what a blast

January 14th, 2019
1 year, 7 months
Thailand, Bangkok, Thonburi Ward

samuel.montague@myldsmail.net

Last week we went a visited all those wats right? Well, we did most of it walking. By the end of the day, we were pooped and our legs were dying. We failed to plan any appointments for the evening, which meant a few killer hours trying to invite. We met some people with promising potential!

Our Tuesday schedule was all kinds of scrambled. We spent some time planning it out; only to have to rearrange a few hours because of a rescheduled district council. We did our best with working it all out, and it still turned out decently.

I don't know if I mentioned it last week or not, but we have decided to cancel our Wednesday and Saturday activities at the church. It wasn't overly beneficial and we are trying to encourage the ward to sponsor their own activities. This week we felt it. The activities don't seem like much until now we have a big chunk of our evening to plan. It's good though- more time to do missionary work (proselyting that is)!

We had tons of good teaching moments this past week.
-Sister อ้อย- she has been very open with her personal struggles and sins. We have now introduced just about all of the commandments God has revealed in this dispensation. She is taking it like a champ. She has issues, but is communicating with us on her thoughts and feelings about being more obedient. She has great desire to experience the miraculous healing through Christ's Atonement and is earnestly seeking a testimony. Sunday's are hard for her to go to church, because it is the only day she is able to go on trips and visit her military son. But she has the faith to go to church (some weeks 555) and she does!
-Sister นภา is still giving us tonssss of food. Everytime we meet with her, she buys us a refreshing little drink, and she sends us away with all the surplus stuff in her pantry I guess- we always walk away with so much food and snacks and sometimes household items. We visited her this past week and you'll never guess what I saw in her "backyard" trash lot. A large stuffed Doreman doll (a very popular children's animated show in Asia). I climbed back there and grabbed it and Napha stuffed it in a large cat food bag and we dragged that sucker home and washed it mostly clean. It is still a little nasty and some needle and thread need to be taken to it, but I brought it to the church for the primary! Wow, they are going to love it!
- Brother ท๊อป is an interesting dude. We aren't really sure how well he is progressing because he kinda keeps the commitments we give him, but he is also super lazy. He is very attentive in lessons but we ask him questions and he isn't retaining many key parts that we've introduced several times. It is frustrating, but every time I am ready to stop meeting with him, he ends up doing juuuuuust enough so that we have hope. I think he's here to help us understand things are sometimes on the Lord's schedule and not ours.
- Brother เน็ตต้า has been a very quiet background player. He was vaguely part of all of the kids we used to teach, but we never taught him with them. And thank goodness. He has avoided their same mentality on a few subjects and has kept and accepted things a lot better than them. His mother (I love her so much) has been making him read the scriptures. He has read so far on his own and just eats up everything we tell him. The only problem is that it is not convenient to go to church on Sunday

The spirit led us on Thursday. We didn't really have anything planned except for planning and studies, so we decided to go on an adventure. We choose a random member on the map in an area far from our normal goings. We travel there and try inviting the people we see (some practicing Buddhists), fail, and get directed to the member we were looking for. I had no idea what to expect.

Well, we get a glimpse of the member. She had obviously showered and was just wearing a towel when the neighbor went in to announce us (layouts of houses are much different here). I recognized her as one of the crazy old ladies (she actually has a degerative health issue, not just a crazy Thai). We ask if there is a male at home, and she's like yes, and calls him down. We are sitting there making small talk when suddenly our LESS ACTIVE WARD MISSION LEADERS struts down. We were both shocked 555! We were definitely led to his home on a day when he happened to be going to work late. We were able to share a very much-needed thought on enduring to the end and the spiritual help and blessings that come. We kinda stayed in the area? We went on another journey to a few different malls as we tried to make another surprise visit and return home.

I switched off with Elder Barillo in my area on Friday. We went to the old folks home (the only companionship of 3 to do so) where they turned UP some jams and we were all having a party- the old people were standing up and grooving and exercising in a manner I haven't seen them do. We sang for them. Taught some other great lessons throughout the day. The highlight was when we got The Call.

A few weeks ago, Elder Halversen and I invited this wealthier family- or rather they invited us. On Friday, a teacher from the college they own called us and invited us to come and teach that day. All the missionaries went this time. We taught the Resotration to a class of about 30 students in Thaiglish for 2 hours. We had only brought 3 copies of The Book of Mormon and were surprised when they were asking for more (they luckily had it electronically). We invited them all to church and english class, so hopefully blessings come from this!

We were able to teach a good amount on Saturday, but the highlight was when our returning-to-activity Sunday School President invited us out to dinner at this DELICIOUS Korean meat buffet. I loved it so much.

Sunday had a big decrease in attendance from last week555. We ended up going to Young Mens and trying to help while also working with the teacher to realize that he might not have prepared adequately enough. We met with him afterwards to talk about how we can help for next time. I am trying so hard to help build up all the wards and branches where I serve but sometimes it can be a little frustrating when members aren't completely open, or when people are lazy, or any number of reasons. I am sure these are problems present world-wide, but I am being exposed to them as a missionary now and wow. The Church is perfect, as it is led by God. The people definitely have a long way to go before we achieve the Godly perfection we strive 555.

These are really nice devotionals that I thoroughly enjoyed. Please read and be inspired.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/michelle-d-craig_my-day-of-opportunity/
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/claudine-bigelow_creativity/