Week 66: One Night in my Bed

So it's been a bit of an interesting week with a ton of traveling. First of all, we left Monday afternoon to Udorn for our zone conference there. So Monday night I sleep at a hotel in Udorn. Zone conference was on Tuesday and we decided to switch off at Korat the next day with the elders living there. So Tuesday night we slept at the Korat Elder's house. Wednesday we switched off and we didn't get a bus till about midnight, so we slept the entire night on a bus. Thursday we got back to our area and finally got a work day in our own area. But we had a Missionary Leadership Training on Friday in Bangkok, so Thursday night I slept on a bus and got to the APs house around 5am. Unfortunately they locked the door so we just slept outside their house until they woke up at 6:30. Then we had an awesome MLC on Friday and interviews with President afterwards. We couldn't get a bus back to our area that night so we slept in Bangkok at the Bangkhen Elder's house on Friday night and got back to our area on Saturday around 5:00pm. So sorry if that didn't make sense or if I rambled, but basically we slept in our own beds only one night this entire week. And I'm still so exhausted!

All in all, it was still a very good week and spiritually uplifting too. Regardless of all the traveling, we received some awesome training. In zone conference we talked about a ton of good things such as, sharing the gospel in normal and natural ways and having members do the same. 

We also talked about where true happiness comes from. Sister Hammond shared this acronym, which I loved:

Jesus

Others

Yourself

You will have JOY as you put Jesus first in your life, others second, and yourself last. Charity is one of the most important attributes we can obtain in this life. I know this to be true as I have experienced it in my own life. 

On Wednesday I had a sweet switch off with Elder Halversen. He is actually in my MTC group and I knew him a little bit in college. We taught some cool LAs and with one LA we shared the story of Enos. It says that Enos' soul was hungered and so I took that opportunity there to talk about food and relate this story to this man's own life. For those who are unfamiliar with the Thai culture, Thai people love their food. Anyways I ask him what type of food he likes and what his go-to food is. Then I related it to the gospel by asking him what happens if he doesn't get to eat. He said that he would be a hungry man. I said exactly and it's the same with our spirits; if we don't feed our spirits with the word of God or through prayer, our spirits will starve. We invited him to feed his spirit by going to church and by reading his scriptures starting with 1 Nephi 1. He committed to do those things so I hope he showed up to church yesterday haha. Also, sidenote the food in Korat is the bomb and not too expensive. Overall, it was such a fun day and we both learned a ton from each other. 

MLC was on Friday and we talked a lot about the direction we wanted the mission to go. We decided that taking members on the journey with us and making every member a "missionary" is going to prepare this country for the temple it will receive in 2 years. 

Last experience from this week happened on Sunday night. We are teaching this guy named โก้ (go) and กัน (gan) and they are quite the characters. I'm pretty sure กัน has no idea what is going on ever cause he is so focused on making his ส้มตำ (Somtam). But our man โก้(go) just lost his daughter about a week ago. We were able to share a little bit about the Plan of salvation and give him some hope. Eventually he said he wanted to be baptized and wanted his friends gan to be baptized too. It's such a miracle to see so many humble souls being prepared by God in this country. 

Love you all so much. Miracles are real!!

Love,

Elder Lowe

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Great Missionaries

Robert and Elder Rattel

Biking in the rain

On their way