The Name's Lowry. Elder Lowry.

Hello Family and Friends!

Well this week has been way interesting and I have been excited to write this email all week. I will go backwards in interest of giving you the way fun news first (don't worry the other news isn't bad, but a crazy scary story). Angelyn was baptized!!!!!!! I can't even put enough exclamations on that. This baptism paid off SO much to me personally. I can't even describe what it is like. I am so excited for this girl. It has been a fun time teaching someone our age. It allows you to really relate with the person. Anyways, the baptism was a huge success. We had 12 non members attend her baptism. We had over 30 people total. The room was packed with people and full of the Spirit. We took the opportunity to share the message of the Restoration to everyone by showing the movie when Angelyn was getting changed. Everyone really liked it. Then the best part came. She stood up in front of family, friends, and members and said that she knew the decision she made to be baptized. She knew that the Book of Mormon was true, Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and the church was true. Then she turned to Elder and I and just said (with tears in her eyes) thank you for sharing. That is the most rewarding thank you I've ever received. We have been telling her over and over that she can't believe us and use our testimonies, but she needs to pray and really find out for herself. She did it. She took the opportunity to tell everyone she knew that she did it as well. Now her cousin is a new investigator and has talked about baptism as well. She has a rock for a testimony. Man, she is awesome. I literally asked bishop if her and Sister Sheila (my baptism in January) to speak my last Sunday. He said he would think about it. haha

I have other good news, but it will have to wait. THE SCARIEST CRAZIEST THING HAPPENED TO ME ON TUESDAY NIGHT. Like I was in shock the rest of the night. We were coming home the night of my six month mark of my mission (7:30 PM so pitch black already). We get to the highway (main road) going to town and wait for a tricycle. We wave one down and he stops 30 ft in front of us. People are in the front so we will have to get in the back. For some reason he didn't pull all the way off the highway so we started walking on the road to get in the back (completely normal). We are about 10 ft behind the tricycle when the drivers eyes gets really big (he is looking back at us). We hear screeching breaks from the oncoming tricycle (which is right beside us at the time) and then right behind us a BANG! We feel glass hit us on the back of our heads. We look behind us and 1- 2 meters away is the tricycle turned perpendicular to the flow of traffic. The driver is on the ground. We see another guy sprawled on the ground and another meter behind him is his motorcycle. They are both OUT. Not moving at all. 1 METER BEHIND US. Elder and I are frozen and wondering if what just happened is real. After a good 5- 10 seconds two other guys get there and we carry the guys off the road to the side. I helped with the tricycle driver. His face is streaming blood and his is still out. I was in front of him trying to wake him up while the other guy was supporting him in the sitting position. After like a minute or two he suddenly wakes up, takes a deep breath, and blows his blood all over my shirt and face. He has cuts all over his face with some glass as well. He wipes off all the blood with his shirt (like a reaction) and it just keeps on bleeding pretty bad. He recovers in the next 5 minutes or so and is able to stand up. I go to the other guy (way worse) and other people have given up I guess cause no one was there. I see him. His white shirt is pure red and is still just out. Breathing heavily though. (later to find out he was drunk so it was like a drunk person snore). Like I said he is heavily breathing, but his mouth is shut. He has a cut from right under his nose to his jaw bone that went all the way through. Later to find out he also had two other major lacerations I couldn't see beneath all the blood. So he is breathing through that. It has been probably 10 minutes since the crash and someone is like "Should he go to the hospital?" As bad as it was I had to hold back a laugh and say yes he really does. SO we carried him to this van that had stopped and they took him to the hospital. So yes... I will NEVER forget my six months mark on my mission. The motorcycle must not have seen the tricycle and not braked at all (going 50- 60 kmh) because if he had seen the tricycle he probably would've swerved back and there was Elder and I just a meter away. WOW. We got to our apartment door and I was like" Elder I've never been so thankful for being here on our doorstep. We could easily be in an ER right now" I wrote down my experience immediately and I promise that I did not exaggerate a word in what I just sent. That is the single most crazy thing that happened in my life. I can picture it perfectly in my mind. It sent me into quite the shock from seeing all that blood and getting blood on me. Just a crazy crazy horrible night. It was hard to celebrate what should've been a fun night.

Other good news. We are moving probably in the next ten days. I got a phone call just a couple hours ago and they said to move in ASAP. I am also not going anywhere for another six weeks as we just had our transfer meeting. So I am in Banga until May at least. Maybe even longer if we get more Elders in our area next transfer. Very possible since that is the reason we are moving. So they won't make three new elders come into a splitting area. They will probably split my companionship with Elder Quinantoto but we will just have two more elders join us as our new companions. So I might be in Kalibo zone until June or so. We can only hope. I really do like it here.

Devyn- Yes ma'am. I'll get that letter off as soon as possible (which will be tomorrow). I didn't realize how close your trip to England was. Awesome!

Marie- I'm gonna hold off one more week to see if you have gotten the letter. If not I will send another one. I am upset about this and will probably also write a strongly worded letter to the Philippine's Post Office as well. They lose letters and literally take a vacation every other day it seems.

Sis. Leseberg- Thanks so much for the letter. It is so good to hear about your family. Tell Daniel to work with the Elders as much as possible. The Elders really appreciate it and it will prepare him the most for his mission. I had some really good examples to follow by the time I got to the field because of the Elders at home.

Pictures:

She looks good in white

These are all non members! (her class mates)

Our happy Banga District. We really are super close. Two people are leaving though so that is sad.

2. This pic has a good story. A couple weeks ago we had zone conference and we were warned against being plastic. Or wearing our "Plastic smiles" Elder Dadbe taught us what a plastic smile looks like and we all died because it is possibly the funniest face I have seen in my life. So Elder Dadbe (the original plastic smiler) is the second from the left. I just look like I need to pee or something.