Hello everybody!
This week was pretty good, as are all in the great country of Thailand!! And as a missionary!
Monday, of course was Christmas! You may have thought Christmas was pretty great before, but trust me, being a missionary on Christmas is the absolute best!!! We got up early to go and play basketball which was waaaay fun. After that we opened presents and all that good stuff and then headed over to presidents house for a party! It was way fun stuff. I got to see Elder Bunker and a couple other elders from my mtc group. It was fun stuff. Plus there was plenty of food, lots of sloppy Joes and Christmas cookies. After that we picked up our suits and then headed home.
Tuesday, was pretty normal, not too much happened actually. Got to Skype the good ol fam, and they are doing just fine, and so that is way good. After that, studies, and a fire district meeting. I love our district. It's way good and we have some awesome missionaries here. Then Elder Allen and I went fishing. Didn't catch anything though. We sure talked to a bunch of peeps and met some cool folks, but no one really interested. Everyone here is real nice and humble most of the time, but still stubbornly Buddhist. After that, we had a pretty small English class. Not too many people showed up for that. It's ok though, because we had a waaay fire lesson with our investigator เหม่ย. She had some awesome questions about the plan of salvation. She's going to be baptized for sure, I'm positive.
Wednesday, I had switch off with Elder Torgesen, the greenie that Elder Filmore is currently training. So that was a fun day. It's one of those days that I realize I do understand a little bit more of the language than I thought I could. So that's always nice, and I suppose a bit of a tender mercy. Anyways we experienced a ton of ผิดนัดs so we didn't really need to worry about talking in depth about anything anyway I guess. We headed to the church first thing, and then headed to KFC, and neither investigator met with us. So we headed out to สายไหม and taught พลาย who is working on quitting smoking. We watched the restoration video together in Thai and discussed it a little bit. After that we headed back to the church, had dinner, and what do you know, another ผิดนัด! Life of a missionary I guess. After that, we met up with the other elders and taught a good Book of Mormon class though. Even with very few people there. Rain in Thailand means now one goes outside, and if it's 60° F then double that because everyone here is afraid of the weather. It's actually kind of funny.
Thursday, the morning was a little boring not going to lie. Weekly planning and studies are necessary parts of what we do for sure, but I mean it's not the most exciting way to start out the day. After all that stuff, we set out to track down a PI received from SLC a while back. They weren't at home, but hopefully we can contact them in the future. Tracking people down is one of the more fun parts in missionary work, especially in Thailand where house addresses are a mess. It's makes me feel like we're part of the FBI or something, I mean we've already got white shirts, ties, and black nametags. I guess all we're missing is a gun and a bad guy. Anyways after that we found our 9 year old investigator, พูพู and we had to drop him, because his mom put him in a math tutoring class at 9 o clock on Sundays and so he can't come to church anymore... :( that was way sad. But after that, we got to meet with our RC from last transfer which was waaay awesome! ใบเฟิร์น is still fire, she just hasn't been reading the BoM or coming to church because of how busy she is learning English for work and ling work hours. She's working things out though. Funny thing from that night actually; when Elder Allen found out that I baptized her, he asked if I จุ่มน้ำแรง, or basically dunked her hard underwater. However what I heard was him asking if I จุ๊บแรง which is makeout. (Translated literally it means kiss hard/with force) so that was a funny after lesson discussion we had haha.
Friday, we experienced a ผิดนัด in the morning with อนัน, our man who speaks neither Thai nor English fluently... It was way sad. Just goes to show that although we as missionaries may plan everyday, it certainly never goes to plan. I've never had it go to plan before. That's when we really learn how to be productive and find things to do to use time wisely I guess. After that, we found an old FI who is still not ready for the gospel, so we dropped her again. After that, it was an FBI afternoon! We tracked down the house of a PI and by a tender mercy of the Lord and a miracle, we found the house and contacted them! However they don't live there anymore, so we only talked to them on the phone and then referred them to the elders in the area where they live. After that, we had our weekly sports night at the church, which was way fun! Our YSA is way fun, and so we had some good activities and the elders played some basketball, which is always fun.
Saturday, we spent the morning way out in the edge of our area in สายไหม and met with our investigator พลาย who is working on quitting smoking, and with the new year, will be a new person. He can do it, I just hope he has the desire to do it because that where it begins! You can do anything you just have to have the real desire first! After that we met with our PI ศมสัค our man with too many wives he told us he lost count. So we will see how that goes later next week. Then we got free ice cream after meeting with the 2nd counselor in the bishopric, and even though it was still 11 in the morning, we still enjoyed it, because it was waaaaay good stuff. After that we studied at the church and met with a member named บอล (Ball) and talked about his friends. He has some peeps that might be really interested and do that's cool. We've got some good plans. After meeting with an LA we met up with the other elders and had a new years eve (almost) dinner at pizza company, which was sooooo good. And that was pretty much the day.
Sunday, we had very very few people at church. We had around 50 make it to sacrament meeting. New Year's here is a big deal. So the bishopric, or really the counselors, since the bishop was out of town in Chiang Mai with half the ward, called a couple people right before church started to give talks and asked a missionary to share their testimony, which ended up being me. But it went well. After that, we had Sunday school and stuff, but hardly anyone was there and so it was a little messy since no one was prepared to teach haha. In the third hour everyone just got up and shared their favorite scripture and we talked about them. It actually ended up being pretty good. After that, we had some lunch, and studied and left to teach. We invited a little bit, found some drunk people celebrating the new year already, and taught a couple lessons that went well. เต๋า is way good, very humble and wants to learn and likes how we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and wants to help us. กุ้ล is also doing well also, but her first lesson with the missionaries was taught with an little excited member, so maybe next time we can have a less bombarding lesson haha. After that we headed home and celebrated the new year by eating dinner, finishing studies and going to bed at 10:30:) Happy New Year Everyone!!
Spiritual though comes from a fire talk in the October 2014 general conference. It's called approaching the throne of God with confidence, and Elder Klebingat says something I really like. He says that "selective obedience brings selective blessings." It reminds me of the scripture in the doctrine and covenants that says,
20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
Blessings come to those who are obedient! And exact obedience bring us miracles, and greater blessings than we can think about! The Lord himself has said he will pour us out a blessing so large that we will not be able to receive it! I know this to be true!! He loves you!
Elder L
--
Elder Ellsworth - เอ็ลเดอร์ เอ็ลสเวิร์ธ
for perfect love casteth out all fear
เพราะความรักที่บริบูรณ์ย่อมขับความกลัวออกไปสิ้น
Thailand Bangkok Mission
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