Mom of a Missionary... E-mails from the Mission Field...My Mom would Freak if .....

My son has great titles for his e-mails...But what I find funny is that this week he couldn't think of one..I could it was "My Mom Would Freak if..."  It's fun to read and find out what my Son is doing.  He is having a great adventure.  What I find interesting is that my children have a view of who I am, and think that I never had adventures.  They see me as the one who kept them out of trouble, was probably a helicopter mom, and I must have been the most boring child, and teenager on the planet when I was growing up.  In a lot of ways I'm glad for this, they have no clue what teenage and young adult adventures I had.  For me its fun to see their adventures though.  So here it is, all the things that my son has done so far that would freak me out.



By far the best game of Uno I've ever played has been in a humble home on a dirt floor.

If my Mom saw this right now she'd be freaking out, I said as the gigantic delivery truck rolled down the steep hill towards me, slowed only by the speed bump a few feet away.

If my Mom saw this right now she'd be freaking out, I said as I crossed four lanes of Traffic in Mexico because Mexico doesn't have crosswalks.

If my Mom saw this right now she'd be freaking out, I said as I rode standing up in the back of a pickup truck through town.

Welcome to the Mexican state of Hidalgo! We're currently one state over from Tamaulipas, which is the Mexican State that has Tampico and Ciudad Madero.


My morning view. Every day when we leave our apartment and venture into town, we're greeted with this scene. Very pleasant little town.

​And this is a panoramic view of the street that I live on, As seen from my apartment window. Humble little street. In the house directly center of the photo is where I played the best game of Uno ever. They have a dirt floor and no doors inside their house! The room where we played uno only had one flourescent bulb! But it was amazing. Every members house that I've been too so far is amazing. They may not be made out of wood, or have fancy colored walls, or even functioning door handles, but they're all so happy! Every house here feels like a home.

So you there reading this e-mail in the United States; Count your many blessings! I never thought that sofas were a huge blessing until I entered I 1: had nothing to sit on in my own casa except for a plastic chair, and 2: entered into a members house to discover that their sofa chairs had been ripped out of their van and repurposed! 

Mexico, the land of concrete and smiles! Could you imagine? We complain about poverty in the United States, but here in Mexico, some people have close to nothing and their joy is neverending!

The members in the branch here in San Felipe are so kind, too. I hope to work with them to better their spiritual connections, and serve them in any way possible. I just hope I don't say anything offensive in my broken Spanish! I also hope I can develop an appetite. The members are used to Missionaries from the United States who just eat and eat and eat... but here comes Elder Bowlby, thin as a twig, eating at his own pace, filling up on the first plate, and here comes the most surprising part... he doesn't like soda!

Uh oh, Soda. I'm not accustomed to soda at ALL, and it's a bit surprising to the members here. We were invited to a little celebration at a diner called "Lupita" and when the topic of soda and coca-cola was brought up, one member was astonished that I, an American, had never had a coke. He said that he was going to buy me a tiny one because he wanted to see my reaction to my first coke. Apparently it's not common to have pure water (or milk) with your meals. How interesting!

Even more interesting than that, I think I can officially say that I like Pigs Heart more than I like soda.
At the little Lupita, the members had a bowl full of chunks of meat in a somewhat-spicy red sauce. Eagerly, they prodded me a bit to try it out, and of course, not wanting to be rude, I did.
They didn't tell me what it was at first, but once I expressed that I liked it, they told me what it was.
I've had quite a bit of Pigs heart already. Yum! (It's better than it sounds, really).

​Here's a little lizard that showed up in our casa one night. This fella was on the window, and his compañero was on the wall just above him. 

This is the Study Zone. Every morning we get up at 6:30 and prepare and eat breakfast, and then at 8:00 we are expected to be here, ready for personal study.

Bah! I can't think of everything I even want to share! So much has happened in this past week! It's crazy! I've been living off of yogurt and cereal in the mornings, I've been doing my best to talk to people in the street (quite difficult, actually), I've been here and there and everywhere else, and to top it all off, it's only been a week! Wait, it's already been a week?!

I'll finish this off with a spiritual thought. Helaman 5:12.
And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

God Bless. Love you all and Miss you dearly!

-Elder Bowlby

Until next week...
G.G.