Week 87: Transfers! And good stories this week

Transfers is come and gone and not a whole lot has changed here; Elder Cecil and are are up for another 6 weeks in Bangna. We seem to have a decent amount of potential for the upcoming transfer, so that's good. If I know anything about missionary work though, it's that you can always count on it being unreliable. So we'll keep praying and working and see what happens...

Alright, things to report on this week...

Sister Lek is going through a lot of stuff right now; her husband's cancer is getting worse, her daughter got into a bad motorcycle accident, and she's got another Christian friend trying to pull her into his church and deriding the LDS church. But she's strong and trying to do things right.

We had a neat experience this week. When I got here, I made a large (and rather impressive, if I do say so myself) map of the area and have worked on mapping member and LA houses, as well as make an effort to visit a lot of different parts of my area. One day this week, we got done eating and set out to invite. After three months here, I've been pretty much everywhere within reasonable distance on the map and wasn't sure where to head. Everywhere except this one obscure corner that came to mind. So we headed over there.

When we got there, we were met with a pretty empty street with some old guy riding his bike and a couple of Burmese women with whom we could not effectively communicate. Well, we got to the end of the street and the man on the bike stopped us and asked if we were Christian. We told him that we were. He asked if we were the Christians on Bearing 3. Yeah, that's us. Then he told us that he's a member at our church. What?! He started talking about some of the people he knew at church, and they were all people we knew. He said that he hasn't been to church because he is ill. So I asked for his name, but he wouldn't tell us. I asked for his number, but he wouldn't give it to us. But after finding him, we could let the trail go cold like that! So while he was talking, I pulled out the phone and slyly snapped some pictures of him. So now we have a lead! We've been asking some members about him.

As we were walking out of the street, he stopped us again and told us that he still reads and prays everyday, and asked us to pray with him right there in the street. So we did, and as we left he looked like he might cry. I hope we can see him again!

So once again I'm thankful for God's guidance in our lives.

We got two of the neighbors who live next to the English room to church yesterday! That was awesome. And earlier this week, we started teaching a gospel lesson out in front of the house we're renting, and people kept coming around and sitting in the lesson. At one point there were three people there other than the one we initially scheduled. They aren't very educated, but they are very sweet.

Alright, got to go. 'Next time!
Elder Parish

1. Mystery LA man.

2. So I mentioned last week about how the day of someone's birth will dictate what color of clothing they can wear on different days (due to superstition). It also extends to the color of car you can drive. But what happens if you own a black car and aren't allowed to drive black cars on Wednesdays? Well, it's not economical to own a different color of car to drive on Wednesdays or to get your car painted a different color every week, so what to do...? How about a sticker that says your car is actually white to appease (/confuse?) the forces that be and deter evil spirits that would follow your vehicle. Yeah, that will solve the problem. So that's what this sticker on the back of this black car says; "This car is white." Oh, it's so funny to me on so many levels.