Week 67: Exchanges and Transfers

Hey everybody. I wanted to start off this email by saying thank you to all of you. I want to work on gratitude this week and see the tender mercies of the Lord more easily in my life. You all are wonderful and are such a blessing to my life. Thank you for being so supportive of me and looking out for me. 

This week I had 3 switch offs (1 in my area and 2 outside my area). On Thursday I went to Ubon and I got to switch off with Elder Maat. He is on his 6th transfer so he is a relatively new missionary. We were able to just do service the entire day because the place is flooded. All the water that was in my area and all the water around us flowed to Ubon and so that place is completely wrecked. There is water completely covering houses in Ubon it was insane! 

On Friday we went to Sisaket and I switched off with Elder Meyer who is on his 13th transfer. We visited a couple people and we taught one person at a Buddhist temple (like right outside of one). Elder Meyer is a very experienced missionary and all of our lessons had such a powerful spirit there. I also did a baptismal interview on that day for someone they are teaching and he just got baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! 

On Sunday we saw some major miracles. We have been working with a bunch of returning members because it is something that our mission President asked us to do. He has said, "getting a returning member back to church is equivalent to baptizing." Anyways we got 24 returning members back to church this last Sunday!! IT WAS AWESOME! When I first got to the area we were having about 55 people each week at church, but this last week we hit 88!! MIRACLES! 

On Monday I did exchanges with the APs. I got to switch off with Elder Walker who is a living legend. He goes home in 2 weeks, but still has such a determination to serve the Lord to the end. I learned so much from him about just being a better person. What I mean by that is I felt like he emulates the character of Christ better than any missionary I have seen. Being around him makes me want to be better and become more like my Savior, Jesus Christ! We taught a bunch of people that day and even got to eat lunch with my the mission President!

 President Hammond came to the area and took us to lunch.

For P day we went to a sweet waterfall. Pictures will be coming next week!

Love you all so so much! Trust in the Lord...and he will direct thy path :)

Love, 

Elder Lowe

เอ็ลเดอร์โลว์

Week 11: ทำงานหนักให้มีความสำเร็จ

This week has been such a grind! We go out every single day and just talk and teach people! Literally, all day every day just working and working! Also, I didn't realize how much it rains here in Thailand until this week. It honestly rains about 5 times everyday and every time it rains I just get soaked! All of my shirts are so dirty and muddy - I love it. 

On Tuesday I got the opportunity to give part of a blessing in Thai, or the anointing of the oil, which was super cool. Also, we  teach English to the Thai people every Tuesday night and we taught them about weather. It's funny to see other people struggle just like me at learning the language, haha!

The next day we taught so many people and prepared sister หล้า for baptism by asking her the baptismal interview questions. She passed! 

Well, later that night, I had to go all the way back to Bangkok on another 12 hour bus ride; we arrived in Bangkok around 6 in the morning. It was all good because I got to see all my buds from the MTC. Love you all!! I came pretty much 12 hours just to sign a piece of paper and then go straight back. But it was worth it because I was able to talk with this Thai person on a train in Bangkok. He was Buddhist and I asked him what he knew about God. He didn't know very much so I taught him about what I believe and I taught him the restoration of the gospel. He loved it and I ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and getting his phone number and Facebook. It was sweet. 

I took a flight for the way back to Chiang Rai. In the airport I got to eat McDonald's, which was expensive, but totally worth it because I haven't had any American food in like a week and a half. Everything in Thailand is like soooo cheap it's insane. Once we got back we immediately went out and gave some lessons and committed two more of our investigators to baptism! The work here is awesome!. The key is just making sure people are reading the Book of Mormon everyday. 

Friday just poured all day and we went inviting and knocking doors. Super hard day with everyone rejecting us and not being able to understand what people are saying. It is super tough to understand some people because they don't speak very clear! In the end the key is to have more faith, to not worry, stay focused, try my best, have a good attitude, have fun, and rely on the Lord!

The good stuff:

Saturday was sweet! The day was all centered around sister หล้า because it was her baptism day. She is about a 50 year old woman who was born into Christianity and then married a Muslim. And now is coming back to Christianity. I was asked to be the one who baptize her which was super cool cause it was my first baptism. Her name was like 10 syllables long so that was hard to remember Haha. We taught her like everyday and I became pretty close with her. It's awesome the amount of lives we can change here by helping others draw nearer to God. 

Church was much better this week and I understood a lot more. Not gonna lie, it's been a tough week not being able to speak that much or understand, but I know I just have to be patient cause I've only been here a week! Good thing I got today to relax and ride elephants...that's right I'm gonna go ride elephants today!!! Its gonna be so fun! I'll let you all know how it is next week!

Love you all and miss you!!

ประเทศไทยสนุกมากๆครับ ด้วยอาหารอยู่ที่นี่อร่อยเลย. ผมชอบเชียงรายและประสบการฌ์นี้สุดยอดเลย. ผมคิดถึงทุกฯคน! โชคดีนะครับ

Love

Elder Lowe 

Also this week I got to eat some bees lol. They were not good!!! Too mushy

5) me eating some bees  

4) mural of the soccer team that got stuck in the cave here in Chiang Rai  

3) sister หล้า baptism   

2) flooding from all the rain  

1) flying back to Chiang Rai from Bangkok   

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