Plenty Kine Pigs..Big Island Thats Why

This week was very busy (when isnt it in Honolulu😉) but we started the week with District meeting on Monday and we talked about personal revelation with our phenomenal district leader, Elder Lidang, who I also found out is going home with me in November! Then had a day full of lessons and ended it with our flooded washer haha. Tuesday was P-day with the temple and stopping along the way home for pictures, lunch, and dessert. The Bendixens spoil us rotten 😊.

Wednesday we started the day with volleyball for morning excersize with the Elders, had lots of morning appointments (we didnt even have time to stop for lunch haha) and then at about 2 Sister Eberhard said she felt like she was going to pass out and she had a heat rash all over her legs. Pretty sure she got heat stroke... so we went home and while she slept I used the mission office carper cleaner and cleaned the carpets in our apartment. The church just needs to buy me my own, I think I'm the only missionary that uses it haha😂 We visited more people after dinner and planned our training for Zone Conference with the Zone Leaders for Friday. 

Thursday we had meetings all day. We had the Honolulu West zones interviews where we check their planning and device audit their phones, then we had personal studies,

Branch Corrilation meeting, Branch Counsel, training prep with the zone leaders, and a Relief Society Activity. We played Book of Mormon Jeopardy with the youth and Relief Society because they arent big enough groups to do it separately, and me and Sister Eberhard couldnt believe how little the active members knew. It reminded me of a couple of weeks ago when AP Elder Dushku was tellings us how surprising it was to teach active members the message of the Restoration. When you ask what happened in the first vision a lot of the time they will say things like, "Yeah so Joseph Smith was praying and 2 angels came down with the golden tablets, right?" It just makes us appreciate how well we were taught and for the Book of Mormon childrens videos. I still picture those when I read or describe Book of Mormon stories. I never understood how well you taught our family about the gospel, what we have is very unique and I plan on raising my children the way we were raised. The gospel isnt just a Sunday religion, its everything and we need to talk about it and live like its everything to us. Thank you for your examples of that. 😊❤ 

Friday was zone conference, we had such a great time and I learned so much. It was Sister Chappels last zone conference and I spent as much time as I could being with her and laughing with her. I am going to miss her more than I can describe. 😔 We gave our training on having the spirit at all times and I always remember trainings better when we do role plays and activities, rather than when the ZLs and STLs would just talk, so we made sure to do lots of that and our zone responded really well to it. We did one role play to learn how to re-direct a "Portagee" investigator, which means they talk A LOT. We had Elder Lidang be the investigator and his Pidgin was AMAZING hahahahaha, hence the subject title. If you didnt understand that last sentence I'll explain better when i get home.😂😉🤙I had the idea to play the game "Signs" for a few minutes to demonstrate the need for us missionaries to always be paying attention to the spirit so we dont "miss" when the spirit "throws us a sign". I couldnt help but think back to trek and how your family would always play that. I look back with fondness at summers because of camps and youth conferences like those. I am so blessed to have been raised the way I was 😁❤ 

Friday night one of the members from Sister Eberhards old ward picked us up and took us to dinner. Now, Waikiki is a "Red Zone" which means you cannot even drive through it as missionaries, BUT if a member takes you in for  dinner or a lesson we are allowed to go. So Sister Hill picked us up and took us to Cheesecake Factory for dinner!!! It was great but honestly one of the strangest experineces of my mission. Waikiki is like a city within a city. I felt like we were in a completely different  place from the Honolulu I know. Its like disneyland and I half expected a parade to start down the middle of the road at any second. Dinner was delicious and I'm glad I got to see Waikiki at least once before going home. 

Saturday was a regular day for proselyting but Sarurday night we were ushers for a concert in our tabernacle and it WAS PHENOMENAL. They had Member professional broadway soloists sing songs from Mama Mia, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and a full blown orchestra! The orchestra was amazing, they come from The University of Hawaii and the conductor is a member but the perfemors are not and they volunteer to put on this free show at the Tabernacle. My favorite part was when the orchastra played The Pirates of the Caribbean and the intro song to all the disney movies:  Goes like, "Dun dun dun dun dun du dun a dududududuuuuu... bom bom bom bommmm." Hahaha I dont know what that is called😂😂. Anyway it was superb 😊

Sunday we taught the lesson for the third week in a row spontaneously. Its always fun to turn to my companion and say "Plan of Salvation?" Or "Restoration?" And he say "Yup lets do it" and just drand up and teach a 45 minute lesson. Being a missionary keep you on your toes and I love that.😁
I love being a missionary and I feel your prayers everyday, thank you for all you taught me! I love you and Miss you❤❤

Aloha,
Sister Bowen 

Photos: Church, Some of the girls Im an STL over, Our zone :), Cheesecake Factory in Disneyla..I mean Waikiki 

Iakwoe, Kasilelia, Ran allim, and Alooooha 😄

This week was fabulous and I hope my email can capture some of how amazing my mission experince is to send home :)

Monday we started off the week right with hiking up Manoa Falls again. Its definitley one for the books, I always feel like I just walked into jurassic park. Afterwards we did some grocery shopping, emailed, and went and got shave ice (Utah Translation: Amazing Snow Cones). The best part of the day was when we went to Goodwill (Hawaiian version of Savers) and I found a really cute dress but there was no barcode tag on it so the manager just gave it to me for $2. 😁🤙The Lord loves me haha.

Tuesday we had a fabulous district meeting with our new District Leader, Elder Lidang. Elder Lidang is one of the most amazing people I've ever met. He attended Standford before his mission, fluently speaks 6 langauges, and is a convert from being Jehovah Witness. I love his trainings and cant help but take tons of notes. One of my favorite things he talked about had to do with personal revelation. He started off by asking, "Who has seen the Missouri river?" I of course proudly raised my hand. He said, "Sister Bowen, if you stood in the middle of the Missouri river and held out your hands and tried to stop it from flowing would you be able to stop it?" Then he talked about how in D and C 121 the Lord tells us he has so much revelation to give us, it would be like trying to stop the Missouri river there would be so much. He's just waiting for us to ask. He explained it better but I thought that was really cool imagery. Tuesday Sister Eberhard and I also did a really intense service project for the mission. The missionaries have a room in the mission office where they put everything they dont want anymore and can take whatever others have left behind. The picture doesnt do it justice of how much of a mess it was. Its supposedly Sister Walkers job to keep it clean but Sister Walkers has the least amount of time out of anyone so we cleaned it as a service project. It took a few hours and after 6 bags to goodwill and 3 to the trash, it was looking good. :) Well see how long that lasts after this next transfer of missionaries goes home... ;)

Wednesday and Friday this week we had exchanges with the Halawa sisters and the Auialimu sisters. I stayed in Honolulu for both exchanges with the 2 greenies being trained. Wednesday I was with Sister Mateus Nobre, from Brazil and she has never been out of Brazil before, so it was fun to see her be so excited about everything. One miracle we had was when we went to visit Clairence, an older man who LOVES our pamphlets because they are in jis Kosrae language. He told us to go back Wednesday and when we knocked a teenage girl answered the door and told us he was at the beach. Obviosuly i was a little upset with Clairence but it happens, so as we began asking if she could tell Clairence we had stopped by she said in her broken English, "Can you come in and teach me instead?" Of course we were happy to so we went in, sat down and just like that shared one of the most spiritual Restoration lessons Ive ever had on my mission. She thanked us over and over and Ive never seen somebody so excited to recieve their own free Book of Mormon. She was so excited to have it in her language too. We have our next appointment with her tomorrow and I am excited to see her again. 😊

Friday I was with Sister Niualiku, a Tongan sister who fell in love with our Micronesian area and the kids here and didnt want to go back to area. Haha I am reminded more and more everyday how lucky I am to be serving here in Honolulu, it's the best place to be.😊

Saturday we worked with Sister Bendixen to make mustache cookies for all the Dads in our branch and it was really fun to hand them out Sunday to our 

Members as well as to random Dads we met street proselyting. The Bendixens are so amazing, they are my Hawaiian grandparents ans they are always looking for ways to serve us and thr members of our branch. Saturday we had lots of appointments as usual but the two that stood out the most was a lesson with thr Thomas family and Linsel's family. The Thomas family consists of 6 or 7 kids that are all learning about the gospel and love it. They come to church almost every week and always sit around us in a big circle during out lessons and ask great questions. We talked a lot about Baptism and Missionary work and the temple this week and they were asking question after question, really good questions and I loved feeling the spirit as they got excited about baptism. Its a hard decision we have to make because they have been taught all the lessons, come to church and have permission from their parents to be baptized but their parents are interested in coming to church and dont listen to most of the lessons. We dont want to baptized any kids in this area that arent going to be taught and shown at home how ro live the gospel and continue growing their testimony. But for now we are doing our best to teach them all that we can.

Last, Linsel is a recent convert and super awesome. Her two little boys are the cutest boys I have ever met and their favorite game to play with us is "Down by the banks" hahaha. Heres some pictures of their adorableness.

Sunday we stopped by Jayann and Justino and Jayzareens house and brought a game we found in the costco room while cleaning it. We played "Guess Who" for a little bit and although it was a little too mentally intense for Justino, Jayzareen is so sharp and she did a great job.😉 She texted us later and asked if we were coming again tomorrow. I am so glad we are someone she can look up to as examples and someone she knows loves her in her world where there is nobody else she can look to. 

Monday night was....eh....exciting ;) We were doing language study at about 8:30 at night and as we were studying I suddenly heard water splashing on the floor and the spirit immediatly told me a dish had plugged the sink and it was overflowing (our washer dumps all the rinsed water into the sink to drain). Before I even registered what was happening, I was running across the room and threw my hands into the kitchen sink to grab out the dish. Sure enough, the sink had completely filled and was dumping water EVERYWHERE. Sister Eberhard at this point asks me what wrong and jumps up to see our tiny kitchen drowning in itself. She panicked quite a bit and didnt know what the problem was but by that time the sink started draining and we were left to sop up water for the next hour. Fun times haha. I was laughing and after a while Sister Eberhard started laughing too. It made me feel really good to be working together as a companionship to fix a problem together. It made me realize that although life is tough and a lot happens, like having a flooding kitchen, it will be nice to have my future eternal companion to be there so we can fix it together. 😊👍

Last but most definitley not least, we had P-day today because we had temple trip today!!!! I have missed the temple so much and it was great to go to the temple and thank my Heavenly Father for blessing me with so much, including my testimony which is such a precious gift to me, i cant imagine who i would be without it. After the temple the Bendixens, who drove us up, tooks us to lunch at Seven Brothers and dessert at Angels, 2 of Laies greatest eats 😉😋. It was a fun day and I cannot believe its week 5 of the transfer...Sister Eberhard goes home in less than 2 weeks and today is my 14 month mark. Time flies when youre serving the Lord. 😊

Its always busy here in Honolulu with all of our appointments and exchanges and duties as STLs as well as zone conference and temple trip this week, but thats exactly how I like it. The Lord was so involved in the arrangment of having me serve in Honolulu at this time and I am so grateful for that. I love how involved my Heavenly Father is in my life. He always has been, but now I recognize it, and I am so grateful for it. 😊 

I love you so much and I hope you have a good week. The missionaries on big island are still okay despite the Lava and Im still loving this prime time of my mission. Keep kulia i ka nuu😊.

Sister Bowen

P.S. if you have any diet or weight lose tips please let me know. Im not too worried about my weight, I know ill lose it when I get home, buuuut I did eat cheesy fries with bacon and a dole whip for lunch so it would be greatly appreciated. 😅 

linsel and boys 

Happy Fathers Day 

before and after of the costco room 

Hike and Shave ice last P-day 😋❤👌

Baptism x2

Ran Allim! 🌺

This week is a hard one to describe. Ive never felt so much joy and heartache at the same time. Joy, yes. Heartache, absolutley. But they dont usually happen within a day of eachother. Lets start with the joy :)

Wednesday our whole zone went to Pearl Harbor for service and got a tour of the ship (NOT a boat, I was corrected by one of the Navy gals haha) "The Missouri" and for our service we did yardwork and cut down a bunch of Papaya trees. I had a moment while I was picking up some fallen coconuts and stepping around pineapple plants where I felt so much gratitude for where I serve. I don't usually focus on the place where I'm serving in my emails home because that isnt whats as important, but I feel so much gratitude to my Heavenly Father for sending me to such an incredible mission! I work in perfect weather and see the ocean everyday. I am so lucky and I'm excited to someday be able to show you all that I'm experiencing 😊

Thursday JUSTINO AND JAYANN WERE BAPTIZED AND I HAVE NEVER FELT SO PROUD!!! They were so excited to wear their baptism suits and I have never felt so happy at a baptism. These kids have become my kids and I am going to miss them so much. The baptism went very smoothly and Sister Eberhard and I gave the talks on Baptism and The Holy Ghost. I gave them a picture frame with a picture of all of us at the temple and Kit Kats to remember their baptism covenants. K - Keep the Commandments, A - Always remember him, T - Take his name upon us. The spirit was strong and I loved how proud they were to have gotten baptized afterwards. 😊

Friday we went on another exchange and I spent the day in Aiea with a newer Sister, Sister Fitisemanu. Shes the one that wrote the 10 commandments song and she is a really hard worker, I loved spending the day with her. Their area is starting from scratch so we tracted thr whole day. I got very sunburned and lots of great quotes for my journal. My favorites include: "Don't come to my house!... Honey its the Mormons. We need to get a sign for the front door." And, Me: "Hi!" Guy: "Bye!" Guys Wife: "That was so mean!" We also ran into a 7th Day Adventist and ended up talking to him for 45 minutes on the sidewalk. Hot, but I'm glad he has now had a good experinec with missionaries he can think about until his next encounter. Overall we placed 5 Book of Mormons and had a great time together, I love going on exchanges and experiencing different areas. 😊


This week we also set our investigator Mercy with a baptismal date for June 30th and we are SO excited!! She wasnt sure for a few weeks if her husband would be okay with her being baptized but she finally got a yes from him and shes really excited to be baptized. Mercy is basically a member and comes to church every Sunday but now she gets the blessings of having the Holy Ghost so we are super excited! At her lesson last week her grandaughter was playing with toys on the floor and Mercy says, "Hey Marciann." Then she held up 1 finger and Marciann says, "Only 1 God." Then Mercy holds up 2 fingers and Marciann says, "Only pray to God" etc. etc. Hahahaha It was amazing! This 5 year old can name the whole 10 commandments in order because of the song we showed them and it made me so happy.

Last but not least, we had 6 investigators at sacrament meeting this week and Justino and Jayann were confirmed. A great end to a great week. 😊

This week we also lost 2 Elders in our zone, Elder Faalava'au had to go home for heart surgery and Elder Castagno, our district leader and one of my really close friends, left without telling anyone. Me and Sister Eberhard along with everyone in the zone are really really sad that hes gone. Elder Castagno was so fun and always told us how awesome we were and he taught us how to play pool and made us laugh and now hes gone. I saw him change so much and right when we thought he was changing and maturing and becoming so much more than he was before, he left without telling anybody but the zone leaders and his companion. I know hes doing whats right but we still miss him a lot. 

Sister Iino, my trainer, was also in town this past week and we got to go to breakfast with her! She is getting married next month and is still her sassy self. She told me she was talking to one of the Ewa Beach Sisters, Sister Barber, about me and Sister Barber goes, "Sister Bowen is still on her mission? Sister Bowen has been a missionary FOREVER." Haha feels that way sometimes Sister Barber but I wouldnt want it any other way. I'm going to miss being a missionary more than I can say. I think that may be why seeing Elder Castagno go home and watching Sister Chappel and Sister Eberhard prepare to pau their missions has been so hard for me. I'm realizing that my mission is going to end eventually and I'll never have this experience again. Andy from The Office once said, "I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them." Im living in the good old days and preparing for the end, but I'm lucky to be realizing that now and doing my best to make everyday count. 😊❤

I love this gospel and I have such a strong testimony of Love and Sacrifice and Forgivness. How lucky I am to do those same things that my Savior did for me, he is my best friend and I know hes watching out for me and my family, we have nowhere to turn but to him. My favorite scripture is John 6:68, "To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Mahalo Nui Loa for all you sacrifice for me to be out here, my mission has been the best experince of my whole life and I owe coming and staying out here to my amazing parents who raised me to trust that my Savior will help me wherever I go as long as I trust in and follow him in return.

Love you so much ❤😚😄👍🌺
Sister Bowen

Ran Allim

Ran Allim!

This weeks theme for Bowens in Hawaii and Bowens in Utah: CHILDREN. ❤😉

Sorry I failed to mention last week that yesterday was MLC so our P-day was moved today! I am so grateful to be apart of such an amazing mission with such an inspired Mission President. I was talking to one of the Assisstance to the President, Elder Dushku, and he said that the revelation that President Bekker recieves for every missionary individually is miraculous and there is no way that he is leading this mission without the help of our Heavenly Father and Savior right by him. His words, righteous playfulness, and spirit strengthen my testimony so much in the organization of the church and power of being set apart in a calling in this church. Whatever we are called to do comes with promises and help. I have also seen that in my own calling another week as a missionary here in good old Honolulu 😊

I cant believe a whole family is staying with you!!! Thats A*M*A*Z*I*N*G that you are letting them stay, wow you are great 😍😊 Im glad all is well and I still cant believe Amber is married! Lets just say for now a mission is exactly where I need to be 😉

This week was a special week, especially for our Chuukese famini.❤ So first, some bullet pointed blessings:

1) Our with-dates, Jayann and Justino Anser are getting baptized this Thursday, June 7th, and we are SO PWAPWA about it!!

2) Also, their grandma recently moved in with them but only speaks Chuukese -- and yet, she is always so happy when we come and shows so much interest in learning too! We have felt bad that we haven't been able to communicate/teach her much, so we asked about her reading in the Book of Mormon. We came to find out that she has poor eyesight and the words on the page were hard for her to read. Sister Eberhard remembered some cheap reading glasses she left behind in her last area, so we called up those sisters and got them! When we took them back to auntie, she put them on, with the biggest smile on her face, and could not put down her Book of Mormon after that. She was amazed, and so grateful. I find it pretty amazing that we could tell how much that simple act of service meant, without the use of words ❤ She's been reading everything we've given her since!

3) We had plans to set Mercy with a baptism date, and we had forgotten that we had assigned a specific chapter for Mercy to read in our previous visit, so when we followed up on her reading, we were pleasantly surprised to hear about the story of Alma, teaching and baptizing at the waters of Mormon. It led perfectly into our discussion about baptism. We re-read some of the verses in that chapter, and used some other scriptures to answer her other questions. The Spirit was very powerful, and I felt prompted to have her recall the feelings she felt when we took her to the Temple. We once again extended the invitation to follow Jesus Christ through baptism, but this time she said "Yes." ❤ She still wants to make sure her husband is okay with it before setting a specific date, but aaaahhhhhhh we are so happy for her!

4) Another cool story with Mercy: We went back for a lesson on Friday, and inquired about her asking her husband for permission. Her husband's health has been declining pretty rapidly recently, so he isn't very coherent or responsive. However, Mercy is determined to make sure he agrees with her decision before she does anything. She told us that when she had explained her desire to be baptized, she asked him to say "yes or no". The first time she did this, he didn't do anything -- almost like he hadn't heard her. But this time she said that he smiled at her, and nodded his head slowly. So she asked again, and said "Yes or No?" And again, he simply smiled at her and nodded his head once. She is so determined to ask until he physically says "yes", but Sister Eberhard and I knew that his response was an answer from our Heavenly Father. 

5) Saturday was one of the highlights of my whole mission😊 It was Jayanns 13th birthday and we wanted to take her and her siblings to the Laie temple. They have never been outside of Honolulu and they dont understand that they live in the most desired vacation spot in the world. We surprised them an hour before with a chocolate chip Eggo waffle breakfast (with whipped cream of course)! And I have never seen kids so excited, I think it may have been a 'Little Princess' moment for them which breaks my heart more than I can express but I'm glad we get to spend time with them. They have never had a fun day like this and we wanted to make it extra special. (They were even all awake BEFORE we got there which showed us even more how excited they were! Jayann (the birthday girl) answered the door and was all done up in a cute outfit which made me so happy to see how excited she was😊) Because they have very little, birthdays arent really a thing for them, but we were determined to make this one special. We got them all ready to go, and Jayann was so proud of her Birthday balloon she tied it to her wrist for our trip up to Laie😊 (I'll attach pictures) We had such a wonderful time together, and the kids were in Heaven! It was a day that they are never going to forget and a day I'm never going to forget either. I love them with all my heart and I'm so grateful Heavenly Father has let me be apart of their lives, even if its only for a short while.❤

6) JUSTINO GOT A HAIRCUT. At first, we thought he was keeping it long because he liked it that way, but we decided to ask him if he wanted it cut for his baptism and he said "Oh yeah, I was worried it was going to be sooo long..." hahaha So, right after our Temple Trip, the Elders came over and gave our little man a new-do! It was so funny because his whole family just gathered around and watched the whole thing go down. And man, he had a LOT of hair. But he looks so awesome, and so ready for his baptism!

7) Sunday was CRAZY. And awesome. It was crazy awesome, actually, because we had 8 non-members (that we are teaching) come to Church!! 6 of which were children. It made our hearts burst when they all walked in looking their best ❤ One of our senior couples who picked up Jayann, Justino, and Jazareen told us that they had ran down 15 flights of stairs (in their housing complex) because the elevator would have made them late to their 8:30 am pick-up time 😂 Proud "parent" moment. Speaking of which, Sister Eberhard and I had a 3 hour sneak peek into the world of parenthood while we entertained these 6 kids in Sacrament, and then herded them around to their other classes for the following 2 hours...I was in heaven :) After Church, I thought, "You know, I think this is how we should feel after Church every Sunday as missionaries. It means that we are working hard, and it pays off." Even though we had to wake up earlier, drive back and forth to opposite ends of our area, and knock on all of their doors before their rides came, we were simply showing our friends how much this matters to us -- and eventually, they will see why it matters so much for them ❤

Thank you for all you do for me, I love you so much Dad and hope you know how strong my testimony of this gospel is. I love my Savior and I know that he is in the details of my life and yours. Your and dads example of being so willing to have that family stay in our home without any questions (and 5 kids under the age of 4!!) Shows me how much you live a life that is driven by Christs example. Thank you for your example, it doesnt go unoticed by me or those at home. ❤ 

I tongei kich mi Sipwap Chu,

(I love you and see you later) 😉

Sister Bowen 

PS PREPARE FOR PICTURE OVERLOAD 😉😄