Shadow Nativity

 This year our ward youth did a shadow nativity. They did such an awesome job! There was some funny mishaps but it was perfectly imperfect. The primary children normally do the nativity but this year they rang bells to a couple of songs. It was a truly beautiful night with many people's talents on display.

 

Potato miracle

 We have the absolute best ministering brother. Brother Griggs looks after our family and occasionally makes us delicious brisket. I woke up this morning and got ready for church and surveyed the cabinets for dinner ideas. Since it's the Sabbath and we don't shop on Sunday, what we have is what we are going to eat. I saw a recipe for miniature potatoes to make a potato salad and I thought to myself, man I don't have enough miniature potatoes to make this dish tonight. Then we went to church and brother Griggs said hey I have something for you. We were excited cuz we thought it's got to be some yummy brisket but this time he threw in two cups of miniature potatoes between his gift and my small supply thing I had at home it was enough to make the dish all while keeping the Sabbath! What a miracle! We just ate dinner and let me tell you that potato salad was delicious and of course so what's the meat!! In young women's today we talked about how we feel the light of Christ and it's these little small things that make me think that there is a God who is aware of me personally. 

Holman turns 20!!

 Elder Howe turns 20 in Thailand! Olivia and I talked about making his favorite dessert tonight but it just feels kind of sad eating it without him. I hope he has something good to eat to celebrate. If 5 year old Holman would have known that when he was 20 he would be living in Thailand, feeding monkeys, riding elephants and putting tiny straw hats on water buffalo, he would have been so excited and probably would have read less about the Coliseum and more about Bangkok. We have missed Elder Howe so vey much. Missions are no joke. They are extremely trying, exhausting and ultimately I hope it expands his compacity for compassion of his fellow men and women. Not many people choose to pause their own ambitions for 2 years to serve others. We are so grateful Holman was born. He is hilarious, irreverent, thoughtful and courageous. Just a couple of weeks till he returns and then we will eat cake!

Benjamin's annual Mans trip

Benjamin and his buddies went on their annual UofA football trip. This time they went to Dallas. He road a mechanical bull, introduced the guys to Buckees, went to the Dallas temple and ate yummy BBQ. These guys have been going for 15 years, Loyd, Anthony, Chance and Daryl. What. Fun tradition. Maybe the Wildcats could actually win one 😅

Letter #1 Elder Howe (4/2/23)

 Monday: Started the day off by doing  some studies then taking  a nap. Then we went out for breakfast and went to the church to call our families. After that we went to lunch, then went to check out this cool temple. When we were walking  around, we saw a monk sweeping a walkway, so we asked if we could  help, and he gave us his brooms and we went to work. Once we finished we talked about the church with him and gave him a book of mormon. We said hi to all the other monks before leaving. The monks are really respected in Thailand, and what's cool is they really respect us. They treat us like other monks, and are super nice. When we were heading  out a lady came up to us and thanked us for helping to sweep the walkway. We talked about the church with her and free english class and gave her a card and a book of mormon too. 2 book of mormons during pday! After that we went home and took a nap before sports night, then did some online appointments. 

Tuesday: We did our studies, got lunch, then biked super far to another town were we taught some lessons and had to drop a few investigators which was sad. We then biked all the way home. It was like a 12 mile round trip and 107 so it was pretty rough. We then taught english class. We had a super full class at the beginning, but a group of 8 kids took off as soon as we started teaching, so it ended up being a small class of only 6 or 7 people. 

Wednesday: We did some finding with a senior missionary couple that were visiting  our area. It was super nice talking  to more than one person in english, and because they had a car we were able to go to some pretty far away areas and meet with inactive  members and pepple we found. It was super fun.

Thursday: We had a ton of lessons all over our area so we were biking like crazy. Elder Sanchez's bike broke again so we had to get that fixed, and i decided to pony up the cash and buy the tool that fixed it so we didn't  have to waist so much time walking our bukes to the shop. That meant i had pretty low funds for the last couple days but it was worth not having to waist so much time on bike repairs. Then we did some unsuccessful  english class advertising  at a fair. We gave out a couple of cards but not a ton. We wanted to finish the day with a few more lessons so we biked a bunch more, and ended up having dinner at 9:40 right before bed.

Friday: we taught some lessons, then did some more finding with the senior missionary couple. After that we had english class. We only had five kids show up, and one of them brought their dog. The dog was patiently waiting outside for the kid to finish, so i decided to move class outside. We brought the whiteboard outside and did class in the church yard. It was a little hot but being outside got the kids a lot more engaged, and then the dog didn't have to be alone. We played with the dog and learned about times of day and how to read clocks. It was super fun. Then we taught some lessons before finishing for the day.

Saturday: Saturday was super busy. We had to teach online english class, then did our studies, then did a ton of lessons. The day was super bisy so it went by super fast.

Sunday: It was my first fast sunday in Thailand and i qas a little worried about  not being able to drink water while biking super far in the crazy heat. Luckily i found  out the mission president  doesn't  want biking missionaries  to fast water, so it was just a food fast. At church i bore my short, poorly pronounced testimony of the gospel in thai. All the old ladies gave me thumbs up though so that was nice haha. After church the ladies brought in a ton of food for ward lunch. I was super confused cause it was fast sunday. Turns out thai people fast saturday dinner and sunday breakfast. That way they can sleep for most of the fast. Seem a like a little bit luke cheating  but oh well haha. They offer us food but we told them we were fasting so they packaged up some food and a town of brownies  to have for dinner after we broke our fast.  We went ho.e and did our studies. After that i had to teach my first full lesson in thai. My trainer made me do the whole thing, which was a little scary but i got it done haha. I taught the third lesson, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the guy i taught speaks pretty good english, bit my trainer explained to him that i was practicing and asked him not to speak any english with me haha. After that we did some finding  in this really cool village on the bank of a lake. We talked with some fisherman on there fishing rigg for awhile which was cool, and they let us pull the nets up a couple times.

Craziest Experience: Thursday night we were at a members house in the middle of farmland. We had one more lesson to go to, and so i looked on google maps and found a shortcut through the jungle. I convinced my comp to let us take it. The trail was super loose dirt, and a very thin trail with lots of bumps. While we were biki through the jungle, my bike lights died and his got super dim because of low battery. All of a suddea pack of 8 rabid dogs started chasing us. These dogs were so rabid and mangie, they looked like zombies. We sped up and were going as fast as we could trying to get away but thes e ju gle dogs were fast. I started kicking my legs behind me while biking trying to knock them out. Luckily we popped out of the jungle onto a main road where other people were, and they yelled at the dogs with us and the dogs ran back into the jungle. Fighting off a pack of dogs, in the dark jungle, it was wild.

Spiritual Thought: As missionaries we have been commanded that “Every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:11). To help us teach people in their own language, we are able to receive the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues. Gods work will not be interrupted so he can give missionaries the words that need to be said even if the missionaries don't  know those words. I know that as far as i have come in the language (which is not very far haha) is all from divine help. After my TBI i don't  learn as fast as i used to, and to make as much progress as i have is nothing short of a miracle. When i went in to that lesson i had to teach, i barely knew the words i had to say, yet i qas able to teach the whole lesson, and understan the responses to the questions i asked. If you asked me to recite that lesson again i wouldn't  be able to do it. I recieved gods help so that that person could be taught divine truths. I am grateful for a loving god that wants each person to learn in their own language, so that they can have a personalized experience  with the gospel.  I am also grateful for a loving god that speaks through  my mouth in a language I do not know. I felt so much love for the person that i was teaching, and somehow that is only a fraction  of the love Heavenly  father feels for each one of us. Mind-blowing. 

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Letter #2 Elder Howe (7/9/23)

 Quick update because I guess people haven't been getting my emails🤷: I transferred out of Kumphawapi a few weeks ago. I am now in Lampang in northern Thailand. It is much bigger then Kumphawapi but still not to big luckily. I prefer the small towns. My new companion is Elder Rich and he is awesome, super funny and a hard worker.

Monday: Pday wasn'tawesome because i was sick, but we went to the grocery store and bought wagyu steaks and cooked them up in the apartment. They were super expensive,  only 5 days worth of money🫠, but they were super good and probably the best meat I have ever had in my life. After Pday ended we visted our friend Meh La and after watching a baptism the day before at church, she decided she wanted to be baptized to, and her granddaughter wants to aswell! We are super excited to get her ready for that.

Tuesday: I was even sicker. I had an ingrown toe nail that got infected and was hurting luke crazy and i also picked up a cold or something. We mostly tried to stay inside so we did online lessons but scrounged upthe strength to get to English class. We taught a killer lesson that was both Y2K and International (our new theme for english class).

Wednesday: I got even sicker, wasn't able to taste anything, took a covid test and tested negative, and did some more online lessons.

Thursday: Sick again but we had to teach english. We volunteer at a university here in Lampang and teach a group of 20ish women studying to become flight attendants. We teach every week at a fancy university, and its always fun, even if we are sick. After class we taught some gospel and such to different friends.  Then we had game night at the church and had a blast playing the Thai version of Jacks.

Friday: We got some fred breakfast from some members that run a food cart, and that was awesome, especially cause funds were a little low after the expensive steak. We travelled all over town teaching all of our friends and then had English Class at the church, which has been renamed, by me, the Y2K International English Group. I also wrote an accompanying motto for our students to chant at the beginning of each class.

Saturday: We were pretty biking all over town teaching different friends. We also had to prep the baptismal font at the church by spraying down the court yard and cleaning it up so it looks nice for the baptism the next day. We talked to almost all of our interested friends so it was a pretty busy day.

Sunday: We had to be at church bright and early for a meeting. There is nothing I love more than sitting in an hour long meeting in a language i do not understand!🤗 Church ended at noon and then we all had lunch together. We had a baptism at 6pm that night, and everyone decided to just wait the six hours at the church. It is really cool how close everyone is in Thailand. Church really feels like family out here. I think we could do a better job of the in the States. Maybe we just need to serve food after? I know id stay longer.😏 While everyone else was waiting  at 5he chirch we went to an elderly members house and brought him the sacrament. He is super funny snd speaks pretty good english, and he always tells us that we piss him off, dont know where he learned that phrase haha. We also visited our 17 year old friend anf got permission from his mom for him to be baptized next week, so we are super excited for him.  On the way back to church for the baptism we passed by a skate park with a ton of little kids and i convinced Elder Rich to go off the big ramp into the pit... lets just say i am 45% percent responsible for his sprained wrist😬, thats what he gets for breaking mission rules🫣. The baptism was great and his family was so happy for him.

Monday: Pday was pretty chill and we had KFC and some waffles that were really good. After Pda6 ended there was a crazy storm, so we got soaked and weee dripping wet for all of our lessons...fun.

Craziest Experience: The toe infection was brutal, it hurt to walk for the past month and has been bloody and gooey and painful. I started taking antibiotics but nothing was helping it get better, and i was unable to get the ingrown toenail out. Finally i found this nail care kit i got from my parents for christmas, with a wide variety of tools. I decided i had enough and i performed surgery on myself. Ive already dislocated my shoulder on the mission and had to pop it back in myself, so i was pretty confident in my abilities. I went to town on my toe with a knife and tweezers and then used all these special nail tools to finally cut and pull the peice that was hirting me out. It felt so good to finally pull it out, and as i pulled out came a shard of toe nail the length of a penny that had been stuck in my toe. There was instant relief when it came out and i cut off the rest of the infected parts for good measure and my toe has healed up so quickly. It was a weirdly satisfying experience, but now i am missing a chunk of toe haha.

Spiritual Thought: My parents gave me this nail care kit 6 months ago, and i never really needed it till now. I gad never seen some of these tools before but they were just what i needed to fix my toe and start to feel better. This reminds me of some of the people we teach. We give them the book of mormon and help them learn how to feel God's love and how to be happy, but many of them lose interest and stop learning with us, this always makes us a little sad, but i like to think that we have given them the tools to feel love and learn truths about God, and that someday when they really need it they will know where to turn. I know this works because we are teaching someone that learned with the missionaries back in 2017, and the finally came to a place where they were ready to follow Christ and they knew they could talk to the missionaries to get help. If people stop learning with us, its not sad,  they just aren't ready yet. All I can do is how them where to look to find happiness. Planting seeds and whatnot.

Letter #3 Elder Howe (7/24/23)

 Greetings from the land of smiles. Its been a week since I sent my last letter but oh boy, it feels like a month😉. Time is really starting to fly here. My third transfer is already down, and it flew by. My comp, Elder Rich and I got along swimmingly, we were as united as Laman and Lemuel! (Free feel to edit this one out mom, might be too scandalous of a joke). He was truly a Y2K International Baller and I'm sad my time with him was so short. We had a legendary 4th of July Celebration for English Class. We taught our students the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance, and sang some classic American songs. Fortunate Son has become my person anthem, and I sing it in my head everyday when we are biking through the miserable heat. Before Elder Rich left, we helped to more of our friends get baptized, Nong Aawng and Pa Nui. They are both amazing people. Its crazy how easy it is to start loving people when you spend every day serving them. 

For transfers i stayed in Lampang but Elder Rich moved to Ubon out in the Issan. I miss him but i got an awesome comp in his place. My new comp is Elder Enz from Indiana. He is an incredible missionary. He talks to everyone and is great at becoming friends with people. I have a lot to learn from him and I am excited for the next six weeks! 

A scripture i have been thinking about recently is in Matthew. In chapter fifty, Jesus suffers in Gethsemane. He is feeling the punishment and Hell that all of God's children have earned for their disobedience and sin. He goes through the hell that we deserve, and the pains of all of our sadness and hurt. After he finishes his suffering he goes out to his friends who were asleep and unable to comfort him. Then Judas Iscariot, one of his closest friends, comes with a mob to capture Jesus. All for 30 pieces of silver. 

My favorite verse is verse 50, which says "And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him"

It amazes me that Jesus still calls Judas friend. Jesus has just suffered for Judas's sins and is betrayed almost instantly after, by someone he loves and trusts. Despite this betrayal, Jesus still calls Judas friend. Christ knows why Judas has come. He knows that he will be captured and mocked and beat and killed. Jesus knows that Judas has betrayed him, the Savior of the world and the savior of Judas, for a measly 30 pieces. Jesus knows all of this and still calls him friend. Thats because Judas is Christ's friend. Nothing has changed. Christ still loves him, the same as the day he joined his disciples and the same as the day  Christ met him before this world was. Jesus loves unconditionally. No one is too far gone or too far lost to be redeemed. Christ has suffered for are sins already, he recieved the punishment. It is an infinite atonement. I haven't been a perfect disciple of Christ, I have betrayed him before. None of that matters. The only thing keeping us from salvation and happiness is our own shame. I love helping people realize they can feel better today. They can feel forgiveness today. We can feel his love right now. Christ is waiting with open arms, for me, you, and Judas. 

The more I'm out here, the more i feel that unconditional love. I can finally honestly say I love everyone. I have been able to see the good in everyone and it has been life changing. Fight on, my Y2K International Soldiers.

Letter #4 Elder Howe (4/21/24)

Hello Everyone! I think the last time I sent an email was month 8 in Thailand. I have now been a missionary for over 16 months, so it's been awhile haha. Last time I wrote I was still in Lampang up north. I finished six months there, then moved to a suburb south of Bangkok along the coast called Samutprakan. It was a pretty challenging area for me but I was blessed with being able to serve there for 5 months. I spent most days walking the streets asking every person if they were interested in learning about Jesus. I also spent everyday getting rejected by every person I talked to.🙃 I had one particularly rough day where I was about ready to give up. I layed in my bed at night exhausted from walking several miles and from the endless rejection. I felt that I was being punished for not being good enough; that because I wasn't perfect I didn't deserve success. I spent almost an hour praying and crying to God, apologizing for not being enough. I told God how sorry I was, that because I was a failure, so many people would never get to know the gospel. I tried repenting for my failures by listing every single mistake I made.  The longer the list went on, the more horrible I felt. I realized i wasn't good enough to be a missionary and that I was actively hurting the work. As i kept trying to list out my mistakes, i started to here a voice. This voice was quiet but some how was able to overpower my own. As i attempted to list yet another one of my flaws i heard the voice say "you are My son". It kept repeating that. Everytime I tried to speak and degrade myself, my thoughts were overpowered until all i could feel was love. It reaffirmed my reason for being out here. My responsibility is to invite others to come unto Christ. To understand their relationship to God and to feel the redemption that comes through Christs atonement. To understand that no matter how deserved the guilt may be, its not necessary. Jesus suffered the hell that I earned. He suffered the hell that you earned. That is my goal, to help feel the peace that Jesus offers. I spent the rest of my time in Samutprakan with a lot more hope. Telling everyone I talked to that they were God's child and that they deserved a better life. I invited them to learn about Jesus anf how He could help them with that. I didn't have a lot of baptisms in Samutprakan but I was able to walk confidently, knowing that God supported me and that the live he had for me is the love that he has for everyone else, and that he won't abandon them, even if they rejected me. As it says in Isaiah 53 verses 5 and 6 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all"

Its a pretty simple. God loves us. We sin. Jesus took the punishment. All we have to do is accept Jesus's help. I know I can make it to heaven through Jesus and so can everyone else. As Brigham Young said "Everything that can be redeemed, will be redeemed". 

After five months in Samutprakan I was sent to the east, where I currently am. I live in a small province called Yasothon. I have loved being in a small town again. I also am in charge of all the English Groups that the church runs here in Thailand. I have loved this assignment. English Class is one of my favorite parts of being a missionary, and it has been very fun being able to improve our classes country wide😁

I am excited for the seven and a half months that I have left to serve God and my Thai family!

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Letter #5 Elder Howe (9/16/24)

September 16th letter from Elder Howe 

Hello Everyone! I am just beginning the last four months of my service here in Thailand! A year and a half ago I would stay up at night dreading all the time I had left till I could come home. Now I lie awake at night dreading the fact that I only get 4 more months to be a missionary here in Thailand. Loving the culture and the people I served has always been very easy for me, but now that I am finally loving being a missionary, I am so sad that it has to come to an end.

Right now I am serving in Buriram City, Buriram Province and I love it here. It is a fun small town in the middle of endless miles of rice fields, but with a university in the city we have been able to teach a lot of really interesting students. Buriram's motto is "The City of Sport" so we have also had a lot of fun and success playing sports at local parks with people. My favorite part of Buriram however is supporting the small ward here. I don't know how they reached ward status (the congregation is smaller than most branches I have served in), but because the ward struggles so much they rely on a lot more faith and miracles which has been awesome to witness and be a part of. 

Outside of my normal missionary duties I have been able to manage the mission's technology team, which has been a lot of fun and helped me learn a lot. I get to manage the Church's social media accounts for Thailand and the content we make for those pages. I also get to meet with Church financial people regularly to figure out spending on advertisements and tech equipment, which has been super interesting to see how all of it works. If you knew me before the mission you would think it is really funny that I manage all of this because I didn't use social media at all, but as I told my mission president, my only talent is that I am willing to help with anything haha. Maybe I'll work in the advertisement industry when i get home🤷

All of the work in Buriram and for social media that I have been able to do is nothing short of a miracle. With this special assignment I have to spend a lot of extra time in the morning and at night behind a laptop working, and ever since the car accident, being on screens for more than 20 minutes would make me feel nauseous. Working the extra long hours that I have had to do would have also had a pretty bad impact on my head and would have made my daily headaches worse, but about two months ago a miracle happened. My TBI symptoms were really affecting my sleep and i was having terrible migraines throughout the day that was making it hard to get any work done. I was feeling pretty miserable and pretty hopeless and just wanted the pain to go away. I was angry that two and a half years later i was still feeling the affects from the car accident. I was having some pretty dark thoughts but luckily recognized them in time to meet with a therapist. Normally I am not into that hippie-dippy talk about your feelings stuff and it was really awkward at first, but I am very glad I did. I was able to get into a better headspace which definitely improved the situation, but more importantly, the mission doctors really took an interest in my medical history. After a few weeks, I talked to a doctor who treated TBI patients with an anti-seizure medication that greatly reduced their symptoms and after a lot of prayer and fasting, I decided to try it and within three days  all my headaches were gone. For the first time since October 2021 my head felt normal and I felt like myself again. This has allowed me to work so much harder and I am so so grateful. God's plan is greater than our plan. When I was called to Thailand I was nervous about the toll it would take on my brain, but little did I know being here in Thailand would put me were I needed to be to be under the care of the care of that church doctor who oversees missionaries in southeastern Asia. This has reminded me that God prepares a way for us to fulfill his commandments. I was commanded to serve with all my heart, might, mind and strength, and I am finally able to offer my mind to help further the work. We can have full confidence that when we trust in God, He will put us were we need to be and give us the resources we need to complete the task we are given. There is no need to stress or worry about it. A favorite scripture of mine recently has been Exodus 14:14 "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace."

God Almighty is fighting for us. He isn't cheering us on from the side or apathetically watching us fail countlessly. He is in front of us, fight for us, clear the way, making it possible for us to do the things we need to do. In return we are commanded to hold our peace, to not to complain, to endure it well. I am so grateful for a loving, interested and active God that allows me to experience the good and the bad and that will fight for me through it all. I am working on holding my peace, accepting hard circumstances without complaining. It is much easier to do when we realize there is nothing to fear.

Thanksgiving at the Smiths

 The Smith's hosted Thanksgiving. A bunch of Ryan' siblings came down and also his parents from Gilbert. We had all sorts of yummy dishes. Nana and Papa were also there. I made 6 dozen rolls, a chocolate pie and Olivia made butterscotch and PBJ rice Krispies. It was delicious 😋 

Adrian turned 15!!!

Adrianna turned 15 the day before Thanksgiving. She informed us that she never had a Thanksgiving at age 14. What a fun random fact about her! For her birthday we had grandparents come over for dinner. We had her favorite chili, cornbread and mashed potatoes not a vegetable in sight. Benjamin and I decorated her bedroom door with hearts a family tradition. Adrianna is having an awesome Freshman year. She is an artist who paints beautiful murals. She swam Varsity, she is the Freshman Class President, she is getting Straight A's, she is funny, happy and a little boy crazy :) We love her so much!! She is having a blast going to school with her senior brother Parkin and two cousins Owen and Franklin. Her future is bright and I can't wait to see what she chooses to do because she can do anything!! I love you so very much my beautiful Adrianna Joyce💗

Parkin's Play

 Parkin's Advanced Drama class put on another hilarious play called The Bookstore. He was the engaged guy, Jamie who got cold feet but worked it out with his fiance also named Jamie. Too funny! The Smith's, Olivia and Nana and Papa came to support him. My Senior is crushing it! I absolutely love going to his plays.

Halloween Family Party!

 All the Tucson Holman locals came over for a Halloween party! We had quite the spread! Nana with her trusty crystal ball and pack of playing cards told each person an optimistic fortune. We danced and admired everyone's costumes. It was an awesome night. I was the lion from the Wizard of Oz (at work everyone on the kinder team was a character).

Fall break with the Pershings

We met up with the Pershings for fall break again and visited Bella and Sam in Louisiana! We rented a beach house, rented bikes, took a dolphin tour, an alligator bayou tour, a haunted museum tour, saw several art exhibits and ate ice cream every night!! It was a blast!! Bella and Sam move to another city soon. We can't wait to find out where our next vacation location will be. These two are building a beautiful life together 🥰

 

Anniversary trip in Minnesota!

After Benjamin and Olivia drove across the country for her job in New Jersey he decided he wanted to go to all 50 states before his 50th birthday.  So as we were planning our anniversary trip we thought we could hit one of his needed states and Minnesota and Wisconsin were the winners! We hit the Mall of America, several museums, rented bikes and biked around lakes,. We ate cheese curds, burger patties filled with cheese, ice cream and even got to go to a Thai festival and sample lots of yummy Thai food. 26 years of awesomeness 💕