February 25, 2014 Letter

Hi family!


Thank you for all the birthday wishes! My birthday has been great so far. Today was our temple Pday so I got to go to the temple for my birthday. That is pretty nice birthday present. We also have another lesson with Noel tonight. So hopefully that goes well. That would make my birthday even better. Anyway, good luck Robbie with you interviews! You will do great! And also happy birthday to Jace on the 28th! I can't believe how old he is getting. Mom and Dad have fun on your trip!


Well we actually had something really funny happen this week. It was the first time it has happened on my mission. So me and my companion were tracting the other day. We were walking up to a door and a chunk of something pink came out of the sky and landed in the yard. It was really strange. Then when we went to knock on the next house a big piece of something green landed beside us. It almost hit us. My companion picked it up and it was "play-do" or whatever you call it. We were looking around for a bit and a few more chunks started flying from somewhere. Finally I spotted a guy who was crouched down behind a fence. He was throwing play-do at us! It was actually really funny. After he was done he went up onto his porch and put a spider-man mask on. It was hilarious. My companion seemed a little mad but I thought it was great! There are some weird people in Australia.


Karen I eat a lot of noodles and meat pies. We eat with members around 3 times a week which is pretty nice. But thank you for the recipe! I need to start cooking more.


Anyway, we have some great things happening here in Toowoomba. Noel is still on date to be baptized on March 15th. He came to church again and he is really progressing. We are really excited about that! We also tracted into a great family this week! The Byamungu family. They are from Africa. They have 7 kids and they are really smart! They had such good questions for us. We have already had a couple of great lessons with them. I love them! Also we set a baptismal date for Tara on March 22nd. I think her biggest problem will just be getting to church on Sunday. She works which makes it really hard. She is super nice though.


My testimony this week is about temples. I love going to the temple. We are doing such an important work. People on the other side are just waiting for us to perform the ordinances for them. I know that as we listen to the prophets counsel and attend the temple as much as possible, our lives will be blessed, and our families lives will be blessed. I love you all and hope you have a great week!


Love,
Elder Low

February 16, 2014 Letter

 

 My Chinese friends sent me some pictures. The studly picture of me was captured when we were waiting for the train to go to the temple :)

 

 

I don't really like shaving every day. my electric razor wasn't doing so great for me, so I decided to switch to a manual razor. I had some nice bumps and stuff from my electric razor already though.

 Also I forget to mention a little while ago I got to baptize one of the investigators the sisters were teaching. Unfortunately I can't give the sisters the priesthood so I did it. His name is Warrick Benn.

 

Well I am not sure how well you can tell from the pictures, but I sweat a lot!

 

 

Hopefully I can get that out of my shirt.

Hi family!

Well it sounds like everybody is enjoying life and watching some olympics. That is great! I don't think the winter olympics are very big over here. We have run into a few people watching them, but not many. Go Canada! Karen and Alvin it sounds like your having a great time in Moab. That is crazy about the missionaries in Russia though. The Lord is always looking after us. Robbie and Cammie enjoy the rest of your holiday. It sounds like it has been well deserved.

Well the heat came back again this week. It was hot! One of my shirts has a nice big brown spot on it from the sweat. Hopefully I can get some bleach soon. We also had some funny things happen this week. So Elder Pu (from China) bought some kangaroo meat last week. He came to the till with it and I asked him about it. Apparently he thought it was beef or something. So he was pretty surprised when I told him it was kangaroo meat. It was funny. He let me try a little piece of it and it was really weird. I would definitely take a piece of Alberta beef over a piece of kangaroo. I am happy to say now that I have tried kangaroo though. Also while me an my companion were tracting a little girl pointed at me and said "I saw you on TV." I thought that was funny.

We had some ups and downs this week with our investigators. Patty Lasserre, the one who was suppose to be baptized on March 1st, is having a lot of problems. She is going to court again so she said she will be busy for awhile. That was unfortunate. We have been making great progress with Noel though. Mom Noel is the guy Patty Siebenhausen is dating, not Patty Lasserre. There is more than one Patty. We committed Noel to be baptized one March the 15th. I don't think he will have problems with going to court or anything. So that will be nice. We are really excited about him! A lot of our other investigators are very up and down. It is a lot different when you are on a mission because you really see things from a different point of view than your investigators. They are still really busy with worldly things. Progress is being made though! We are excited!

Something I have really noticed on my mission is that the Lords love can stretch anywhere. We have never fallen too deep. The Lords hand is always there ready to pick us up when we fall. Something we need to realize though is that we are the Lords hands. He works through us. We have a responsibility as sons and daughters of God to serve and help one another. And as we already know, when we serve others, we are serving the Lord. We can change lives. As we change other peoples lives, we will change our own. Serving others brings a love so much greater than anything we can experience through worldly things. It is the Saviors love. I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!

 Love,
Elder Low

February 10, 2014 Letter

Hi family!

It sounds like the whole continent is freezing over there. That is crazy that even Portland and Texas got snow. Church being cancelled doesn't happen very often. I only remember that happening once up in Cardston. Happy birthday to Julie on the 13th! I hope you day is everything you dreamed of and more.

Well this week has been a good but tiring week for us. Mom we still have to follow the schedule even though we woke up early to go to the temple last week. Hopefully today we will get a nice nap in though. I will try to answer some questions really quick. I am not sure what you mean about the 2 new temple films. I have seen one of them. Is there another?  The weather over here is still pretty hot. But it is definitely getting cooler. That is nice. Jordan Heninger helped coach our volleyball team. He graduated a couple years before me. But Alexis Zaugg is my age. And yes I do write/email some of my friends that are on missions sometimes.

Today is transfers for us. Fortunately I get to stay in this area with my companion Elder Palemene. This is his last transfer so we are going to work him hard. We will also go back to having just 4 Elders in our flat. That will be nice. We still have the Elder from China here though so he will keep eating the majority of our noodles. Asians must love that stuff. He is a funny guy. I love him!

We saw some really good things happen in the work this week. I don't know how much I have talked about Noel but things are really progressing with him. Last week we committed him to baptism and this week we are hoping to set a date. He even came to sacrament meeting on Sunday! That is always a good sign. We also invited one of our investigators named Tara to be baptized. She said she would pray about it. She seems to understand everything we teach pretty well. She just isn't keeping her commitments and that is so important. We all have to know for ourselves that the Gospel is true.

We are about to finish a Book of Mormon challenge our mission president gave us. He challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in 2 transfers which is about 3 months. My love for the Book of Mormon has really grown on my mission. There are so many wonderful examples of faithful people throughout history. We can learn so much from reading our scriptures daily. I have had multiple times where my prayers have been answered through scriptures. God is really trying to speak to us. It is up to us to listen. I love this Gospel. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. We are so blessed to have this knowledge. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Low

February 4, 2014 Letter

Hi family!

 

That is some exciting news from home. Congrats Justin and Amelia on baby number five on the way! That is exciting. It is weird to think about how many kids you have. I still remember coming down to Provo to see Zach when he was just a baby. Robbie congratulations on the interview at the U of C. I hope all goes well there. Life never seems to stop.

 

Well I am emailing today because today was our temple Pday for the transfer. But since we are up in Toowoomba we have a little ways to go to the temple. We actually aren't allowed to drive there so we had to catch a train down in Ipswich and go from there. That added a little extra time to our travels. I got up a little after 2:30 this morning to get ready and go. We were out of our flat a little after 3:30. So it has been a long day. But the temple is worth it!

 

Well this week has been full of ups and downs. Karen it was funny how you mentioned that Satan steps in right as people try to do something good. We still have a baptismal date for Patty Lasserre but unfortunately she is now going to court on the 12th. Something about her husband accusing her of something. It is a story that I don't really understand. So I guess we will see how that goes. We did meet some great people this week though. We tracted into a girl named Kathryn on Monday. She told us to come back Tuesday afternoon and when we actually showed up she was really surprised. She said she tells people like us to come back all the time but they never do. We ended up having a great lesson with her though. She actually knows some of the members that use to be in our ward. She said she even thinks she came to our church a couple times when she was younger. So we are hoping things will progress there.

 

Well sorry this email is so short. I am glad to hear things are going so well back home. When we do what the Lord commands He really does bless us. I have definitely seen that throughout my life. You have all been such wonderful examples to me! This Gospel is so true. I know that Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and through him the Gospel was restored to the Earth. We are so blessed to have this knowledge. Thank you for all your love and support. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Low

January 27th Letter

Hi family,


Mom it sounds like you are on the run a lot from Edmonton to Cardston. That is a lot of driving. I am glad you got to go to Grandma's birthday party though. Sounds like fun. Karen happy birthday on the 30th! I can't believe how old you are. That is kind of weird, because it means I will be that old soon. It seems like yesterday that we were both in high school on the Europe trip. Time flies!


Unfortunately I have not seen Julie and Andrew yet. I probably won't see them. They stay in Ipswich right? I am in a city about an hour or so away called Toowoomba. That is too bad that they don't have air conditioning. We have some now but we didn't have any in Logan. It is not fun. Mom I got to Brisbane by car. We share a car with some other Elders so we get it every other day. I wear contacts most of the time now because my glasses were starting to give me headaches. I think it might have also been dehydration. Mom I think the reason I am growing is because I am eating too much Hungry Jacks. Hungry Jacks is really Burger King, but Australia is weird so they like to change things. Don't worry though, by the time I come home I will probably be 250 pounds of solid muscle.


Well this week was very interesting for us. There was another emergency transfer! Fortunately this time it didn't involve me. There was some other Elders in a place called Warick who got transferred out. So one of them is staying with us now. His name is Elder Yabut and he is from the Phillipines. He is in a trio with the other Elders in our flat. So we now have five Elders living in our place. We got through food like crazy. Elder Pu (the Chinese Elder) eats noodles like crazy!


We had a good week proselyting as well. We set a baptismal date with Patty Lasserre! We are aiming for March 1st. We were trying to have it sooner but she feels like she needs some time. Her biggest problem is going to be giving up smoking. It seems like everybody here smokes! Even kids. It is sad. Hopefully we can help her. A lot of our other investigators are really making progress as well. We are excited. Unfortunately none of them showed up to Church on Sunday. That was a little disappointing. I think they may have been out having some fun for Australia Day which was on Sunday. Next week!


I want you all to know that I love you so much! Families are so important in God's plan. There is a reason we are where we are with who we are. Coincidences are just the Lord's hand in our lives. I know that Toowoomba is where I am suppose to be right now. I have seen that over the past few weeks. I love seeing people accept the Gospel in their lives. It is amazing the change that it can bring. I hope you all have a great week! Love you!


Love,
Elder Low