Dear Family,
Last Sunday our investigator named Em got Baptized! I forgot to mention that he passed the interview in my last letter. Oh well. The speakers called Em their brother as they spoke to him and bore their testimonies. Em's entire family came to the Baptismal service. Early on Sunday morning Brother Tahm prepared a large bouquet of flowers to be placed under the stand for Em's Baptism. Altogether the members really made the Baptismal service a special occasion. I think that the Branch in Korat is growing. There's a fire in the members. More and more we are seeing members serving each other and asking us for opportunities to serve.
I believe that in my last letter I spoke about praying for three names from a list of each of the members in order to find out God's will concerning which members we need to teach. Our aim was to teach them in order to receive referrals from them. But two of the names that we prayed about were not on eachother's list of three. So instead of teaching a referral lesson we decided to visit those two names and have family home evening with them. So last Monday we planned to go visit brother Owe. The hour before our appointment another one of our investigators called us and we met him and taught him at the church. This unexpected appointment put us behind in our plan and we therefore did not have enough time to bike over to Brother Owe's house. Instead, we called a Tuk Tuk driver to come pick us up. But we didn't call just any Tuk Tuk driver, we called our investigator named Guu. Guu is so poor. He lives or rather sleeps in a small hut. He has to pay rent on his car that he uses to ferry people around like a Taxi. Between the rent on his hut and his car he has very little money left over to spend on food and other necessities. Some days he might make good money, but then another day he might not get enough money to even pay the rent. If he doesn't make enough money during the day then he needs to drive during the night too. Usually he gets about 4 hours of sleep. So as you can tell, he rarely has time to come and learn with us anymore. But on this most auspicious of nights, he stayed. Brother Owe was just what he needed. The lesson we taught was about the power of faith. Guu has already learned all of the lessons necessary before Baptism but he is struggling with quitting smoking. Because he wasn't progressing , we set him aside for a time, and stopped teaching him. I think that this Family home evening lesson helped Guu in his need. But we might not have thought about holding a family home evening with Brother Owe had we not prayed about the list of names.
The Sister's are experiencing many mighty miracles as well. The last lesson that I taught in our District meeting was about Faith. I used several principals that I learned from a certain talk by Elder Greg Cook that I got from Aaron to help in teaching. It was a powerful lesson. The Sister missionaries said that they were filled with faith during the day when they needed it. They are teaching Em's wife named Sally. Sally has a goal to be baptized on the last Sunday before moves. She needs to meet with the sisters 3 times a week in order to succeed in her goal but her only day off is Sunday. Any other day is not sure. But, thus far they have been able to meet with Sally on every appointment. When all goes as we hope, Em will be the one to baptize her.
Love ya,
Elder Lilly
Oct 28, 2009
Oct 21, 2009
Reporting in
Dear Family,
This Morning our hair cut took about two hours long. That is including the hair washing before and after the cut. I feel like my hair is cut so evenly that it could take the scrutiny of a Hollywood camera up close. And it smells good.
Yesterday we enjoyed sharing experiences with each other at our zone lesson in Mahasarakham. One of the main topics of discussion was about prayer. I feel amazed as I look back at the multiplicity of my prayers that were answered in the past year. The Spirit really can direct our prayers and we are sure to get an answer. Our prayers really can be a spiritual experience, especially when accompanied by scripture study and pondering. I am reminded of the story of Enos whose soul hungered. He was brought to pray all night and all day until the voice of the Lord came into his mind. But then he was not satisfied with his own salvation alone but he prayed for his brethren the Nephites. The answer he received was that the Lord would bless the Nephites according to their diligence to keeping the commandments. Enos let the answer to his prayer increase his faith, and his soul was still not satisfied. Finally after the third time the Lord grants an answer to Enos' prayers according to Enos' desires because of his faith in Christ. What I find to be especially interesting is that Enos' desires were that if the Nephites just happen to be destroyed and the Lamanites not, that God would preserve the records so that they might bring the Lamanites to faith in Christ--which is in history what actually happened. How in the world did he know to pray for that? His prayers must have been directed by the spirit.
The more I read the scriptures the more I feel the truths of the Gospel sink in to my soul. So often I will be talking with Elder Blaughstein and we will be discussing about simple truths that we learned from the scriptures. And the truths seem so much more evident. Then what we discussed from our personal studies together has so often been the exact topic that those we teach needed. Then the spirit confirms the things that we talked about from that morning one more time in the lesson. As we leave from that appointment I feel the need to say a prayer of thanks and I can't help but smile at my companion in amusement and feel grateful that we had the spirit with us in our studies that morning. These kinds of experiences are very special to me. And I feel obligated to work harder for being blessed with them. One of the impressions that Elder Blaughstein and I feel to do is to pray for service opportunities. I hadn't thought to do that before. All our work is service. But serving as you're serving on a mission is even better.
Thanks to the simple advice of my oldest brother from when we lasted talked on the phone together, Elder Blaughstein and I had another special experience. We separated into different rooms with a list of over 30 names of all the brethren in the Branch. Then we prayed to find three names of people who God would have us teach. When we came back together and looked at the names that we prayed about separately, two of the three names were the same.
I love you all!
Love Elder Lilly
P.S. We found a house and the Sisters are going to move in. Then we will move to the sisters old house. Also our neighbor is crazy!
This Morning our hair cut took about two hours long. That is including the hair washing before and after the cut. I feel like my hair is cut so evenly that it could take the scrutiny of a Hollywood camera up close. And it smells good.
Yesterday we enjoyed sharing experiences with each other at our zone lesson in Mahasarakham. One of the main topics of discussion was about prayer. I feel amazed as I look back at the multiplicity of my prayers that were answered in the past year. The Spirit really can direct our prayers and we are sure to get an answer. Our prayers really can be a spiritual experience, especially when accompanied by scripture study and pondering. I am reminded of the story of Enos whose soul hungered. He was brought to pray all night and all day until the voice of the Lord came into his mind. But then he was not satisfied with his own salvation alone but he prayed for his brethren the Nephites. The answer he received was that the Lord would bless the Nephites according to their diligence to keeping the commandments. Enos let the answer to his prayer increase his faith, and his soul was still not satisfied. Finally after the third time the Lord grants an answer to Enos' prayers according to Enos' desires because of his faith in Christ. What I find to be especially interesting is that Enos' desires were that if the Nephites just happen to be destroyed and the Lamanites not, that God would preserve the records so that they might bring the Lamanites to faith in Christ--which is in history what actually happened. How in the world did he know to pray for that? His prayers must have been directed by the spirit.
The more I read the scriptures the more I feel the truths of the Gospel sink in to my soul. So often I will be talking with Elder Blaughstein and we will be discussing about simple truths that we learned from the scriptures. And the truths seem so much more evident. Then what we discussed from our personal studies together has so often been the exact topic that those we teach needed. Then the spirit confirms the things that we talked about from that morning one more time in the lesson. As we leave from that appointment I feel the need to say a prayer of thanks and I can't help but smile at my companion in amusement and feel grateful that we had the spirit with us in our studies that morning. These kinds of experiences are very special to me. And I feel obligated to work harder for being blessed with them. One of the impressions that Elder Blaughstein and I feel to do is to pray for service opportunities. I hadn't thought to do that before. All our work is service. But serving as you're serving on a mission is even better.
Thanks to the simple advice of my oldest brother from when we lasted talked on the phone together, Elder Blaughstein and I had another special experience. We separated into different rooms with a list of over 30 names of all the brethren in the Branch. Then we prayed to find three names of people who God would have us teach. When we came back together and looked at the names that we prayed about separately, two of the three names were the same.
I love you all!
Love Elder Lilly
P.S. We found a house and the Sisters are going to move in. Then we will move to the sisters old house. Also our neighbor is crazy!
Oct 14, 2009
ghgg
Dear Family,
I am listening to conference right now. Heh heh heh...
I am so grateful for the opportunity to be on a mission. I have felt so happy and learned so many little important lessons that help me and will be a blessing to me for the rest of my life. I feel grateful that our family can receive blessings for my faithful service. I don't fear the future. I feel excited and humbled to do the lord's work.
Our vision for Korat is that we hope to spread the happiness of the gospel to the new converts, the less active members, and especially to the strong active members. We hope to spread the messages taught in the scriptures about giving service and following Christs example. Yesterday we taught one of the recent converts a very short but powerful follow-up lesson. He connected the principals from both lessons and as soon as we felt the spirit strongly we prayed together and left. I know that the spirit had confirmed our testimonies and had been the teacher of that lesson. I could feel it. I could see it in his eyes. I hope that he will apply what was taught.
We had a great opportunity to have family home evening with the Branch President. He is such an important person; has such an important role in the church. We ate together and read certain scriptures that were meaningful to us which spoke about trust in God together. Then we visited a less active member together. I hope of all people that he will feel of our love for him. I hope that our service will lesson his burdens.
Working with Elder Blaughstein has been really fun. Today we carefully planned out a day full of activities. This morning we woke at our usual morning hours and immediately cleaned the house up. Then we changed clothes and set out to play basketball again. We invited our investigator and his friends, our branch mission leader (he's a short Filipino guy), and a few other guys that were around who we invited to play too. It was great fun, and as usual we did very well together. Then we came home, showered, ate some food and set out to "the Mall" with one of the members named Ratana. We ate Ice Cream with him and his Nephew. It was pretty amusing to see him eat his super sweet Ice cream with a smile on his face. Then we invited him over to the "free massaging chairs" in the Mall and we just sat down for about 20 minutes getting a massage. I couldn't help but laugh as the chair started shaking Ratana back and forth. He seemed a bit out of place in such a huge expensive mall. His home is more of a shack with chickens feeding around it.
Speaking of chickens. In Zelda they have really weird looking chickens that have their back tail feathers sticking straight up. I've seen some of those chickens up here. I'm no expert, but I'd venture to say that those are Asian chickens.
To Kara, I found a package and I'm sending you the Guitar. Happy Birthday. And for Mom, I think that it's great that you are receiving a calling in the relief society presidency. I certainly understand much more about the importance of the Relief Society in the ward from my experiences here. The Elder's quorum President is like the Branch President's right hand. But If he want's to get anything done all he needs to do is give the Relief Society President a call. Then there's sure to be action.
Unfortunately this year we didn't have an opportunity to watch conference in English. We were very disappointed as we were all looking forward to conference with excitement, hoping to see it in English. The Thai is okay, but a monotone translation doesn't do justice to the conference talks. Yet even through the language barrier I still felt impressed by the spirit. But then I felt sorry for Elder Blaughstein and Sister Larson as they are both new to the country. My translating the translations back to English did not do any justice to the talks either. As Sunday came around we prepared. We printed out a copy of all of the talks in English. Then we read them together.
I love you all, I have some great experiences I would love to share with you. And We have some good investigators.
Love,
Elder Lilly
I am listening to conference right now. Heh heh heh...
I am so grateful for the opportunity to be on a mission. I have felt so happy and learned so many little important lessons that help me and will be a blessing to me for the rest of my life. I feel grateful that our family can receive blessings for my faithful service. I don't fear the future. I feel excited and humbled to do the lord's work.
Our vision for Korat is that we hope to spread the happiness of the gospel to the new converts, the less active members, and especially to the strong active members. We hope to spread the messages taught in the scriptures about giving service and following Christs example. Yesterday we taught one of the recent converts a very short but powerful follow-up lesson. He connected the principals from both lessons and as soon as we felt the spirit strongly we prayed together and left. I know that the spirit had confirmed our testimonies and had been the teacher of that lesson. I could feel it. I could see it in his eyes. I hope that he will apply what was taught.
We had a great opportunity to have family home evening with the Branch President. He is such an important person; has such an important role in the church. We ate together and read certain scriptures that were meaningful to us which spoke about trust in God together. Then we visited a less active member together. I hope of all people that he will feel of our love for him. I hope that our service will lesson his burdens.
Working with Elder Blaughstein has been really fun. Today we carefully planned out a day full of activities. This morning we woke at our usual morning hours and immediately cleaned the house up. Then we changed clothes and set out to play basketball again. We invited our investigator and his friends, our branch mission leader (he's a short Filipino guy), and a few other guys that were around who we invited to play too. It was great fun, and as usual we did very well together. Then we came home, showered, ate some food and set out to "the Mall" with one of the members named Ratana. We ate Ice Cream with him and his Nephew. It was pretty amusing to see him eat his super sweet Ice cream with a smile on his face. Then we invited him over to the "free massaging chairs" in the Mall and we just sat down for about 20 minutes getting a massage. I couldn't help but laugh as the chair started shaking Ratana back and forth. He seemed a bit out of place in such a huge expensive mall. His home is more of a shack with chickens feeding around it.
Speaking of chickens. In Zelda they have really weird looking chickens that have their back tail feathers sticking straight up. I've seen some of those chickens up here. I'm no expert, but I'd venture to say that those are Asian chickens.
To Kara, I found a package and I'm sending you the Guitar. Happy Birthday. And for Mom, I think that it's great that you are receiving a calling in the relief society presidency. I certainly understand much more about the importance of the Relief Society in the ward from my experiences here. The Elder's quorum President is like the Branch President's right hand. But If he want's to get anything done all he needs to do is give the Relief Society President a call. Then there's sure to be action.
Unfortunately this year we didn't have an opportunity to watch conference in English. We were very disappointed as we were all looking forward to conference with excitement, hoping to see it in English. The Thai is okay, but a monotone translation doesn't do justice to the conference talks. Yet even through the language barrier I still felt impressed by the spirit. But then I felt sorry for Elder Blaughstein and Sister Larson as they are both new to the country. My translating the translations back to English did not do any justice to the talks either. As Sunday came around we prepared. We printed out a copy of all of the talks in English. Then we read them together.
I love you all, I have some great experiences I would love to share with you. And We have some good investigators.
Love,
Elder Lilly
Oct 7, 2009
Hello
Dear Family,
I am very very excited about my new area. I moved out east in the Isan to a place called Korat. I believe It's the second biggest city in Thailand other than Bangkok. If you would like to take a look at it from Google earth then you would need to type out it's full name... Nakhon Ratchasima. I'm here with my companion Elder Blaughstein and then we have two sisters in our district: Sister Bradfield (she was in the group behind me in the MTC) and Sister Larsen (She is being trained by Sister Bradfield.) We are a happy district. Elder Blaughstein is a big guy. He was a serious football player back home. He has a scholarship waiting for him to get home, but he's not sure if that's the path that he want's to take. Where ever the Lord leads him, he'll go. When I said he is a big guy I meant his thick bulging muscles. He's actually about 5ft 5inch tall. Some Thai people are even taller than he is. Some. Today we romped some of our Thai friends at basketball. It was the first time I've played in a long time. Right now I'm sore. It feels good. I was the tallest.
I love Korat already. The people are different from those in Bangkok. A lot of people speak a different dialect. The members are amazing. There are a few members who are such great examples to everyone. They love the gospel, live the gospel, and serve with willing hearts. A few days ago one of the sisters in our branch fasted for more opportunities to serve God. She then came to the sisters and asked when their appointments were so that she could help teach. After she helped teach she then asked when the sisters had appointments for the next day so that she could go help again. That's the spirit.
As usual we started the moves off by forming a vision of where the work can go in the future. Do you remember when I referred to President Dodge's request for us to make a vision for our lives? How are we doing at fulfilling our vision? I am excited for ours. I hope that you are still on the path to fulfilling yours too. God certainly has prepared a mission for us to accomplish in our lives that utilizes our talents and abilities. How great God's trust is in us.
This Moves I have learned a lot about how a branch is supposed to function. We are setting plans that will heavily utilize our time with members. We will be teaching and strengthening the members that we have (and especially the recent converts) and always asking and encouraging them to take part in service and missionary work. We are going to try and have a member present in all of the lessons that we teach. We have always tried to invite a member to help us, but we will work even harder to accomplish that goal now. I realized from helping sister Pawn in Ayutthaya that it is soooo important that the investigator has a real friend that will love them, and sit by them, and help answer all of their questions. Well, now I know what kind of a member I want to be when I get home.
Another great thing about Korat is that there are about 80 people who attend church every sundaym and there are plenty of Priesthood holders.
Well I gotta go,
I am excited for conference!
And I got the paper Mom, and signed it. I still need to find a way to scan it and send it in.
Also we are looking to move our house here.
Love,
Elder Lilly
I am very very excited about my new area. I moved out east in the Isan to a place called Korat. I believe It's the second biggest city in Thailand other than Bangkok. If you would like to take a look at it from Google earth then you would need to type out it's full name... Nakhon Ratchasima. I'm here with my companion Elder Blaughstein and then we have two sisters in our district: Sister Bradfield (she was in the group behind me in the MTC) and Sister Larsen (She is being trained by Sister Bradfield.) We are a happy district. Elder Blaughstein is a big guy. He was a serious football player back home. He has a scholarship waiting for him to get home, but he's not sure if that's the path that he want's to take. Where ever the Lord leads him, he'll go. When I said he is a big guy I meant his thick bulging muscles. He's actually about 5ft 5inch tall. Some Thai people are even taller than he is. Some. Today we romped some of our Thai friends at basketball. It was the first time I've played in a long time. Right now I'm sore. It feels good. I was the tallest.
I love Korat already. The people are different from those in Bangkok. A lot of people speak a different dialect. The members are amazing. There are a few members who are such great examples to everyone. They love the gospel, live the gospel, and serve with willing hearts. A few days ago one of the sisters in our branch fasted for more opportunities to serve God. She then came to the sisters and asked when their appointments were so that she could help teach. After she helped teach she then asked when the sisters had appointments for the next day so that she could go help again. That's the spirit.
As usual we started the moves off by forming a vision of where the work can go in the future. Do you remember when I referred to President Dodge's request for us to make a vision for our lives? How are we doing at fulfilling our vision? I am excited for ours. I hope that you are still on the path to fulfilling yours too. God certainly has prepared a mission for us to accomplish in our lives that utilizes our talents and abilities. How great God's trust is in us.
This Moves I have learned a lot about how a branch is supposed to function. We are setting plans that will heavily utilize our time with members. We will be teaching and strengthening the members that we have (and especially the recent converts) and always asking and encouraging them to take part in service and missionary work. We are going to try and have a member present in all of the lessons that we teach. We have always tried to invite a member to help us, but we will work even harder to accomplish that goal now. I realized from helping sister Pawn in Ayutthaya that it is soooo important that the investigator has a real friend that will love them, and sit by them, and help answer all of their questions. Well, now I know what kind of a member I want to be when I get home.
Another great thing about Korat is that there are about 80 people who attend church every sundaym and there are plenty of Priesthood holders.
Well I gotta go,
I am excited for conference!
And I got the paper Mom, and signed it. I still need to find a way to scan it and send it in.
Also we are looking to move our house here.
Love,
Elder Lilly
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