Aloha

Aloha,

I miss you all so much, I keep think about coming home and being with everyone, but have enjoyed being with my ohana here in Hawaii. 😊 I was visiting 2 of our recent converts, Jayann (13) Justino (10) and their little sister Jayzareen (7) and talking about when I come back to visit them. I cant even describe how excited they were. Justino and Jayzareen were surrounding me talking about going hiking and getting ice cream "youll have to come on a Friday because we have school but we are done at 2:15 so you can come at 2:20." I told them they might meet my brother and sisters and told them all about them. I said to Justino, "I think youll really like spending time with my 18 year old brother Jordan, hes cool." Justino said, "Hes cool?! Im cool too!!" He was so excited to have something in common. 😉

Sister Satame and I worked really hard this week, we walked a lot and visited a lot of our recent converts who are preparing to go to the temple, and many less actives, a lot of which came to church which is great!! Ive realized over my mission the importance of church attendance. The best analogy I hear for tge reason we need to go to church was told by Hyrum Smith (Whos talks I listen to over and over On my ipod THANK YOU DAD). He said they were surrounding a campfire and the man who was suppost to give a talk on the importance of church attendance took a hot coal out of the fire and set it on a cold rock outside of the fire. They all sat there for 20 minutes staring at this coal as it got darker and darker until it was black. Then he picked it up with his bare hands and tossed it nack into the fire until it turned bright again. "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Haha I thought that was great, and I think about it a lot. I think all of us need the spiritual warmth that comes from church 😊

Some cute things from Sister Satame this week:

1 - We walked in the sun and she got sun stroke (my bad) and she slept for 10 HOURS STRAIGHT after a full night of sleeping, woke up and ate at about 7, then went back to sleep and slept through the whole night 😂😅 

2 - We were sitting in the car getting ready to get out when she goes "1 2 3 set go!" It was really cute.

3 - Her life at home before her mission is stuff from a horror story, it always makes me cry thinking about how blessed I am and the family and parents I have hearing about her family. Last night she said to me after crying for a long time about how her Dad beats up for mom, "I dont like that. I love my mom." She is so strong and I know only a little bit about how hard it must be for her to be out here on her mission. I look up to her a lot because of that. 

For P-Day today we hiked Diamond Head, a very famous hike with a beautiful view and Sister Satame barley made it. Highlights:

1 - Once we got to the top she wouldnt stand up to go back down for an hour. Eventually I convinced her with ice cream.

2 - While walking up to the hike through a tunnel cars drive through, a bus drove past us and she slammed herself against the side wall and screamed the whole time it passed us then collapsed into my arms, I honestly think she thought we were going to die.

3 - At one point, there was a tall field of grass on our side and I was a few feet behind Sister Satame and the Elders were a few feet behind me and we all watched as she stopped on the side of the road turned with her back toward the grass and literally just fall flat back into the weeds and disappear. No catching herself or checking for rocks, just "take me now world" 😂 Poor thing.

4 - As we were walking near the end of the hike I noticed she had her phone up by her ear. As I got closer she turned and looked at me and I askes what she was listening to. Then she put the phone next to my ear and I hear plain old apostate radio music coming out of the speaker and I turned to look at her and said "Ummm..." (She knows very well that is not okay). She casually looks at me, walks over to a big rock, sets the phone on the rock, and then starts running as fast as she can it down the hill. Hahahahahahaha what??? I am honestly a single mother. 

This week one of the Elders in our zone announced that a new book on the history of the saints entitled, "Saints" was on the LDS media library app. I finished the whole thing in 4 days. I loved every page of it. I look up to Edward Partridge, Heber Kimball, Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff so much as well as Jospeh Smith. They were the definition of valiant, I love everything about them all. I also liked this particular part:
"Brigham climbed with effort into the wagon and took a seat beside Heber. As the wagon rolled down the hill, Heber felt terrible about leaving his family when they were so sick. He turned to the wagon driver and told him to stop. “This is pretty tough,” he said to Brigham. “Let’s rise up and give them a cheer.”

Back at the house, a noise from outside startled Vilate out of bed. Staggering to the door, she joined Mary Ann and Fanny, who were looking at something a short distance away. Vilate looked too, and a smile spread across her face.

It was Brigham and Heber, standing in the back of the wagon and leaning on each other for support. “Hurrah! Hurrah!” the men cried, waving their hats in the air. “Hurrah for Israel!”
Leaving was pretty tough, but look where we are now 😊 I love you so much, I will see you in less than 2 months!!!
Sista Bowen

P.S. Most of my companions and missionary friends have been from islands and have a hard time pronouncing "Sister Bowen" so they (along with all the missionaries in the mission) call me "Sista Boween" ❤😂)

(P.P.S All of my mission friends at home are dating each other and Sister Chappel is getting married in 4 days🙃🤔)

Photos:

Haha Hurricane Lane 😂

Sister Satame is so adorable. This is our favorite place to eat, its a mexicane restaurant, she loves ice cream.

She was SO excited to see a swimming pool and so we took a picture. 

I got My Plan, the course for returning missionaries 😱