#56: A Sweet Surprise

From Elder Fowler's mom:

 (On Wednesday, July 20th, I received a friend request on FaceBook from a man in Mexico.  I thought that was cool, but wanted to talk to Preston about it first before adding him.   A little later, I saw that I had a voicemail on my cell phone.   My phone had only been on silent for 15 minutes.  I listened to the voicemail message and was sad that I had missed the call by only 5 minutes.  It was from a member in Preston's area, Hermano Marquez.  His message said, "Hello Miss Alison, this is Mr. Octavio Marquez from Chihuahua.  I'm a friend of Fowler.  He just wanted to say hi to you.  He is eating with me today, on Wednesday.  I just want to say thank you for sending him down here to Mexico.  He's a very good friend of mine. Have a great day, and God bless."    

At first I was so sad that I had missed this call, but it is really nice to have the recording so that I could share it with my family.  This made me wonder if he had left me a personal message on FaceBook.  On FaceBook, if you're not "friends" with someone and they send you a message, it can end up in another area and you have to search a bit for it.  Well, I was right, he had sent me a message AND a picture of my missionary!!  I was able to correspond back and forth with this member through FaceBook a bit.  He is the mission leader there in the area and he takes the missionaries out to eat each Wednesday.  He also told me, "He is a great missionary and working hard to bring others unto Christ. He is in good hands.  He is part of my family. They are special to me."  These words from this man mean so much to a missionary momma.  I'm so grateful that he is so good and kind to Elder Fowler and Elder Merlo.  My heart is full.)

(Gracias Hermano Marquez for being so kind
and feeding these missionaries each Wednesday!)

(Now from Elder Fowler's email this week)

  I really loved the pictures that you sent me this week!  I can't believe how big Krew is...he's HUGE!! jaja   ("jaja" is used for LOL-or haha) I love the "Flat Uncle Preston"! (see pictures below) I'm glad that you had great week with the birthday party and that surprise message and pictures from Octavio!!! hahaha  He's a cool member for sure!!  He buys us burritos...HUGE burritos for 25 pesos each!! pretty great deal!

Really!!! More home improvement projects!!!  I think you had this all planned before I left to do all the renovations while I'm gone! hahaha I seriously won't feel like it's home 'cause of all the changes that you guys have done!! haha

This week has been good!  We FINALLY brought one of our investigators to church.  We were told of someone that needed a blessing, and that is how we were able to have this investigator.  I was seriously so happy after never bringing anyone to church with us in this new area, to finally having one.  Elder Merlo and I made sure to give muchas gracias to our Heavenly Father!  We also have more investigators that are progressing, so I believe that  our work is finally showing improvement!

Today we played basketball with a member in a huge arena where the PRO team of Cuautemoc plays!  We didn't play with the them (the pros), but it was a blast... we played for like 2 ½ hours! I will send pictures next week.

Love, Elder Fowler

This week's scripture to "Ponderize" is great for missionary work:

Mosiah 26:22

For behold, this is my church; whosoever is baptized shall be baptized unto repentance. And whomsoever ye receive shall believe in my name; and him will I freely forgive.

(His nephew Krew was born 2 week's after he left on his mission.
To be sure Elder Fowler was still part of the festivities, I made
a "Flat Uncle Preston". Here, Krew is giving him kisses!)

(At one point, "Flat Uncle Preston" was placed
on to of the cake.)