Dear Family,

 

Life is good. Candy is sweet. The entire mission is on fire right now. We have had the most amount of new investigators that we have ever had before. And now we are working extra hard to help to get people to come to church.  We are finding families. And that's what Thailand needs in order to get a Temple. We are so fortunate to have a Temple nearby.

 

A few days earlier I went on a switch-offs with Elder Blaustein who was my old companion from Korat.  He has changed so much. It's great to see his progression.  We were just full of joy throughout the whole day.  Right now he is companions with elder Tyrapong.  I feel glad to of had the opportunity in informing him about some of the things I learned from being companions with a native Thai.  He appreciated the advice and the new understanding about how to work with the Thai people.  They (usually) resolve problems in a completely different way than foreigners.  Understanding each other is so important. There's no problem that can't be fixed through correct understanding and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Recently we sat down and talked to a man who felt satisfied with his life. He has money, but not too much money, he has a "happy family", he has "enough happiness", he does good things, he is a good person, he has "enough" of everything that he needs. He refuses to consider the future because today is enough for him and whatever happens after death, to him, it doesn't matter now.  Well, meeting him helped inspire me to do some more considering about how we can help those who are as the scriptures would say hard hearted and blind minded. How do we help someone who is satisfied with his life's progression?  I still am not finished on studying about this subject.

 

I feel way grateful to have the time leftover on my mission that I do right now.  The Lord has been so merciful unto us in the past few weeks. We are spending every available moment in working towards our goals and increasing our service. I do feel the spirit of urgency as I go out to share the Gospel.  From every experience I ask myself... What does the Lord want me to learn from this experience?  And when I do so I have found that there was something that the Lord did indeed have for me to learn. Every time.  It reminds me of something that I noticed from Moroni 10:3-5. This of course is Moroni's promise to the world about how we can gain a spiritual witness of the truth.  In verse 3 he asks us to consider how merciful the Lord has been to the children of men from the time of Adam down until this time, and then ponder these things in our hearts. In 1 Nephi 1:20 Nephi explains that he will show unto the world that the tender mercies of the Lord are extended to all those who whom He has chosen because of their faith. This remains a theme all throughout the Book of Mormon. We need to remember how merciful the Lord has been to us and our fathers. Those whom we teach must notice and ponder the tender mercies of the Lord which is the message that the Book of Mormon has about Christ and His atonement and then they will receive a witness that those things, which they pondered in their hearts, are true. I think that it's remembering and recording the tender mercies of the Lord that helps us to fulfill the promise that the Spirit will always be with us. And then we can overcome all of the temptations and power of the devil.

 

I hope that all makes sense.  It seems that the scriptures are a journal of the tender mercies of the Lord. And through that we can follow those ancient peoples examples and learn who God is and how He is. "And this is life eternal that they might know thee the one true God and in thy son whom thou hast sent."

 

I love you so much! If you have any questions that you would like to ask me then feel free to ask them.

 

Love,

Elder Lilly

 

I translated for Elder Chen.

 

"If you put fish in a small tank then the fish stays small. If you put the fish in a big tank then the fish gets big.  Don't put your fish in a small tank! Let it grow. Let them grow!" -Elder Volk (talking about helping members to do depend upon themselves.)