Dear Mom,
Thank you so much for all of your thoughts! I love hearing what you have to say and it really does amaze me how much strength your words give me!
Sometimes when I do my hair, the members compliment me. I can't tell if they're just being nice or genuine, but they're all really nice anyway so I'm not super worried about it. I just need to make sure I remember to get hair cuts.
Thank you so much for sharing your personal experiences and example. It really does make me think and apply it. We have great social events, but we have to always remember what the focus of them needs to be.
The Book of Mormon class was missionaries, too. We just had transfers so we'll probably end up having to change a lot, but thank you for your ideas. We should be able to figure somethings out for this transfer. Elder Davis was very good at planning activities and stuff.
The pictures were drawn by some long time investigators of Elder Davis's old area. They're super helpful and really nice, but they're just not quite interested in learning or baptism yet. I hope that continued exposure will spark interested in them learning about Christ. They definitely have had great examples of people in the church.
Overcome discouragement with humor, that's great! I love our Stake president.
I so love that you've been having Ashley over and the missionaries, and the neighbors, too. That's awesome! Little Nathan sounds like a great kid! Ashley chocolate chip cookies, those sound so good right now! I hope you can develop an appetite for spicy foods in the next two years because when I get back I plan on eating Thai food all the time! I'll see if I can learn how to cook before I get back.
The transfer meeting video was so fun! That bucket of cookies was given to us from the members in Bangna!
If you'd like to send me music, a flash drive, SDcard or something like that would be best. Is there anything else I've been missing...not really. I can't think of anything. Other than your great cooking. There have been some random things, but nothing that's important. Thanks so much for asking! Anything would be great!
This week has been crazy with transfers and stuff. I don't have much time, but I'll share the synopsis. I got a hair cut on Monday and the barber that cut my hair came to church on Sunday! He gave me a kind of military cut and later that day all the members were saluting me and it was pretty funny. He's pretty skilled and they even used a straight razor to straighten out the sides and stuff. All for only 80฿ which is around $2.49 - super cheap. We printed pictures for really cheap, too and we also found out who would be moving from Bangna. Sister Morgan, Elder Davis, and Elder Williams were moving. This was almost just like a miracle for me because I felt like I really didn't want to move. I know that I'll have to move eventually, but I felt like if I could just stay one more transfer I could do so much more here. When I found out I wasn't moving, it was like an answer to my prayers. -learned who would be moving and finally got pictures.
Tuesday was a loaded day with district meeting and everything else. We watched some great Mormon messages and we each shared a small testimony about something we had learned from this transfer. It was a really neat meeting. Some thoughts were: we are all different and we contribute in our own special way. We change not to be something different than we are, but better. Someone gave the example of a 2-cylinder engine becoming a bigger engine not trying to be a 10 or 12, but working to add a few cylinders at a time. We are on the Lord's time and He has a plan for each of us. Things happen according to the Lord's time for investigators. His plan for us will be seen as we see past the trials or the good in the moment of trial. We visited a member in the hospital in the afternoon, taught English class and then met with บ. ออฟ afterwards. We've all been kind of distraught the best couple of days with transfers and everything. -Awesome district meeting, I like snickers
On Wednesday, we had a going away party, packed for transfers, and had a big Book of Mormon class. We took a ton of pictures and said some goodbyes. We ended the crazy day with teaching บ. ออฟ again. We had several other missionaries staying with us for transfers so the whole day was kind of just crazy. -people sad for leaving, บ. ออฟ is pretty awesome and should be baptized on the 1st.
Thursday was transfers day. Everything felt so, so weird because Sister Morgan, Elder Davis, and Elder Williams left and because at the very last minute, my companion got switched and it was really unexpected. The second transfer seemed really hard, but after a few days, it seemed to be alright. I was sad to be losing some great people, but Elder Astle seemed really awesome, he was Elder Williams trainer. Then it got switched and now my companion is Elder Lodwick. He's great, too though. -Sad to leave, excited for change, sad that companion changed last minute, excited to have a new one still
Friday we invited a lot and taught a bunch, too. We taught บ. ออฟ and a few new investigators. -change is weird and hard at first, but eventually you adapt.
Saturday: Part of finding joy in the journey is creating your own. We invited for a few hours, all of our appointments fell through today, we had a meeting with Bishop and ฃ. พิฌ. We had sports night again. I was super fun. We didn't have as many people as last week, but we still had a lot of fun and had several RC's there to help them make friends with the ward, but we didn't have a lot of people there. Soccer, basketball, badminton. We also helped clean and setup the church for Sunday. -ward meeting, ฃ. พิฌ landed in a bush
Sunday: Baptism! The sisters had a baptism and I had the opportunity to teach a group o RCs/LAs with the new sister, Sister Hatch. It was my first experience teaching in a big group and it was interesting. We had four investigators at church, too. We also went to a meeting and learned about a special program the church has to help members further their education and become more self reliant. Also, right before Elder Williams left, he gave me a bunch of pictures he had. He was pretty close with the ward and had a whole bunch that I'm excited to go through. We also went out inviting and got a few kids to help us. It was quite hilarious! We weekly planned and then we found out that we missed a birthday party for a member. I was devastated. We didn't even know about it. -church is always a highlight of Sunday and even better when we have a baptism! I also love getting to talk to people - the members are awesome, so are RC's and stuff.
Today we've planned to go golfing with some members. It should be a lot of fun.
I write a ton in my journal so I'm sure there'll be lots of great stories to share that I didn't email about. There are always miracles everyday, but it's hard to recognize them sometimes.
Elder Suphan and Elder Lodwick are going to start a Thai class tomorrow with ฃ. พิฌ, so I'm going to have to try to teach English class by myself. Yikes!
Elder Sun
Look at my hair!?!
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