love it :D

We were going to teach young women's yesterday but we got some bad news instead. So yesterday, we got to church and they announced that there had been a death. The story is this: The past week was girls camp. All the girls had had a very spiritual and fun time at camp, and were all on a spiritual high. One of the Camp Leaders was expressing how stressed she was about going back home because they were going to have to pack up their whole house because they were moving. Instead of packing, she and her daughter had come to girls camp. On the way home from camp, both the Young women's leader and her 16 year old daughter were killed in a car accident. It was a five car crash, and they both died instantly. The whole testimony meeting at church that day was very sad, and very touching. All of the young women were in tears through out the day, as you can imagine. After sacrament, we carried on and went to Gospel Principles, which Sister Boldt and I have been teaching consistently because our Ward Mission Leader has been out of town. After that, we proceeded to go teach Young Women's. After all of the announcements, the Bishop and his counselors came in and talked to the young women about what had happened. I thought that it was so amazing of Bishop. He let the girls share their feelings, and then taught a lesson on the Plan of Salvation. It was amazing to see how he comforted the Young Women. You could literally see all of their shoulders relax a little as they talked about their friend, Rachel, and her mother. So no, we did not get to teach Young Women's, but it was an amazing experience to see how these girls handled the passing of a friend. We will be teaching young women's next week and have a lesson prepared on "Why Families are Important" and "How We Can Strengthen Our Families". It will be a stellar lesson :)

Some more good and bad news. One of our investigators has been coming to church every Sunday. He is awesome! However the adversary has been working very hard on him. This last lesson we had with him was awesome (every lesson we have with him is awesome, actually). We addressed the topic of his smoking and his drinking coffee. He wants to quit. In fact, his ex girlfriend that he is living with, has a disease called Lupus.  Well, unfortunately, it has been getting worse. The doctor told her that the only way it is going to start going away and the medication is going to help, is if she stopped smoking. So, our investigator, and his brother (who is always over at their house, I don't know why, but he was able to sit in on the lesson with us which was superb!) are going to stop smoking to show support and help her not smoke. We were able to teach him and his brother about the first part of the plan of salvation and talked about the atonement and how the Savior has gone through what they are going through. So, Sister Boldt and I made an addiction chart and are going to drop it off at his house later tonight. We are also sending them morning texts to not drink coffee and have a cigarette when they wake up. It has been helping a lot.

(Note from the editor: Sister Bower's mom received a call to be a ward missionary...)

You will be an amazing ward missionary! It is the best calling ever! You get to see so many investigators grow and change their lives for the better. And you grow to love them like your Heavenly Father would. Just remember to always look at them or try to find qualities in them that Heavenly Father has given them. Always look at the good and think of ways that you can help improve their lives. Bear your testimony often, it will not only bless them but it will bless you. There are only two major things that Heavenly Father needs missionaries to do:

1.) Invite others to come unto Christ

2.) Bear testimony

Those are the most powerful things that you can do :) AGH!!! I wish I could see you go out with the missionaries! I wish you could come out with Sister Boldt and I! That would just be so much fun.

Sister Boldt has taught me a lot these past couple weeks. I love her to death. She has taught me more about myself and has helped me see me how I really am, than I ever could in my whole life. Although it is very hard and I don't enjoy change, I love Sister Boldt for pushing me and helping me through it. She is the best companion I could ever imagine. Actually, I probably couldn't imagine her, because that is how great she is. I wish you could meet her.

Keep me posted on the life of all you Washington people :) I love and miss you!

Love Sister Bower :)

Sorry, I would send you more pictures but we have to go pick up our mini missionary! So I decided to send you at least one so that you know that I am still alive :)

P.s. Do you like my shirt? Sister Boldt and I bought a couple of matching things. Like this shirt. ALso a cardigan, a bracelet, and a pair of earings. So some days we are all matchy and it is super fun :)

7/28/14 - Photo from Oxford, MA

This is part of my District. There are two other sisters but they are taking the picture, and only took one! And it was one where we are all talking or are in the middle of doing something so we all look goofy! lol. But the one with the red tie is Elder Davey, he is awesome and is an amazing piano player. The one next to him what has brown skin and a purple tie, that is Elder Rivera. He is a Mexican with an English accent. SO COOL. He is the bomb.com and makes everyone feel included. He is getting transferred though, which is sad. Elder Pope is the one in the grey suit next to my companion and I. He is the nicest guy I have ever met, and has the guiltiest conscience EVER. It is so funny. He apologizes for everything, it cracks me up. He is a good kid. Elder Trujillo is the one sitting on the ground. He is such an awkward guy, which makes me just love him. He is hilarious, and I am sad to see him be transferred. Then the other two sisters are behind the camera. I will miss having this district, and am not too excited to start over in making friends. But I am glad that Elder Pope, and Elder Davey are staying. Plus my companion and I and one of the other sisters. 

7/28/14 - Email from Oxford, MA

Sister Boldt is STILL my companion, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that! I love her. She is the best, and I am always learning so much from her. She says she is learning a lot from me, but I feel like I never do anything so I don't know what she is talking about.

Zone P-day was SUPER fun :) We went out to this big field and had a glorious time! There is this super long trail that we walked up to go to the campfire area and we made Kabob's and played games up there. After we ate, we went to this swamp area and played an interesting game that me and a couple of others (including elders) refused to play. But it was super fun to watch. So what we did was you had to climb down into this swamp, that was more mud than anything. But it was disgusting. And there were two crates that the elders placed down there. The goal was to stand on one of the crates, and another person stood on a crate across from you. Then you played tug of war and tried to pull the other person in the mud while balancing on the crate at the same time. It was really funny to watch some of the elders get pretty muddy.

Afterwards we went back out to the field and we all played some soccer and threw around a Frisbee at the same time, so there were two games going on at once, which was super fun :) Plus, the elders were going around spraying everyone with silly string, so that was fun as well. I am so grateful for my district leader, Elder Trujillo. He always makes sure that I am included in the activities - so I am very sad that the elder that I am good friends with is being transferred. But he has been here for 5 transfers so everyone knew he was leaving the area. But it is still sad. After all of that, we played a game where you tossed eggs at your companion and had to catch them without letting them crack. WELL. I can tell you now that I smelled really bad of eggs all day long, and went to an appointment afterwards in my church clothes, still smelling like bad eggs. Sister Boldt and I tossed three eggs......and all three splattered on me. So after the third time, I started throwing the eggs that were all over me at the Elders. They thought that me being splattered in eggs was the funniest thing..... SOOOOOO, I might have possible started an egg fight with the elders... hahahaha!!!! It was super fun though!

We also went to a zone conference, and that meeting lasted ALL DAY. But it was fun to hang out with some of the missionaries that I knew in the MTC. After zone conference though, Sister Boldt and I went to dinner with a bunch of Elders. They wanted to go to subway. Well let me tell you something, as a missionary, we eat subway TOO MUCH. I am kind of sick of it! We had had it twice the week before, and then that made it a third time. We eat subway at least once a week. The reason why, is because every Friday we have District meetings, which are far away from home for all of us, so we just eat subway together every Friday. It is kind of sad. But oh well. ANYWAYS, we went to the mall to get some Subway after zone conference, and it was really weird because we were just a group of missionaries in the mall. And the mall for a missionary, is like sin city. That is what it feels like. It is weird. You don't notice certain things in life until your a missionary, and then you are all weirded out by all these worldly things that people do or that occur in our generation. But anyways, it was really fun :)

Hmmmm, what else did we do this week? I don't remember! AAAGGGHHH!!!

Oh I know. So in our mission we have started this new thing for recent converts. Once a month, there is a Recent Convert Baptismal Day, which is when if you have a recent convert you take them to the temple so that they can participate in baptisms for the dead. It is a wonderful experience :) I was able to see Elder Perkes there! He is one of the missionaries I served with in the MTC. He is a greenie just like me, and his trainer is getting transferred. CRAZY! Especially since you are supposed to have your trainer for at least two transfers. It is fun being a missionary and going to the temple. I just love it so much! It is a completely different experience than just being a regular Joe like the rest of the world.

We taught [one of our investigators] this week. Things in his family life just aren't going well. So before we went to teach him, we decided to talk about trials. WELL, when we got there, he pretty much told us that Satan was working so hard against him and that he just had to stay strong and keep having faith in God. In the middle of our lesson he was SO FUNNY. He always gets so excited when we teach him. He literally stood up and said loufly, "Man! I love being a Mormon!" It was SO hilarious. Of course, we are going to remind him that he still has to be baptized to officially be a member, but it was still funny. However, we think that he might have some Word of Wisdom problems.... possibly with smoking. So we are going to talk about that next time we go over this week. I wish you could experience it with me as I watch all of these people grow so much. I love it.

All trials are there for our benefit. I have learned something about trials. Everyone says that Heavenly Father will never give you something that you can't handle. Well, I think that is a false statement. I think that He DOES give us things we can't handle so that we can learn to rely on Him. He is the reason our burdens are made light, so why wouldn't He want us to fully put our faith in Him? And He does it out of love too. There is always something to learn from a trial. And I think that although trials are hard, that we should start looking at them differently. I think we should look at them with a positive outlook rather than negative. Like I said, Heavenly Father gives us trials because He trusts us enough to go through them and learn and grow from them. I think that is a blessing in of itself.

I hope you have a splendid week!!!!

Email from Oxford, MA

Okay. So let me just start out with telling you what it feels like to truly be a missionary. Your days feel like weeks and your weeks feel like days. I don't even know what happened during which day this week. It just feels like one big blur, and let me tell you, Sister Boldt and I are SO TIRED. I feel like I am going to collapse at any minute.

I have found out what my mission is for. It is for two reasons. One - so that I can help my companions, because I know that I will have a great influence over them. Heavenly Father has told me several times. And also, I was going over the notes from when I was being set apart as a missionary, and in that blessing it told me that I was going to be a great influence for those who come from broken homes, and I will have a huge effect on them and their families, because through me, they will know the importance of eternal families. So that is my mission. I am her for my companion, the youth/children, and families. I don't know how I am going to do all that Heavenly Father wants me to, but I have already agreed to do whatever He asks me. Even if it is the last thing I ever want to do.

Exchanges went SO GOOD. I was able to do more than I realized, and although it made me exhausted beyond belief, I am glad that I was able to experience it. Sister Patterson was my companion for the day, and she is incredibly nice! I could have spent another day with her.

So on Wednesday, (I think it was Wednesday? I don't remember.....) Sister Boldt and I had to go to a meeting called Return and Report. It is for all of the new missionaries and their trainers to attend. Basically we have a lesson from President, and the AP's. Then our trainers leave the room and we ask any questions we want. Her and I are extremely blessed. While everyone was complaining, I had nothing to complain about or ask questions about. She said all of the trainers in the other room were asking questions about how to make their companionships better, and Sister Boldt said she had no complaints of questions about me either. We are lucky. I was able to see Sister Watts, my first companion from the MTC. She was SO happy to see me! She is one of the best missionaries around, and one of my best friends.

After the meeting we all went and did a session at the temple. It was SO AMAZING. The Boston temple is beautiful. I loved it. It was so amazing to go and do a session with only missionaries. I wish you could have experienced it with me. It was the coolest thing, and it was the strongest spirit I have ever felt when we all went to the Celestial room.

OH! and guess what happened when we were driving on the way to the meeting. Sister Boldt missed the entrance to the church, so instead of turning around on the highway and being late, she parked in the temple parking lot. Well, once we got out of the car, it started to drizzle. Sister Boldt looked at me and all she said was "oh no, RUN!" and she took off running to the church on this tiny little path that curved every which way! It literally POURED on us. And we were running in PENCIL SKIRTS. It was HORRIBLE. We got the chapel and got to a door only to find out it was locked, so we had to run all the way to the other side of the building. It was so embarrassing when we walked in because we were soaked. Everyone just looked at us and asked, "Is it raining outside?" Sister Boldt and I looked at each other and then looked at them like "really, are you REALLY asking that question?!" Because we were drenched.

Saturday, was also amazing! So long story short, Sister Boldt taught a family up in the New Hemisphere (I think she means New Hampshire?) area, and they were completely inactive. Saturday, we were both able to attend their family getting sealed in the temple. It was so beautiful. I have never been to a sealing before (obviously) but it was truly and amazing experience and it just gave me a stronger testimony of me wanting to get married in the temple. They had five little children, and one on the way. It was amazing to see all of them kneel across the alter. It was truly and amazing day.

Yesterday, I was able to help teach the lesson this time in the missionary class at church. Last time I didn't talk at all, and this time Sister Boldt said I did much better. She said that when I was bearing my testimony about something that one of the woman was almost in tears. I didn't even notice. I don't even remember ANYTHING that I said. But I am glad that I was apparently able to touch someone's heart. I thought that I was just blabbering on and on. But apparently I did a splendid job. We get asked to teach class a lot on the fly. It is scary for me. But I just follow whatever Sister Boldt does and wing it with her. It is always an interesting time.

OH! I remember another thing we did this week. We attended a funeral. That was rather sad. But it was a lovely service and everyone was glad that the old guy finally went. He was in a lot of pain. Apparently his non member wife, who wanted nothing to do with the Mormon's wants to get baptized now. Miracles are everywhere in this mission, even when things are sad, people can see the Lord's hand in their lives. It is truly amazing. I love being a missionary :) Even though some days I am like "what the heck am I doing out here in Massachusetts, all the way in the middle of no where?" But I know that I am being blessed.