Week 70: Fat Dogs and Hitch Hiking

This was a way quick week here in Thailand! Also happy General conference weekend. Although I haven't yet watched it, I have heard some of the policy changes and also some very powerful messages from my family. I'm super excited to watch General Conference to be enlightened, inspired, and to grow spiritually. I know this church is true and that we are led by true and living prophets of the Lord in these days. 

This last week was transfers. However, I did not go to Bangkok to pick up my companion. Instead, I went on a switch off with a very young missionary, Elder Hollowell, in Mahasarakam. He taught me a method of transportation that gets me to appointments way faster and way less tiring. I have brought it back to my area and it's been working out way well. I'll attach a video - basically we just grab on to the back of a truck. But don't worry it is very safe! Anyways we had a very good day and got to teach a couple people that are interested in that area. 

By Friday I got my new companion and his name is Elder Despain! He is way chill and I know that we are going to get along very well. I'm already learning things from him and I'm excited to see what this transfer has in store for us! 

Elder Tu (a former companion of mine who also lives in the same house as me) is training right now. Elder Tu is hilarious and I love seeing the way he is training this brand new missionary. I don't think this new missionary is ever going to forget us first transfer on his mission...ever. 

Also sister Nielsen is back in my district. She brought me a jacket from Chiang Mai and it's way cool. I'll have to send a picture of me wearing it some day.

Tui (ตุ้ย) is still doing good. We went over to his house and continued to read the Book of Mormon with him. I know that consistent reading in the Book of Mormon is the greatest way to strengthen your testimony. 

On Sunday, I got to go out with a personal friend of mine, elder Khanakam. I have served with him before in Don Muang, so it was a wonderful opportunity to work with him again and to visit a bunch of different families. I love his spirit and he has developed a Character of Christ within himself. When you are near him you can feel his love and warmth. I want to emulate Chrsit's Character more and more each day so people can recognize me as His servant! 

Like I said it was a shorter week, so that's about it. I love you guys. Have an awesome week!

Love, 

Elder Lowe 

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We saw this massive dog and massive worm this week. Like massive seriously. You probably can't tell in the pictures, but yeah they are huge

Fat worm

Close up of fat worm:  crazy big!

Fat dog - I felt sorry for him

Skinny cow:  Is Robert becoming a cow rancher?

Wow!

Hitching a ride

With Elder and Sister Gigi.  He served in Thailand before Robert's dad

The Bro's

With some Buddhist monks

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 70 - new companion is Sister Coakley

This week has been an adventure, that's for sure!

So to start, I had to say goodbye to all my Nibley people, and man am I going to miss them. I loved serving in Nibley and it will always have a piece of my heart:)

On Thursday I met my new trainee! Her name is Sister Coakley and she is from Southern Illinois and lives only 5 minutes outside of Kentucky! Pretty cool! She's a U.K. Fan so we get along great, haha! Cool fact about her is she is 6 feet tall!!! So now I just look really short:)

So since both of us don't know anything about the area, we have been meeting with a ton of bishops and relief society presidents. We watched conferences at different bishops homes so that was fun! When we got to the area, the Area Book was like...blank. The Elders had no investigators and had not recorded anything. They had a few names written down but no addresses or phone numbers so we were so lost. But we've gotten a lot of referrals from the bishops and so we are just gonna start fresh.

We had a miracle this week already! We got a referral from the bishop about this guy named Tyler. He has come to church twice with his girlfriend and so we stopped by and had a lesson with him and the girl friend and... he is so GOLDEN! Like we had just started the lesson and he said "I can already feel it here, I feel this weird warm feeling in my heart. It's the same feeling I get at church" yeah pretty cool! He already recognizes the spirit. Sister Coakley invited him to be baptized and he said yes and is on date for October 14th now! He even asked about a time for his baptism! He is so prepared! So that was Sister Coakley's first lesson, haha, pretty good way to start your mission right?

It's been a great week. Lots of change. Lots of stress. I don't think I've ever been so stressed on my mission until this week. The first two days here in pleasant view were so stressful because I literally had no idea what to do. We had no maps, no addresses, no nothing. I wanted Sister Coakley to have a good first week, but I just didn’t even know where to go. I've prayed so much this week. I don't think I've ever prayed this hard on my mission. I'm just trying to rely on the Lord. Let him guide me and direct me here. And he truly has in just the four days I've been here. President Uchdorf said in conference: "God will use you. He will walk beside you. Even carry you along the way. He uses us in our weakness. He uses us in our inadequacies. He will use you for his purposes, if you are willing."

He then shared Proverbs 3:5-6 which talks about trusting in the Lord with all your heart. This was exactly what I needed to hear. It was like God was answering my prayers right in the first talk of conference. Although I feel inadequate and weak in whitewashing this area with a brand new missionary, President Uchdorf said if I am willing, God will use me. And I just have to trust in that. I just need to become one with the Savior and come and join with him. To top it off we had general conference which was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. It was just what I needed to here. Our apostles truly spoke the word of God this weekend.

"Remember to put your savior Jesus Christ at the center of your life today" - Elder Zwick

Love you all!

Sister Lowe

1-2. Temple on Wednesday with my old zone

3. SISTER CINAVI CAME BACK!!!

4. Sister Coakley (the sun was super bright)

5-6. Transfers

7. Conference

8. Views of my area

Week 44: Jorge

Heeellllloooo!

Wow what a week. I don't even know where to start. This has probably been one of the most spiritual weeks of my mission. Okay well first the highlights of the week.... (This is gonna be long)

1. GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING!!! I loved so many talks! President Uchdorfs, Elder Costa, Elder Choi, Elder Ballard, Elder Sabin, there were so many great talks! Conference has never been so great in my life. I think the coolest thing that I heard was that the apostles told us to read the "Living Christ" to study it like scripture. Well in December my mission president had our whole mission memorize it. As I watched conference I realized how inspired my mission president is. He is so inspired! Also in Elder Stevenson's talk he mentioned the Fernando family well Elder Mendoza (the Spanish missionary in my zone) was the one to baptize that family who's daughter in law got in a car reck and died. I'll attach the pic below! I love the Utah Logan mission!

2. So on Thursday night a member called us saying she saw 3 cop cars by Jorge's (our investigator) place and she saw him running in the field away from the cops and that they had handcuffed him. We were like WHAT! So we went over to just see and sure enough we saw some cop cars at his house. We decided it would be best to not go see them at that time so we don't get in the middle of things.

So then on Saturday we had a lesson with Jorge and his wife and they told us the story. So Jorge got drunk on Thursday and then drove home and hit a pole and totaled his car. He then went to jail for drunk driving and Holly (his wife) had to bail him out. Yep...Yikes! But Jorge saw the consequences of drinking and we told him that if he had lived the word of wisdom he wouldn't of gotten in a reck. So he now is committed to not drink anymore alcohol and said he has the desire to be baptized one day. He's a work in progress but he's coming along.

3. Zone conference was this week! So since Sister Davis and I are STLs we had to give a training in zone conference in our zone. We also had to give the same training in the cache north zone because they don’t have any STLs up there. Cache north zone is at the top of our mission and we were only 5 minutes from Idaho so Elder and Sister Lemon (office senior couple) took us to the boarder and then took us to pepridge farm (where they make gold fish)! It was so cool! The Lemons asked President to take us there and he told them "those sisters deserve it" man I love our mission president. Zone conference was super good, the zone leaders brought some members to it and had them pretend to be investigators and we had to go around the church and street contact them....it was so much fun!!

4. We've had a lot of lessons this week and all of investigators are starting to really progress. We found 4 new investigators this week, so we are pretty pumped! We were tracting one day and met this lady named Romana. She has gone to the LDS church for over 16 years and believes in what we teach yet will not get baptized. She refused to do it and it's so sad. She reminds me of Adela who I taught on campus. It's so sad to see people believe in this gospel and know it is true but refuse to get baptized...it makes no sense to me and it is heart breaking.

5. We met this return missionary of 4 years who is gone completely inactive. He doesn't believe in God anymore and when we were talking to him I just felt so sad for him. I don't know how you could go inactive after having the spiritual experiences you have everyday on your mission. Our mission president at zone conference asked how many of you plan on going inactive? None of us raised our hands. He said exactly none of us plan on going inactive yet it happens to so many of us. He encouraged us to never stop reading the Book of Mormon, never stop praying, if we do that we will never lose our testimony.

6. Okay last thing....sorry this is so long! Our mission president invited us to come to his house on Sunday and have dinner there. The youth group back from his home Ward in Washington came to Utah for conference and then was staying at President Allred's house. We had dinner and then went on splits with the priest and laurels. I had two girls come with me and we went to a lesson back in Nibley and they were so awesome! One of them was a convert and shared her conversion story to our investigator! It was a fun night. We all returned back to presidents house and had dessert and a little fireside where people bore their testimonies. It was so cool. A bunch of youth and missionaries all together sharing our experiences with the spirit. I love our mission. I love my mission president. It's great to be a missionary.

It's been a great week! We only have one week till transfers and I really really hope I stay here. I really like Nibley so far and sister Davis and I are two peas in a pod, hahah were pretty great friends now. Well hope you guys have a great week!! I'm jealous of my fam who is at the beach but hope they have fun! Love y'all

Sister Lowe

Betsy's letter from Marissa

Hi mom!

I love your personal emails too! Scarfs would be nice and maybe fleece tights I only have sheer. I love Sister Schultz. She is great and learning quickly. We work well together and she is a lot like me. I miss sister brunt a lot and we email each other back and forth on Mondays. We really are best friends! It's getting cold here now so I am not happy about that. It's been a slow week. We are trying to find more people to teach but it is a work in progress! 

I love you mom and hope you like your classes better. Online is really hard because there is no motivation. You are a really kind mom for doing senior week. That takes a lot of work and money so you are so Christ like for doing that! 

I love you and miss you!!! You're the best:) 

Marissa - week 18 General Conference

Hi everyone!
Hope everyone's week went well! My week has been one of the best! It's been very spiritually uplifting and I can't tell you how thankful I am for this gospel.

First off, it was general conference this week!!! I've never been the best at watching conference in my life or paying attention to it, but this time was different! It was like waiting for Christmas this week. I've really grown a stronger testimony of conference since being out on my mission. General conference is where we get to hear from the prophet and apostles in this day. Their words are so inspiring and heart felt and I just loved hearing their words.

One of my favorite talks was by Elder Cook. He shared this story about him and his grandpa. His grandpa had this big window that showed a pretty view of his ranch. It had a electric pole right in the middle of it. He asked his grandpa "why did you let them put that ugly pole in the middle of the beautiful view?" The grandpa replied, "Quentin, that pole is the most beautiful thing on this ranch. That pole keeps me from lighting candles, from holding buckets of water, etc. I love that pole."  He symbolized that pole to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gives us power, strength, and he eases our burdens. He left with the question of: Is Jesus Christ the pole that is in the center of your life window? I need to make Jesus Christ the center of my view and put him first in times of happiness and sorrow.

So yep I loved conference, but these are somethings that happened this week:
So like usual, this week we walked a lot on campus where we meet a ton of people. Some people are interested in hearing the Lords message, whereas a lot aren't:/ Sister Schultz and I were walking one day and we saw this girl walking to class, so I nudged Sister Schultz to talk to her (I'm trying to get her to talk more to people) so she said to the girl, "hi, what's your name?" The girl looked at us and then started to take off running saying, "no, no, no, sorry, no no, no!" I so badly wanted to run after her, hahaha, but Sister Schultz stopped me. I just wanted to say "hey we're people too!" I thought it was pretty funny! I guess we look scary, haha.

We met another guy on campus named Caesar! He told us he has read the Book of Mormon four times and knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, but he's never been baptized! CRAZY, RIGHT? We asked him why he hadn't and he just said, "I mean if you want to be baptized then you should but I don't want to, so yeah." I was so shocked. How can you believe in everything, but not want to be baptized?!? We got his number and he said he'd love to meet with us, so we will meet with him next week, wish us luck!

This week was good. It had some discouraging moments, but those were overshadowed by the light of this gospel. I love being a missionary. I love this gospel. I love Jesus Christ, my Savior and Redeemer. I love the family I was blessed with and the friends that I have. I'm truly grateful for the life I've been given and I've realized I don't usually give enough attention to the blessings God has given me. I love you all and hope you have a great week and that you can see the hand of God in your life:)

Sister Lowe

 

Week 94 - General Conference

General conference was great.  I really liked Elder Hales and Bednar talk.  I have always liked Elder Bednar talks.  I have always had this fascination with the Holy Ghost and its purpose.  The first scripture that I memorized and Loved was Moroni 10:5 "And by the Power of the Holy Ghost ye shall know the Truth of all thing." I appreciated his remarks greatly.  This week went really well.  Elder Carroll and I are getting along and are working hard.  This week was more of service and getting to know and talk to people in the area.  We planed some trees for them and they told us that whenever they look at those trees they will remember that we planted them. All of these potential Investigators are just popping out of no where.  We just need to contact them and start teaching them the gospel. Pray that we get new investigators

This a photo of Elder Carroll 

I accidentally left my camera laying at the mission office for a while.  While I was gone, everyone had fun taking photos with it.  

Devon - Week 42 - General conference

This week was similar to last week with Elder Jones not feeling well.  

General Conference was Great.  The spirit touched me in many of the talks. We got to watch Sunday morning General Conference with the Dickerson's.  The Mom cried during two of the talks.  The Dad paid close attention to all of Conference talks and really liked 3 of them.   President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Elder Brent H. Nielson, and Elder José A. Teixeira talks.  They have three kids who are normally are crazy and all over the place but they were all quite and behaved through out all of conference.  It was quite surprising.  

The work has been slower because Elder Jones has been sick.  Could you guys pray for him.  He is having abnormal abdominal pain and the doctors can’t find out what is wrong with him. We have gone to the doctors three times.  First they checked his blood, second they did an ultra sound, and third they did the ink test. We still don’t know what is wrong. We will just keep pushing on.

General Conference

This session (all of them) of General Conference were especially touching to me.  I'm not sure exactly why some conferences I seem to be more in tune with and others I have a hard time, but this time it was so special for me.

First there were several talks about how special the family is.  I thought of my family - my immediate family and how very precious they are to me and how I would do anything to protect this family.  Then I realized I need to be doing more to be kind, gentle and loving to my family.  I need to show them my affection and love more often (and not just take it for granted that they know I love them and do everything for them).  Then I thought of my extended family and how I wish, hope and pray that Sandy's life improves and she will be safe from harm or accident.  I also pray for Kirstie to come back to church and feel the love the Savior has for her (and Johnny).  I thought of my dad and Alison - I so hope he feels better soon and can find his way back to church on Sundays.

I thought of Jessica and Tate starting their cute little family on June 6th.  How very blessed we are to have such a wonderful daughter and that she has found an outstanding young man to marry for all time and eternity!

There were talks about all the subject that usually are at conference but this time it just seemed like a plee to be more kind, more loving and more helpful to others around us.  To be good missionaries and good neighbors.

General Conference

I am so grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because we have the priviledge of hearing wise inspired counsel from church leaders that received direct revelation for our generation.

Not many people in the world believe this, which is a shame, but if you think about it - why wouldn't the Lord want to give advice, counsel and help to his children.

Jessica is only 2000 miles away and we will see her periodically on breaks, etc.  We are ??? who knows how many miles away from our Heavenly Father and see him in person, well not until we die.  However, just like Jessica we have the opportunity to talk and counsel with each other as much as we want - with Jessica it is called talking on the phone, skyping, or texting.  With Heavenly Father it is called prayer, reading scriptures for answers and listening to General Conference.

I am so grateful for this weekend to listen to the counsel of our leaders!  They are inspired and share what is important for us to follow at this time.