Elder Tyler Bowers has been serving for over a year now. His experiences in the Philippines have allowed him to grow and learn in priceless ways. He loves the people he serves, and his tender heart and generosity show in all he does as he shares the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and invites others to learn and grow spiritually.

The following is an excerpt from the most recent email we received from our eldest missionary son:

Dear Family,                                                                                                     October 5, 2015

This week was pretty good. It started raining a lot and I think there's some storms in the area. It's harder to proselyte when you're on bikes and it starts raining! I got soaked every day. All my clothes are muddy haha

Our ward had a good Ward Family Home Evening on Saturday, preceded by a baptism. There were three little girls in the ward who got baptized. Lots and lots of people came.  Since not many families have Family Home Evenings unless the missionaries are there, our purpose was to show families how they can have their own Family Home Evenings so they can feel the spirit more as a family etc. It was fun.  Also, we had several investigators there so it was cool that they were able to see the family oriented aspect of the church.

This week is transfer week again, my companion will probably be transferred.  I know there will be several new zone leaders so maybe I'll get to train another one.  I would be happy to do that because I really like the missionaries who I see are probably going to be zone leaders now. Woohoo!

Also, Happy Birthday Trent!!!!! I hope your day was awesome.  What did you do?! Did they sing to you in Primary?! I miss that haha. Maligayang kaarawan!!! Guess what, for your next birthday, I'll be back in America! woohoo! haha

There is a family of 7 that was baptized a few weeks before I got here named the Trinidad family.  They are some of the most solid recent converts I have ever seen. And they are having some extreme trials right now :( We went and visited them yesterday and the husband and wife just cried and cried because they had no money to attend church and it was the first time they've missed since before their baptism. It was tough. I have pictures of them. Please pray for them.

Love,

Elder Bowers       

The Trinidad family with Elder Curtis and Elder Bowers

The missionaries assisted with the promotion of the Mormon Helping Hands immunization campaign.

Tyler rides a bike sometimes in the area he is serving in: Santa Maria Locos Surr

Going back

Tyler returned home from the Philippines at the end of November, 2012 after serving for three months as a missionary.  Since then, he has attended Brigham Young University and worked in Provo, Utah.  He is now prepared to return to finish his two years of service as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  In August of this year, Tyler received a letter from the Office of the First Presidency of the Church confirming that he has been reinstated as a full-time missionary assigned to the Philippines Baguio Mission.  He will begin his new calling on September 18, 2014.

Week 3 in the Philippines

To preface Tyler's email, here is an excerpt from the email our family sent to him on Sunday:  

"Yesterday, Mom and Todd had a special experience in the temple.  They were there for youth baptisms.  Elder Paul B. Pieper of the quorum of the Seventy, was there also.  President Moody introduced Mom to him in the foyer, and added, “Sister Bowers has a missionary son who is serving in the Philippines.”  Elder Pieper replied, “I will be in the Philippines on Tuesday!  I will look for Elder Bowers.”  He spoke to the youth of our ward and bore his testimony.  The spirit was very strong.  Then he shook each person’s hand and asked their names.  I (Mom) knew exactly who he was when I saw him because I remember being so impressed by his Conference address last spring, titled “To Hold Sacred.”  I came home and listened to his talk again on http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/to-hold-sacred?lang=eng&query=b+(name%3a%22Paul+B.+Pieper%22). 

We are hoping that Tyler will have the opportunity to meet Elder Pieper this week! :)   

From the following email, it sounds like our missionary is very busy teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are so happy to hear that there are 6 people on date for baptism. 

Love,

Lori and David

Hello,

Sounds like you guys have been pretty busy! That's exciting.  That's fun that you'll go to G&G Bowers for Thanksgiving.  It will be weird to not be there. 

We live in a town.  It's not really like any town in the US though so it's hard to describe.  It's all just neighborhoods crammed together in between farmland.  For p day we go to Carmen/Rosales, where there's a big mall. That's where I am right now.

This week we taught 29 lessons, in addition to meeting a lot of people.  We have 6 investigators with a baptism date, 3 on Dec 8 and 3 on Dec 29.  That's pretty cool.  As far as support from the members, the EQP comes with us often to lessons, about every other day.  It's totally different than from the US though because I don't think he's endowed, plus he was inactive a 15 months ago. haha.  But it's good to have him come because a lot of the time the people in our area only speak Ilocano, which we don't know, so he can translate if it's needed.  I think he's about 55 yrs old.  Our ward missionaries are all the YSA's that have just graduated high school. There are 6 of them.

That's really cool about the temple!  Also it's cool that Elder Pieper will be here this week! haha general authorities have crazy schedules.

Don't worry about sending a razor head, I should be able to find one.

Anyways, i'm out of time already because the internet is slow so I'll talk to you later!

Love,

Tyler

Week 2 in the Philippines

Hi family!

I will attempt to answer all of the questions.  We have district meetings on Tuesday. There are 8 missionaries in my district, and I'm the only American. Ha.  For the ward, there are about 475 members and 115-123 come every week. Haha.  Since we opened the area, we walk around all the time looking for the less actives. It's pretty tiring, not because I'm out of shape or because of the heat, but it's just.... monotonous? 

My companion, Elder Discaya, is good.  He's from southern Philippines, Eastern Samar (I think that's the spelling).  Somewhat unfortunately he's  really good at english and wants to practice, so it's difficult to continue learning tagalog as quickly as I thought i would. We have about 10 investigators now.  Last night we taught a lesson to a husband/wife and the wife's mom.  I think it went really well. We taught about the restoration.  They asked some good questions and they seemed really happy about our answers.  So we'll go back there on wednesday.  On Friday night we taught the restoration to a less-active (hasn't been to church since she was 14 and she's 27), and her parents who aren't members.  I thought they liked it, and then they offered to give us a ride home! That was cool.

I forgot to bring my camera today so... no pictures, sorry.

The food is.... okay... haha.  It will take some getting-used-to.  Oh cool story: the other day we saw people killing a cow with a flamethrower.  As it's dying they're cooking it, so the meat tastes fresh or something.  The next night I ate the meat and it was the worst beef I've ever had haha.

On Thursday the power went out from 6am to 8:45pm. Apparently it's a common thing.  So with no electric fans it got really hot.

I have this weird cough thing.  It only happens at night and it's the worst.  Hopefully it goes away soon.

That's all for now I think.

Love,

Elder Bowers

Tyler's first email from the Philippines

Hello!

The first week went pretty well. Better than expected!  We got to manila on the 31st at about 11:30am.  We then rode a bus for 7 hours to Urdaneta.  The first thing I bought using tagalog was 2 water bottles, haha. they were 25p each.  My first impressions of the philippines were that everyone just does what they want on the roads.  It's a lot crazier in Manila than everywhere else though.  The temperature isn't tooo bad.  It's obviously hot but it doesn't bother me.

On like the 2nd or third day, Elder Comer (from my MTC district) and I played basketball with a bunch of kids. it was a lot of fun.  That day I also had my interview with president monahan. I like him a lot.  It was a good interview, and it was good to get to know him those first couple of days.  He's very smart.

On Nov 2, I got assigned to my first area.  My native companion is named Elder Discaya.  I had no idea what was going on the first day in the area.  It was great.  We have gotten along well so far.  He has a good attitude too and he works hard.  We are assigned to Santa Maria B in Rosales Zone.  We are opening up a new area. Woohoo!  So, we have no teaching base and we don't have an updated area book, and on top of that the area is huge, so there's a ton of walking.  Elder Discaya wrote down all the names of the members grouped by Barunguy (neighborhood, basically), so we walk around, find where they all live, try to get more people to come to church, and teach/give pamphlets to all the people we meet in between houses.  The reason it's difficult to find where the members live is because there are no actual addresses.  Their "address" in the ward directory is only the name of their barungay, so to find the members we just ask "where does soandso live?" and the person will say "doon." which means "there," and they'll point in the general direction. so we just keep doing that until it is the right house, and then if they're home, we teach. Then repeat! We have something like 107 more families to find that way :) we've done 10 so far in 3 days :) haha. But it's good.  On saturday afternoon the EQ pres drove us around in his tryke for a few hours to invite less active's to church.

Church was one of the best meetings i've been to.  The stake president taught the 3rd hour lesson, he used Elder Holland's GC "do you love me" talk, and it was great.  It was focused on enduring to the end.  The Sta. Maria ward has had 115-123 members coming to sacrament through 2012.  For the last couple of months in '12, we need 130+ people coming in order to requalify as a ward and not a branch for 2013.  We really want that to happen.

It sense even more here than in the US the urgency of enduring to the end/harvesting in missionary work/etc.  When Elder Bednar came to the MTC he talked a lot about urgency. Here the leaders talk about it a lot too. So... sign of the times.

Last night I finished the Book of Mormon! I started it when I went into the MTC.  What a great book!  I learned a lot from it.

Today we are at SM, which is a big mall in Carmen, about an hour jeepney ride from our apartment.  I'm looking forward to eating american food in a little bit!

That reminds me to tell you about transportation.  usually in our area we take trykes if we have to go far (our area is so huge). A tryke is a motorcycle with a side car and everyone has 1+. There are also a billion motorcycles. They're usually 155cc with really skinny tires.  I was surprised at how many new cars there are here, also.  Still not a ton, but more than expected.  Also all the cars are different models than the ones in america.

I've only ridden 3 jeepneys because they just aren't as fast as trykes.  There are buses too.

Everyone has pay-as-you-go cell phones, usually the little old nokia kind.  Everyone texts in abbreviated Tagalog and it's hard to read haha.

I'll see if I can attach pictures to another email.

Love you bye

ps sorry I was mostly too lazy to capitalize.

Phone call from Tyler!

On Monday evening, October 29th, Tyler called home from the L.A. airport, as he was waiting for his direct flight to Hong Kong, and from there to Manilla, where he would go by bus (jeepney) to the mission home in Urdaneta, Philippines.

It was GREAT to talk to him. . . a very wonderful 45 minutes!  He sounded happy and ready to enter the mission field.  He shared with us his newly-acquired Tagalog language skills, and of course, we were proud and amazed.  He told us, among other things, that he is "a missionary from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and also what his purpose is as a missionary: "to preach the gospel and to invite others to come unto Christ."  He said he felt confident about teaching the gospel in Tagalog, but also a bit nervous about communicating simple needs, such as directions, and other everyday language/carrying on conversations with his companion, who will most likely be a native of the Philippines.

We are anxiously awaiting correspondence from Tyler telling us about his arrival in the mission field and his experiences so far in the Philippines!

Snail Mail

Tyler has a short time left to complete his two months in the Provo Mission Training Center (MTC), where he has been working hard to learn to speak and understand Tagalog, and to prepare to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Philippines. Tyler has sent us several hand-written letters by snail mail, which are great treasures to me (I guess that's a Mom thing)!  I transcribed them to include them here:

10/6/2012

Dear Family,

Today is Conference Saturday.  It was really good!  I think one of my favorite talks was the afternoon session by Richard C. Gay.  There were so many good things though!  Including the age change for missionaries.  Crazy.

I got all the letters from the family a couple days ago so I’ll try to answer all the questions.  The missionaries in my district:

My companion – Elder Nathan Wilding, from Fort Payne Alabama.  He’s really excited to be serving a mission.  1 other roommate, Elder Graham Sugden, is from Cardston, Alberta Canada.  A tiny town w/a temple in it.  One of the most sincere people I know; I have a great friendship w/him.  Last roommate, Elder Jordan Germaine, from Woods Cross, UT.  He was the DL for 4 wks.  It’ll be cool to see how much he’s matured after his mission… Then there’s Elder Skylar Morgan from Draper.  He has a really strong testimony.  His comp Elder Alex Clark is from Riverton, UT.  Very good example.  Elder Jared Hubbard from Alberta Canada is the DL now.  He’s great, very obedient and hard working.  His comp is Elder Tyler Williams from Sacramento.  Hard working as well, and is similar to Orrey Bohn.  Elder Matt Comer is from Springville UT.  He struggles the most with the language I think but he tries the hardest and prays the most.  I feel like he’s sacrificed a lot to be here and has a ton of faith.  He’s also ½ Philippino. His comp is Elder Jacob Moreno from Santa Barbara CA.  Very funny, a lot of faith, and very humble.  Sister Robin Huddleston from Saint George is really cool.  She and I are the only BYU students.  Sister Marina Leuluai from W. Valley is Samoan but lived in UT her whole life.  Such a strong testimony and knowledge of the scriptures.  Sister Faith Mamea from American Samoa is very quiet and has a very strong testimony.  Those 3 are a companionship.  So 13 in our district, I wouldn’t doubt we are the biggest district in the MTC.  All the guys are 19 except me.  Sis H. is 2 months younger than me, Sis L. and Sis M. are both 22.  It’s a good thing we have sisters to assist my companion and I in keeping the class in control!  The classroom is smaller than our piano room at home.

Okay next, the weather has been nice, getting colder in the mornings.  We’re inside allll day though.  We have 50 min of gym 5 days a week.  I’ve been playing either beach vball or basketball.  The MTC prez is good.  The Tagalog is fine.  There’s a long way to go but I’m on top of it.  Gift of Tongues is real.  Have a good week!  Love you!

10/9/2012

Mom,

I’m glad the marathon went well!  At least it sounds like it did.  Will you do another?  Today (it’s p day) a couple other people in my district wanted to run so I went.  It felt good.

I ended up seeing/talking with Spencer Salinas a couple times during the past few days.  He left early this morning.  Only 2.5 weeks he was here!  That is so short.  I still have 20 days left.  The time is definitely feeling like it is slowing down.  It is kind of a bummer that all of the walkways at the MTC are covered, so I can’t really see the mountains much even though they are really close.

One of my teachers is especially good.  Brother Ward is only 22 but he cares about his job more than any other teacher I’ve had in high school/college.  It would be cool to work here and it pays well, but I’m not sure I have the patience needed to deal with cooped-up 19 year olds…And 18 year olds. L  That’s probably the hardest part of being here.  Most of the people in my district now have verrry little focus… Oh well.

One thing that is interesting is how unhealthy the food is!  Dessert at all 3 meals every day.  It’s a little over the top w/the sweets.  Oh and they do have a “make you own sack-lunch” option, where you make a sandwich and get 4 other items to choose from doughnuts, cookies, twinkies, cupcakes, chips, and pop.

Well I hope you have good week.  Pray for me!

Love,

Tyler

Trent!  Thank you for the letter!  You are getting so good at writing!  Better than me!

In the MTC, it’s a lot like school.  There are 2 teachers that teach me everything I need to know to help people come unto Christ.

I sleep on the bottom bunk!  I’m glad because I have to wake up really early every morning and it’s hard to get out of bed.

To say “no” in Tagalog you say “Hindi!”

To say “How are you?” it’s “kumusta po kayo?”

To say “Good!” you say “Mabuti!”  To say “smile” you say “ngiti.”

I’m glad your birthday party was good!

One more year and you can choose to be baptized like Jesus was!  In 2^nd Nephi 31 it talks about why we need to be baptized.

Have a good week!  Love you!  Here’s a picture of a chicken:

 (cartoon drawing)

Tiffani!  Those are really good scriptures you gave.  One of my favorites this week is Alma 34:15-16, and also Alma 5:45-46.  Isn’t it cool that we can find out the gospel is true the same way all the prophets have?  Through sincere and diligent prayer.

My favorite part of the MTC is that there is so much Holy Ghost, or that I am speaking a new language.  To say, “I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true!” in Tagalog you say, “Alam ko na totoo ang Simbahan ni Jesucristo sa mga Banal ng mga Huling Araw!”

I’m glad soccer and school are going well!  Who are your teachers again?

When I fly to the Philippines, I will take a bus to Salt Lake City, then fly to Los Angeles, CA, then to Hong Kong China, then to Manila Philippines, then take a bus to Urdaneta City Philippines, then take a Jeepney to wherever my first area is!  You can probably learn about Jeepneys from the internet or Brother Christensen.  Have a good week!  Love you!

Todd!  To answer your questions, the MTC is basically the same EVERY DAY.  It gets a little boring sometimes but I’m learning a lot, about teaching, the scriptures, and Tagalog, and myself.  That’s good you still have a 4.0!  It’s actually a good thing school doesn’t have a break for a long time because it will get you ready for a mission where there are no breaks!  P day isn’t really a break because I have to do laundry still, I study for 3 hours, and I’m busy most of the day.  There aren’t any assignments or tests here, it’s up to the missionary to do what it takes to learn to speak.  The teacher explains grammar concepts and then we figure out how to learn effectively.  We are encouraged to “SYL,” Speak Your Language, as much as possible and that really helps with remembering things the most for me.  My favorite part about the mission so far is how much Holy Ghost there is.  You can get a haircut as much as you want here, for free.  You just have to set an appointment in an open slot on your Pday.  You said you can’t wait til you’re 19, now how about til you’re 18!  Haha.  Love You!  Keep working hard, it will be worth it.

10/14/2012

Hi Mom,

Thanks for the Dear Elder letter.  

So I bought a little leather book and filled it with gospel topics, and now as I’m reading the scriptures when I find scriptures I like I can put them in the book with a short summary.  Then later I can find scriptures by topic quickly.  It’s also way good for helping me focus while reading.

It’s cool how there are scriptures to apply to everything.  Also from them we can learn everything to know about returning to God/having eternal happiness.

I don’t think I wrote this yet but Elder Bednar came here on Tuesday.  It was great!  He talked about how to gain the most from GC.  One thing he mentioned is that the Lord is hastening his work.  Also he talked about how as missionaries, bull time or not, we often tell people we know there are living prophets.  But it’s more important to know what the prophets are saying.  He said “if you don’t know, you don’t believe.”  He then showed several clips from this conference that had 3 different apostles saying close to word-for-word the same things.  Then he said none of them had discussed their talks together before and it all came straight from God.  Anyways it was really cool.

Love,

Elder B