After 102 Weeks...He is Coming Home!!!

Dear Family and Friends,

We received just a brief email telling us he had a great last week in Chiang Mai… I am so excited to see you two soon. It's been a long time. Today was good we had 5 baptisms here in Chiang Mai and I was able to baptize Brother Brin, so it was a good ending note. That’s really all I've got time for love you guys and see you Friday at 4 pm  :)

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

  

Elder Watkins will be returning home from his mission on Friday, May 29^th!!! We are super excited to see him again.

He will be speaking in our Sacrament meeting on Sunday, June 14^th @ 9:00 a.m. at the Little Cottonwood 5^th Ward; 6350 South Rodeo Lane and then you are invited to our home afterwards…1459 East Sumac Way.

Thanks for all your support to all of us…it has been an amazing two years.

Love,

Jeff and Joan

Last Email???

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 101

Week Five in Chiang Mai

Monday, May 18, 2015

Hey everyone!

This was a pretty wild last week and didn't go near like I expected ha-ha!

On Monday we went to the Zoo it was pretty awesome but we kind of got there a little late because of waiting for the sisters so we didn't get to see everything, but we did get to see the most important thing which was the “Pandas” they were so cool! 

This week we just were trying to go wild with inviting so that is where we spent most of our time Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. We ended up getting 88 phone numbers which was pretty awesome. We were just trying to get as many new investigators at church as possible! We met with Brother Beam on Wednesday and were trying to get him baptized this past Sunday, but we went out of town and we didn't have enough time to teach him. but we did get come to church with his friend John and we taught them then. They both have accepted dates for the 24th to be baptized so please keep them in your prayers.

Wednesday night we caught a bus up to Chiang Rai and did a switch off. I was with Elder Mitchell and Elder Curtis; it was so awesome. I was so pumped and just had a great time getting to be with Elder Mitchell again, he's so awesome and he is still growing so much. It's cool to see how much progress he has made since I trained him. On Wednesday night we got a call from the AP's saying that Elder Tamang needed to go to Bangkok to renew his visa so in order to keep working in both areas we needed to do another switch off so I'd be going down to Bangkok with Elder Tamang. So our bus to Bangkok left at 8:30 on Thursday night and our bus left Chiang Rai at 5 on Thursday so our bus pulled in right at 8:30 I jumped off the bus and had to run to the bus to Bangkok to make it on time it was wild ha-ha! We got there at around 5:30 in the morning and went to the visa place. We got his visa all renewed and I just felt gross so we went over to the AP's house so I could shower; which felt awesome. We then walked over to the office to get some money from Elder Meeker so we could get back to Chiang Mai.  We walked through the door and President Senior is right there. He says; hey you two come in my office; so we talked with President; President is like whoa you are going home next week what are you planning on doing? Wait a second how about we just have your finishing interview. I was like umm... okay I'm not as ready as I'd like to be, but whatever. So I have had my final interview with President Senior already; it was pretty awesome. He's is such a cool guy and he will be heading home here himself, July 1st. We got some Carl's Jr. for lunch since it was buy one get one free burgers. We got on a bus back to Chiang Mai later that night and got home at 5:30. So you can guess I only had an hour of sleep in my own bed. I was sooooo tired I couldn't believe it. There just hasn't been much rest recently, but this week should be better.

Saturday we had a good work day and did some inviting and went and taught Elder Khanakhams sister (the member of the 70’s). She's so awesome and one of the funniest old ladies I've met on my mission for sure. She's been a member for a month, but her testimony is so strong and bold; I love it. 

Yesterday was a good day at church we had some new investigators and Brother Brin is back and is going to be baptized this Sunday. Right now we have 3 daters for next Sunday, but 5 more potentials who could be baptized so we are shooting for the best. We need at least 4 to accomplish our goal for this month so wish us luck and pray for us; because we need it! Love you all so much!

This morning we woke up at 3:00 to go to this mountain and see these temples and a waterfall and then rode some elephants it was one of the coolest trips I've done for sure. It was great too, because we went with Brother Keng; what a good guy! Well I'm not sure if we will be emailing much next week or not at all; so this might be it! Have a great week and I will see you all soon!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

Happy Mother's Day...WEEK 100!

Skyping with our boys...What a Happy Mother's Day for me and Jeff!!!

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 100

Week Four in Chiang Mai

Monday, May 11, 2015

Hey!

This was a good last week! Sorry this will be a shorter email because of skyping today. First I would like to start off with telling you all Happy Mother's Day! :)

This last week was just full of traveling and switch offs! Tuesday we were able to meet with our new investigators John and Beam who accepted dates for baptism on the 17th because this Sunday they will be headed down to Bangkok. They are 28 and 29 year old friends and ready.  After teaching them we got tickets for the train down to Bangkok which is a long 14 hours, but we made it to the office around 6 p.m.!

We had Missionary Leadership Council which was actually really awesome because Elder Gong the Asia Area President came and it was super awesome. He is such a smart guy and just puts a cool outlook on the gospel. We also had one of the senior couples from Nepal here too, because they have been taken out of the country temporarily because of the earthquake.

That night we headed up to Phitsnalok and got a couple hours of sleep on their floor. We decided to do a double switch off with Kamphaegphet and Phitsnalok so I went to Kamphaengphet for the day. That night took a bus back to Chiang Mai and got home at 5:30 a. m. so I finally got an hour of sleep in my bed.

We had really only two days to work this week; Friday and Saturday. We met with our investigators Run and Gay who have dates to be baptized on the 24th but we are going to try for the 17th this week also so hopefully we can get 4 baptisms this week.

We had Asia Area Conference on Sunday which was pretty cool and Elder Nelson spoke so that was pretty sweet. We had a good turnout… 212 people, but there were a lot more tourists than usual so we should have more than that next week between the two branches! 

Today we might head to the Zoo, but we will see; it was a good week! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

A few more pictures from last week

A Tea Farm

Short email...but lots of pictures!

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 99

Week Three in Chiang Mai

Monday, May 04, 2015

Hey everyone!

Sorry I literally have no time to email this week so this is definitely going to be the worst email of my mission; I'm really sorry.

Okay, well anyways; last week we headed up to the mountain and had a great time and saw some cool things so I sent pictures of that. We didn't end up going to the zoo, but we did go to a snake farm which was pretty cool!

This past week was awesome because for the most part we were in our area for the whole week. We did do a switch off in Lampang though, but I was able to stay here and work in our area. This last week we saw tons of success and I haven't found this many investigators so quickly in a new area my whole mission. We had 11 new investigators this past week with 8 investigators at church; it was just incredible. Sister Moh the girl I found my second day here in Chiang Mai got baptized on Sunday which was so awesome! I didn't get to teach her a ton because we ended up giving her to the sisters, but I was just as pumped to see her get baptized as if I had taught her every lesson! 

Yesterday was so wild at church we had 118 people in Branch 2 and 100 in Branch 1 which was just headache because the translation equipment broke so I just had to sit next to 10 different tourist and translate and to top it off it was fast Sunday which didn't help. By the end of my second Elders Quorum my brain was starting to shut down. I couldn't even understand Thai anymore; it was quite the experience!

We have 7 daters right now; 2 of them on May 17th and 5 for the 24th so we are going to be working really hard with them. This week we have MLC and switch offs that we need do too, so we will be heading to Bangkok on Tuesday night and we will be doing training and switch offs Thursday and Friday so we won't have much time to work in our area; so pray for us to be able to have miracles happen with our investigators while we are gone! 

Today we woke up really early and went to Chiang Rai. We went to a Tea farm, the White Temple and rode Ostriches it was pretty fun and we had a good time! Hopefully the pictures will upload fast so you will be able to get to see some! If not I'll finish them next week!

So as far as skyping we will be doing that next week and we will be getting on around 11 AM here to Skype. I'm not sure what time it is there so if you guys can be ready that'd be great. Sorry I'm out of time; love you all!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins