Week 50: Our District is on Fire

So this week was “way” good and my district is doing so good - we are on fire. For starters, I had the opportunity to interview four people for baptism this week!  So far I have interviewed nine people for baptism in the last two transfers! The success in this area is amazing.  It feels so good knowing that one by one we are sharing the message of Jesus Christ’s gospel with the people in Thailand and inviting more joy and happiness into their lives.

This week we taught a bunch of people and got to teach with Elder Khanakam (member of the Quorum of the Seventy). We had the opportunity to teach with him before, it’s such a spiritual experience.  He is incredible when he teaches. I have learned so much from his example about how I can become a better missionary and show more love to those I teach! 

We had seven people at church this week and the people we are teaching are progressing more and more. For example; Somsak and his daughter are really starting to accept the message of the gospel.  I am so happy for them.

This week both Min and Ratchani received the Holy ghost and became members of the true church. They radiate with a light from within.  It’s so incredible to see the changes they have made in their lives.  

Lastly, I went on a switch off with our zone leader, เอ็ลเดอร์เอกนิรันดร์. He is on his last transfer and he is Thai. He was such a good missionary and used these insane analogies that only Thai people would understand! 

Well that's it for this week. Sorry this is all over the place I just had no time … more to come next week.

Robert bikes this narrow concrete passage

Robert had fish for dinner at Sister Issaya Inlee.  He says she is the nicest lady.

The sisters in Robert's district and Him and his companion.  Robert is the district leader.

Week 46: Transfers and Songkron

So like I said last week, Thailand has this crazy festival called Songkran which is basically a giant water fight! On Monday we got to go to Asoke and I saw a bunch of other missionaries including my trainer...who is now the AP!! Can’t wait till the next Songkran. 

This week was a little strange with Songkran and transfers. We had our switch off on Wednesday, the last day of the transfer. I switched off with Elder English who is soooooooo fire!!!!!! We live with the zone leaders so it was cool to see how they work outside the house. I learned a lot from him. He has a lot of fun while doing the Lord's work, but works very hard and talks with so many people! 

This week we also got 2 more people on a baptismal date for this transfer. One of the people we were teaching saw that we would teach from this book(the Book of Mormon) and wanted it so bad but was too scared to ask for it. We felt that we needed to give it to her and once we did she thanked us so much! She loves reading it and I can already see a change in her appearance and perspective in life. 

Lastly we began teaching this new lady this week named Ratchani and she is a lady with all the questions. Our lessons last for over 1 hour and she asks about 30 or so questions. She has such a desire to know everything before she is baptized! I love it!!!

Lastly I want to say how grateful I am for the Easter holiday and for the special time to think of our Savior's Atonement and Resurrection. I know that Jesus Christ lives! He atoned for each of our sins in his mortal life and rose 3 days after his physical death. Jesus Christ is with us. พระเยซูคริสต์ทรงอยู่กับเรา - Jesus Christ is with us. He is our Savior and Redeemer and fulfilled the will of His father. I love Jesus Christ and I'm so grateful that through him I can be with my family forever! If anyone has any questions about anything I just said please ask me or missionaries in the US! 

I love you all so much and feel so loved my you all and by my savior each day!!

Things that happened this week:

-I ate straight wasabi

- a crazy member taught with us

- One member invited us over for Easter dinner and we got some pasta!!

Love

Elder Lowe 

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More Photos

Delicious Dinner

Robert teaching

Robert and Elder Gantt working hard

Robert with an investigator and his Companion Elder Gantt

Robert and his companion had Easter Dinner with Wisan & Sister Wisanbannawit and the Zone Leaders

Service Project

 Songkran FUN!!!!! below

Many of the elders gathered at the Asoke Chapel - huge water fight :)

Lovin' Songkran - especially on a hot day

Week 45: Songkran and General Conference

Subject: Week 45: Songkran and General Conference

This has been a week like no other let me tell you! To start there is this amazing festival called สงกรานต์ (Songkran) and it is basically a weekend of water. There are water fights with buckets, water guns, and water balloons. I don't know why we don't have it in America!! It's honestly so fun. Ok moving on from that, this week was also filled with miracles and awesome experiences. 

We have continued to see brother Min progress so much. He has almost stopped smoking entirely and he brought his girlfriend to church this last Sunday.

This week we also got two more people on a baptismal date (Tad and Nuna). Tad approached us about a 2 weeks ago telling us he wanted us to learn and we then began to teach his wife too. They believe the Restoration to be true and have accepted to be baptized on the 26th of May! 

กิตติ is gradually getting closer and closer but is still too scared to come to church. He has been a Baptist for over 60 years and is scared that if he goes to our church he might believe it to be true. 

A funny experience was while we were teaching 2 of our investigators in a lesson, one of their friends joined in the lesson and seemed maybe more interested than the other 2  He was reading the entire pamphlet and then he grabbed a Book of Mormon and began to read it as well. I got a call from him saying that he loved what we said and that he would be coming to church!!

So many things happened this week I can't put them all in this one email. But I was so grateful for this general conference! I got to watch it throughout this week in Thai and in English. I loved so many things and just want to say that Christ is our light in this world! As we look to him and "have Christ in our homes" we will be protected in these last days! I'm so grateful for the words of the apostles and prophet. I know they are called by God to teach the fullness of his gospel!!

Love 

Elder Lowe 

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Week 44: Teaching Appointments

This week has been full of appointments with people we are teaching and with members. We were able to meet with a bunch of people and commit them to church, unfortunately only 2 came to church. 

This week I have been reading a lot about the apostasy, reformation, restoration, and the plan of salvation! I have learned so much, and understand that God has a plan and divine insight to everything that happens in this world. I know that everything that happens really does happen for a reason. In this life we all have trials. I read that those that have more trials in this life are trusted by God. It is a way to see if we will continue in faithfulness and endure, or if we will fall away and distance ourselves from God. 

"7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes."

We were able to share this scripture as well as Alma 38:5 with one of the people we are teaching. They are so stressed and are a single mom with many kids. She lives in this tiny room with 6 other people, and says she cant come to church because life is too hard. We promised her that she would be blessed as she puts her faith in the Lord. 

มิน has continued to progress. He has a smoking addiction so we have made a plan to help him stop. He used to smoke 10 cigarettes a day, so we made a plan to help him completely quit by the 22nd. He has almost quit already and has shown remarkable faith in Jesus Christ. 

I know that the Lord Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I am grateful for a living prophet and apostles! This next week I will have the opportunity to hear from our living prophet and I encourage all of you to listen to God's words through his chosen prophet. 

I love you all!!!

Elder Lowe

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Week 43: Teaching with A member of the Seventy

This week has been pretty good, but a little short. 

We had the opportunity to teach more people this week. On Friday we had the opportunity to meet up with elder คณาคำ, who is a member of the Quorum of the 70. He is so good and way fire!!

I got the opportunity to interview 2 people for baptism. And had the opportunity to baptize one of them. 

This week we are teaching a guy named กิตติ and he doesn't understand authority. He is Baptist and we got to share a lot of cool scriptures from the Bible to explain authority. 

Also we are teaching these two sons of a part member family. Their parents want them to be baptized so bad so we'll see how it goes! 

Not much time this week! Love you all! The mission rocks and you guys are so awesome!

1) Baptism of sister แอล

2) Traffic in Thailand haha

3) Zone conference

Week 42: Elect will come to us!!!

Hey everyone! It's been a long week filled with awesome miracles. I feel so blessed to be here serving the Lord and deepening my relationship with my Heavenly Father. This week we had a zone conference centered on how to develop a stronger relationship with our Heavenly Father and how to help the people we teach understand Heavenly Father's true nature.

This week I got to interview another person to be baptized and she was way awesome. I actually had met her for the first time when I interviewed her and she asked me to baptize her! She has so much faith and knows everything good in her life is a gift from God. 

Ok so we have a more solid group of people that we are teaching now and I just want to talk about a couple of them. 

First, we have ป๊อก (pawg) and กี้ (gee) who are married and have a desire to learn more. They are searching for truth and had so many questions. Even though we had to switch our lesson plan, I know helping people really understand the Godhead first is crucial. It's so cool to see the reaction of people's faces when we let them know that they have a loving Father in Heaven that cares for them so much!!

One of the recent concerts here has been going through a hard time. His name is เกมส์ (game) and he said that his house is possessed and that he can't sleep. We were able to give him a blessing and bless his house and strengthen him.

We also are teaching this lady named บัวทอง (bua tong) and she believes everything we have told her. We are also teaching her niece and they want to come to church but they aren't able to. They told me it's not that she doesn't believe, it's just that she isn't able to. We are working on her hahaha. 

Lastly, if you have made it this far in the email than you are about to hear the true miracle of the transfer. This one guy named มิน (meen) went to church last week just because he wanted to. We didn't invite him and no other missionaries did either. He just walked into the church and wanted a change in his life. We taught him the plan of salvation and he accepted a baptismal date. He is by far one of the most fire people I have ever met. I'm so excited for his progression!! 

I love you all so much and I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Love 

Elder Lowe 

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1,7) inviting

2) Dinner with the sisters

3) New profile pic

4,6) Baptism of sister Jane

Sister Jane with Robert and Elder Gantt

5) Elder Gantt (my trainee)

Week 41: Thai slang and ส้มตำ

Well this week has been pretty cool. To start off I want to wish a happy birthday to my brother (Devon), sister (Marissa), and my mom. Love you guys!! 

Today I went to a วัด or a Thai temple, which was way cool. The Thai culture is so interesting and amazes me. I live with the zone leaders and one of them is a คนไทย (Thai person)...and he is so funny! He talks to me with English slang, so I respond with Thai slang all the time. 

This week my companion and I had a good amount of time to go out and find people. We got a lot more people that we are teaching and I just want to share a couple of those experiences. First, on Monday night we were out finding and having no success until we started talking to this lady and she happened to be Filipino. She said that her whole entire family was Catholic and that she wanted to search and study other things. She told us she has been looking for more truth and answers and that's when we brought up prayer and Joseph Smith's experience. We committed her to pray and just ask all of her questions to God.  She loved it so much and believes that the Restoration is true! 

Another experience just happened last night. My companion and I were out finding late and we had about 20 minutes until we needed to be back home. We both were exhausted but continued to press on and consequently we met these two people that were way fire. We bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and he asked us for the 5 reasons why he needed to read the Book of Mormon. I told him 1) It testifies of Jesus Christ and how we can become better in this life, 2) It describes how we can overcome problems in our life through the Gospel and Jesus Christ's Atonement, 3) It is evidence of a living day prophet and that Joseph Smith is the prophet of the dispensation, 4) We can feel of God's love for us, 5) It explains how we can become clean from our sins and transgressions. On top of that we invited them to begin to read and find out for themselves. They replied saying that they don't truly believe in Buddhism and had been waiting for something like this in their life!! So many crazy miracles and so many people prepared that are right in front of us. 

This week we were able to incorporate the members into our work. They helped us go find LAs, RCs, and they taught with us. The members here rock and buy us tons of ส้มตำ (somtam). So much ส้มตำ! 

In the Thailand Bangkok mission we are making a lot of efforts to improve to quality of our English classes. As a result, we are teaching twice each week as well as passing out free lemonade. It's so awesome to serve the people here and open their hearts! I love my mission so much and I love you all! 

Love, 

Elder Lowe

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At Wat Pho

Huge gold lounging statue of Buddah

Gold Buddah

Elder Lowe and Elder Gantt at Wat Pho

Robert is training Elder Gantt

Free Lemonade at English classes

What a great trainer - Go Elder Lowe, but get new shoes!!!

Week 40: Whitewash, training, and DL in Don Muang

So this week was a bit of a shorter week, but basically I picked up my grand new missionary and took him to Don Muang. At the transfer meeting I was told that I will be a District Leader as well. Anyways, his name is Elder Gant and he is straight out of the MTC. We both were assigned to Don Muang and because neither of us have been there, we are whitewashing the area, (we didn't know the area at all). This week we started with 0 investigators, so we had the opportunity to go out and find. Another difference is that I'm used to having a bike to ride around, but now it is just my comp and I walking up and down streets talking to anyone we see. 

I live in the zone leaders house which is way fun. This is the first time I get to see other missionaries in my area because I was in Chiang Rai and then Phuket. Chaing Rai is the farthest and most remote area in the North, and Phuket is the farthest and most remote area in the South.  

Overall, I love the change and I love being a trainer. It's been great week being a DL as well. I had the opportunity to interview someone to be baptized and they were awesome. It is so cool the changes the gospel had made on this man's life. He used to smoke, drink, and drink coffee all the time, but through the gospel he has been able to quit for over a month and be baptized yesterday. 

I love this mission and the opportunity to learn so much every day. As we look to the Lord our burdens will be light. 

Alma 38:5

"As much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

We truly all have trials, little or small, but though our faith and trust in God we can overcome any trial that is placed in our path. I love this gospel and the opportunity to be a missionary! 

Elder Lowe 

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1. Me and my ลูก (trainee)

2. Finally in Bangkok...the city!!