Week 23 in Thailand, 30 March 2014
This week
had flown by! I know that I always say
that but this was probably the fastest. Last
P-day we had the opportunity to go to lunch with Elder Hartman’s Father who was
here on business. He talked to us about
his mission and how it opened so many doors for him throughout his life. But more importantly, he talked to us about
how the Lord knows and loves us all and has greater plans for us then we can
imagine. I know that I'm here in Thailand
because Heavenly Father has great plans in store for the people I'm teaching. Greater things than they can even comprehend.
The first step is being baptized and accepting the gospel. I've seen this for
myself as I'm asked to do hard things and accomplish those things with the help
of the Lord.
Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday were kind of a blur of contacting, teaching, and work
work work. Friday, one of our
investigators got permission from her Father to get baptized, two had there
interviews to get baptized, and another decided she was going to get baptized
when she turned 18 with or without the support of her family. All miracles...all examples of faith to me, and
a reminder that the Lord can do his work with or without me, but he chooses
bless me with the experience of serving.
Sunday was
an even bigger example of that, as our investigator Grape and Nang were
baptized! We had two walk-ins at church
who are very interested in learning about the gospel. Grape (13) was terrified to go into the
water, felt so bad but she was baptized, felt the spirit, and gave a
beautifully inspiring testimony! It was
such a good day filled with tender mercies and I didn't really do anything but
show up and share the message of our Savior... so humbling.
THE Funniest
thing that happened to me this week, :-)
Atigaan (bishop) wanted the
missionaries to perform a play about home teaching...so that’s how I spent
third hour at church, this week
semi-improving play about home teaching.
I think the members really appreciated it because it’s such a foreign idea
to them and they need an example to launch them off. You can add this to my list of things I would
never done outside of a mission.
LOL Not saying it was a quality
play but after Sister Stevenson and I nixed the elders requests for a crippled
grandmother on her deathbed, who couldn't talk, but wanted her family to take
her to church one last time before she died... I think it was pretty good. :-)
An exciting update on the hastening of the work: The Thailand Bangkok record was just broken! We had 200 baptisms in the month of
March! The average before I came in was
30-50 we had 100 since November and in January we had 165. The Lord is hastening his work!
Love,
Sister Marina Peterson