Letter of Safe Arrival 10-29-08

Dear Elder Lilly's Family,

I am happy to report that your son has arrived safely in Bangkok and he is in good spirits. He is being oriented by President Dodge and the office staff and will receive his first assignment tomorrow morning.

His Preparation Day will be on Wednesdays and his email address is lillymissionary2@myldsmail.net. You should send him an email this week so that he will have a letter when he checks his email next Wednesday.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions during his missionary service.

Sincerely yours, Sister Laing

Thailand Bangkok Mission Secretary

Photos: MTC Sept & Oct 2008

Thai Elders of District 29A MTC September 2008

After a Successful TRC with the New Thai Elders September 2008
In Cameron's words, "The mini-Mohawk was unintentional" October 2008

Email 10-21-08 ADDITIVE

+++additive: Also I wanted to add CONGRATULATIONS to Kate The Great and Nate. Phew, you guys are awesome. And Happy Halloween. You all should go on a scarefest like good old times (Spencer and Michael know what I'm talking about. That reminds me of Motor mouth. heh heh heh heh heh) Also, I already e-mailed Mom with the shortened scripture if it needs to be shortened more then let me know. Love ya!

Email 10-21-08

Greetings

I have more experiences to share! Last Tuesday evening Elder Richard G. Scott of the quorum of the twelve was our Devotional speaker. He is amazing! He spoke about seeking diligently to learn by what I hear, see, and feel. And then he admonished us to write down the important thing that were learned and do them. He told us that when we willingly make sacrifices because of deeply held desires on the Lord's behalf, it is then that The Lord is able to help us the most; As we pray we should pray for others. He also taught that when we read and pray and ponder and we receive thoughts and impressions to our hearts and minds and we want to discern if they come from the Lord the likelihood is that they come from The Lord because we are on The Lords errand. And he taught many many more things but I don't have time to write them all. Suffice it to say I was very excited to hear his words and I learned a lot. And when he finished his remarks and his picture drawing of little figures on the projector screen (which is very neat-o) he bore his Apostolic witness and asked how many of us Missionaries had ever had the opportunity to shake an apostles hand. I sure wanted to! And then he told us that tonight he would give anyone who wanted to that chance. 2,300 hands, what a sacrifice. But I got to shake his hand!

Also, as you know, last week I got my flight plans. I fly out from Salt Lake to Los Angeles from 8:10PM-9:08Pm and will have about a 4 hour lay over. I'll be able to call home around 10:00 PM (their time), I think. Then I leave for Taipei, Taiwan and should arrive around 6:35 AM the next day. Then I'm off to Bangkok, Thailand at about 9:20 Am and should arrive around 12:05 Pm on the 29nth. So I leave on the 27 and get there on the 29th sweeeeeet.

(Here's a few more things to ponder that I've learned: the more your audience is able to participate in a lesson the more they exercise their agency and invite the spirit, and one of the strongest gifts that we can give to God is bearing a strong witness of him.)

Love,
Elder Lilly

Email 10-14-08 (14 Days Left!)

Hi,

I just returned back from the Temple to report another weeks work. Sorry again that I never actually came back to write again. Elder Bryner had an eye appointment where the doctor checked his eyes in preparation for glasses. He also checked to see if Elder Bryner had glaucoma (no idea how to spell that one) by numbing his eye with this nasty urine colored substance and then tested the pressure behind his eye with a prodding stick. When he cleaned the prodding stick he hadn't allowed the alcohol to dry completely. Poor Elder Bryner, ignorant of the actual procedure, simply figured that the burning bubbling sensation was part of the gig. When what was supposed to wear off in five minutes stayed for an hour and caused his eye to swell up to where he couldn't open it we figured that we should give the Doc another call. Fortunately the burning would only last for the rest of the day and in the spirit of being a united companionship we both wore sunglasses for the rest of the day also.

Last time I said that we had forgone English completely. We did that for about three days straight when people began to speak English again. Not that we couldn't have gone on longer but we said just about everything we cared to say. It was quite a fun exercise while it lasted, but in the spirit of preserving what little English grammar that is left in me we all decided that we would only speak Thai for a certain number of days during the week such as Thursday and Friday. The English Elders did indeed not appreciate it but they already left again so, oh well. This week us the Thai Elders will be the Elders that have officially been here for the Longest time. Before it was only the Koreans who beat us. Elder Young and Elder Schulty have gone through 4 English Elder room mates already and finally they will leave before the fifth does by a week. Booya.

So, this week I get to report about another TRC experience. Elder Bryner and I had prepared our lesson throughout the week according to the usual assignment. Much to our surprise when we actually came to the TRC last Saturday we were assigned to another real investigator where we suddenly scrapped our old plan and taught her as she is, no acting, just helping and answering questions. The investigators name is Ess, the same investigator that we taught in our first two TRCs. It was great to talk to her again and she that she had returned to hear the missionaries. She is such a great person and already has a testimony of the gospel! We talked with our teacher and he will let us teach her again next week also! Lots of work ahead... no time to write! Love you guys.

Love Elder Lilly

Email 10-7-08

Saawaddii Khropkhrua

Today I'm am going to type a bit and hopefully return to e-mail again. I'm all signed up for a hair cut and Elder Bryner needs to get his eyes looked at. Which means we might end up venturing to the doctors office in Babylon. ;) Considering how amazingly tasty the peaches that his family sent to him were, not being MTC food, venturing out and not seeing MTC things will be refreshing.
Yesterday was the end of English for me. Our district collectively decided to kill it. So from here on out I'll only be speaking Thai and a little bit of translating for the poor English Elders who live on our same floor. I'm excited. I've got my Thai dictionary handy and I'm getting really good at Charades.
Wasn't conference great? I thought so. I hope you were watching the Saturday session with open ears because that sister told us that writing missionaries is helpful in missionary work.

-I'll be back!-

Choog dii!