Dear Mom,
--
Due to all of the hustle and bustle from Elder Holland, we were told to send an email to our families on this day instead of the regular Monday and also our p-day is going to be in Bangkok. Not a lot has changed from the past few days this week. However, I'm very overjoyed because of the recent baptism we have had and for several of our investigators who are making good progress.
I hope all is well with you. I need to apologize for not saying happy Mother's Day earlier, but Happy Mother's Day! Also, thanks everyone so much for all of the letters, candy, and good thoughts. I'm keeping all of the letters I receive, but I ate the candy already.
One investigator that we're working with is Sister Nuum (นุ่ม) has a lot more faith than she thinks. We met her at Big C, where she works - Skippy Wonderland is the name of the place. We ate next door one p-day last transfer there. It was at the very end of the p-day right before we were going to go back to the church, and we were inviting a long the way as usual. We stopped to get drinks at a drink stand and invited the drink worker to learn about Christ. Right after we were done and started to head back, Sister Nuum walks up to us and asks us what we were doing. We invited her to learn and got her number, but she would always say she's very busy. We met with her maybe once a few weeks later, right after she was done with work. It was around 8pm and we weren't sure she would be coming. She learned with us, said didn't know much, but was interested to learn - but never had time. Another several weeks went by and when we called she finally met with us again. We've meet with her a few times since then and she even came to church. We met her again on Tuesday. She said several good experiences she's had with prayer. She said how it was wonderful - everything she prayed for, came true. She would always say how her work is very tiring and stressful, but when she prayed that work wouldn't make her tired, she wasn't tired at the end of the day. Ever since meeting with her, she has met more, and more frequently. We bring up baptism with her, but she says she wants to learn more first. When we taught the plan of salvation on Tuesday. She asked a lot of questions. She has a very good desire for Gospel knowledge. I know she'll definitely continue to progress until she's ready to be baptized because all this time when she's turned the challenge to be baptized down, it's just because she doesn't fully understand it (spiritual understanding). She actually accepted a date for baptism and we told her we would help her to prepare for that date, but with us going to Bangkok, I'm not entirely sure how, but she'll receive a witness as she prays, reads, and truly wants to know. She reminds me a lot of another investigator that we me and taught last transfer. That person unfortunately has lost interest..she progressed very far and we taught her a lot, but she never received a spiritual witness and so eventually stopped coming. That person made it all the way up to her baptismal date though. Sister Nuum also has to work on Sundays. She came to church, but left right after sacrament. She said she can get one day off each week, but her boss usually won't let it be on a Saturday or Sunday because that's when work is busiest. She's afraid of what her boss will say if she asks for Sunday off. She can do it for sure, but we are going to work on building up her faith first so that she can be sure for herself first.
The 13 and 14 year olds (Benz and Nook, เบ็นส์ and นุ๊ก) we are teaching are still doing well. They're reading, praying, come to church and activities, and we're just anxious to meet them again. And their families.
Sister Uum (อุ้ม), is also doing great. She was one person that we met near the beginning of last transfer who a met with once or twice, then never had time to meet again. For two weeks we didn't see her, until finally she came back. Now she's willing to meet pretty much every day and has come to church, activities, and also the baptismal service we had yesterday - which was a really good service for being on a weekday. We've taught her all of the lessons already, but she says she's still not very confident about whether she wants to be baptized or not. I think so, but she also has school on Sundays and we're worried that if she gets baptized while also having to learn, she won't receive the spiritual strength from keeping the Sabbath and will fall away. If she builds up the faith enough to ask for Sundays off of school (which she should be able to do), she'll be ready. She said she's the kind of person that once sets their mind on something, will do it for sure, but right now she's not sure if she wants to be baptized or not.
The baptism was a great service yesterday. We, the four missionaries, sang How Firm a Foundation for the special musical number. We were pretty sure the baptism wouldn't start on time because people usually come late to things and some of them would be coming straight from school and probably late, but I was very surprised when we actually started very on-time. The first investigator came at 2pm for the 5pm service, and the other came at 4pm. Everything went smooth, and because the church doesn't have any suits, we went out and bought some so they all wore matching suits, haha. Each of them shared great testimonies and we didn't have any big disasters, the church had water, the font wasn't any more green than usual, no screaming kids ran around, and nobody had to be rebaptized more than twice. One of them shared more of a talk than a testimony, but the Spirit was strong. At first, one of them said they weren't very excited, kind-of so-so about it, but as they got up and right after they came out of the font, they said they wanted to change their answer because they felt really good and really excited. There are a few interesting things that happened though. Recently, we've had a lot of people not show up for appointments, one investigator who had quit smoking for several days now, fell again and actually showed up at the church drunk, too. He said he had a rough day, it was mother's day (Happy Mother's Day!!!! In Thailand, August 12 is Mother's Day) and he just showed up right before the baptism. He wasn't too lucid so we had him stay on the third floor until after the baptism was over. Actually he came down before the baptism was over without a shirt on, but it wasn't too big of a distraction. It was very sad to see him in such a state, but I know that his heart is good because, even while drunk, he prayed that he could quit smoking and drinking. We took him home afterwards and plan to continue to help him. One thing that struck me was that he said that very few missionaries who taught him, would continue to teach him for as long as we had (about three transfers now). Usually when people have a hard time progressing and you're not sure if they have a real desire or not, that's when they get dropped. I'm not sure if it was because he was drunk or not, but he shared his life story with us and said he would continue to try.
Also, that day (Mother's Day, baptism day), was the birthday of an RC of ours. Right after the baptism, we had cake and ice-cream for her. It was a great time. We ate the leftover cake from zone training.
Except for all of the paperwork and records, it was a good past week.
ขอแสดงความนับถือ, Sincerely,
เอ็ลเดอร์ ซัน Elder Sun
ผู้สอนศาสนา Missionary
ศาสนจักรของพระเยซูคริสต์แห่งวิสุทธิชนยุคสุดท้าย The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
คณะเผยแผ่ กรุงเทพฯ, ประเทศไทย Bangkok, Thailand Mission
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