Week 49: Oo-wun Oo-ee Glaa Mae

It was a pretty good week. We worked hard, and had fulfilled the requirements for a "balanced" companionship by Friday, which was awesome.

We got four new investigators this week:
Oo-wun (translates to "fat"): A nice old lady that Elder Hinckley contacted a while back. She said she was interested in coming to church ask a blessing to help her husband quit drinking.

Oo-ee: Called us one day and told us she wanted to go to church like we invited her to do. I didn't recognize the name, and didn't remember her when we met. But she's a young adult who was invited by an elder who was here two transfers ago, and decided she wanted to come to church now. She's way happy to learn and very friendly. I feel pretty good about her.

Glaa ("courage") and Mae ("mail" with a Thai accent): I invited Glaa last week and invited him to meet us at church. He said he was only free on Saturdays and Sundays. He didn't answer when I called later to meet for Saturday, and then said he couldn't go to church. I asked to meet later in the evening and he said he would call me back. Usually that means that I need to call people back, but this guy sounded so flaky that I didn't bother. I should have, because he did call back in the evening and we were able to meet. And he brought his girlfriend. They enjoyed the lesson, and I think we'll be seeing them again.

With these four, and virtually all new investigators, I'm often touched by their reactions to repentance and the invitation to change their old way of life and start new. That is the central doctrine of this church; the atonement of Christ. I believe it resonates with people, and when we teach properly, we awaken that desire to become clean and change how they live.

We met with 6 different LAs this week, trying to get them back to church. That's a pretty good number, because LAs are often really hard to schedule. For many of them, I felt like focusing on the Plan of Salvation and our goal of eternal life. It made for some good discussions that I think helped them. Only one made it back to church this week though.

Our awesome investigator Ding Doi had a baptismal date for last Sunday, but unexpectedly got appendicitis and could not get baptized. So, we'll hopefully see her get baptized another Sunday in the near future.

Thank you all for your support and letters!
Elder Parish

Last P-day we went to an ancient Hindu wat, Panong Room.