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.