Merry Christmas!

Dear Mom,

I hope you'll have a super awesome Christmas! It was great to skype! Our next p-day is going to be on New Years. Talk to you then. Nothing much to say, but a ton of miracles.

Merry Christmas!

-- 

ขอแสดงความนับถือ,                                           Sincerely,

เอ็ลเดอร์ ซัน                                                        Elder Sun

ผู้สอนศาสนา                                                                 Missionary 

ศาสนจักรของพระเยซูคริสต์แห่งวิสุทธิชนยุคสุดท้าย         The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

คณะเผยแผ่ กรุงเทพฯ, ประเทศไทย                                   Bangkok, Thailand Mission

derrikk.sun@myldsmail.net 

Skype

Hello. We get a little bit of time today to send an email out and coordinate skyping time with our families. We will be able to skype 9am our time which should be 7pm over there. Also, thanks for the wonderful Christmas gifts and wishes. I know that the most wonderful Christmas gift of all is Christ and love.

-- 

ขอแสดงความนับถือ,                                            Sincerely,

เอ็ลเดอร์ ซัน                                                        Elder Sun

ผู้สอนศาสนา                                                                            Missionary 

ศาสนจักรของพระเยซูคริสต์แห่งวิสุทธิชนยุคสุดท้าย                 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

คณะเผยแผ่ กรุงเทพฯ, ประเทศไทย                                         Bangkok, Thailand Mission

derrikk.sun@myldsmail.net 

This week

This week

Dear Mom,

Thank you for your email. Sorry that mine has come late. This may be my last week in this area. It has also been a week full of a ton of miracles. I'll have to make this email a little shorter than normal because of all of the amazing sight-seeing we did for the last pday, but I'll make it up next week.

This past week has been full of visiting, teaching, serving, working, miracles, interesting experiences, surprises, the Lord's guidance, accidents, and new investigators.

To start out the list of interesting events, my companion had to go to the hospital to get stitches. He fell getting out of the shower and cut his arm. We luckily have very very awesome members who were willing to take us to the hospital and get him patched up.

I can summarize this week up by saying that in all things, we've been blessing by the Lord. Whether it be with the work, personal problems, finding new investigators, or strengthening new members or less active members, I can see numerous blessings that the Lord has given us. He has led us a lot this week, and I feel like it has helped me realize that he is always leading us, we just need to look a littler harder and we'll see it.

A huge miracle has been the arrival of the sister missionaries here. In everything they do, I can see the positive affect they have through there diligent work, obedience, and love for people. They have seen quick success and many miracles in just the 2-3 weeks that they have been here. It's been amazing to see and makes me want to seek this kind of conversion in my own life.

We've been able to work with a few specific investigators recently and meet with a few new investigators as well. This past week, I've also noticed the importance of diligence obedience/work combined with reliance on the Lord. Many times, we work hard and make plans, but for some reason plans fall through, people don't show up, or we don't get to meet with the people we plan to, but I've noticed that with every effect we make to work harder and more diligently, the Lord provides blessings in other ways. We've made many calls and set up appointments with new investigators, but several fell through. Despite this, we were still able to meet with other, unplanned new investigators that same day. We try to plan and work as hard as we can and do/say what the Lord would have us do/say and the Lord blesses us. We had zone training last Saturday and one thing has still stuck with me. When we show the Lord our willingness and dedication to work, He'll bless us. We may not see immediate results, but He sees our desires and efforts. Sometimes we invite and don't meet anyone interested, but the sincere effort we put in can create blessings in other ways.

Some other miracles are a few RC's we are working with .They have such great faith, a desire to help, and understanding of the Gospel - combined with a desire to share. We had a few of these help us teach, and they each were great fellowshippers and helpers. We've been teaching about the temple and family history a lot. We've helped several people start family history. We had a member who had just finished being a member for 1yr leave for the temple. We helped he complete her family history too. It is so exciting to talk about the temple and the blessings from the temple.

The Christmas spirit is beginning to grow and spread. It's awesome. Christ is the center of Christmas and the center of our lives as we choose to follow Him. He is the reason for the season.

We also had a fun biking activity here. Bike for Dad. It was the king's birthday. We got to bike around and invite.

We had so many people and so many investigators at church. All of the classes were nearly full! We had a lot of investigators finally have the opportunity to come to church.

We had the opportunity to take a lot of pictures today. We are the cutest, most awesome district ever!

-- 

ขอแสดงความนับถือ,                                           Sincerely,

เอ็ลเดอร์ ซัน                                                        Elder Sun

ผู้สอนศาสนา                                                                 Missionary 

ศาสนจักรของพระเยซูคริสต์แห่งวิสุทธิชนยุคสุดท้าย         The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

คณะเผยแผ่ กรุงเทพฯ, ประเทศไทย                                   Bangkok, Thailand Mission

derrikk.sun@myldsmail.net 

This week

Moving into Christmas

Dear Mom,

This past week has been such an interesting week. We're really pumped up for Christmas and the extra faith, excitement, and energy from the new sister missionaries is already having a strong effect on Sakon Nakhorn. I'm super impressed that, already, the Sisters have been seeing miracles here. This pastSunday, we had 85 people at church. 25+ than previous weeks. It almost feels like the Sisters came, and immediately the bolstered faith has brought miracles. We had two baptisms this past week and in some ways I feel like my faith has been bolstered, too. From zone conference, to MLC training, to sister missionaries, to really sitting down and talking to members about how we're going to change the branch, has really made me increase in enthusiasm and expectations for this area.

This past week, we saw two investigators baptized. Both are super amazing. I'm continually impressed with the testimony of members as well as we got to have fast and testimony meeting this Sunday. One of these investigators, as with all our investigators, sometimes make me stressed and just anxious in general. But in the end, so, so happy.

We had many, many LA members come to church this week, as well as a missionary 'fare-well'. There seems to be so much growth in the Lord's church at times that it reminds me of Helaman 3:25. "So great was the prosperity of the church, and so many the blessings which were poured out upon the people, that even the high priests and the teachers were themselves astonished beyond measure." I know the Lord can work miracles. No doubt about it.

We've been trying really hard to find new investigators who are prepared to receive the Gospel, and I can say this past week we've seen several miracles. We had many appointments with new investigators and have met with many referrals. We've tried to keep our days busy while keeping an ear open for revelation. An investigator I street contacted finally was able to come to church, and it turns out that the Sister missionaries had actually ran into and have started teaching their family already as well. What a small world and a mighty miracle. And no small coincidence.

I really appreciated the MLC training from our zone leaders - really great stuff that we are immediately starting to apply. The training was definitely a source of revelation for me that helped to answer many of my questions. We are going to refocus on the temple for LAs and try to help build up people's vision.

The sister missionaries work so, so, so hard and have great personalities to go along with it. They are very strong examples for me and the rest of the district. They seriously make me want to work harder.

We are going to continue to try to work with the branch leaders to push for some increased growth and resolve.

With renewed vigor and enthusiasm, we expect to see an increase of miracles.

-- 

ขอแสดงความนับถือ,                                           Sincerely,

เอ็ลเดอร์ ซัน                                                        Elder Sun

ผู้สอนศาสนา                                                                 Missionary 

ศาสนจักรของพระเยซูคริสต์แห่งวิสุทธิชนยุคสุดท้าย         The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

คณะเผยแผ่ กรุงเทพฯ, ประเทศไทย                                   Bangkok, Thailand Mission

derrikk.sun@myldsmail.net