Hello Everyone,
This last Monday was really fun. I enjoyed it quite a bit. We got up early in the morning and went mtn biking. There is a member who knows a lot of mountain biking trails near his house and he's offered before to take us. Our bikes got super muddy, super dirty, but it was worth it. Around noon we got done biking, went to his house and he fed us some lunch. And then we washed off in this cool waterfall. Then we headed home, showered and did our weeklies. For the evening Sis. Whale (the lady that we baptized last transfer) invited us and the sisters over to her house to have a family home evening activity with all of her family. The sisters are teaching her daughter. We spent some time inviting before that. It was a really fun evening. If you had told me on the train on the way here that I would baptize someone and then I would find myself at their house and the daughter's getting taught. I probably would've believe you because I was ready to go to work and use my faith. But looking back I'm still kinda like, wow, that's really cool that it all happened.
Tuesday we did our studies first thing in the morning because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get all of our studies in the rest of the day if we just left. So we studied first thing in the morning. District meeting started at 10 and after that we had lunch and then ran over to this appointment that's about a half hour bike ride away. We talked to them for a long time, longer than expected. Normally that would be more frustrating to me but maybe I'm happier recently because I've let go of being able to control stuff. It's been hard training a new missionary who is so fluent in Thai. Often he talks so fast that I can't keep the lessons on topic like they need to be. He likes to talk about a lot of different things and doesn't stay focused on what we need to teach.
I hesitate to say anything about him, about anybody, just because I have my own faults and I'm not perfect. There are things that I wish I would be more up front about with him, but even though I consider myself an obedient missionary there are some things that I'm not always doing as well as I should be. So that is hard to call someone out when I'm not perfect either. Anyways, so back to Tuesday where we were at this member's house... the family is less active and we've been trying to help them. After that we planned to go find a spot to finish our studies and go talk to another lady and then do some planning. What happened was we went to the other lady's house and she wasn't there and so we were going to bike to an ice cream shop and finish our studies there because I know of one near the area of where we would be for the next appointment. But what happened was Google maps took us on this back road because that was the shortest route. It turned into a lot of dirt roads in between fields and it was all going along really fun up until I got a flat tire and we were smack dab in the middle of nowhere and I'm thinking great, flat tire. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I was so frustrated. We started walking and not 50 meters later, there was this huge stream right in front of us covering the road we're on and again I'm thinking, just great. So I was worried my companion would start to complain but he just took his shoes off and we walked across and just went on and that was good. In that moment I thought of Elder Holland and his talk (and video), good things will come. There's a part where the old man that picks him up as he's walking down the road says he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family. Well, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this stupid back tire that I've fixed like five different times. Uh, anyways, so we walked for forever. Just walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, and we finally got to this motorcycle shop where the owner fixes it and finds the thorn that was in the tire. He patched it up and went on our merry way. We taught our friend Sis.Tepe and she's doing great. Then we had English class and had some dinner and that was the day.
Wednesday morning we got up and lo one behold my bike tire is flat as flat can be, I was so mad. We left and I just bought a new tire. Then we went to see Sis. Tepe (our RC who sells noodles). We didn't really get to talk to her too much. We ended up helping her kids with their homework. Her motorcycle was in the shop and there was an issue with the bus and she couldn't get her kids to school. When we got there, they were already in their school uniforms. But then she said the bus wouldn't be there in time and they could go change into their other clothes and they were way excited. Then they brought out their homework, and we helped them do their homework. By we I mean my companion, because I can't teach in Thai talking about math. After we left we were searching for a guy we never found and then we went inviting. We found some cool peeps, talked to some potential investigators in that area and then we headed home, got lunch and did our studies. I also had to try on my suit really quick and found out that it was way too small so they said they'll try and fix it or they'd have to just do a new suit because it was really bad. Then we went to see this member at his shop and our goal was to talk to his wife because she is less active and she didn't really want to talk to us, unfortunately. Sad day We taught our PI that sells fried bananas and they are really good. He's cool, he had a lot of questions about the afterlife. We mainly focused on who God is. This was one of those days where I was like, wow, we're doing really good. We had some good unity going, it was a really good lesson. After that we got some food and we were going to go see Bro. Sun. I thought we set up an appointment with him, but he wasn't there. We got some dinner that a nice member had paid for and I was so full. Then we did some inviting and we visited a Vietnamese man who was in the air force, a mechanic. He worked for the United States air force when they were here and he used to live in America for several years. He speaks English very well and we talked to him. He's met Mormons before. This is the second time we've visited him. He's really nice. We headed home and despite my flat tire it was a good day.
Thursday morning we helped our friend who has the little farm. We planted some peanuts and bamboo stalks and all this stuff. It was really fun. Then we had some food and she paid for our lunch, which was beyond generous. After that we came home, did our studies and some weekly planning, but then my companion was really tired and he fell asleep. So it took a while to plan for our hospital English class at the hospital, but then English class got canceled, sad day. We left to go teach this grandma but she wasn't at home so we went inviting until the regular English class at 6.
Friday first thing we found Anon who sells rice cakes for breakfast and they're really good. We taught him a great lesson. It was a lesson that doctrinally didn't really flow very well, but it was a very unified lesson in what and in the way we taught. And so I thought it was a good lesson because the spirit was there, there was no contention between the two of us and I think Anon could feel that as well. We're going to go back next week and talk to his family as well. After that we came home and did all of our studies and ran out the door to go have lunch with Bro. Sun who invited us over to go play a guitar and have some lunch. Then we had an appointment with a less active member named Bro. Moo who also has a mental problem, but he's a nice guy. He knows a lot of less active members. And so our appointment was to go and visit some less active members at their houses. Of course, no one is at their house in the afternoon. That was a bummer but it really makes Bro. Moo happy to help the missionaries. So honestly I felt like it was better for us to just go with him and have him help us even though hardly anyone was home. We were able to visit a couple members, but mostly it was important that we find out where their houses are. Then we ran over to this coffee shop where a member works and spent some time doing some planning; one of the better weekly planning sessions we've had. We mostly agreed on what we should do to help investigators. Then we went and found our fried bananas guy and taught him about the plan of salvation this time. It was a good lesson. When we left there we headed over to the church to meet with Bro. Ploy (recent convert) who loves to talk. He's good. He's coming back to church now that his dad is out of the hospital and he's a little bit less busy with work. We're trying to help them ou. Good guy. After that we had our sports night, which is really something I didn't like to do very much in Chiang Mai or towards the end of my time in Bangnaa because I felt like it wasn't the best use of our time. But we're starting to go back to it because we're trying to get members to come back to church and trying to get this thing ramped up so that it can be a tool in the future. For sports night we were playing volleyball and it was really fun. We were doing really well and it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, right? I sprained my ankle pretty good after coming down on a spike. It's what happens when you're wearing your dress pants and your dress shoes. It was really swollen. I couldn't walk very well on it that night. Saturday it was okay. Sunday was getting better. Today, p day, I can walk on it. I can't run on it, but I can walk on it and bike. Biking was never a problem. It looks really ugly, but it's pretty good right now. Nothing that I haven't had before. We got some dinner and came home and that was the night.
Saturday we had about an hour and a half of inviting that we had planned in between finding some people. We were trying to track down a less active member and he wasn't home so we did some inviting. We found a bunch of drunk people. We went back over to the guy's house and he still wasn't there, and we talked to his neighbor about English class and then we biked for a long time to go find another less active who is actually the bishop's son. He's a security guard at a neighborhood and he hasn't been to church for two years. He found him and talked to him. He was like, yeah, I want to come back. And in fact he said he was already thinking about coming back. We talked to him a little bit and then we headed back to our little house/church area and we helped clean the church after lunch. We went home and did some studies and I tried my suit on and it fit really good so now it's pretty sweet. We left and were going to go teach a PI, but he wasn't there. Then we were going to go teach Sis Tepe and she wasn't there. So we went to an ice cream shop that I'd seen a couple of weeks ago and did our language study with really good ice cream. After that we met with our friend Poom at the church and talked with him about ministering and how awesome it is and how he gets to participate. So fun.
Saturday we had our booth. We had a little whiteboard that we wrote a question on top. The questions were things like, how do we find happiness in this life? Where do we think we're going to go after? What's the purpose of this life? Stuff like that. Then we invited people to come write their answer on the board. We found some good people. Most people would come up, write and then leave. We didn't really get to talk. The sisters found some cool people that are potential investigators.
Sunday we got up and were having a quick planning session when some members called and asked us to please open the church. So we went over there and opened the church and then had our normal meetings. We ate some lunch after the meetings. Something that's really fun in Thailand is they all feed us lunch afterwards. I like that. We helped wash the dishes. The sisters asked if we could teach their investigator about the priesthood. It's this 12 year old kid that's the younger brother of one of their recent converts who was just baptized, I actually baptized him. They think it would be better if it came from someone that actually holds the priesthood. Anyways, after that we went home and did our studies and then went to help a less active member. We were doing some service for him (helping him with his chicken house), but it's not the best Sunday activity and we don't want to encourage him to work on Sundays so... hmm. Then we headed over to the church and we had a member help us get our materials over there. This time we had our Book of Mormon booth with the white board with questions and another with references in the Book of Mormon that people can look at and get their questions answered. It was going really good. We'd get people that would answer the white board questions and were like, hey, we have more questions on this board. And then would see the connection in the Book of Mormon and that was cool. But then some other groups of people set up around us specifically. One was a group of college girls that were super annoying and yelling for this fundraiser. And so it seemed like maybe the people thought that we were apart of their thing and so people stopped coming to our booth and it wasn't great. After a bit we left and we came home, got some food and finished out the night.
Today is Monday and we are having p day in the evening instead of the morning. We had intended to go do the sunrise hike in the morning, which is this cool cliff that overlooks Lao. There was some confusion about the the new rules and so we called the zone leaders. The zone leaders said they asked for permission to do a sunrise hike a few weeks previous and the assistants said no. So we talked to the assistants and one of them is a buddy of mine. He said the rule is you shouldn't leave your apartment before 6:30 unless you are going to exercise or unless it's like a special occasion/infrequent activity you have planned. This was a new rule when I was a zone leader in Chiang Mai. So it's left up to interpretation as far as the infrequent activity. That's the way we understood it but the other assistant didn't understand it the same way and so we didn't get to go. Then they called back and said they had a referral for us and he's only free to meet Monday morning. It was the classic story where members had taken off work the next day because they wanted to go with us and we had to cancel and the whole district had been looking forward to it so everyone was bummed. And then we had that appointment so we actually weren't going to have p day. But then they let us move our p day to the evening. And so we had p day until 9 pm today.
My spiritual thought for this week will come from John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." It might seem confusing at first because we're already the sons of God because he's our heavenly father, our dad. Right? But what's the son if he isn't an heir? We are heirs to all he has. That's the impression that I got as I was studying Come Follow Me this last week. I really like that if we repent and we do the things that we need to, that we can all become heirs of Heavenly Father. And what does he have? He's got everything. And so that would be so cool if we could be there with him.
Over and Out, Elder Ellsworth.
This last Monday was really fun. I enjoyed it quite a bit. We got up early in the morning and went mtn biking. There is a member who knows a lot of mountain biking trails near his house and he's offered before to take us. Our bikes got super muddy, super dirty, but it was worth it. Around noon we got done biking, went to his house and he fed us some lunch. And then we washed off in this cool waterfall. Then we headed home, showered and did our weeklies. For the evening Sis. Whale (the lady that we baptized last transfer) invited us and the sisters over to her house to have a family home evening activity with all of her family. The sisters are teaching her daughter. We spent some time inviting before that. It was a really fun evening. If you had told me on the train on the way here that I would baptize someone and then I would find myself at their house and the daughter's getting taught. I probably would've believe you because I was ready to go to work and use my faith. But looking back I'm still kinda like, wow, that's really cool that it all happened.
Tuesday we did our studies first thing in the morning because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get all of our studies in the rest of the day if we just left. So we studied first thing in the morning. District meeting started at 10 and after that we had lunch and then ran over to this appointment that's about a half hour bike ride away. We talked to them for a long time, longer than expected. Normally that would be more frustrating to me but maybe I'm happier recently because I've let go of being able to control stuff. It's been hard training a new missionary who is so fluent in Thai. Often he talks so fast that I can't keep the lessons on topic like they need to be. He likes to talk about a lot of different things and doesn't stay focused on what we need to teach.
I hesitate to say anything about him, about anybody, just because I have my own faults and I'm not perfect. There are things that I wish I would be more up front about with him, but even though I consider myself an obedient missionary there are some things that I'm not always doing as well as I should be. So that is hard to call someone out when I'm not perfect either. Anyways, so back to Tuesday where we were at this member's house... the family is less active and we've been trying to help them. After that we planned to go find a spot to finish our studies and go talk to another lady and then do some planning. What happened was we went to the other lady's house and she wasn't there and so we were going to bike to an ice cream shop and finish our studies there because I know of one near the area of where we would be for the next appointment. But what happened was Google maps took us on this back road because that was the shortest route. It turned into a lot of dirt roads in between fields and it was all going along really fun up until I got a flat tire and we were smack dab in the middle of nowhere and I'm thinking great, flat tire. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I was so frustrated. We started walking and not 50 meters later, there was this huge stream right in front of us covering the road we're on and again I'm thinking, just great. So I was worried my companion would start to complain but he just took his shoes off and we walked across and just went on and that was good. In that moment I thought of Elder Holland and his talk (and video), good things will come. There's a part where the old man that picks him up as he's walking down the road says he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family. Well, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this stupid back tire that I've fixed like five different times. Uh, anyways, so we walked for forever. Just walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, and we finally got to this motorcycle shop where the owner fixes it and finds the thorn that was in the tire. He patched it up and went on our merry way. We taught our friend Sis.Tepe and she's doing great. Then we had English class and had some dinner and that was the day.
Wednesday morning we got up and lo one behold my bike tire is flat as flat can be, I was so mad. We left and I just bought a new tire. Then we went to see Sis. Tepe (our RC who sells noodles). We didn't really get to talk to her too much. We ended up helping her kids with their homework. Her motorcycle was in the shop and there was an issue with the bus and she couldn't get her kids to school. When we got there, they were already in their school uniforms. But then she said the bus wouldn't be there in time and they could go change into their other clothes and they were way excited. Then they brought out their homework, and we helped them do their homework. By we I mean my companion, because I can't teach in Thai talking about math. After we left we were searching for a guy we never found and then we went inviting. We found some cool peeps, talked to some potential investigators in that area and then we headed home, got lunch and did our studies. I also had to try on my suit really quick and found out that it was way too small so they said they'll try and fix it or they'd have to just do a new suit because it was really bad. Then we went to see this member at his shop and our goal was to talk to his wife because she is less active and she didn't really want to talk to us, unfortunately. Sad day We taught our PI that sells fried bananas and they are really good. He's cool, he had a lot of questions about the afterlife. We mainly focused on who God is. This was one of those days where I was like, wow, we're doing really good. We had some good unity going, it was a really good lesson. After that we got some food and we were going to go see Bro. Sun. I thought we set up an appointment with him, but he wasn't there. We got some dinner that a nice member had paid for and I was so full. Then we did some inviting and we visited a Vietnamese man who was in the air force, a mechanic. He worked for the United States air force when they were here and he used to live in America for several years. He speaks English very well and we talked to him. He's met Mormons before. This is the second time we've visited him. He's really nice. We headed home and despite my flat tire it was a good day.
Thursday morning we helped our friend who has the little farm. We planted some peanuts and bamboo stalks and all this stuff. It was really fun. Then we had some food and she paid for our lunch, which was beyond generous. After that we came home, did our studies and some weekly planning, but then my companion was really tired and he fell asleep. So it took a while to plan for our hospital English class at the hospital, but then English class got canceled, sad day. We left to go teach this grandma but she wasn't at home so we went inviting until the regular English class at 6.
Friday first thing we found Anon who sells rice cakes for breakfast and they're really good. We taught him a great lesson. It was a lesson that doctrinally didn't really flow very well, but it was a very unified lesson in what and in the way we taught. And so I thought it was a good lesson because the spirit was there, there was no contention between the two of us and I think Anon could feel that as well. We're going to go back next week and talk to his family as well. After that we came home and did all of our studies and ran out the door to go have lunch with Bro. Sun who invited us over to go play a guitar and have some lunch. Then we had an appointment with a less active member named Bro. Moo who also has a mental problem, but he's a nice guy. He knows a lot of less active members. And so our appointment was to go and visit some less active members at their houses. Of course, no one is at their house in the afternoon. That was a bummer but it really makes Bro. Moo happy to help the missionaries. So honestly I felt like it was better for us to just go with him and have him help us even though hardly anyone was home. We were able to visit a couple members, but mostly it was important that we find out where their houses are. Then we ran over to this coffee shop where a member works and spent some time doing some planning; one of the better weekly planning sessions we've had. We mostly agreed on what we should do to help investigators. Then we went and found our fried bananas guy and taught him about the plan of salvation this time. It was a good lesson. When we left there we headed over to the church to meet with Bro. Ploy (recent convert) who loves to talk. He's good. He's coming back to church now that his dad is out of the hospital and he's a little bit less busy with work. We're trying to help them ou. Good guy. After that we had our sports night, which is really something I didn't like to do very much in Chiang Mai or towards the end of my time in Bangnaa because I felt like it wasn't the best use of our time. But we're starting to go back to it because we're trying to get members to come back to church and trying to get this thing ramped up so that it can be a tool in the future. For sports night we were playing volleyball and it was really fun. We were doing really well and it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, right? I sprained my ankle pretty good after coming down on a spike. It's what happens when you're wearing your dress pants and your dress shoes. It was really swollen. I couldn't walk very well on it that night. Saturday it was okay. Sunday was getting better. Today, p day, I can walk on it. I can't run on it, but I can walk on it and bike. Biking was never a problem. It looks really ugly, but it's pretty good right now. Nothing that I haven't had before. We got some dinner and came home and that was the night.
Saturday we had about an hour and a half of inviting that we had planned in between finding some people. We were trying to track down a less active member and he wasn't home so we did some inviting. We found a bunch of drunk people. We went back over to the guy's house and he still wasn't there, and we talked to his neighbor about English class and then we biked for a long time to go find another less active who is actually the bishop's son. He's a security guard at a neighborhood and he hasn't been to church for two years. He found him and talked to him. He was like, yeah, I want to come back. And in fact he said he was already thinking about coming back. We talked to him a little bit and then we headed back to our little house/church area and we helped clean the church after lunch. We went home and did some studies and I tried my suit on and it fit really good so now it's pretty sweet. We left and were going to go teach a PI, but he wasn't there. Then we were going to go teach Sis Tepe and she wasn't there. So we went to an ice cream shop that I'd seen a couple of weeks ago and did our language study with really good ice cream. After that we met with our friend Poom at the church and talked with him about ministering and how awesome it is and how he gets to participate. So fun.
Saturday we had our booth. We had a little whiteboard that we wrote a question on top. The questions were things like, how do we find happiness in this life? Where do we think we're going to go after? What's the purpose of this life? Stuff like that. Then we invited people to come write their answer on the board. We found some good people. Most people would come up, write and then leave. We didn't really get to talk. The sisters found some cool people that are potential investigators.
Sunday we got up and were having a quick planning session when some members called and asked us to please open the church. So we went over there and opened the church and then had our normal meetings. We ate some lunch after the meetings. Something that's really fun in Thailand is they all feed us lunch afterwards. I like that. We helped wash the dishes. The sisters asked if we could teach their investigator about the priesthood. It's this 12 year old kid that's the younger brother of one of their recent converts who was just baptized, I actually baptized him. They think it would be better if it came from someone that actually holds the priesthood. Anyways, after that we went home and did our studies and then went to help a less active member. We were doing some service for him (helping him with his chicken house), but it's not the best Sunday activity and we don't want to encourage him to work on Sundays so... hmm. Then we headed over to the church and we had a member help us get our materials over there. This time we had our Book of Mormon booth with the white board with questions and another with references in the Book of Mormon that people can look at and get their questions answered. It was going really good. We'd get people that would answer the white board questions and were like, hey, we have more questions on this board. And then would see the connection in the Book of Mormon and that was cool. But then some other groups of people set up around us specifically. One was a group of college girls that were super annoying and yelling for this fundraiser. And so it seemed like maybe the people thought that we were apart of their thing and so people stopped coming to our booth and it wasn't great. After a bit we left and we came home, got some food and finished out the night.
Today is Monday and we are having p day in the evening instead of the morning. We had intended to go do the sunrise hike in the morning, which is this cool cliff that overlooks Lao. There was some confusion about the the new rules and so we called the zone leaders. The zone leaders said they asked for permission to do a sunrise hike a few weeks previous and the assistants said no. So we talked to the assistants and one of them is a buddy of mine. He said the rule is you shouldn't leave your apartment before 6:30 unless you are going to exercise or unless it's like a special occasion/infrequent activity you have planned. This was a new rule when I was a zone leader in Chiang Mai. So it's left up to interpretation as far as the infrequent activity. That's the way we understood it but the other assistant didn't understand it the same way and so we didn't get to go. Then they called back and said they had a referral for us and he's only free to meet Monday morning. It was the classic story where members had taken off work the next day because they wanted to go with us and we had to cancel and the whole district had been looking forward to it so everyone was bummed. And then we had that appointment so we actually weren't going to have p day. But then they let us move our p day to the evening. And so we had p day until 9 pm today.
My spiritual thought for this week will come from John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." It might seem confusing at first because we're already the sons of God because he's our heavenly father, our dad. Right? But what's the son if he isn't an heir? We are heirs to all he has. That's the impression that I got as I was studying Come Follow Me this last week. I really like that if we repent and we do the things that we need to, that we can all become heirs of Heavenly Father. And what does he have? He's got everything. And so that would be so cool if we could be there with him.
Over and Out, Elder Ellsworth.
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