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Dear Family,

 

Hello Hello Hello. Well, this Saturday is indeed my birthday. I was reminded that my birthday was comming up during Zone Conference when they were announcing birthdays and... Woah hey that's my name their announcing.  Oh yeah, my birthday is coming up soon.  Now I'm making it a big deal in the whole zone so that we can celebrate seperatly together. In the same day we have set up a fireside at the church about the Atonement. I'm way excited for the fireside. We are asking everyone to come to the church in their sunday dress. I feel like the planning was done under the influence of the Spirit. Therefore am I confident about the success of the activity. Our purpose is to increase their Faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement.

 

This week was full of chaos in the Thai Government. The battle between the Red shirts and Yellow shirts has slowly started affecting us more and more. For the last couple of days we've been stuck in a country wide curfew. At first the curfew was at 8:00 but now it's at 9:00. The Red shirts have gone around burning the towncenters in each of the provinces. They havn't been able to burn the Town Center in Sisaket. The police have the place very well locked down with barbed wire and policemen everywhere.  We aren't affected too bad by it though. It's safe for us so long as we avoid that little section of the town. It seems to be an ongoing ordeal off and on off and on. It will be interesting to see how it progresses further.  These are the signs of our times.

 

Yesterday we went to another Buddhist funeral.  A huge storm broke out and it started flooding in the area that we were in. Then we had a blackout. I thought it made sort of a cool grim effect on the funeral. The rain was pretty loud though. We all escaped from the rain and lit candles inside the house. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit down next to several of the priesthood holders in the Church and talk to them about various things. One of the interesting concerns that they brought up was about how we can show love for those people that we visit, more esspecially those who we don't know very well or those who havn't come to church in a long time. "Clearly we don't need to tell them that they are missing church. They already know that. But what can we do to help them come back? When we invite them they don't listen" they asked me.  The answer I gave them stemmed back from something that I had read in general conference which I think I shared with you guys last week. The best way that we can help people to repent is to increase their faith in the Gospel.  Our faith increases when the spirit confirms the truths to our hearts. The members had been inviting people to come back to church but they hadn't been teaching those people to increase their faith in Jesus Christ and His Gospel. So nothing changed. I am glad to have an increased understanding of the importance of the gospel in teaching.

 

I love you all and thank you for your prayers,

 

Love Elder lilly