Ties in Thailand: Another week in Bangkok.

Dear Mom,

I am so excited for Maddie!! Cambodia, that's so sick! When does she leave? There were quite a few Cambodian speakers in Surin. The work here is going so amazing. The ward here, the people, the places, the Spirit, there is nothing that doesn't make me more happy to be a missionary and to know our Heavenly Father. This past week we've been working hard and I've been trying to get to know the area and where things are, which buses to get on and all of the members' names. This past week we had three baptisms in our area. It is so, so amazing to see how much faith these people have and how awesome these people are. It truly is an amazing blessing to see the gospel working in people's lives.

As a zone leader, we have many responsibilities, but everything boils down to something Joseph Smith said: "After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel".

We've seen many miracles in the area of referrals, especially from recent converts. These converts here have super strong testimonies and you can pretty much see the glow of the Gospel in their eyes. Several of them have brought in several friends for us to teach and I am, as always, very excited. Here, so many things are different. English class has easily over a hundred people every week. So many that they split into three large classes here. In addition to that, there are three wards that meet in our building (the stake center) and every Sunday, I'm still just amazed at how many people come to church. There are all sorts of stake activities held in our building to so we so so many people all the time. There was a large training for all church leaders in Thailand and also a Young Single Adult activity. We also had Mission Leadership Council meeting on Wednesday and we had our first zone training on Friday. We had meetings pretty much everyday this past week. It was an incredibly inspirational, spiritual experience at MLC with President Johnson, APs, and other zone leaders. The Spirit was so strong. We're focusing recently on retaining the reason for all we do. The why behind the what and how. Often times in life, and missionary work is no exception, we often get caught up on all the things we have to do and how we are going to accomplish them. It is a very critical and essential thing to ensure that the why is in place before we begin to try to tackle the how and what.

As for the zone, it looks as if every area is continuing to do better a little by little. Just looking from a numbers stand point, things have been improving. Also looking at follow-ups with district leaders and some things stake leaders have been telling us, it looks like the member missionary work is also improving a little bit since the past.

We may be moving houses soon, too. We are way, way excited to move and begin working in Don Mueang, even though we just deep cleaned our old house. We're currently looking, but nothing solid yet.

I do have one important question that I would love to get some suggestions on. If someone's parents don't want them to go to church, forbid it, should we advise said person to stop coming to church and stop learning about Christ? We have an investigator who is in this situation and I just feel really bad saying that if their dad doesn't allow them to go to Church, they can't learn about Jesus Christ. What do you think Christ would do if faced with such a situation.

I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that was restored in our time that provides us clear direction and answer to the question of why. God is our loving Father in Heaven. He wants to bless us, help us, and have us return with Him. He has revealed the way we can through His church which is here on the earth today. Through revelation, prophets, and prayer, we can know what we need to do and how. I could not possibly sum up the importance that these truths have in just a few words. It is impossible. I firmly believe that we must have experiences that will lead us to feel that God loves us. It is not enough to simply know; to have knowledge. Understanding must come from the heart, and that is also what He requires of us. Nothing short of our whole souls. Our entire heart, soul, and mind. As we do this, we can see the love and blessings of God begin to pour down into our lives.