November 18, 2013 Letter

 Hi family!

Well it sounds like winter is in full effect back home. That is exciting. That means Christmas is just around the corner. Robbie I am sorry to hear about your back. Hopefully things can get better. Joanie nice job on the missionary work. That is awesome!

I am emailing today because transfers was today. Elder Porutu and I are staying put though. So we have at least one more transfer serving together in this area. It will be good. We are really making progress here.

Well my email might be short this week but I just want to share a couple of things. The first one is a funny story. So Elder Porutu and I were out tracting yesterday and there was a huge storm coming in. The clouds didn't look too friendly. But we decided to just keep tracting. Anyway, the storm hit really fast. It started pouring pretty quickly. There was some pretty good size hail as well. So we ran back to our bikes as fast as we could and biked over to a house we knew near by. They gave us a nice dry shirt to wear. It was a good time.

So we are working with a part member family now. The Fanueli family. I think I might have told you a little about them already. They are such a nice family! The Father is Samoan, and the Mother is Mauri/Cook Islander. They have 3 kids that are eight and older that they want to get baptized. The parents really want to come back to church as well. It is an amazing feeling to teach in there home. We have such good lessons with them. Their desire to learn is so strong. It is great.

Sorry about the short email. Something that I have really noticed lately is that so many things come back to faith. Over and over again in the scriptures miracles happen "according to their faith." The same thing can apply to pretty much anything. God places us in certain places at different times in our lives for a reason. Sometimes things aren't easy and we struggle. But we just have to do our best and have faith in the Lord. We can let any experience strengthen us as long as we let it. That is what God would want for us. I know that He knows us and loves us. I am so grateful for that knowledge and for the chance I have to share it with others. I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!

Love,
Elder Low

November 10, 2013 Letter

Hey family!

 

Well it sounds like everybody is pretty busy. Especially Robbie and Cammie. I bet that was fun going from 0 kids to 4 kids. Pretty soon Richard and Leslie will have a similar experience. Keep it up Leslie! It sounds like you are gaining quite a bit of weight. I feel the same way. Just kidding. Dad good work on putting up the Christmas lights! I can't believe Christmas is already coming up. Time goes by so fast! What is everybody doing for Christmas?

 

Well I am still pretty jealous about all of the snow. The weather here has been pretty crazy. It was pretty hot for most of the week. I think the sun just burns me right through my sunscreen. It is either really hot or it rains really hard. Apparently they have some crazy storms here. Hopefully we don't get caught in any on our bikes.

 

Well I will try to answer some questions quick. Karen a lot of people here struggle with the word of wisdom. There are pretty much two religions here, rugby and alcohol. Well that is what we are told. People love to drink here. It is tough for them to give up those things. Unfortunately I am not picking up an accent. Or at least I don't think I am. The area I am in is very multi-cultural so there are a ton of different accents. Mom I do live in Logan. Logan is the city, and Woodridge is the suburb. Apparently Woodridge is well known in Logan for being a not so good area. Queensland is the state. Our mission covers all of Queensland. Ipswich is in our mission. So maybe I will run into Julie and Andrew over here.

 

Well we were pretty blessed this week. Again we did quite a bit of finding, but we were blessed to meet some great people. We actually have a baptismal date for two people we met. The day is December 14th. The first guys name is Ramon Mcgrady. He is an aboriginal man. So hopefully we can get him to give up some harmful substances. The other ladies name is Sarah. She is a Muslim. She is super nice! Hopefully we can keep working with them so they can be baptized on December 14th.

 

We are still working with Alana and Shana. They are very nice ladies. We have actually taught them all the lessons, the trick is to get them to act on what they have learned. We had a very good talk with them. They have told us that they will probably be baptized one day, but they just aren't sure if they are ready. There are some word of wisdom issues that are really tough for them to give up. Sorry if I have mentioned all of this before. It is tough though when Satan makes all these things seem like they bring happiness. It is very untrue. God knows what is best for us. We just have to put our trust in him. I am really hoping that one day they can see this.

 

Well I can't believe how fast time goes. Transfers are coming up next week so I don't know where I will be. Maybe I will stay here. I got the chance to give a talk in our ward yesterday, and it really made me realize how much of love this ward. I have really grown to love the people here. It would be sad to leave them.

 

Something that really hit me this week is that we will always have opposition. We meet a lot of unfriendly people here, but they are still sons and daughters of God. Instead of fighting back, we need to love them. We need to pray for them and help them in anyway we can. You never know when the Holy Ghost will touch them. We just always have to try and be that person that the Holy Ghost can work through. I hope you all have a great week! I love you and pray for you every day!

 

Love,

Elder Low

November 3, 2013 Letter

Hi family!

 

Well it sounds like Halloween was pretty successful back home. Lots of fun! I saw all the pictures that you sent. I always loved Halloween. I would come home with a ton of candy, and then I would sneak even more from the laundry room. Maybe that is why I had a little bit of an obesity issue. Good times. Halloween wasn't very big over here. Or at least it wasn't in the area that I am serving in. Like I said, this area is pretty dangerous. The suburb where we stay is called Woodridge, and apparently it is always on the news and has a very bad reputation. I don't think we saw anybody out trick-or-treating. By the way happy birthday on the 6th Jason! Maybe by the time I get home you will be old and tired so I can beat you at tennis. Just kidding.

 

Well I feel like I just wrote everybody. Time goes by so fast out here. We do not have daylight savings time here so I think we are 17 hours ahead now. This week has been really interesting. We have had a lot of changes in the ward that I am serving in. We have a new bishopric and most of the auxilary leaders were changed as well. So we are getting into the swing of working with some new people. It is great! I think the members are really starting to get into the work.

 

Mom I am not too sure what else would be good in a Christmas package. Maybe some socks? The ones I brought with me are a little small. But I can also buy socks here. Whatever works for you. I can't believe how close Christmas is.

 

Well this week has been a little bumpy. We are really struggling with getting our investigators to keep appointments or keep commitments. A lot of the people we are teaching have broken English as well so we have to go pretty slow. One of the big things we have been trying to focus on is getting people out to church. There was a couple weeks there when we had quite a few people coming too church. In the last little while it seems like they are getting caught up in worldly things again. We are still working hard though.

 

We have some tough times but we have also have tons of little miracles. Something interesting happened at church yesterday. A random African man just came into sacrament meeting and sat down. When we talked to him, we found out that he just wanted to see what goes on in this big building. He said he had drove by it many times but has never come in. So yesterday he decided to come in. He also said he was looking for a church to join. He came to the right one! Unfortunately he does not live in our area, so we have to refer in to the other Elders, but that is alright. As long as he is being taught the Gospel!

 

Lately in my studies I have been reading a lot about miracles. Mormon and Moroni both talk quite a bit about how miracles don't cease to exist. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We have the power to work miracles according to our faith. I love the verses in Mormon 9: 15-19. We have a God of miracles! He wants to give us miracles! The only reason why He wouldn't is because of our unbelief. I love that. We are so blessed to have someone so Powerful on our side. I know that we can all see miracles in our lives. Anyway, I hope you all have a great week full of blessings and miracles. I love you all so much!

 

Love,

Elder Low