Transfers! As I thought, I was transferred. I'm now in Ayuttaya, an ancient city with very strong Buddhist roots, locted about 40 miles from Bangkok. My companion is Elder Howard. He's been on his mission for 11 months, in-country for 9. Not a whole lot to say there yet, but I think we'll do good things here. For whatever reason, missionaries who serve in Ayuttaya tend to stay there for long time. The recent trend is that they go to Loas or Berma later in their mission. The ward consists of about 55 active members, and we meet in a rented building with a roll-up front (sorry, pictures next week).
President Senior had his last transfers meeting. And President Johnson, the new mission president will arrive in another 3 weeks. We'll miss President Senior, but I'm sure the new Mission President is what Thiland needs.
Last Monday in Bangkhae, we had an FHE activity at the churh and invited a lot of people. We got there, and the keys to the church didn't work (sometimes that happens. We don't know why). After trying for 10 minutes to no avail, we stood on the front steps of the church with investigtors and recent converts not knowing what to do. Someone suggested that we say a prayer. I honestly thought it would be a little silly, but decided it wouldn't hurt. A recent convert said it, and we tried the key...still nothing. I thought we should try some side doors that no one ever uses. The key still didn't work. But the last person to use that door didn't close it all the way, and we were able to just pull it open and get into the church. That's actually the third time something like that has happened. The times previous, the key worked. The person who said the prayer said he was surprised it worked, and felt special that he was the person who had said the prayer. It was neat to have a little faith-builder before the activity, and a testiment that God cares about even the small things.
At the activity, the former-investigator, recent convert (he was baptized the day before, if you rememebr) Gesaem showed up. We've all heard stories about members of this church being "shiny" or "bright," and stuff like that, but I wasn't ever sure how I felt about it. When I saw him, he looked exactly the same as he has the past few weeks. Except there definitely was something different, just this...light; I can't explain it. He looked so good. I wasn't even looking for it, but it was there.
In my letter home week 9, I talked about an investigator, Nawng, who got kicked out of his house for getting baptized. He is the branch mission leader here in Ayuttaya. He's way solid in his testimony, and it was way cool to meet him (I could also get a picture of him next week).
The funny this week: Elder Howard was telling an investigator about how "sometimes we're scared, because life is hard, but God will help us" but he accidentally said "bananas" instead of "scared" (gloo-uh vs. gloo-ai). He didn't notice, but Brother Nawng and I shared a glance and I almost busted up in the lesson.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement!
Elder Parish
1. Another weird fruit. A really good weird fruit.
2. Behind the house (I'll get the front of the house next week)
1. The ward rented a bus to get everyone to stake conference in Bangkok. On the way there, the tire exploded. Nobody had any duct-tape handy, so we had to wait for another bus to come. We were only 5 minutes late to the main meeting though (we didn't make it to the morning meeting for recent converts).
2. Elder Howard
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