Transfers is over and done. I'll be staying in Ayuttaya for another six weeks with Elder Butler. He's been out 14 months and is actually half Thai (but fully American). Looking forward to it.
The week of transfers is always a little choatic for the work, but we still had some neat things happen.
At the beginning of last transfer, I was talking to some group of insurance people who wanted to talk with the white guys walking by. Some woman gave me her business card after we talked about the free english class. I called her, but she said she didn't have time and that I should call her next month. So I did, and she came to learn with her husband and son. They've been progressing very well, and have learned almost everything. I have high hopes for them.
I mentioned one of the sister's investigators, Brother Chiin in my "Week 20" letter (he's very smart, and has been an investigator for 4 months or so). I got word that he was baptized last week, which is awesome. He said he wants to be a missionary too.
Elder Butler and I went inviting at the Grand Market on Saturday. It's a huge outdoor market that's only operating on Saturday and Sunday evening. There are always tons of people. We'd spent over an hour inviting there with a little success. Mostly it was us talking and nobody listening. We were walking back to our bikes to head back home. As we were walking through the market, with hundreds of people in sight and the crowd pressing on every side, I thought to myself "How are we supposed to do it? All of these people need baptism, but nobody will listen to us. We can't talk to everyone, how are we supposed to find the elect in these masses of people?" As I thought that, a young woman walked by and I had a random thought that I needed to talk to her, out of all the people that were near by. I figured that it may be a prompting, so I pushed towards her and invited her. She said she was interested in learning, and we got her number. The story's not over, and there's a chance I'll never see her again, but I was impressed that after an hour of talking to so many people with so little to show for it, one person that I could have been prompted to talk to accepted.
We met with Sister Mii, who got baptized last week to talk more about the holy ghost and confirmation. I didn't feel like the lesson was anything special, but just as we were about to close, she broke down into tears. We pressed trying to figure out what the deal was, and she said she couldn't really explain it. We testified that that was the holy ghost. She expressed gratitude to us for leaving our family for two years to come to Thailand and help strangers feel what she was feeling and know what she now knew, even though it was hard. I was very touched. It is a wonderous work.
I had an interesting thought come to me recently: As I'm learning Thai, I've noticed that when I learn new words, I start hearing those words all the time. I wonder at why I didn't learn these words sooner, because now I hear them so often. I realized that the reason is beacause I wasn't looking for them. After learning the words, my mind and ears are familiar with the sounds, and then, because of applying the new knowledge I can hear and understand words that were previously unknown. I thought about how this pattern is true for spiritual knowledge as well. It's out there, waiting to be given to us, but often times we'll miss it if we aren't looking for it. God's influence is all around us, but it's easy to miss if we aren't seeking it out. It's just as 2 Nephi 28:30 says it is. We first have to first "tune [our] heart to sing His grace," and seek spiritual knowledge. As we do, we will begin to notice things that we hadn't seen before, learn things that we didn't know. Building faith and knowledge is never passive, it must be an active pursuit.
จบ
Elder Parish
The week of transfers is always a little choatic for the work, but we still had some neat things happen.
At the beginning of last transfer, I was talking to some group of insurance people who wanted to talk with the white guys walking by. Some woman gave me her business card after we talked about the free english class. I called her, but she said she didn't have time and that I should call her next month. So I did, and she came to learn with her husband and son. They've been progressing very well, and have learned almost everything. I have high hopes for them.
I mentioned one of the sister's investigators, Brother Chiin in my "Week 20" letter (he's very smart, and has been an investigator for 4 months or so). I got word that he was baptized last week, which is awesome. He said he wants to be a missionary too.
Elder Butler and I went inviting at the Grand Market on Saturday. It's a huge outdoor market that's only operating on Saturday and Sunday evening. There are always tons of people. We'd spent over an hour inviting there with a little success. Mostly it was us talking and nobody listening. We were walking back to our bikes to head back home. As we were walking through the market, with hundreds of people in sight and the crowd pressing on every side, I thought to myself "How are we supposed to do it? All of these people need baptism, but nobody will listen to us. We can't talk to everyone, how are we supposed to find the elect in these masses of people?" As I thought that, a young woman walked by and I had a random thought that I needed to talk to her, out of all the people that were near by. I figured that it may be a prompting, so I pushed towards her and invited her. She said she was interested in learning, and we got her number. The story's not over, and there's a chance I'll never see her again, but I was impressed that after an hour of talking to so many people with so little to show for it, one person that I could have been prompted to talk to accepted.
We met with Sister Mii, who got baptized last week to talk more about the holy ghost and confirmation. I didn't feel like the lesson was anything special, but just as we were about to close, she broke down into tears. We pressed trying to figure out what the deal was, and she said she couldn't really explain it. We testified that that was the holy ghost. She expressed gratitude to us for leaving our family for two years to come to Thailand and help strangers feel what she was feeling and know what she now knew, even though it was hard. I was very touched. It is a wonderous work.
I had an interesting thought come to me recently: As I'm learning Thai, I've noticed that when I learn new words, I start hearing those words all the time. I wonder at why I didn't learn these words sooner, because now I hear them so often. I realized that the reason is beacause I wasn't looking for them. After learning the words, my mind and ears are familiar with the sounds, and then, because of applying the new knowledge I can hear and understand words that were previously unknown. I thought about how this pattern is true for spiritual knowledge as well. It's out there, waiting to be given to us, but often times we'll miss it if we aren't looking for it. God's influence is all around us, but it's easy to miss if we aren't seeking it out. It's just as 2 Nephi 28:30 says it is. We first have to first "tune [our] heart to sing His grace," and seek spiritual knowledge. As we do, we will begin to notice things that we hadn't seen before, learn things that we didn't know. Building faith and knowledge is never passive, it must be an active pursuit.
จบ
Elder Parish
1. Elder Butler
We went and toured Bang Pa-in, the king's former summer palace (These are in a Chinese wat, not a Thai one.
Oops. The red ones are part of the Chinese wat.inese wat.
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