1. Our baptism! Elder Smith, Sister Aae (our newest Lao investigator), Sister Khiaw, Sister Ellis and me!
2. The view from Sister Somjit's apartment after our lesson. I love Thailand!
3. Only in Thailand do we find a wild herd of zebra statues on the street.
This week. Well. There were lots of good things happened this week, but the most recent event was at 1:30am this morning when I woke up to violent food poisoning. For almost three hours. Well, I guess I'm a real Thailand missionary now that I've had food poisoning. Fun stuff. ;)
The highlight here in Don Muang this week would have to be our baptism. Let me tell you about Sister Khiaw. She is a beautiful Laotian working here in Thailand with some of her friends. We met her because she was dragged to church by her neighbor Sister Him, an old Cambodian woman who we just love. She came up to us and said "Sisters, I brought you new investigators!" And one of them was Sister Khiaw. While she almost forced to come to church that first day, she had sincere interest in the church and in baptism. She had trouble reading the Thai materials we had for her, but we got a hold of some Laotian scriptures and she started progressing like CRAZY. Being baptized was the natural next step for her, we barely had to ask her if she wanted it...we knew.
The Lord promises that if we are faithful to covenants and obedient, He will open the windows of heaven such that there will not be room to receive the blessings he will pour out upon us. And He did that for us by blessing us with Sister Khiaw. We've also been teaching Sister Somjit, who is best friends with Sister Khiaw, and last week Somjit invited us to her home to teach her husband, too, and asked if missionaries could teach her mom in Laos...and then on Sunday Khiaw brought a new friend to church. All because of this one Cambodian sister in our international ward! We have a ton of Laotian investigators...enough that we're going to start skyping with the Elders in Laos to have them help teach the lessons!
This work happens one by one. One person at a time. When people come to understand the blessings of the gospel and the covenants they can make with our Heavenly Father, it is only natural for them to want to share it with their families and friends. We never had to ask Sister Him to invite her friends to church, and we never had to ask Somjit or Khiaw if their families wanted to learn...it was only natural to them that they all wanted to share the joy the gospel had already brought them with the people they love most.
Missionary work isn't scary. Sometimes, the thought of going out and asking complete strangers if they want to go to church isn't the most appealing thought in the world. This work is hard and it takes everything we have to give to it. But it's not scary, because we're just inviting people to share in the happiness that has changed our lives. That's it.
Our email time just flies by every week...definitely not enough time to talk about all the miracles and funny and embarrassing things that happen on a daily basis here. The worst is that in Bangkok, there are a ton of Americans and Europeans, and sometimes I accidentally invite them to be baptized in Thai instead of English...I'm so much more comfortable sharing the gospel in Thai, haha. I had to give a short testimony/talk in the international ward this week and it was pretty weird. But way good. The Church is true no matter what language you can express it in.
Love you all! Have a week! :)
Sister Z.
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