Buddhist to Latter Day Saint

Keyen seemed to be in really happy spirits this week. I'm glad being away from home is starting to get a little bit easier.
Here's his update about the week...

Well this week was a pretty good week:) We didn't get any baptisms but we will be getting one this Thursday! So that will be awesome! This week the weather has been crazy hot!! but on Friday it stormed really hard so that was awesome!! So yea e have one investigator who will be baptized on Thursday, but other than that we have a few people who i know will be baptized soon!! Just gotta have faith!! I really am hoping to get this couple baptized!!! They names are Sister Toffe and Brother Gapp. They are sooo flippin cool. Bro Gapp is the most skilled man in the world! He is Thailand's Best hair dresser 4 years running!! He is awesome at guitar and singing at is way good at basketball. They have two little kids and they are soo cute!! They have been investigators for a long time but recently have been showing more interest! so im really praying they will continue to progress:) This week have been a very hard working week. We have been soo busy! We have to plan every activity for the members and we have an activity every night!!:) So between that and teaching and inviting i am constantly busy!! The people in Thailand are awesome! But it is really hard to teach them! Everyone is so busy because its hard to make a living in Thailand! Everyone is Buddhist and doesn't even know who Christ is!! But there are the people who the lord has prepared people here for us to teach. There are people everywhere who are prepared by god. So its been a pretty good week! Love and miss you all!!!:) :) 

I'm really glad that Elder Neal is busy. It will keep his mind off home and really focus on the work. I want him to feel good about his service and not to worry about all of us.
Keep the letters and emails coming! I know he loves to support and love!!
We love you Elder Neal!! Stay Strong!

Festivals and Farewells

Elder Neal is doing pretty good! He had to say goodbye to Elder Cooper so that was sad, but he had fun celebrating the festival going on all week. I guess this festival is a lot like New Years here people party and get drunk. So there mission president advised all the missionaries to stay inside a lot of the time. Here's what he said about the week...

Well this week was very interesting! On monday I went and played at the water festival all day and it was crazy!! But it was way fun!!! The rest of the week went really slow because we werent really able to do or go anywhere because of the Festival. So we had to stay inside most the time. Elder Cooper left me which sucjs!! I miss that guy!! My new comps Are the 2 elders who were already im my district and in my house hahah! They are pretty cool. Thery are both polor opposites hahah im the bridge between the two of them. One of them is THai and the other one is from Arizona. I like them both but they like to do things diffrently that elder cooper and i did things. But i think we will be able to get a routine going this week:) I got sick this week and i still feel a little woozy haha so hopefully that will go away soon. But it was a pretty good week:) Love And Miss You All:) 

We love and miss you Elder Neal!! Stay strong!! 

Happenings in Thailand

Elder Neal had a pretty good week this past week. As always it was really nice to talk to him about Conference and to see how he is doing.
Here's what he had to say....


Ok so really not a very exciting week:) Last pday we went to a peccadillo place!:) So that was pretty fun!:) There was a guy who put his head inside the Crocs head!! Other than that this week has been pretty boring:) But bad news!! My companion is leaving and ill be getting a new comp this week! so that sucks!!! But I'm not moving which is good:) But honestly not a whole lot happened this week:)

Just thinking about conference:) They talked a lot about eternal families:) And it made me happy to know that we will all be together forever:) Make sure there is love at home:) Help one another and support one another:) What we have is something that hardly anyone has here in Thailand:) I love you all. And everyone in this email group plus grandma are the most important people in my life. Even though i am not there in my physical form my spirit is always there:) So remember to love and help each other:) And reach out to those in our family and friends who don't have what we have. Always support them and love them:) But most important love one another:) Every single one of you needs to love each other:) Because i love all of you:) Satan is pissed off that we have a happy fam. So lets piss him off even more be even stronger!  So everyone please... Love, support, speak kindly, and encourage each other. I LOVE YOU ALL SOO MUCH!!:)  Wow i kinda felt like Elder Holland there for a second! hahaha I love you all. 


It's so cool to hear my brother get so serious about church things especially when he talks about families. I am so grateful for my family and for all they have done for me personally. But most importantly I'm glad that he knows how much we all love and support him as he is serving on his mission.

I couldn't be more proud of my brother. He is such a classy, loving, hard working young man. I can't wait for even more miracles and spiritual experiences he will experience in Thailand.
We love you Keyen! Stay Strong!!

P.S. Keep the letter and emails coming :) Look on the Contact tab for information.


Stole these pics off Facebook that a member in Thailand posted :)

Ups and Downs

It would be an understatement to say that Keyen's week was crazy this week. Despite some challenges there was some pretty great stuff that happened. 

Here's what Keyen had to say about the week...

Well this week was crazy!!! It actually started off bad. My email last week was being really stupid and it was stressing me out!! After emailing we went to a members house and had some food:) It was pretty good. Then we wanted to do some service for them haha so we ended up washing some eggs.!:) hahaha idk why but that's what they wanted us to do. Then the week was crappy!:( First my bike started having issues. My kickstand broke and something got tangled up in my wheels! The my bike randomly tipped over and all the stuff i bought at the store fell out of my basket on my bike and went tumbling down and fell into the sewer!!! After that the week was just hard in general. I was tired and thirsty all the time! I was having lots of challenges. But the work was going good. Our investigators were doing well and we were being creative with our inviting. We made some big signs and put them up around the city:) We were trying to get people to come to our Easter party on Friday. Well it worked and we got 2 new investigators from the activity and a few other people who were interested but we just haven't met with them yet. The biggest miracle this week though was Jacob. He is the Chinese guy. He came up to us at the Easter party and told us he needed to talk with us. I was kind of worried haha. But he told us that he wanted to be baptized the upcoming Sunday. I was so happy!! The other guy we were going to baptize ended up going out of town so we were bummed out!! But we were able to baptize him yesterday!! and i was the one who was able to preform the baptism!! It was sooo freaking cool! we did the baptism at a sweet waterfall.! And it was nice cause i got to speak English haha. But it was awesome!! we are hoping to get a couple of people baptized on the 19th so that will be cool!:) Hhaha yea so this week was really hard for me. I felt homesick a lot and i was faced with a lot of challenges. But i just kept on pushing forward and trusting that everything will be ok. The lord helped me a ton this week. And last night we got the call that said that Thailand is getting as Temple!!! We were soo happy!!! So a week with lots of adversity and lots of blessings. I love you all so much! you are all always in my prayers!!

I had a lot of emotions reading this from Keyen last night. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. I'm am so happy that he was able to baptize someone as he reaches his first month in Thailand! We couldn't be more proud of him. 

This Easter weekend was truly inspiring to me. Conference was absolutely wonderful. The family almost had a heart attack when President Monson announced the construction of the Bangkok temple. It gives me such a comfort and testimony in my heart that the work is truly hastening and this church is Christ's church. 

I would encourage all of you to take a moment to look at your lives and decide what is truly important to you. What are you willing or not willing to do to be with your family forever? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? If you do believe in him what will you do to return to live with him again?

If there was one thing that I learned from my brother and conference this week it is that our families aren't perfect. Life is not perfect, but the only thing that matters is that we try. Elder Neal truly was an example of that this week. Even though he had some major challenges and was homesick he found a lost soul and brought him closer to Christ. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. 

We love you Elder Neal!! Stay strong! 

Their vision came true!!

Updates, Updates and More Updates

I've been a slacker of a sister and not updating the blog, but I will try and be better for future updates! Sorry peeps.

Elder Neal is doing really good! He has been very busy with zone conferences and teaching. He still is feeling homesick, but he got to hang out with his mission president for a couple days so that really helped him. Here's what he had to say about the last 2 weeks...

Ok well this last week went pretty good:) The only crappy thing is that it has been sooooo hot the last couple of days!! The heat sucks the life right out of me!! I have to buy a drink like every 20 min!! Last Monday i went to some really cool waterfall place:) My comp and i decided that we are going to baptize someone there!! We got 2 people to commit to baptism on the 5th!! so we are really hoping it will happen!! Honestly this week we did a lot of teaching and just trying to find people:) This week we found a lot of new investigators! But most of them are either bust all the time something went down and they don't want it anymore! But we don't look back! only forward!! Nothing too exciting!! sorry!!:( haha We did bike like 10 miles to teach this family for like 15 min and then biked 10 miles back! haha but it was worth it!:) Me and my comp have a vision of baptizing at a waterfall!! so we have been looking for the people!! We have a couple of candidates haha 

We have a couple other people who want to be baptized but they still need to do some stuff to prepare:) But we  have been doing pretty good and have been reaching our goals:) It was a pretty good week apart from the heat and the home sickness!:) 

This is from this week...

Well hello everyone!!:) I love you all so much and miss you like crazy!!! This week has been pretty good:) It started off normal. we had some good lessons with our investigators:) We are hopefully baptizing ping!! And we had a really good lesson with Jacob as well. Jacob is the Chinese Guy:) There was a big storm that came in on Tuesday night! It was sweet! Lots of raining and lightning!!! It was sweet!! Then on Tuesday we took a 5 hour bus ride to Chang Mai. Its a big city with tons of tourists!! It was weird seeing so many white people hahah!!! I was there for a zone conference and it was cool! We just got some training from Pres. Senior:) I got to have a interview with Pres. and it was really good:) I had a lot of time to go out and see the city! So that was fun!:) The night life in Thailand is crazy!! especially in a big city!! so yea the trip was way fun! We went and did this thing where the fish nibble on your feet haha!! it was way weird!! Just like in top gear shandy and austin haha. So yea then i just got back last night at like 10. So it was a pretty good week:)

This is the place he really wants to baptize someone. 

Keyen and his "sick MJ shirt" He also pointed out that his hair normally doesn't look like this. 

Fish Spa!!

 He is really excited for Easter as well and he said he wasn't sure when they would be watching conference, but I am really glad that he is so strong. I love how he talk about Christ. He talks about him like he is a close friend, which he really his, but I know Keyen truly believes it :)
He finally got a bunch of letters form all of us how sent him some, so that was good too!
PLEASE keep sending letters and email to all of those who have! It means the world to him.
Also I thought this was way funny but he bought a Guitar and he is determined to learn to play. My mom was a bit annoyed and asked him how much it was and he simply stated..."Relax is was only 20 bucks. 20 dollars goes a long way in Thailand." Haha I love that my mom and him still have these conversations over email!

Let us all remember the true purpose for Keyen's service. He is out there in the world preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ lives and he is perfect. I want to remember that more this year. I  am so grateful for my brother sharing this truth with others.

We love you Elder Neal! Stay strong and Happy EASTER!!!