Sister Maisie Carrillo: Thailand/ Lampang- week 26 Conference! The thing I looked forward to literally all week. It was such a good conference! I didn't think I could ever receive so many answers in just two days!

Hey Mom!

It feels like spring here in Lampang! We're going into cold season! :) My week was super great! Really so many of our prayers were answered in this last week. On fast Sunday we fasted that we would be able to teach and meet more people. We just wanted some investigators so bad! And it was cool, we got two new investigators in one day. One of them, Brother James, was just a random contact we met last Monday. We literally had been talking about how groups of boys are pointless to ask because no boy will say he wants to learn about Christ in front of his friends. But there were these two boys that walked past us and we invited them and one of them was interested! His name is Brother James. He's such a cute kid! So nice, kinda shy, but we got to teach him once and taught him how to pray. He's been busy with work but we call and follow up with him and he says he prays all the time. He said whenever he feels sad he just prays and then feels better. I love that! It's so crazy how happy you get when you see the gospel blessing the lives of your investigators. Like Sister Miaw, I absolutely love her! She's changed so much since we met her. Last week when we taught her we asked her how her life has changed since she first started learning. She said that she used to get really stressed a lot and that's why she drank, to drink her feelings away. But now she just prays and she feels better. We asked her again what she thought about getting baptized, because she's so ready! We told her all she needs is a willingness to follow Christ and keep His commandments. She has nothing to be afraid of! She said she'd pray about it. So we called her this morning and she just said, "yeah, I'll get baptized on the 25th." We were so excited! She was laughing because we were so shocked that she actually took a date! That will be the best birthday present ever for me if Sister Miaw gets baptized! She came to conference yesterday, I think she was bored but she told us things that she really liked. Like how Jesus was the only one that was perfect and she didn't need to be perfect just repent and try her best. She got a lot of answers from that conference which was awesome! Sister Miaw (Brother Santi's wife) is doing good, she's still quitting coffee but we haven't been able to meet with her this week. Brother Santi always says that he has a headache or his back hurts so they can't meet with us. Sometimes it's kinda frustrating. But we're trying with them! We got to teach a guy from Africa. So we taught in English and lemme tell you, it is SO AWKWARD to teach in English! I couldn't remember words in English, all that was wanting to come out was Thai. I never thought I'd get to this point, but I did. It's way hard to teach in English. But I also like it because it's good practice for me! This guys name is Raul and we just met him on the street when we were going back to the church. He's really nice! We'll see what happens with him. We still need new investigators but we're being patient and just doing our best! We're grateful that Sister Miaw finally accepted a baptismal date!

Last week, us missionaries planned a branch party. They don't have parties here for some reason. But we wanted to help make the branch closer and have more unity so we decided to have a party! And to get everyone to come, we gave everyone an assignment (bring food, decorate, bring games, do the spiritual thought etc.). The worst part was that it started raining right before the party and everyone still was not there! We were alone at the church with Sister Miaw waiting and she said that we should just pray about it. So we did, we made her say it haha. And it stopped raining! We knew it would though, Sister Miaw has a lot of faith. Lot's of people came, it was a really good turnout and it was actually really fun. I don't think I've laughed so hard since I came to Thailand. I absolutely love this branch, having that party made me realize how much I love these people here and how they're pretty much my Thai family. We're going to have a Halloween party soon! We're excited for that!

Conference! The thing I looked forward to literally all week. We watched it at the church in the Bishop's office with the Elders and Brother Ford. It was such a good conference! I didn't think I could ever receive so many answers in those two days that I watched it. They all had such different talks but there was definitely a theme to it all. I had been praying to know how to be better, what more I could do and what I need to be when I get home and how I'm going to keep all this up! I loved so many talks because so many answers came from all of them but I love the one that talked about how we need to get on our knees and sincerely ask the Lord what we can change and be willing and humble enough to accept that answer. Really so much of what I got out of it is that we need to be better, we need to be strengthening our relationship with the Lord. Something Elder Clark said really hit me, that our testimonies aren't good enough now for the things that are going to come. These really are the last days, the final scene and everything is getting more and more black and white. There are so many ways they gave to help strengthen ourselves. Praying, reading our scriptures daily, observing the sacrament and keeping the Sabbath Day holy, serving others, and being a light to those around us. One thing that I noticed they said in 4 talks is "His grace is sufficient for us". I love that saying. It doesn't matter how young or old, how inexperienced, how incapable we feel. We aren't perfect, we're mortal and we make mistakes. But that is why Heavenly Father sent us a Savior to redeem us and to make up for what we can't. One thing that Elder Stoker (one of the senior couples from Chiang Mai) said is that our one main weakness in this life is that we can't save ourselves. It is by the grace of God that we are saved, after all that we can do. I got so much out of conference, I hope you guys did too! These truly are the last days, we need to prepare and be ready! How lucky are we that we get to listen to modern day prophets, apostles, seer,s and revelators, to guide us in these latter days!

It's been really cold here the last couple days. Like a cold spring day. It's been so nice! I hope it stays like that. We only have about 2 days here in Lampang this week because on Thursday we leave for Chiang Mai again! We're having another zone conference with Elder Funk and then it's district conference so all the members in the Chiang Mai district will be going up for the conference. Super excited! I've really loved serving up here in the North, I hope I'll be able to stay here longer. My Thai is getting there! I'm working on it, I guess I don't realize how much I'm progressing since that's pretty much the only thing I speak all day! People always ask me how many years I've been learning Thai and I'll tell them eight months and they get all shocked. I'm pretty good for only learning Thai in such a short amount of time! Me and Sister Rem realized the other day that us and the elders are the only people we speak English with. Every other moment is in Thai! Sister Wadsana is trying to learn English so she copies everything we say. Apparently I say "mmmhhhmmmm" a lot haha. Anyways, I really like Thai! I remember in the MTC when I hated it because it was so weird and hard but now I love it, I want to get really good at it. It's such a fun language!

Love you guys!

-ซ. คาร์ริโย

From conference I loved the talk about "ponderizing" a scripture every week. I decided I'm going to do it! This week I'm ponderizing Moroni 7: 48! It's a good one! We should do it as a family sometimes and take turns picking scriptures!