Hello everybody!!!!
Monday, we had a pretty fun day. I've noticed that as a missionary, nothing ever, and I mean never ever goes as planned. It's always a fun thing to see, especially when you do daily planning like literally 3 or 4 hours earlier. Anyways, since transfers was this week, Monday was not pday, but a normal work day. We did personal study and then headed over to ม. เกษตร. There, we met with a fire LA. And you might think thst if she's LA, then she's not really fire right?? Well she's way cool anyway. Her name is นิกกี้ and has some awesome goals for the new year. Including becoming more active this year!! She still reads and prays pretty normally, but too busy to go to church. She's way nice, and she intends to bring a couple of her friends back to church with her. It was way cool to talk with her. After that we had studies and then went to find some PIs. FBI inviting is way fun!! So the one guy we tried to find wasn't at home. But we talked to his neighbor and then ate a โรตี, a delicious little dessert off the street, and talked to the guy selling it. It was way good and he had learned with the elders before! Cool guy, but not interested. Then we headed way out of town to the boonies of our area, and I'll just insert a snippet frok my journal here and call it good. "Talked to some crazy peeps, other weird peeps, chased off by dogs, saw some rice fields, went fishing, watched a soccer game and almost picked up a fully naked 80+ year old woman. What an afternoon." After that, we headed over to my last FHE in Bangkhen with แม่อ้วน. Way sad, but it was way good food. She's way awesome. I remember my first day in Bangkok, she helped us teach in my first lesson. And FHE plenty of fun, as shown by the videos I sent last week...
Tuesday, we taught our good friend อนัน who speaks neither Thai nor English fluently. It's way fun. He's a funny guy. After that we headed over to sizzlers for our district lunch before our last district meeting of the transfer. It's way good food, and you can have as much as you want, so you already know the elders were all over that. After that we had a fire district meeting on testimony and how we can gain one, and why investigators need to learn how to develop one. Also, role plays are always fun. After that we headed out to teach one of our investigators who CALLED US! That sure doesn't happen very often. Anyways we were sitting outside burger king waiting for her when what do we know but our โรตี selling man walks over and starts talking to us. He said he did not have much time to read the BoM we gave him yesterday, but we got talking to him about it and he understands sooo much from just the three pages he read. He read the intro, and the testimony of the 11 witnesses. And pretty much knew the story of the whole BoM. It was pretty impressive. After that for English, we taught weather vocab, because for the first time in like forever, it rained here! Then we got transfer calls on the way home and I am the only elder moving out of Bangkhen.
Wednesday, we had a normal pday. Pretty laid back, not much to it. Sad that it was my last day in Bangkhen though. Anyways, we got up and I packed one of my bags before we headed out to the computer place to email. Then we emailed and printed some pictures and then we ate lunch at a place called gorilla grill. It is sooo good. Way good friend chicken. Sad that it's my last time eating there. After that, we headed over to the office because we've been there every other pday this transfer so what not today too right?? But we actually had to go and work out house money with Elder Gay. Somehow, we spent 5,000฿ that we didn't have... but we worked that all out eventually. Elders 1, house money, 0. Good times. After that, we headed back home and I finished packing and then we left for BoM class. On the way there we met an RC that I baptized, but unfortunately she could not come to class. Then we had BoM class, which was way fire, Elder Allen prepared it in the 10 minutes before and did a great job of it. After that, I said good bye to everybody, and left that church, possibly forever....
Thursday, Elder Allen and I got up early and headed over to the office first thing to go and find our new companions. My new companion is Elder McCown from Mapleton Utah, and we are serving in บางแค (Bangkhae). So we met up and headed over here, I've been here since. This morning, we filled our morning with weekly planing and kind of helping me get a feel for our investigators and the area. This will be a great transfer. I'm excited. After that, we headed over to lunch and then to the church. We had planned on meeting an LA there, who was recently called as the Sunday school president. Turns out he had other plans. So we get to the church and he's like ok, let's go visit one of my LA friends, who used to be a branch president here in Bangkhae, several years ago. So we're like ok yeah let's go. Turns out, this LA is actually turned apostate and is a monk at a วัด about an hour down the road. So that was a waaay weird lesson. Great guy though, just confused about religion I guess. I mean he used to be a branch president... He has a five year contract right now to be a monk, and then he says he will come back to the church. He's three years in, and so he's got 2 left. Yeah, it was a little weird. After that, we headed back to the church and had weekly correlation meeting. It was way good stuff. The ward missionaries here are way fire and is the ward mission leader. I'm way pumped. After that, we headed over and had a brief FHE with the elders quorum president. Then headed home, and that was the day!
Friday, we had some fun. We met with some cool peeps today. We tried to get some appointments this morning, but no one wanted to meet and so we headed out, waaay out to meet a guy named สงครัน. Since we are the furthest area West, we can pretty much go to the edge of the country, almost to Burma, but it's not a good idea since any work we do out there would be setting people up for failure since the church is sooo far away, and it's spendy to get to it. But this สงครัน guy is way awesome. He is a member, just LA because of how far away he is from the church. He's super humble, and pretty well off. He is building his own market in the town. So we went and visited with him, and he took us to his house and showed us around. He used to raise dogs and sell them, and now he sells dog shampoo. Also, he has a way obedient and smart dog that he has trained and so he showed us some tricks with him. Pretty cool stuff. Then we ate lunch with him and his wife. They are way nice. She is not a member, but loves the missionaries and so before we left, we shared a thought and asked them if they would be at church this week and they said yes!! After that we headed back home and studied some st the church and then grabbed dinner. Then we met with another investigator named ก้อง. He's way nice, a little reluctant to be baptized though. After that we had sports night which consisted of Elder McCown and I throwing balls at a 10 year old kid who laughed an threw them back. So not quite as fire as the sports nights in Bangkhen, but next week will be better. We're going to make it awesome!
Saturday, we had in short, nothing to very little planned... which meant we got to go and invite! It was a loooong day to say the least. Lots of people talked to, lots of disinterest :( So this morning, we knocked studied out of the way and then headed over to the home of an RC and taught him and his kids. They are way nice, and he is awesome. He works nights and still comes to church and is still a great dad to his kids. He's way awesome. After meeting with them and reviewing the restoration, we headed out and lo and behold we come upon a group of kids, all boys, about 9-12 years old or so. So they start yelling hello and stuff at us and I pretend I don't speak Thai even though they pretty much figure out I do, and they were way funny. They were yelling stuff like wow you are sooo tall! I only come up to your waist! Way funny kids. Then there was a basketball court nearby and so they asked me to dunk the soccer ball they were playing with and yeah I went and did it... barely. Haha I'm not as lean as I was back home to say the least... but they thought it was way cool and then we gave them all English cards and headed out for lunch. After lunch, we had pretty much nothing going on, and so we went to a park and to a nearby neighborhood and invited for like 5 hours. Not the funnest thing to do in the world, but it's all we had to do. Then our evening appointment didn't come and so we ended up inviting more and then eating dinner and going home. Lessons learned! Plan well and you won't have days like this! However we had a tender mercy today when we got s friend taxi ride because the taxi driver was like you're volunteers and teach religion. No charge. Cool guy.
Sunday, good stuff. Gotta love church meetings. The sacrament is always way nice. The spirit there is something special I hope I never forget. After that, we had our normal investigator class where the teachers packed as much detail about the restoration into one hour as possible. There was so much detail that we did ever get to the part where Joseph Smith sees God and Jesus Christ... good lesson besides that though. After that, we had priesthood and talked about how we will go back go find God at home again. After that we had not much planned after church. Lunch and not that much else.. so we did some studies and met with the other elders in the district to make sure we're coordinating members we're working with and not stepping on each other's toes and stuff. Fun times. Then we met with a counselor in the bishopric and talked for a bit and found peeps to work with for this week. Hopefully we can do some better scheduling and be a little more busy this week. That would be awesome.
Spiritual thought comes from a talk by Elder Holland, then President Holland of BYU. He gave a talk called "However long and hard the road". It's got some great stuff and some motivation in it that helped me out a bit this last weekend. He quotes Winston Churchill and says "What is our aim?... Victory - victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be."
I know that in the end, the winning side is the side of our Heavenly Father. All we have to do is pick which side we fight for, which uniform we will wear. Sometimes that's pretty tough, and a big ol sacrifice. But as President Hinckley has said, what seems to be a great sacrifice you later will realize is the greatest investment of your life.
In his talk "His grace is sufficient", Brother Wilcox quotes the hymn come come ye saints.
"Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy, wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day."
Grave shall be, as your day. He says that's an interesting phrase. As sure as the sun will set and rise again, the grace of Christ will help us through each and every day. What a blessing. He closes this thought with the quote "Faithful pioneers knew they were not alone. The task ahead of them was never as great as the power behind them."
I know Christ lives and loves us. I know the Book of Mormon are his words to us in these days. He is there every step of the way, cheering us on. All we have to do is take his hand.
I hope everybody has a wonderful week!
Elder L
Elder Ellsworth - เอ็ลเดอร์ เอ็ลสเวิร์ธ
for perfect love casteth out all fear
เพราะความรักที่บริบูรณ์ย่อมขับความกลัวออกไปสิ้น
Thailand Bangkok Mission
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