Week 52: That's A Year.

Well, I hit my year mark this week on the 19th. That's weird. I feel like it's zipped by. And also that I've been away from home for ages. I've still got a lot to do in the next 52 some-odd weeks!

Transfers are over. Things are always a bit chaotic the week of transfers. Nothing changed in Buriram; the four of us are still here for another transfer. As it happens, the next transfer meeting would fall on Christmas Eve. So, we'll be having transfers meeting one week earlier and have a 5-week transfer ahead of us. This one's going to fly by.

Success in Lambang: in another province of Thailand, a member suggested that the elders try more diligently to enlist the help of members (a significantly larger number of member referrals make it to baptism than investigators found by inviting or tracting). So the elders put together an envelope with instructions and a commitment: everyone bring somebody to church with them; a family member, a friend, and LA, whatever. Then the elders followed up on the commitment and reminded the members about it often. Within a transfer, the branch went from 45 people at sacrament meeting to over 80. There were 22 returned LAs and several baptisms. We decided to try it out as well, and are hoping to see similar results.

We met with the drunk guy (Golf) mentioned last week again. He's doing pretty well. We taught a solid Restoration lesson, and he accepted a baptismal date for the 29th this month. Then he didn't come to church, so that was a bit of a let-down. He was one of 4 that said they were going and didn't show...we can only do so much.

We met with an LA, Sister Bii-Boh this week. We've met with her so many times, stressing reading the scriptures and coming to church. Still, she continues to be less-active. We didn't know what to do anymore; we felt like we'd said it all. We sat down, and started talking about the Holy Ghost. We asked what her experiences were like, and shared some of ours. Then we helped her (re?)recognize what she needed to do to to have the spirit more often and fulfill her self-declared desire to grow closer to God. She's usually a fairly light-hearted, goofy person, but she opened up in a way I hadn't seen before. I don't feel like we did anything really special, but the spirit was there, and she definitely felt it. The she came to church! It was awesome. We've tried to ram the gospel into her many times with little success, but it wasn't until we just sat back and let the Holy Ghost do His thing that she changed. 2 Nephi 33:1.

I'm very impressed with what President Johnson is doing here. Previously, he worked as a forensics accountant. His job was to examine habits and financial trends of a company that was having problems, break it down until he traced to root of the problem, and then set up a system to change it. And that's exactly what he's doing with the mission right now. I feel like he's exactly the man the Thailand mission needs right now.

Wow, this is a long letter. Until next week!

Elder Parish

1. Yeah.


2. Not really a story to this one either.


1. Haha.


2. At the raceway in Buriram, there was a collection of crazy cars. I should have gotten better pictures, but this was one. The whole bed of the truck is filled with lighted speakers.


1. A very Asian bag of chips.