Week 30: Inflection Point

Ayuttaya is not known for baptisms. Over the past six months or so, there have been somewhere around 4 baptisms. Coming into the area, I was met with a few good investigators, but no daters (investigators with a baptismal date) and a fair share of "eternal investigators."

We've been trudging along and making some decent headway. But I feel like things flipped last Saturday:

Good things started with Pairode, a man who has been an investigator for a month or so. He's been progressing slowly, but he showed up at the church on Saturday ready to learn. He said he felt like he hadn't been to church in a while, so he asked his boss for time off and came to church. So, we sat and talked with him. He told us about how he'd been to a party the other night, and people offered him alcohol and cigarettes, but he declined and told them that he goes to church now and doesn't do those things anymore. It was a shock to us, and a great lesson. He accepted a date for the 28 of this month.

I had set up 3 first appointments on Saturday with potentials, and they all confirmed when I called, so I was really hoping that we'd be able to teach one or maybe even two of them. To my surprise, they all came, and two of them brought a friend. We had some really good lessons, and 4 of them have a baptismal date within the next few weeks (more often than not, the dates get pushed back a couple weeks, but the principle of having a date to begin with is important). Elder Howard and I have gone from 0 to 8 daters in two weeks, and I know God's hand was in it. Missionary work is rarely consistent, but I feel like the field is white and ready to harvest in Ayuttaya.

On Tuesday morning, we had 2 people from unknown numbers call wanting to meet with us. The first was a woman who said she was about to leave her house and wanted to know if we could meet. We talked for a bit, but decided it would be best if we met tomorrow. The second was the friend of a less-active member who had given her our number. We set up an appointment for Friday. While we were eating lunch, a man came up to us and asked if we taught religion. We told him that we did, and he said he wanted to meet with us and become Christian. We took his number to call him later.

Tuesday evening, we called the first woman to confirm for Wednesday, and found out that she was talking about coming to fix the broken AC unit at our house. Oops, haha. I'm not sure how that didn't come out in the first conversation, but we had a good laugh about that.

The second cancelled Friday's appointment, but I think we'll be able to meet another time this week.

The man was one of the lessons on Saturday.

Those were some of the highlights this week. I feel good about this area, and I'm glad to be here. Thanks for all of your support!

Elder Parish

1. Sometimes there are water monitor lizards swimming behind our house in the morning.



2. A Toy-Story-esque sky.



3. The Seniors are going home.