Dear Family,

Merry Christmas!

Our awesome and crazy neighbor, Dennis, cooks food and gives it to the missionaries. He is full of crazy stories, yet the more I get to know him the more I call see how he knows what he is talking about. He has helped a lot of missionaries prepare for their future jobs. He has a lot of connections too. Well, we made friends with him really fast and every once and a while will drop bye and say hi to him. He has always given nicknames to the missionaries. I know other missionaries who have served in Korat before. There's Jew boy, Magic Man, Red, Wimpy the hamburger man, Sister Arizona, and others. But for some reason he has not given me a nickname. He calls me Elder Lilly. Then one time one of the sisters asked him why he didn't give me a nickname and he said it was because I am so old. I don't know what that means but he respects us and is very nice to us. We were talking about clothes a couple weeks ago and he found out that I am a big fan of vests. Just recently he gave me his own "lucky" blue vest and a couple of his own Ties. He's sweet.

Right now I am in SapanSung. Tomorrow I will meet my new Companion.

I feel good. Recently I have been working on simply befriending people and being sincere with them. Most people aren't open hearted at first. They are friendly, and nice, but not openhearted. It's amazing to be able to talk to someone and befriend them. They start to talk about things that they care about and things that are on their mind. Almost everything they say can be brought to a gospel principle. But there is a balance between boldness and overbearance. The Thai people usually don't have a Christian background. Most of them look for good things and accept good things. And they can easily recognise that we are good people. But they might not understand how practical and applicable the Gospel is. Simply testifying straight out usually doesn't enter their hearts. I think there needs to be a desire to seek after the Gospel first. Ammon sought to serve king Lamoni first, then later the king opened his heart. So, hopefully I can become better and better at being more like Ammon.

Another thing to work on is using the scriptures more. I use them in every lesson, but, I can still improve. Sometime missionaries get discouraged about using the Scriptures in Thai because it uses a higher form of the language and it's hard for people to understand. But that is only a minor challenge. The Book of Mormon is our greatest tool in conversion. I believe that a large part of my own conversion came from reading the Book of Mormon. There is a lot of Power in the words of the ancient and modern prophets. And anyone who prays and is open hearted seems to get something from reading them.


Well,

I love you guys.
The best time to call me according to my schedule would be your Christmas morning or your Christmas evening. If you plan on calling during your Christmas eve evening then just know that I have an appointment to teach at a school at 8:00 am my time. Okay?



Love,
Elder Lilly