Hey Fam!
This week was another busy one. I love being busy! We finished up
teaching Brother Big and he passed his interview! SO he gets to get
baptized this Sunday! :) So excited for him! We always check up with him
every night and see how his reading and praying
are doing. Last night he was like, "don't worry, I do these things
everyday!" He's a "good egg" as Sister Parker would say. We had some
more awesome people come to church yesterday! Sister Noy's student,
Brother Bia, came! He's about 10 years old and kind of
shy. So I went and talked to the other kids and asked if they'd invite
him to play with them. They were so nice and went and introduced
themselves and invited him to go and play football with them. He had a
good experience at church, he felt so welcomed and
said he wanted to come back again. I've realized how incredibly
important it is to be welcoming to those that are new. Members are so
important in this work. As cool as us missionaries are, they need
members to hang out with as well! It turned out to be a great
Sunday, I'm always so stressed out on Sunday's, trying to call people
and get them to church. And then when not that many people come it's
kind of discouraging. But then I can't enjoy the rest of church, I don't
feel the spirit because all I'm doing is worrying
about people not leaving or people that didn't come. But yesterday, even
though some things didn't go the way I wanted it to, I saw so many
tender mercies of the Lord. I found myself enjoying church for once and
feeling the spirit. It was a great lesson that
I learned, that even when things seem to not be going right, I always
see the little miracles and blessings the Lord has given me. There's so
much to be grateful for and sometimes we forget the those little
precious moments that truly make life great. Something
that I loved that was said in the Christmas Devotional (I can't
remember who said it!) was that the Lord is constantly showering
blessings upon us, that we can't even comprehend it. The Lord is in
every detail of our lives. Let that be something that we never
forget.
We went and taught Brother Kit's family with the elders!
This Christmas season definitely doesn't feel like Christmas at
home. If you walked outside you'd think you were in the middle of July!
And I always thought it was so cheesy when people said that Christmas
comes from within. But now with the trees, the
food, the lights, the snow, everything out of the picture, I feel like I
understand more. I love the Christmas Mormon Message put out last year
(I literally watch it everyday and show it to all our investigators and
the members). In it it talks about how our
Lord and Savior is the gift. He is the gift that Heavenly Father gave to
us. As I thought about that I thought of what that meant to me. I
looked over my life in this past year. How different I was from the
beginning and how much I'd gone through and overcome.
And I knew that all of this was done because of the gift of the Father. I
realize that there are so many things that I can't do on my own. But
there are so many things that I can do because of Christ. And that in it
itself is the greatest gift. So even though
it's not the Christmas season you'd picture, it's been one of the most
amazing Christmas seasons I've had. So I'm going to become one of those
cheesy people when I say that the Christmas spirit truly does come from
within. Our charity and love towards others
and the Savior. The things that we give instead of receive, that's where
the true Christmas spirit lies. A Savior is born! And because of that,
we can become who we were destined to be!
They made a cute little nativity in the church back yard! So cute!
It's transfer weeeeek! I swear, I blink and the transfers are just
over. This transfer was only five and then the next one will be seven so
that those dying can go home before Christmas. I'm putting my guess on
the table and I think I'm staying :) Six
months in Lampang, I'm so up for that! This last week, we had some fun
things happen.
1. First off I talked to a white guy from Holland and talked to him
about Christianity and God. He ended up telling me that I didn't know
that there was a God. Apparently I think there's one but I don't know
for sure that there is one. Haha! I just said
I know that God lives and He loves us. I wouldn't sacrifice 18 months
and come to Thailand to lie. So that was fun!
2. Elder Darby also shared a fun scripture with me. He started off
by telling me that when sharing Nephi 3:7 with an investigator who just
agreed to baptism, to make sure it's 1 Nephi not 3 Nephi. Read it. I
died laughing. Finding scriptures and pretending
to share them with our investigators and picturing their reaction.
That's where us missionaries get our laughs from!
3. It's also been cool enough for me to wear a sweater (sometimes).
4. We went to eat pizza at Long Jim's with a bunch of the members.
They were impressed (?) that I could eat five pieces of pizza. They were
dying at three! I was still hungry.
Love you all, hope you're all having a great Christmas season! Have a great week!
1 Nephi 21: 15-16
Biking! (this is the road we live on, it's so pretty!)
I love this dog! It's one of the neighbors dogs and every time we come home it comes running. We named it Happy because he always looks like he's smiling.
