This week was crazy good. It feels like we got a ton of stuff down and worked way hard. Thanksgiving was a blast I hope all you guys had a great one! It was honestly just super weird thinking what was going on in America now that it's the holiday season as compared to Thailand right now haha.
Last Tuesday we had our first English class from our house. It was great, we had about 10 people come which I thought was great for our first time. We were able to pick up a bunch of old paintings of the Savior and Prophets and stuff at the office to hang them up around our house, a table from the church, and some chairs too. The house looks great and it's gonna be way awesome to be able to teach English there every week and spread out our efforts around the area, and teaching down here and only have our investigators travel 45 minutes to church once a week on Sunday. We played telephone for the game at the end of English and it was waaay funny haha I played the guitar way loud to make sure people didn't cheat and we had some WAYYY messed up answers hahahaha but at the same time they are probably way better at English than I think I am at Thai.
Wednesday was the Thai holiday Loi kratong. Which is the huge lantern festival has in Thailand... Still not sure what it celebrates but its way fun and WAY annoying for trying to do missionary work hahaha. Nobody would meet with us and when we went out street contacting there was pretty much nobody. In the evening we went to the church to meet up with the members to go to a little festival across the street. It was pretty fun but last year in Chiang Mai was increeeedible. Made me miss my greenie area haha.
THURSDAY WAS THANKSGIVING!!! It was sooo fun. The Bishop had us and like 20 members over at his house. He served in Salt Lake so he knew all about what a good American Thanksgiving dinner was like and ordered a ton of food. We had turkey and stuffing and everything. It was way fun. I love this ward so much. I feel sooooooo dang thankful to be able to have such great influences in my life out here and at home.
Friday we had a switchoff! I switched off in Minburi with Elder Mayo. Elder Mayo is a stud hahaha he is in the group right below me and is the DL in Minburi. We ate some Japaneese food then went and tried to find some LA's while inviting. It was pretty productive but I think the best part was just being able to talk to eachother and be friends all day. He is way easy to talk to. Good dude.
Then started the most busy weekend ever.... Saturday we went and visited the LA family of Brother Ganog and is wife Nud, and son Rain. It was super fun, they ordered pizza because he is a super rich lawyer. Their family has a lot of faith but even he admits his own problem with sometimes putting money as too high of a priority in life. Fun fact: he worked on the electricity in Saddam Hussein's house about 20 years ago. Hhahaha showed us pictures and everything. Way weird... We committed them to go to Stake Conference in Asoke the next day.. But that night we had the first session of stake conference. It was SOOO SICK. The Stake President gave a way sick talk about how we as Mormons stick out in Thailand. In any super hero movie, there is a bunch of normal people, then two groups of people that stick out. The super heroes and the villains. He said since we already stick out, we have to choose whether we want to be the heros of society and an example to everyone or be mutants and villains. He worded it way better than that tho... Hahahah good thing I'm not Stake President.
Sunday was Stake Conference again. Ganog and his family showed up! Perfect. We also picked up an investigator with the Bishop to go with us. It was a guy we met on the bus last week, he loved it and we had a great lesson with him after. He committed to pray and read his scriptures to know the truth. He also has a wife and a daughter.. WHO IS 8 YEARS OLD... who are interested too. Excited to see what happens :) Stake conference was great. After that we went and taught a LA lesson with sister Jim... But when we got to the LA's house THERE WAS ALREADY OTHER CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES THERE!!! So awkward. I was really really impressed with something sister Jim said before we got out of there before it turned into a huge argument though.. She didn't say Joseph Smith was a prophet. Didn't say this Church was true. All she did was look at the less active member in the eyes and say, "You pray and ask God to guide you. No matter what He answers, you follow it and do what makes you happy. Don't believe anything any human says. Just do what God wants you to do." I was so impressed with her confidence that if she does ask God, that she will find out honestly this is the exact path God wants us to be following in our life right now! She didn't even say, if you pray you will be able to come to church, or anything like that. Just do what your Maker tells you to do.
Yesterday was zone conference. It was super fun. It was actually just a Christmas devotional. We had a HUGE blast. I don't have enough time to explain all about it but it was suuuper fun. Today we had MLC and talked a lot about focusing on the Savior especially during this time of year. I love my Savior and my adrenaline just gets goin when I think about sharing it with the people of Thailand the reality of His atoning sacrafice :)))
Pictures
1. Me and my man Juab at Thanksgiving dinner. His son is a famous soccer player in Thailand and a member too. He won the game for his team with 2 goals last week way sick hahaha
2. the Bishops family from an old area. love them
3. at zone conference we had to dress someone in our district up like a Christmas tree.
4. I'm on my tippy toes
