Thailand/Chaengwattana week 50 Easter Weekend

Hey Family! 

It was a great Easter week. Me and Sister Belnap taught Relief Society yesterday so we were studying the atonement all week for it. I can't tell you how many times I've just sat and wanted to cry because of my awe of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice. I have too many thoughts about the atonement to share but I think these scriptures can describe my hope and joy better than I can: 

And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.

3 Nephi 11: 11

And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

Therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.

D&C 122: 7-9

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

John 14: 18

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 14: 27

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

John 16: 33

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15: 22

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3: 16

He is not here, for He is risen. 

Matthew 28: 6

The last one is my favorite. Christ has descended below all things, all the hurt, pain temptations and wrongs in the world, He has already overcome. The bands of death have been broken! So when life gets hard and dark, I hope I always remember that Christ has risen and that the victory has already been won. 

I hope this Easter has been as spiritual, special and uplifting as it has been for me. I realized that it is because of the atonement that we are an eternal family. How special is that! I love you guys! 

ซิสเตอร์ ริโย

Hey Mom!  

Sorry, my card reader has disappeared so I won't be able to send any pictures home this week:/ I'll try and find it!

Thanks for sending me pictures, I love pictures! It looks like it was so much fun! I think I've been to the fort place you were talking about when I went to Talise's brothers wedding down in St. George.

I haven't gotten my package yet but we have MLC this week so I'll be going to the office. I think Lauren sent me a package as well! 

I'm in a ward, a white ward so they definitely do stuff for Easter! It was a way good sacrament, the primary went up and sang and then someone did a pretty piano solo. I was in the MTC last Easter. That's so weird to think of. I also was in the MTC for GC as well! I won't be able to watch it until the next two weeks since we're ahead on time. We'll watch it the same as you guys do just at the church. So two on saturday and two on sunday. I'm excited! It's so weird it's conference again. I wanted to tell you, you should try and get tickets for next conference. More than anything I just want to go to general conference! I think it'd be so fun for all of us to go. Also when I get home, I really want to go to the temple. I really miss the temple. 

I did hear about the bombings. It's so sad and scary but it's just a miracle that they were only hurt.

Well enjoy conference this week! I'm glad that conference was always such a big deal at home. I'm just glad that you and dad always put church things first. Although I didn't seen the importance of it then, I've seen how much of a blessing it's been in my life. I'm glad Sundays were a family day! 

Love you Mom! 

Mais 

Hey Dad,

My week was good, it went by super fast again! I really like Easter as well. I understand it's meaning a lot more than I did before. I always thought of Jesus and that on the third day He rose, but I didn't know how much meaning that had for me and my own life. 

It's so fun that you guys get to meet so many sister missionaries. We love meeting friendly families. There's a girl that I'm STL over and she is going to Salt Lake for her mission pretty soon. I'm way excited because I'll just go visit her and speak Thai with her. There's a lot of Thai people that go to the states for their mission. It's great for them because then they learn English. 

I haven't been able to meet with Sister Hansen yet, we've been super busy. But I want to get it started before I leave this area at least and get your family names in there. I know I need to get started on it, I've been repenting way hard that I've never done it before. 

Love you Dad, hope you have a great week! 

Mais 

Easter at the Martin's

Sister Beckstrand and Panasuto had a baptism!

Bangkok North Easter Activity 

Thailand/Chaengwattana week 49

Hello friends and familia! 

This week was CRAZY BUSY. We've had one lesson after the other and I'll have to admit that it's pretty exhausting. But I just love teaching people the gospel! I especially love my new companion, Sister Belnap from Arkansas! She is such a great teacher and missionary! I feel super lucky to be with her on her last transfer!

This last week we taught Michael, our investigator from Iran, literally everyday. He always calls and asks what the "program" is for the day. Haha! He wants to learn, so we teach him! We noticed though that the things that we had him read from the Book of Mormon weren't really making sense to him. He liked it and the way it made him feel when he read but he didn't really understand too much. Especially since English is his second language, Farsi/Persian being his first. So we got online and looked for a Book of Mormon in his language which he was pretty doubtful that we'd find but we did! He looked at it and was so excited! He started reading from the beginning and then repeating back to us what it meant in English. It was literally like a light switch. As soon as he started reading the Book of Mormon in his own language, the spirit literally filled the room. It was so amazing. He was so happy. We pretty much didn't talk the entire rest of the time because he just sat there and read and cried. The spirit taught that lesson. I'm so grateful that I was able to be there and witness that little miracle. How grateful I am for the Book of Mormon! 

This week is Easter! I'm so grateful for this time of year. I love all these holidays that are so centered around Christ! I've been studying the Infinite Atonement by Elder Tad Callister. I've always focused on the blessings of the atonement in my life but I've never thought of what would happen to each of us if there was no atonement. In his book he talks about this. We couldn't change, our guilt and feelings of suffering could never be overcome. We couldn't be resurrected, we wouldn't even be able to attain any of the kingdoms of glory without it. We'd be subject to Satan for the rest of eternity, no matter how good of a person we were or how hard we tried, we'd never be good enough. How hopeless and pointless life would be. How grateful I am that we have a Savior! My gratitude for Christ and His sacrifice has grown more and more over the time of my mission as I've studied and as the hard times came. But just as fast as they came, they left. I have faith in Christ and His atonement to heal, purify, strengthen, and give us the enabling power to press forward. I know Christ lives and that He is my Redeemer and Savior and it is through Him that I have life. 

#Hallelujah

Miracles are happening here! There's much to come! 

With love, 

ซิสเตอร์ ริโย

Hebrews 12: 1-2

We got to go to mutual and give the youth some tips

 on how to be missionaries. It was so fun!

Visiting the Smith family

Selfie-ing it with my new companion and this 

beautiful daughter of God that we were inviting!

Sister Christine invited us over for dinner (and fed us some yummy African food!)

 along with two of her friends that we got to teach the Restoration. 

Sister Pim went everywhere helping us teach all this last week. We love her!

FHE at President Wisan's!

The Smith's are leaving! I'm going to miss them. 

Especially Sister Smith's black cake every Sunday!

These two boys were so awesome and helped us find

 the post office to find an address. 

We knew exactly where it was but we thought we'd 

let them help us out instead of go play video games. :)

Bangkok!  I Love this place!!

Thailand/Chaengwattana week 48

Hey Fam Bam!

This week has been crazy, lots of teaching appointments that we've been trying to smash all into one day. It's been so fun though because we've taught a lot in English! I love Thai but there's just something about being able to teach the gospel in your own language. We taught Gladdus for the first time but we'd given her a Book of Mormon the Sunday before. At the end of it all she just looks down at the Book of Mormon and says, "I just want to know what a Mormon is!" Haha so we explained to her. It's fun teaching people with a Christian background because they have lots of questions, and I love questions! Sister Bee also got baptized! That was literally one of the craziest days ever. We were going to teach Brother Greet right before the baptism and he started having a seizure! We called the hospital and his family (we had no idea what to do, good thing there were members there as well to help!) and his brother came and helped him. It was a pretty crazy day. Poor Sister Bee, she was a little shaken from it all. And the font wasn't filling up with water so we took buckets and filled them up to help make the process go faster. But all is well, Brother Greet is ok, and there was baptism water! And it turned out to be a great baptismal service. One of my favorite things about baptisms are that they're all bright and happy! One of the happiest moments ever is being there to witness people coming unto Christ. I'm reminded of that each day, I have a great purpose here in Thailand! Yesterday Gladdus asked us why no one really knows about Joseph Smith and the restoration and we told her that's why we're here! We're here to help everyone know that God loves His children and that what once was lost is once again restored in these latter days. Can't help but think how great my calling is! 

So we have received our transfer calls! I am staying and Sister Forte is leaving a going to Chiang Mai! Yay for her! And my new comp will be Sister Belnap, my old STL :) So excited to start a new transfer continue to help this area. I'm really grateful that I got to stay, I'm hoping I'll be able to stay here for a while. I love this area! Time sure flies though, I can't believe how long I've been gone from Lampang. 

Well that's about all I've got for the week. It was a great week. God is real and the church is true! I love proclaiming that to the world everyday! 

Love you all, don't forget to read your scriptures. Legit, scripture power is a real thing. 

Have a great week! I'll email you guys next on the 21st! Mom's birthday! :) 

Loves, 

ซิสเตอร์ ริโย

"Safety for the Soul" - Elder Holland

This talk gave me the chills! Enjoy! :) 

Just hanging out at the church with some of the members!

Saw these cute little headbands while inviting and had to try them on!

Our investigator Michael!

Sister Bee got baptized!!

We taught Gladdus for the first time this last week! 

She's a nanny for one of the families in Nichada and comes

 to church with them every Sunday. She's from the Ivory Coast and way cool! 

Inviting in the slums down in Pak Kret

Thailand/Chaengwattana week 47

Hey Fam! 

A couple announcements: Next week is transfers (WHAT??!). And instead of P-Day being next Monday, it will be this Saturday. Make sure ya'll write in your agendas to write me Friday night :)

                                      

This week was the craziest, fastest week ever. Lost lots of sleep. We had lots of meetings to go to and that meant getting up really early. I think I have almost overcome the art of mind over matter. Almost. 

Yesterday we had a cool thing happen! We got a call from the missionaries over in Bangkhen saying that they were sending a guy to our English ward that showed up at the church over there. He's from Iran and he has a crazy story. He became Christian when he was over here in Thailand and then when he went back home, he was sentenced to be executed for it. So he escaped and came back to Thailand a couple months ago and showed up at the church asking how he could become a member. So awesome! The entire time he was telling his story, I couldn't help but notice how much the Lord had led and prepared him. He just kept on thanking God for bringing him there and for  He loved church and the members loved him! I can't wait to teach him about the restored gospel :) There are a lot of cool little miracles that just happen everyday. We have a couple other investigators we're working with, Sister Tip, Peasan, and Bee! We were inviting a couple weeks ago down at the Pak Kret market and Sister Forte was showing this old lady where the church was on the handout and he just went up and grabbed it out of her hands and asked where the church was. Yep, that's Peasan for you. He's so funny though! He makes up all these different comparisons to help him understand the gospel. Bee is getting baptized this week! And Tip, she keeps telling us that she's Buddhist. We know that already. She totally feels it, knows it's true, she just denies it. She came to church yesterday though, and that was a big step for her! We love these people so much though. It's funny how your investigators just become your children! :)

As crazy and tiring as this week was, it was really a spiritually up lifting one as well. We had some training this week and there was a lot of good stuff. But I think the greatest thing I got out of this week is how much I know that these things I'm teaching are true. And I need to know that! The spirit, no matter how tired or hungry I was, was there in all our lessons, in all our teachings. And I had a cool realization that I am also learning as well. I don't know everything. And that's ok, that's why we have prayer and the Holy Ghost. But these things I know with confidence:

God is our loving Heavenly Father. We are His children. He is aware of us, He knows us perfectly and He loves us more than we could possibly know. And because He loves us, He sent His only Begotten Son to suffer for our sins. To to open the way and give us the possibility of returning to Him. I know that Christ is our Savior and that He lives. I know that through His sacrifice that He made all things possible and we can overcome anything if we will follow Him, remember Him, and love Him. I know that this church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is His restored church, with the restored priesthood and the restored gospel. This is His church. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. And that it was through the restored priesthood that the Book of Mormon was translated. This week I received another witness in my heart that this book truly is the word of God. It contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and by it we can come closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior. I know for myself that these things are true because the spirit has borne witness to me. 

I just want to challenge you all, just as I have challenged myself this past week, to find out for yourself if these things are true. Whether it's the first or millionth time! Keep on seeking and the Lord will continue to give light. Pray with all sincerity, and God will answer your prayers. 

I love you guys! Take care! 

Love, 

ซิสเตอร์ ริโย

D&C 88: 67

ps...I can't wear contacts anymore because my eyes turn red. It's just too dirty here. And then Sister Morgan asks me if I have pink eye every time.

Just teachin'!

Leadership council meeting

Dinner at President Johnson's house

Our new mission nurse! Also the first sister missionary in Thailand!  

So excited to have this legend apart of our mission family.  Welcome Sister Martell!

 

 

FHE at Prathaan Sathit's #selfiefail

Sorting some red hot chili peppers at Kim Sawan's House

Taking a boat to Sista Ning's place!