Family and Friends,
Amazing things happen when you serve the Lord in Thailand. Like getting called to serve in Pakkret!! I'm not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed when I didn't get to go up to Chaing Mai to serve with Sister Lo before she dies next moves. (that means she's going home next moves, she is from my Stake in Sacramento) BUT Sister Lo served in this area right after Korat just like me! So we don't get to serve together, but we will at least have the same area in common to talk about after the mission! :)
So basically... Pakkret is AMAZING. I already love it. The members are so tight!! They have planned this amazing Christmas program with singing and a nativity scene and I am singing in the program! I love it!! A lot of them speak English... but actually an amazing thing happened. I got here, and I could just speak Thai... it's so weird/amazing. The members ask me questions and I understand them and can answer them! When we contact people on the street I can have conversations with them. My Thai is just doing so well! I love it.
We live in a high rise condo on the 26th floor and have an amazing view!! On our street there are about 10 high rise condo buildings all next to each other and the street is lined with palm trees. I kinda feel like I'm in LA sometimes. I've only been here for 3 days, but from what I can tell, Pakkret is kind of like the Orange County to LA only its about a 25 minute taxi ride into Bangkok, so a little closer. There are a lot of nice houses and some not so nice areas too. But overall it's very safe.
This is the area the office is in... so I get LOTS of perks. I get packages whenever they come, my mails comes a lot faster, AND on Monday President and Sister Smith are taking us out to dinner! Basically that means that everyone should send me a package! :) We also go to church with the AP's, the office elders and the regular proselyting elders so we have a big district, which seems like it will be fun. I like all of the elders serving here so far. OH! and I got a letter from elder Gneme and his cousin is one of the office elders! Elder Westwood!! So that's cool! Tell Elder Bryson I tried to find Elder Degrafendry, but I never saw him at moves. I'll try next moves...
Ok, and best for last is my new companion... Sister Neilsen!! It was hard to leave Sister Hulme because we worked so well together and and such a good time. But Sister Neilsen is just FUN! I have been laughing my head off since I have been here. We work hard, we really do, but it's just a party every day. Partying in the gospel! :) She is from South Jordan and her name is Jessie and she is a track star! She has a scholarship to Utah State and she is a STUD! We run every morning and she bikes SO fast!!! I love it though. I have a feeling this transfer is going to go by so fast!
OK! well, I don't have much to say because I am still just getting used to everything here and meeting everyone. But I just know everything is going to go up hill from here and I love it! I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, and can really know the true meaning of Christmas. And of course a happy happy birthday to Aunt Shirley on the 24th! :)
Until next time!
With love,
Melissa
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Saturday, December 19, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
THE INEVITABLE!
Well Friends, that is right, the inevitable has happened. I will be leaving Korat tomorrow. I can't even tell you how bittersweet this parting is. So Heavenly Father blessed me so so much by allowing me to be on a members switch off (it was actually only my second one ever) with Nok. I feel like my emails have not sufficiently expressed the deep love and friendship i have with her. She is without a doubt my best friend in Thailand. She has been with me since the very beginning and has helped me so much with Thai and just feeling like i have a place here. I love her so much.
So we took a bus out to Chok Chai which is a good 45 minutes away. It was so fun to just have Nok and I together! Coincidentally we were just talking about how I wasn't going to be moving for a long time. I have compiled pictures in an album for her and told her i would give them to her when i moved and she said, no i don't want them, because you aren't going to move. So we went to teach Mae, she is the single mom who has the problem getting baptized, I talked about her a few weeks back. The lesson was going great, Nok was doing such a good job filling in the parts I couldn't because of the language, when Mae's phone rang, it was Sister Hulme. She told me that Elder Milton was moving and that Elder Lilly was training, and I was like, cool! But then she said, You're moving. My heart dropped.... Sister Hulme was balling! She said, I'm not ready for you to move! You can't go! and I was just in shock. Well, the conversation was in English so Nok and Mae had no idea what happened but knew something was wrong. I could barely even get out a feeble, sister tong yay (I am moving) and then I had one of the sweetest moments I have had on my mission. The three of us just sat there and wept together. Bittersweet tears of joy for the time and the spirit we have shared together and sadness that it would be coming to an end. Mae broke the silence by saying she didn't want the people who taught her to move and Nok just didn't speak but cried. Saying bye to Mae was so hard! I hated it. But I know that's just the life of a missionary. :(
So after that I had the greatest blessing of my life to be able to spend the whole bus ride home just talking to Nok, reminiscing on our good times and crying because we both knew life would never be the same after this. I am so close to her. She will truly be my friend forever.
So by the time we got back, Sister Hulme wasn't crying anymore but was still really sad that I am leaving. We had a final sweet experience at Sister Dims (the less active family that I met just a few weeks into coming) and it was so good to be able to really express my love for the gospel and for their family to them. I felt like it was just a culmination of the area. It was so sweet.
OK so that was all just a few hours yesterday!! I still have the whole last week to talk about!! So first off, I just need to say how absolutely incredible my last Sunday in Korat was!! Three baptisms, one confirmation, 4 of our regular attending english students, who we want to teach SO bad, but are not interested coming to church, and 10 investigators total. Wow, I dont think it gets much more amazing than that!! Especially since 2 of those baptisms and the confirmation make 1 eternal family. What a blessing it has been for me to see the way the gospel has bless the lives of Brother Em, Sally and their daughters Ooy and Eve. It will be hard to tell them I'm leaving. I have seen the whole family get baptized since I have been here. My favorite part has to be the fact that Em got to be the one to baptize his wife and daughters and he was so nervous!! He messed up twice with Sally and then with Eve her foot popped up, but Ooy only took one time! It was really cute. :) I love that family. Ahh, how sweet this experience has been!
OK. so the final thing I want to share with you is first how much the Lord is truly with his missionaries and secondly how much the atonement is truly applicable in our lives. I had a really great experience to actually live what I teach and rely on the Lord during a time of much hardship. So Saturday, I don't know what I ate, but it did not agree with my stomach. About 3:30 we were taking the bus back from SiKu and it was packed. my stomach was upset and I thought it was just being on the stuffy bus, but when I got off it didn't get better. We still had 3 more appointments. As we went to the first one I was feeling worse and worse. I thought, well I could be a baby about this, complain a lot and ask to go home, or I can stick it out and pray a lot. I chose to pray! As we went throughout the night it only got worse, but I can't even tell you how much my testimony grew as I literally felt the influence of the spirit in my heart and was able to teach and travel despite my weak condition. Angels were carrying me through that night. So I basically had the worst night of my mission, bathroom at least 7 times and throwing up once (but I made it count) I woke up the next day still sick. It's funny because I wasn't feeling good during church, but looking back now, all I can remember is the amazing spirit that was there and the incredible love I felt for everyone. After the baptism the ward practiced singing and there was just no way I could sing with them. Sister Hulme had to play the piano so I went into the corner by the piano (basically under it) and slept. It was a great nap! OH and then if that's not enough, on Monday, when I was better but still really weak, I burned my leg on the exhaust of a motorcycle! It's pretty bad. I took pictures but this internet place won't let me upload them, sorry. next week. so yea. it was kinda hard. but I promise you all, the Spirit kept me going the whole time and I am truly a better person because of it. I love the way God works in our lives!! :)
OK. I feel like there is still so much to say, but I guess all good things come to an end, like serving in Korat, and this email. Special Birthday shout outs to Uncle Ed and Uncle Gary who by some amazing circumstances are actually getting younger every year! Good job guys. Love you both!
Well, until next week when I tell you where I go (I am REALLY hoping for Chang Mai with Sister Lo... But will go where the Lord wants me to go) Sawatdiiiiiiiiiiiii Kha!
Love you all,
Melissa
So we took a bus out to Chok Chai which is a good 45 minutes away. It was so fun to just have Nok and I together! Coincidentally we were just talking about how I wasn't going to be moving for a long time. I have compiled pictures in an album for her and told her i would give them to her when i moved and she said, no i don't want them, because you aren't going to move. So we went to teach Mae, she is the single mom who has the problem getting baptized, I talked about her a few weeks back. The lesson was going great, Nok was doing such a good job filling in the parts I couldn't because of the language, when Mae's phone rang, it was Sister Hulme. She told me that Elder Milton was moving and that Elder Lilly was training, and I was like, cool! But then she said, You're moving. My heart dropped.... Sister Hulme was balling! She said, I'm not ready for you to move! You can't go! and I was just in shock. Well, the conversation was in English so Nok and Mae had no idea what happened but knew something was wrong. I could barely even get out a feeble, sister tong yay (I am moving) and then I had one of the sweetest moments I have had on my mission. The three of us just sat there and wept together. Bittersweet tears of joy for the time and the spirit we have shared together and sadness that it would be coming to an end. Mae broke the silence by saying she didn't want the people who taught her to move and Nok just didn't speak but cried. Saying bye to Mae was so hard! I hated it. But I know that's just the life of a missionary. :(
So after that I had the greatest blessing of my life to be able to spend the whole bus ride home just talking to Nok, reminiscing on our good times and crying because we both knew life would never be the same after this. I am so close to her. She will truly be my friend forever.
So by the time we got back, Sister Hulme wasn't crying anymore but was still really sad that I am leaving. We had a final sweet experience at Sister Dims (the less active family that I met just a few weeks into coming) and it was so good to be able to really express my love for the gospel and for their family to them. I felt like it was just a culmination of the area. It was so sweet.
OK so that was all just a few hours yesterday!! I still have the whole last week to talk about!! So first off, I just need to say how absolutely incredible my last Sunday in Korat was!! Three baptisms, one confirmation, 4 of our regular attending english students, who we want to teach SO bad, but are not interested coming to church, and 10 investigators total. Wow, I dont think it gets much more amazing than that!! Especially since 2 of those baptisms and the confirmation make 1 eternal family. What a blessing it has been for me to see the way the gospel has bless the lives of Brother Em, Sally and their daughters Ooy and Eve. It will be hard to tell them I'm leaving. I have seen the whole family get baptized since I have been here. My favorite part has to be the fact that Em got to be the one to baptize his wife and daughters and he was so nervous!! He messed up twice with Sally and then with Eve her foot popped up, but Ooy only took one time! It was really cute. :) I love that family. Ahh, how sweet this experience has been!
OK. so the final thing I want to share with you is first how much the Lord is truly with his missionaries and secondly how much the atonement is truly applicable in our lives. I had a really great experience to actually live what I teach and rely on the Lord during a time of much hardship. So Saturday, I don't know what I ate, but it did not agree with my stomach. About 3:30 we were taking the bus back from SiKu and it was packed. my stomach was upset and I thought it was just being on the stuffy bus, but when I got off it didn't get better. We still had 3 more appointments. As we went to the first one I was feeling worse and worse. I thought, well I could be a baby about this, complain a lot and ask to go home, or I can stick it out and pray a lot. I chose to pray! As we went throughout the night it only got worse, but I can't even tell you how much my testimony grew as I literally felt the influence of the spirit in my heart and was able to teach and travel despite my weak condition. Angels were carrying me through that night. So I basically had the worst night of my mission, bathroom at least 7 times and throwing up once (but I made it count) I woke up the next day still sick. It's funny because I wasn't feeling good during church, but looking back now, all I can remember is the amazing spirit that was there and the incredible love I felt for everyone. After the baptism the ward practiced singing and there was just no way I could sing with them. Sister Hulme had to play the piano so I went into the corner by the piano (basically under it) and slept. It was a great nap! OH and then if that's not enough, on Monday, when I was better but still really weak, I burned my leg on the exhaust of a motorcycle! It's pretty bad. I took pictures but this internet place won't let me upload them, sorry. next week. so yea. it was kinda hard. but I promise you all, the Spirit kept me going the whole time and I am truly a better person because of it. I love the way God works in our lives!! :)
OK. I feel like there is still so much to say, but I guess all good things come to an end, like serving in Korat, and this email. Special Birthday shout outs to Uncle Ed and Uncle Gary who by some amazing circumstances are actually getting younger every year! Good job guys. Love you both!
Well, until next week when I tell you where I go (I am REALLY hoping for Chang Mai with Sister Lo... But will go where the Lord wants me to go) Sawatdiiiiiiiiiiiii Kha!
Love you all,
Melissa
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Fa la la la la la la la la
Sawatdii Family and Friends!
Another great week in Korat has come and gone. The highlight of the week was definitely the baptism of Sally, Em's wife. Their two daughters Ooy and Eve just passed their interviews last night and are scheduled to be baptized this Sunday along with another 10 year old girl named Kanoon. I just feel so blessed to be a part of this families conversion. After this sunday I will have seen all of them get baptized and become an eternal family. I have such a strong testimony of eternal families and the way the gospel blesses families. I got the chance to bear my testimony of the love and strength I was able to receive by having parents who raised me in the gospel. It is so great to see the way Sally loves her husband and children and just makes me think of how grateful I am for a mother who loves me the same. Ah, I miss you mom!
Well, you may notice that I only say the baptism of Sally and not Penapha. She has struggled with a smoking habit which is not completely ended yet, so she will have to wait longer before she can be baptized. I would have thought that would have totally bummed me out for her to not get baptized, but it actually did not at all. She has such a strong testimony and has already been through so much to get her to the point where she is able to go to church, now this trail is just one more step the Lord needs her to take to show him how committed she really is. She is so incredible. One of my favorite lessons I learned in the MTC was that the Lord will put specific trails in our lives so that we will gain a specific spiritual quality that we could not have had had we not gone through that specific trial. I know that the Lord is carrying Penapha through every one of her trails, she knows it too. The day she gets baptized will be incredible. I know it. I just don't know when that day is.
The spirit has been helping us so much this week. Friday was an incredible day. I had a recent convert, Sister Wan, on my mind for a while and felt prompted to go visit her. Well, she lives 2 hours away. She wasn't answering her phone. But I know where she works and felt like that is what we needed to do. Even though it was uncertain what would happen, I felt a very peaceful assurance from the Lord that that is right where we needed to be. That is always good! So we get out there and it turns out she changed her number. She wasn't able to go to church because she had been sick, but was still reading scriptures and praying and was doing very well! Well, as we taught her, our bus went by. They said another should come, but weren't sure and we needed to get back for some important lessons in Korat that night. Because we had to wait for the next bus, we had the time to teach her neighbor who got goosebumps because he said he felt like what we were teaching was true. He is an amazing guy! His name is Somchai. Sister Wan wants to share the gospel with all her neighbors! So as we waited for the bus we started to get worried, but I knew the Lord would provide. Somchai ended up giving us a ride about a half hour into Korat and right as we turned the corner to the place where the bus would pick us up for the rest of the way, the bus was right behind us!! It was a miracle. We made it back JUST in time to teach Kanoon who could not miss the lesson we had prepared or else she would not be ready to be baptized this Sunday, and then made it to Sally's to finish teaching Ooy and Eve so they can get baptized this week too. The Lord got us right where He needed us. We even had time to teach Nok! :) It was an amazing day and I just know the Lord was with us that whole day.
I love this gospel. I love that I am a witness of Christ and his true church on the earth today. Life is so good.
Thank you for the love and support you all give to me. It means everything to me! Please keep writing me!! :) It does make a difference!!
AND a big birthday shout out to my wonderful Grandpa who is 81 years old today!!! :) I love you Grandpa and am so grateful for your choice to accept this true gospel which has blessed my life, my family's lives, including my aunts, uncles and cousins, plus many generations to come! It's amazing how one persons choice can effect so many other people! I know we ALL love you Grandpa! You're the best. And we love Ginny too! :)
โชคตี!!
Love Always,
Melissa
Another great week in Korat has come and gone. The highlight of the week was definitely the baptism of Sally, Em's wife. Their two daughters Ooy and Eve just passed their interviews last night and are scheduled to be baptized this Sunday along with another 10 year old girl named Kanoon. I just feel so blessed to be a part of this families conversion. After this sunday I will have seen all of them get baptized and become an eternal family. I have such a strong testimony of eternal families and the way the gospel blesses families. I got the chance to bear my testimony of the love and strength I was able to receive by having parents who raised me in the gospel. It is so great to see the way Sally loves her husband and children and just makes me think of how grateful I am for a mother who loves me the same. Ah, I miss you mom!
Well, you may notice that I only say the baptism of Sally and not Penapha. She has struggled with a smoking habit which is not completely ended yet, so she will have to wait longer before she can be baptized. I would have thought that would have totally bummed me out for her to not get baptized, but it actually did not at all. She has such a strong testimony and has already been through so much to get her to the point where she is able to go to church, now this trail is just one more step the Lord needs her to take to show him how committed she really is. She is so incredible. One of my favorite lessons I learned in the MTC was that the Lord will put specific trails in our lives so that we will gain a specific spiritual quality that we could not have had had we not gone through that specific trial. I know that the Lord is carrying Penapha through every one of her trails, she knows it too. The day she gets baptized will be incredible. I know it. I just don't know when that day is.
The spirit has been helping us so much this week. Friday was an incredible day. I had a recent convert, Sister Wan, on my mind for a while and felt prompted to go visit her. Well, she lives 2 hours away. She wasn't answering her phone. But I know where she works and felt like that is what we needed to do. Even though it was uncertain what would happen, I felt a very peaceful assurance from the Lord that that is right where we needed to be. That is always good! So we get out there and it turns out she changed her number. She wasn't able to go to church because she had been sick, but was still reading scriptures and praying and was doing very well! Well, as we taught her, our bus went by. They said another should come, but weren't sure and we needed to get back for some important lessons in Korat that night. Because we had to wait for the next bus, we had the time to teach her neighbor who got goosebumps because he said he felt like what we were teaching was true. He is an amazing guy! His name is Somchai. Sister Wan wants to share the gospel with all her neighbors! So as we waited for the bus we started to get worried, but I knew the Lord would provide. Somchai ended up giving us a ride about a half hour into Korat and right as we turned the corner to the place where the bus would pick us up for the rest of the way, the bus was right behind us!! It was a miracle. We made it back JUST in time to teach Kanoon who could not miss the lesson we had prepared or else she would not be ready to be baptized this Sunday, and then made it to Sally's to finish teaching Ooy and Eve so they can get baptized this week too. The Lord got us right where He needed us. We even had time to teach Nok! :) It was an amazing day and I just know the Lord was with us that whole day.
I love this gospel. I love that I am a witness of Christ and his true church on the earth today. Life is so good.
Thank you for the love and support you all give to me. It means everything to me! Please keep writing me!! :) It does make a difference!!
AND a big birthday shout out to my wonderful Grandpa who is 81 years old today!!! :) I love you Grandpa and am so grateful for your choice to accept this true gospel which has blessed my life, my family's lives, including my aunts, uncles and cousins, plus many generations to come! It's amazing how one persons choice can effect so many other people! I know we ALL love you Grandpa! You're the best. And we love Ginny too! :)
โชคตี!!
Love Always,
Melissa
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
It's beginning to look a lot like Chirstmas!
Hello and Sawatdii Kha!
Life is so good over here on the other side of the world. It is "cold" aka the weather is perfect. As much as I know I will miss Christmas at home it sure is nice to be in this great tropical weather!
So first a recap on Thanksgiving! It started with Sister Hulme and I running a 5K! (I forgot to tell you last week!) Gotta keep the tradition. I saw the pics you sent of Dad and Jake running it. Too bad Scott had to work! You KNOW I was totally thinking about you and wishing I could have been there. Last year was the best to have all 4 of us kids there. That won't happen again for a long time again. Anyways, we ran the 5K in 28:19! Pretty good I think. It was fun and SO beautiful because we got to watch the sunrise (and we're in Thailand...) Then for dinner we had the Thanksgiving feast at a European restaurant, so it was a little different, but still way good!!
OK, so I HAVE to tell you about the cRaZiEsT dream I have had since being in Thailand. It was mostly crazy because it felt SO SO real. I seriously have never felt so much emotion in a dream before in my life. I really think it was a blessing though. OK so in the dream, President Smith called me and told me I was going home, and next thing I know I am at home and it was the HAPPIEST homecoming ever. Seriously. Mom and Dad, Kurtis Scott and Jake were there and everyone was just filled to the brim with joy that I was home. We were at the house and everything was exactly as I left it. I can't even describe how completely happy I was to be home. It was incredible. So then I start thinking about talking to some friends and I think, oh, I'm gonna go get on Facebook and tell people I am home (sad... i know...haha) and THEN it just hits me like a ton of bricks, I DIDN'T FINISH MY MISSION... I fell to the ground in the living room and was just sobbing like crazy because I knew I needed to get back to Thailand to finish my mission. I asked dad what I had to do to get back and it turns out that because there is going to be a shortage of missionaries in Thailand, dad had to send someone or else I couldn't go back. (haha) So dad said he knew someone he thought could go but I just knew it wouldn't be the same. I had already come home. I can not even express how utterly dismayed I was. It was terrible. And SO SO real. I honestly had no idea I was even dreaming. Well needless to say, I have never been so happy to wake up in my bed still in Thailand, still serving my mission. And I think that dream was such a blessing because, first of all, I got to see my family! I got to hug them and rejoice with them (which will come one day) and then I got to have the motivation to really not take this time for granted. I promised myself that I would work my very hardest now so that when I do return home I wont be distraught, but so happy because I did my very best. Ah, I will never forget that dream.
Well as for my week... It has been SOO good! The highlight was definitely the baptism of Khana. I am not sure how much I have told you about her story. She just turned 8, so according to mission numbers we didn't have a convert baptism this week, but for me personally, she was. When I met Khana back in August she did not want to go to church, refused to pray, and was not the most obedient child. Her mother, Sister Duan, who is actually her adopted mother, was in tears as she explained that Khana would go to church when she was younger, but when Sister Duan's mom got sick, she stopped going for a while. Khana got out of the habit and then refused to go. Sister Duan said there was so much she could not do for her daughter, not being her real mother and all, but one thing she knew she did want to do was give her the oppurtunity to have the gospel in her life and the eternal blessings that come from it. I could tell through her sincerity that her mom had been praying earnestly that Khana would soften her heart and accept the gospel. Well, it was a very slow process. She was not always easy to teach, but slowly slowly, she started to pray. Then she would read scriptures, and two weeks ago, for the first time, she went to primary and stayed for the full two hours. She began loving the lessons we prepared for her and even wanted to pray. To see that little girl in white on Sunday, being baptized by her father with a big smile on her face, made me feel like life was just complete. Like I had fufilled my purpose, more importantly God's purpose. This is truly the work of angels. I feel so blessed to be a part of it.
Lastly I want to tell you about an amazing woman named Mae. Again, I am not sure how much I have told you about her. She is living a really bad situation. Her husband cheats on her openly and beats her. They have a son together and because she is not tecnically a Thai citizen, she needs his money to take care of her son PJ who needs medicine for his heart. She has the strongest testimony and is on her second time of reading the Book of Mormon. She loves Nephi because he struggled like she is now. Her problem is because she is not a Thai citizen yet, she can not be legally married and thus can not be baptized. She is in the process of getting citizenship, but even if she does, she doesn't want to go through the legal process of marriage if she will just one day get a divorce, just to be baptized. So on her own, without us challenging her, she fasted last week for a way to get baptized. Please pray for her. She has such a hard life, but loves the gospel so much. She told us once, through all the pain Pj's dad puts her through, God is always there for her. I had a huge grin on my face Sunday as one of the speakers finished their talk "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" and her son Pj, who is only a year old said loudly, AMEN! He has such a good mother and I just want with all of my heart to see her make it through these hard times and just be happy in life! She deserves it.
OK, well I hate ending these messages because I just feel like there is so much more to say. But I love you all and would sincerely love to hear from all of you. Thanks so much for the recent letters! You'll be hearing back from me soon!
Love Always,
Melissa
OH! and congrats to Kinner for being pregnant with baby # 3 :) Babies Babies Babies!! :) Especially boy babies! Congrats Chris and Annie on your son!! I can't wait to see them all when I get home! I loved the pictures from the cabin! Everyone looks great! Miss you all!
Life is so good over here on the other side of the world. It is "cold" aka the weather is perfect. As much as I know I will miss Christmas at home it sure is nice to be in this great tropical weather!
So first a recap on Thanksgiving! It started with Sister Hulme and I running a 5K! (I forgot to tell you last week!) Gotta keep the tradition. I saw the pics you sent of Dad and Jake running it. Too bad Scott had to work! You KNOW I was totally thinking about you and wishing I could have been there. Last year was the best to have all 4 of us kids there. That won't happen again for a long time again. Anyways, we ran the 5K in 28:19! Pretty good I think. It was fun and SO beautiful because we got to watch the sunrise (and we're in Thailand...) Then for dinner we had the Thanksgiving feast at a European restaurant, so it was a little different, but still way good!!
OK, so I HAVE to tell you about the cRaZiEsT dream I have had since being in Thailand. It was mostly crazy because it felt SO SO real. I seriously have never felt so much emotion in a dream before in my life. I really think it was a blessing though. OK so in the dream, President Smith called me and told me I was going home, and next thing I know I am at home and it was the HAPPIEST homecoming ever. Seriously. Mom and Dad, Kurtis Scott and Jake were there and everyone was just filled to the brim with joy that I was home. We were at the house and everything was exactly as I left it. I can't even describe how completely happy I was to be home. It was incredible. So then I start thinking about talking to some friends and I think, oh, I'm gonna go get on Facebook and tell people I am home (sad... i know...haha) and THEN it just hits me like a ton of bricks, I DIDN'T FINISH MY MISSION... I fell to the ground in the living room and was just sobbing like crazy because I knew I needed to get back to Thailand to finish my mission. I asked dad what I had to do to get back and it turns out that because there is going to be a shortage of missionaries in Thailand, dad had to send someone or else I couldn't go back. (haha) So dad said he knew someone he thought could go but I just knew it wouldn't be the same. I had already come home. I can not even express how utterly dismayed I was. It was terrible. And SO SO real. I honestly had no idea I was even dreaming. Well needless to say, I have never been so happy to wake up in my bed still in Thailand, still serving my mission. And I think that dream was such a blessing because, first of all, I got to see my family! I got to hug them and rejoice with them (which will come one day) and then I got to have the motivation to really not take this time for granted. I promised myself that I would work my very hardest now so that when I do return home I wont be distraught, but so happy because I did my very best. Ah, I will never forget that dream.
Well as for my week... It has been SOO good! The highlight was definitely the baptism of Khana. I am not sure how much I have told you about her story. She just turned 8, so according to mission numbers we didn't have a convert baptism this week, but for me personally, she was. When I met Khana back in August she did not want to go to church, refused to pray, and was not the most obedient child. Her mother, Sister Duan, who is actually her adopted mother, was in tears as she explained that Khana would go to church when she was younger, but when Sister Duan's mom got sick, she stopped going for a while. Khana got out of the habit and then refused to go. Sister Duan said there was so much she could not do for her daughter, not being her real mother and all, but one thing she knew she did want to do was give her the oppurtunity to have the gospel in her life and the eternal blessings that come from it. I could tell through her sincerity that her mom had been praying earnestly that Khana would soften her heart and accept the gospel. Well, it was a very slow process. She was not always easy to teach, but slowly slowly, she started to pray. Then she would read scriptures, and two weeks ago, for the first time, she went to primary and stayed for the full two hours. She began loving the lessons we prepared for her and even wanted to pray. To see that little girl in white on Sunday, being baptized by her father with a big smile on her face, made me feel like life was just complete. Like I had fufilled my purpose, more importantly God's purpose. This is truly the work of angels. I feel so blessed to be a part of it.
Lastly I want to tell you about an amazing woman named Mae. Again, I am not sure how much I have told you about her. She is living a really bad situation. Her husband cheats on her openly and beats her. They have a son together and because she is not tecnically a Thai citizen, she needs his money to take care of her son PJ who needs medicine for his heart. She has the strongest testimony and is on her second time of reading the Book of Mormon. She loves Nephi because he struggled like she is now. Her problem is because she is not a Thai citizen yet, she can not be legally married and thus can not be baptized. She is in the process of getting citizenship, but even if she does, she doesn't want to go through the legal process of marriage if she will just one day get a divorce, just to be baptized. So on her own, without us challenging her, she fasted last week for a way to get baptized. Please pray for her. She has such a hard life, but loves the gospel so much. She told us once, through all the pain Pj's dad puts her through, God is always there for her. I had a huge grin on my face Sunday as one of the speakers finished their talk "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" and her son Pj, who is only a year old said loudly, AMEN! He has such a good mother and I just want with all of my heart to see her make it through these hard times and just be happy in life! She deserves it.
OK, well I hate ending these messages because I just feel like there is so much more to say. But I love you all and would sincerely love to hear from all of you. Thanks so much for the recent letters! You'll be hearing back from me soon!
Love Always,
Melissa
OH! and congrats to Kinner for being pregnant with baby # 3 :) Babies Babies Babies!! :) Especially boy babies! Congrats Chris and Annie on your son!! I can't wait to see them all when I get home! I loved the pictures from the cabin! Everyone looks great! Miss you all!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Oh how blessed I really am...
Wow, Thanksgiving time again! Ah, and life is just so good. I seriously can not understand how the Lord can possibly bless me as much as he is doing right now, I am happier than I have ever been. I just keep asking myself, Does it really get better than this? I never think so and yet it always does!! There is so so much to tell you all! I will get started.
First off, no, no one here celebrates Thanksgiving. Most people haven't even heard of it. So we are going to a restaurant owned by a Swedish man who is having a Thanksgiving special (we'll see how that works out) But it's all good because yesterday at Zone Conference we had chicken (I don't think they eat turkey here...) gravy, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin and apple pie. It was amazing!! :) And the conference was incredible! Elder Pratt of the Seventy came and gave us great counsel on the importance of praying on our knees and asking investigators to offer a kneeling pray at the end of the lesson. He also recounted some facts from church history and I felt so grateful for all that the early saints did! My favorite part of the day was the drive home when Elder Lilly, Elder Milton, Sister Hulme and I had an amazing discussion of the things we learned. Gospel discussions are always great on the mission, but this one felt especially amazing because it really motivated me to conquer some of the weaknesses I have in my faith and let the Lord strengthen me to preform his will.
And speaking of the Lord using me to preform his will... WOW I am so blessed. It's incredible. OK so Friday... we go to teach Sally. Sally is Em's wife, who we have been teaching for a while. We gave her a baptismal date and when it came she said she wasn't ready. We died, we thought, oh no, we must have rushed her into it. The next Sunday she didn't come to church and we thought she was lost... But on Friday when we taught her, the lesson went really good and we could tell something was on her mind. Sister Hulme asked if she had any questions and she said, how long do I have to wait before I cant get baptized... WHAT?! oh man, we were so happy!! So she might wait until December 13, which is when her 2 daughters will be ready to be baptized, or maybe December 6th with Penapah!! (BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!) PLUS Khana, the little 8 year old girl passed her interview and will be baptized this Sunday. So this will be the first investigator that I have taught the whole way through who will be baptized! A glorious day! Then Penapah, then Sally, then her girls, then Mint (hopefully if her mom will sign the paper) then Waree who is totally ready but says she wants to wait for the new year... SO basically the Lord is just POURING out blessings in the way of baptisms.
And really the lesson I learn from this is the power that comes from both faith and love. Everyone of these people who are getting baptized I can honestly say I love with all my heart. Everyone of them had their own specific set of obstacles they needed to overcome, but in every instance I placed my tremendous faith in them and in the Lord that he would prepare a way and how amazing is it that he has! He really has! Friday night after Sally, Ooy and Eve accepted to be baptized I couldn't sleep because I was just so incredibly happy! I got up at 3 in the morning and studied humility and learned that a humble person accepts that everything they do in life is not of their own strength and power, but of the Lords. There is absolutely no way I could have overcame these things to help these investigators receive baptism by myself, NO way. All of it was the Lord. And it was all dependent on the Faith I put in him. The faith I had to do and say the things he would have me do and say. And after I felt sufficiently humble, I read Alma 26 and just gloried in God. Yes. I am so blessed and love my life.
OK, I know you're not going to believe this, but it actually gets better!! (YES REALLY!) So it's friday night and Penapah calls us to say that we can not go to her house the next day to teach her son and neice and nephew (who also wants to get baptized!! the blessings are seriously getting unreal- in a good way) because she has to go harvest rice on her older sisters farm. Bummer! After Sister Hulme got off the phone I got some inspiration. I said, wait, we have done that before... why don't we call and tell her we will come and help. Basically she was ecstatic. They really needed the help. We arrive the next morning and Penapah is practically jumping out of her skin in excitement that we were there. Her sisters were really nice and kept saying "God sent you to us!" It was cute. :) Well, little did we know, the next day in church Penapha breaks into tears in relief society and tells everyone about how her sisters weren't all that supportive of her Christianity but because we came and served them, they not only accepted the Lord, but now they want to come to church also!!!! OH MAN! The Lord truly does take our faith and makes miracles happen. AMAZING!!!
AND what's more, on Sunday, because we have so many people to teach, we went on splits with two members of the ward who are 19 and 20 Sister Lek and Sister Daa, and I led the lesson for Penapah's kids for the first time ever!!! Luckily the elders sat in and helped some (because they will be the ones teaching the kids all the lessons... they already said they wanted to be baptized... Penapah has so much faith!) But it was a great experience for me to actually teach and not just testify of what Sister Hulme teaches. I still have a lot more to learn, and because I was nervous, my grammar was all messed up... but the lesson went great and I already have so much love for Luugtan and Mak (her niece and nephew... Penapha's son wasn't there)
OK last story because it was just too good to not tell. On Saturday we taught Sister Dim, who is the less active we have been trying to reactivate, and her daughter Mai. It was really an amazing lesson and it really felt like a turning point for me, because I was able to really express the love I have for their family and how I surely know that the Lord, through his missionaries, is reaching out in love to their family. They have a son who died at age 5 who is now sealed to them for time and all eternity who is waiting for them to come back to the straight and narrow. I KNOW it will happen. I have all the faith in the world. AND I see the correlation between having true Christ-like love for someone and being able to speak the language to communicate those feelings. I TRULY had the gift of tongues that night. It was incredible.
SO as you can see... I am so good right now. Those were just the big things that happened this week. That's not to mention all the tiny little miracles that happen every single day here! My challenge to all of you who love me enough to get to this point of my email, is to really look at the miracles the Lord blesses you with every day and thank him for them. Put your faith in him because he WILL provide! I know because I am seeing that in my life now.
I love you all and would LOVE to hear anything about everyone! Write me!! :) I miss you every day, but wouldn't want to be anywhere but right here.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!
Love Always,
Melissa
PS Happy 16th Robert! Hope it was awesome! :)
First off, no, no one here celebrates Thanksgiving. Most people haven't even heard of it. So we are going to a restaurant owned by a Swedish man who is having a Thanksgiving special (we'll see how that works out) But it's all good because yesterday at Zone Conference we had chicken (I don't think they eat turkey here...) gravy, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin and apple pie. It was amazing!! :) And the conference was incredible! Elder Pratt of the Seventy came and gave us great counsel on the importance of praying on our knees and asking investigators to offer a kneeling pray at the end of the lesson. He also recounted some facts from church history and I felt so grateful for all that the early saints did! My favorite part of the day was the drive home when Elder Lilly, Elder Milton, Sister Hulme and I had an amazing discussion of the things we learned. Gospel discussions are always great on the mission, but this one felt especially amazing because it really motivated me to conquer some of the weaknesses I have in my faith and let the Lord strengthen me to preform his will.
And speaking of the Lord using me to preform his will... WOW I am so blessed. It's incredible. OK so Friday... we go to teach Sally. Sally is Em's wife, who we have been teaching for a while. We gave her a baptismal date and when it came she said she wasn't ready. We died, we thought, oh no, we must have rushed her into it. The next Sunday she didn't come to church and we thought she was lost... But on Friday when we taught her, the lesson went really good and we could tell something was on her mind. Sister Hulme asked if she had any questions and she said, how long do I have to wait before I cant get baptized... WHAT?! oh man, we were so happy!! So she might wait until December 13, which is when her 2 daughters will be ready to be baptized, or maybe December 6th with Penapah!! (BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!) PLUS Khana, the little 8 year old girl passed her interview and will be baptized this Sunday. So this will be the first investigator that I have taught the whole way through who will be baptized! A glorious day! Then Penapah, then Sally, then her girls, then Mint (hopefully if her mom will sign the paper) then Waree who is totally ready but says she wants to wait for the new year... SO basically the Lord is just POURING out blessings in the way of baptisms.
And really the lesson I learn from this is the power that comes from both faith and love. Everyone of these people who are getting baptized I can honestly say I love with all my heart. Everyone of them had their own specific set of obstacles they needed to overcome, but in every instance I placed my tremendous faith in them and in the Lord that he would prepare a way and how amazing is it that he has! He really has! Friday night after Sally, Ooy and Eve accepted to be baptized I couldn't sleep because I was just so incredibly happy! I got up at 3 in the morning and studied humility and learned that a humble person accepts that everything they do in life is not of their own strength and power, but of the Lords. There is absolutely no way I could have overcame these things to help these investigators receive baptism by myself, NO way. All of it was the Lord. And it was all dependent on the Faith I put in him. The faith I had to do and say the things he would have me do and say. And after I felt sufficiently humble, I read Alma 26 and just gloried in God. Yes. I am so blessed and love my life.
OK, I know you're not going to believe this, but it actually gets better!! (YES REALLY!) So it's friday night and Penapah calls us to say that we can not go to her house the next day to teach her son and neice and nephew (who also wants to get baptized!! the blessings are seriously getting unreal- in a good way) because she has to go harvest rice on her older sisters farm. Bummer! After Sister Hulme got off the phone I got some inspiration. I said, wait, we have done that before... why don't we call and tell her we will come and help. Basically she was ecstatic. They really needed the help. We arrive the next morning and Penapah is practically jumping out of her skin in excitement that we were there. Her sisters were really nice and kept saying "God sent you to us!" It was cute. :) Well, little did we know, the next day in church Penapha breaks into tears in relief society and tells everyone about how her sisters weren't all that supportive of her Christianity but because we came and served them, they not only accepted the Lord, but now they want to come to church also!!!! OH MAN! The Lord truly does take our faith and makes miracles happen. AMAZING!!!
AND what's more, on Sunday, because we have so many people to teach, we went on splits with two members of the ward who are 19 and 20 Sister Lek and Sister Daa, and I led the lesson for Penapah's kids for the first time ever!!! Luckily the elders sat in and helped some (because they will be the ones teaching the kids all the lessons... they already said they wanted to be baptized... Penapah has so much faith!) But it was a great experience for me to actually teach and not just testify of what Sister Hulme teaches. I still have a lot more to learn, and because I was nervous, my grammar was all messed up... but the lesson went great and I already have so much love for Luugtan and Mak (her niece and nephew... Penapha's son wasn't there)
OK last story because it was just too good to not tell. On Saturday we taught Sister Dim, who is the less active we have been trying to reactivate, and her daughter Mai. It was really an amazing lesson and it really felt like a turning point for me, because I was able to really express the love I have for their family and how I surely know that the Lord, through his missionaries, is reaching out in love to their family. They have a son who died at age 5 who is now sealed to them for time and all eternity who is waiting for them to come back to the straight and narrow. I KNOW it will happen. I have all the faith in the world. AND I see the correlation between having true Christ-like love for someone and being able to speak the language to communicate those feelings. I TRULY had the gift of tongues that night. It was incredible.
SO as you can see... I am so good right now. Those were just the big things that happened this week. That's not to mention all the tiny little miracles that happen every single day here! My challenge to all of you who love me enough to get to this point of my email, is to really look at the miracles the Lord blesses you with every day and thank him for them. Put your faith in him because he WILL provide! I know because I am seeing that in my life now.
I love you all and would LOVE to hear anything about everyone! Write me!! :) I miss you every day, but wouldn't want to be anywhere but right here.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!
Love Always,
Melissa
PS Happy 16th Robert! Hope it was awesome! :)
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I Love My Life!
Friends and Family,
I'm kinda thinkin' life just doesn't get better than this!! I have a new companion. Her name is Sister Hulme from Houston, Texas and she is AMAZING!! We really have so much in common, both big time planners. Our nightly planning sessions are incredible. It's great how much we just instantly clicked! The other cool thing is that Sister Bradfield and Sister Hulme just switched places, so now Sister Bradfield is in Bangkok with my MTC companion Sister Young!! There will for sure be some awesome reunion parties after the mission!! :)
OK so moves meeting was awesome! It was SO good to see Sister Young, Sister Akagi and all my elders again... FINALLY! It's funny how the MTC seemed SO long ago, and yet once I saw everyone it seemed like it was just yesterday that we parted ways! As for the home front, (home being Korat) I can't even tell you how much I am being blessed. I was worried about leading the area... knowing everyone and everywhere to go... but I feel so much closer to all of the members now that they only know me and we haven't gotten lost at all! I really know my way around this place! I am talking on the phone and setting up appointments, which has always really scared me! I'm just doing way better than I thought I would be. I know the Lord is answering my prayers and yours too! Thank You all SO much! :)
OK. I just need to tell you about the amazing experiences we had on Monday when in district meeting Elder Lilly told us that President Smith wanted us to get off the bikes and start walking more so that we can invite. I'm not gonna lie, we don't do a lot of inviting because we are so busy teaching all the time, but we decided to walk to the church instead of riding our bike and it was so inspired! First off, this song came into my head that reminded me of this great investigator we have that we haven't seen in a while, Fern. We don't see her a lot because she doesn't come to church. But I thought, we need to call her and set up an appointment. She was very happy that I called and we made an appt. for Friday. About 10 min later as we were walking down the street, we see Fern on her motorcycle! (everyone drives motorcycles here) She told us how grateful she was that we called her and saw her because her daughter had drank lighter fluid and had to go to the hospital and Fern was just having a hard time. She told us how she prayed for her daughter and how much it strengthened her testimony to know that Heavenly Father would help her! She is so great! We never would have seen her had we not walked!
THEN!! We were inviting a woman with a baby on the side of the street and a man pulls up next to us and says (in English) Are you mormons? And I said yes! And he asked where the church was and for our number because his friend was coming from Australia and she is LDS and wants to come to church while she is here!! His name was Will and her name is Mary and she will be coming in about a month or so! He said I saw the guys with the ties riding thier bikes last week but I couldn't keep up with them! Haha. I just know that was right where the Lord needed us to be. I have such a strong testimony of following the spirit because as a servant of the Lord, if you will only be worthy of his spirit he will always lead you where he needs you to be!
Well life is just so good here. I miss you all so much! I wrote Robin! I am so excited for her!! AHH. The MTC is just great! I really really miss Brittany. (hope she is reading this!) How is William!? I want pictures! And I love how Tony and Eric write me (NOT)!!
Haha, ok until next week. Life is good. The gospel is everything.
Love,
Melissa
I'm kinda thinkin' life just doesn't get better than this!! I have a new companion. Her name is Sister Hulme from Houston, Texas and she is AMAZING!! We really have so much in common, both big time planners. Our nightly planning sessions are incredible. It's great how much we just instantly clicked! The other cool thing is that Sister Bradfield and Sister Hulme just switched places, so now Sister Bradfield is in Bangkok with my MTC companion Sister Young!! There will for sure be some awesome reunion parties after the mission!! :)
OK so moves meeting was awesome! It was SO good to see Sister Young, Sister Akagi and all my elders again... FINALLY! It's funny how the MTC seemed SO long ago, and yet once I saw everyone it seemed like it was just yesterday that we parted ways! As for the home front, (home being Korat) I can't even tell you how much I am being blessed. I was worried about leading the area... knowing everyone and everywhere to go... but I feel so much closer to all of the members now that they only know me and we haven't gotten lost at all! I really know my way around this place! I am talking on the phone and setting up appointments, which has always really scared me! I'm just doing way better than I thought I would be. I know the Lord is answering my prayers and yours too! Thank You all SO much! :)
OK. I just need to tell you about the amazing experiences we had on Monday when in district meeting Elder Lilly told us that President Smith wanted us to get off the bikes and start walking more so that we can invite. I'm not gonna lie, we don't do a lot of inviting because we are so busy teaching all the time, but we decided to walk to the church instead of riding our bike and it was so inspired! First off, this song came into my head that reminded me of this great investigator we have that we haven't seen in a while, Fern. We don't see her a lot because she doesn't come to church. But I thought, we need to call her and set up an appointment. She was very happy that I called and we made an appt. for Friday. About 10 min later as we were walking down the street, we see Fern on her motorcycle! (everyone drives motorcycles here) She told us how grateful she was that we called her and saw her because her daughter had drank lighter fluid and had to go to the hospital and Fern was just having a hard time. She told us how she prayed for her daughter and how much it strengthened her testimony to know that Heavenly Father would help her! She is so great! We never would have seen her had we not walked!
THEN!! We were inviting a woman with a baby on the side of the street and a man pulls up next to us and says (in English) Are you mormons? And I said yes! And he asked where the church was and for our number because his friend was coming from Australia and she is LDS and wants to come to church while she is here!! His name was Will and her name is Mary and she will be coming in about a month or so! He said I saw the guys with the ties riding thier bikes last week but I couldn't keep up with them! Haha. I just know that was right where the Lord needed us to be. I have such a strong testimony of following the spirit because as a servant of the Lord, if you will only be worthy of his spirit he will always lead you where he needs you to be!
Well life is just so good here. I miss you all so much! I wrote Robin! I am so excited for her!! AHH. The MTC is just great! I really really miss Brittany. (hope she is reading this!) How is William!? I want pictures! And I love how Tony and Eric write me (NOT)!!
Haha, ok until next week. Life is good. The gospel is everything.
Love,
Melissa
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
and she that thrusteth in her sickle...
FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!
Wow, life is so amazing! So many great and amazing things have happened this week!
First, I will address the pictures! SO that is right, in Thailand, right now, the fields are white, already to harvest. And lo, Monday the most amazing district Korat has ever seen thrusted in their sickles with ALL their might that we may continue this marvelous work that has come forth among the children of men! We Kiewed Khaw (harvested the rice) and it was so much fun! I will send more pictures home, but basically, we got down in our scrubbs (bare foot) and cut the rice from the rice patties! I even bought a sweet rice harvesting hat!! :) The whole process is very labor intensive and we were so tired after!
After we were done we went to the branch presidents house (he’s the one who is a rice farmer) and had one of the best lessons I've had on my mission. He is an amazing, humble man. The next picture is Sister Brad and me with Noah, Prataans son. We sat on this bench while we had an amazing gospel discussion about Faith and Hope. As tired as my body was after kiewing khaw, my spirit was so energized and I really understood so much of the conversation, pretty much the whole thing! My confidence is really growing in the language. But still some days are better than others.
The last picture is of me and Sister Brad last week holding a snake. It was way sweet! :)
OK. Are you ready for the best news in the world: PENAPAH IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! November 22! The best day of my mission! haha. The Lord is finally pouring out blessings to her and William and the branch in Korat will never be the same because she has the fire baby! And is ready to share the gospel with everyone! We are going to her house on Saturday to teach her son and niece and nephew! OK so here is what happened. William and Penapah are amazing and have been ready to be baptized for a while, but because they don’t have enough money and because William couldn’t ride the bus because of a knee problem they could never come to church and couldn’t get baptized. They prayed incessantly and had so much faith. When they couldn't make it to church last month to get baptized, I was crushed, but knew this was the time to not give up, but double my faith. I have prayed and prayed for them to find a way to get baptized. Well, finally the prayers have been answered and William got a way to go back to England, to raise some money, and come back to Thailand to start up their farm again which failed before. And because William is gone, Penapah can now come every week on a bus. It would have been so much better to see them both baptized together. But William is very excited to share the gospel with his sons and mother in England and will get baptized there. It will also be nice for him to go to church in a place where they speak his own language, even though Elder Lilly translates for him here. So they are both getting baptized and are so, so very happy. We taught an amazing lesson to William about the prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and his faith is the strongest it's been. We were in tears as William offered a sincere heartfelt prayer thanking the Lord for allowing them the opportunity to be baptized and get their money situation back in order, they have suffered so much from their losses, but found the Lord in the midst of all their trials. Penapah then told us about a great lesson she learned from the Book of Mormon that involved taking money from corrupt people who were trying to buy their vote. She said she didn't feel good about the money and read in Ether about the corruption of men in the government and felt that it was an answer that she should not take that money. She stood up for virtue and she chose to not support corrupted people. I was so proud of her! She is amazing!! :)
OK, so that was definitely the highlight of my week. But other good things happened too. We have been teaching Waree, the woman who came to church on her own and loves it. We were worried at first because she just was not understanding what we were teaching her. But on Tuesday we taught an amazing lesson with Sister Tuu (who just happened to be at the church when we taught her) and we ended with Waree offering an amazing prayer asking forgiveness from the Lord for not being able to attend church this week. OH man, she is amazing! Life is so good.
I just can't believe how incredibly blessed I am to be serving the Lord in, quite literally, the best mission in the world. Seriously! What an amazing chance it is to be immersed in this amazing culture with some of God's most humble, giving people in the world. My life has changed.
OK, so moves. Its tomorrow, so I don't have a new companion yet, I will tomorrow. But she is so lucky whoever she is because we have two baptisms coming up for sure (Penapha and Khana- the little girl) and we will be giving Waree a date the next time we teach her, probably Dec 16 and then Sally, (Em's wife who just got baptized) will hopefully be ready too! The work is on FIRE!
But the other sad news is that Elder Blaustine is moving too. We totally weren't expecting it. He has been here since I have and it just won’t be the same without him!! But, I guess that's just the way mission life is! OK, so more news next week as the work continues in Korat!! :)
Finally I just want to end with my testimony of how much the Lord really does hear our prayers and answers them when they are according to his will. I had an amazing amazing experience this past week of the Lord answering my prayers. I will write it in snail mail and send it to you.
OK well, I love you all so so much and am grateful for each and every one of you!! :)
I love you,
Melissa
Wow, life is so amazing! So many great and amazing things have happened this week!
First, I will address the pictures! SO that is right, in Thailand, right now, the fields are white, already to harvest. And lo, Monday the most amazing district Korat has ever seen thrusted in their sickles with ALL their might that we may continue this marvelous work that has come forth among the children of men! We Kiewed Khaw (harvested the rice) and it was so much fun! I will send more pictures home, but basically, we got down in our scrubbs (bare foot) and cut the rice from the rice patties! I even bought a sweet rice harvesting hat!! :) The whole process is very labor intensive and we were so tired after!
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| From Melissa's Mission |
After we were done we went to the branch presidents house (he’s the one who is a rice farmer) and had one of the best lessons I've had on my mission. He is an amazing, humble man. The next picture is Sister Brad and me with Noah, Prataans son. We sat on this bench while we had an amazing gospel discussion about Faith and Hope. As tired as my body was after kiewing khaw, my spirit was so energized and I really understood so much of the conversation, pretty much the whole thing! My confidence is really growing in the language. But still some days are better than others.
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| From Melissa's Mission |
The last picture is of me and Sister Brad last week holding a snake. It was way sweet! :)
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| From Melissa's Mission |
OK. Are you ready for the best news in the world: PENAPAH IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! November 22! The best day of my mission! haha. The Lord is finally pouring out blessings to her and William and the branch in Korat will never be the same because she has the fire baby! And is ready to share the gospel with everyone! We are going to her house on Saturday to teach her son and niece and nephew! OK so here is what happened. William and Penapah are amazing and have been ready to be baptized for a while, but because they don’t have enough money and because William couldn’t ride the bus because of a knee problem they could never come to church and couldn’t get baptized. They prayed incessantly and had so much faith. When they couldn't make it to church last month to get baptized, I was crushed, but knew this was the time to not give up, but double my faith. I have prayed and prayed for them to find a way to get baptized. Well, finally the prayers have been answered and William got a way to go back to England, to raise some money, and come back to Thailand to start up their farm again which failed before. And because William is gone, Penapah can now come every week on a bus. It would have been so much better to see them both baptized together. But William is very excited to share the gospel with his sons and mother in England and will get baptized there. It will also be nice for him to go to church in a place where they speak his own language, even though Elder Lilly translates for him here. So they are both getting baptized and are so, so very happy. We taught an amazing lesson to William about the prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and his faith is the strongest it's been. We were in tears as William offered a sincere heartfelt prayer thanking the Lord for allowing them the opportunity to be baptized and get their money situation back in order, they have suffered so much from their losses, but found the Lord in the midst of all their trials. Penapah then told us about a great lesson she learned from the Book of Mormon that involved taking money from corrupt people who were trying to buy their vote. She said she didn't feel good about the money and read in Ether about the corruption of men in the government and felt that it was an answer that she should not take that money. She stood up for virtue and she chose to not support corrupted people. I was so proud of her! She is amazing!! :)
OK, so that was definitely the highlight of my week. But other good things happened too. We have been teaching Waree, the woman who came to church on her own and loves it. We were worried at first because she just was not understanding what we were teaching her. But on Tuesday we taught an amazing lesson with Sister Tuu (who just happened to be at the church when we taught her) and we ended with Waree offering an amazing prayer asking forgiveness from the Lord for not being able to attend church this week. OH man, she is amazing! Life is so good.
I just can't believe how incredibly blessed I am to be serving the Lord in, quite literally, the best mission in the world. Seriously! What an amazing chance it is to be immersed in this amazing culture with some of God's most humble, giving people in the world. My life has changed.
OK, so moves. Its tomorrow, so I don't have a new companion yet, I will tomorrow. But she is so lucky whoever she is because we have two baptisms coming up for sure (Penapha and Khana- the little girl) and we will be giving Waree a date the next time we teach her, probably Dec 16 and then Sally, (Em's wife who just got baptized) will hopefully be ready too! The work is on FIRE!
But the other sad news is that Elder Blaustine is moving too. We totally weren't expecting it. He has been here since I have and it just won’t be the same without him!! But, I guess that's just the way mission life is! OK, so more news next week as the work continues in Korat!! :)
Finally I just want to end with my testimony of how much the Lord really does hear our prayers and answers them when they are according to his will. I had an amazing amazing experience this past week of the Lord answering my prayers. I will write it in snail mail and send it to you.
OK well, I love you all so so much and am grateful for each and every one of you!! :)
I love you,
Melissa
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Sabai Sabai
Hello Family and Friends!
What a great week it has been! I can't believe it is November already! How crazy that a year from now I will be getting ready to come home. Don't worry, I am definitely not trunky. I'm loving every minute I have here! OK, so much to talk about! First off, I moved! President Smith didn't like us living right next to the Elders, so we moved into the cutest house ever!! It is quite a bit smaller than our last house, but it is brand new and SO nice! It's pretty standard for America, but for Thailand it is way way nice. Because of the weather all the houses I have ever been in have been... not dirty, but not, well... i dont know, it's not that bad, just not that good. But this house is brand new! and so cute! We aren't quite moved in yet, but when we are, I will for sure send pictures! We moved on Halloween and I was pretty bummed because I didn't see anyone celebrating it!! :( oh well. We were elders for halloween! haha. It was fun. We wore white shirts and black skirts and ties :) It was fun.
The real fun was the festival on Monday, I don't remember the name of it, and I couldn't spell it either... haha. It's a festival commemorating the end of the rainy season and everyone gets these really pretty little boats made out of leaves and flowers and floats them down rivers (or in our case the lake) and there are fireworks and food and ahh! it was so fun! AND! to make things all the better, the weather was amazing!! It was windy and at night, it was actually kind of, sort of a little bit COLD!! It totally feels like fall! Which is my favorite season! So yea, God really loves me because he gave me the fall I was missing at home! It's probably getting chilly in Sacramento by now huh? But yea, the weather has been very pleasant.
Sunday was SO amazing! We had 8 investigators come to church, 8!!! And two of them were William and Penapah!! (The two that live very far and can't make it to church or they would have been baptized already) They found a way to come for now, so we will see if they can get baptized. Oh boy am I praying for it!! :) 3 others were Em, who got the Holy Ghost this week, his wife and 2 girls who are doing really well and will be getting baptized when they learn all the lessons! :) Another was Mint who is 16 and can't get baptized only because her mom won't sign the papers yet. But we taught a way sweet lesson to her on Monday and she thinks she can get baptized on Christmas day!! What a great Christmas present!! I just hope I am still here!!! :) I should be. Waree was another investigator who is crazy! But in a good way. It's hard to discribe Waree, she is just so fun and enthusiastic about the gospel! I love her so much!! :) :) We are going to eat dinner at her house tomorrow. And lastly we had Khanna who is the cutest little almost 8 year old. We teach her every Saturday night, the cutest lessons! It's really preparing me for being a primary teacher! She has improved so so much! When we started teaching her she never wanted to go to church and wouldn't pray. Now she gladly prays and is very excited to get baptized on November 29th! We made a count-down for her, one with the links :) it's cute. the Sunday links are a different color to remind her that she needs to go to church and there is a special one for her birthday, but the nicest one is her baptismal date. :)
So basically the work is going great!! I am loving life! We had the greatest district meeting too on monday! Well, actually our district meetings are always amazing! Elder Lilly is an amazing teacher and we are always just so motivated to get out and work hard afterwards! We got to share our testimonies in this meeting and it just felt so good to share the very strongest testimony I have ever had that this church is true and this is the greatest work there is! :) ahh, life is so good. I miss you all tons, but am very happy.
Take care! Write me! :) PLEASE!
Love Always,
Mel
PS I cant believe I almost forgot! Today I held a huge boaconstricter!!! (snake) It was awesome, pics to come!! :)
What a great week it has been! I can't believe it is November already! How crazy that a year from now I will be getting ready to come home. Don't worry, I am definitely not trunky. I'm loving every minute I have here! OK, so much to talk about! First off, I moved! President Smith didn't like us living right next to the Elders, so we moved into the cutest house ever!! It is quite a bit smaller than our last house, but it is brand new and SO nice! It's pretty standard for America, but for Thailand it is way way nice. Because of the weather all the houses I have ever been in have been... not dirty, but not, well... i dont know, it's not that bad, just not that good. But this house is brand new! and so cute! We aren't quite moved in yet, but when we are, I will for sure send pictures! We moved on Halloween and I was pretty bummed because I didn't see anyone celebrating it!! :( oh well. We were elders for halloween! haha. It was fun. We wore white shirts and black skirts and ties :) It was fun.
The real fun was the festival on Monday, I don't remember the name of it, and I couldn't spell it either... haha. It's a festival commemorating the end of the rainy season and everyone gets these really pretty little boats made out of leaves and flowers and floats them down rivers (or in our case the lake) and there are fireworks and food and ahh! it was so fun! AND! to make things all the better, the weather was amazing!! It was windy and at night, it was actually kind of, sort of a little bit COLD!! It totally feels like fall! Which is my favorite season! So yea, God really loves me because he gave me the fall I was missing at home! It's probably getting chilly in Sacramento by now huh? But yea, the weather has been very pleasant.
Sunday was SO amazing! We had 8 investigators come to church, 8!!! And two of them were William and Penapah!! (The two that live very far and can't make it to church or they would have been baptized already) They found a way to come for now, so we will see if they can get baptized. Oh boy am I praying for it!! :) 3 others were Em, who got the Holy Ghost this week, his wife and 2 girls who are doing really well and will be getting baptized when they learn all the lessons! :) Another was Mint who is 16 and can't get baptized only because her mom won't sign the papers yet. But we taught a way sweet lesson to her on Monday and she thinks she can get baptized on Christmas day!! What a great Christmas present!! I just hope I am still here!!! :) I should be. Waree was another investigator who is crazy! But in a good way. It's hard to discribe Waree, she is just so fun and enthusiastic about the gospel! I love her so much!! :) :) We are going to eat dinner at her house tomorrow. And lastly we had Khanna who is the cutest little almost 8 year old. We teach her every Saturday night, the cutest lessons! It's really preparing me for being a primary teacher! She has improved so so much! When we started teaching her she never wanted to go to church and wouldn't pray. Now she gladly prays and is very excited to get baptized on November 29th! We made a count-down for her, one with the links :) it's cute. the Sunday links are a different color to remind her that she needs to go to church and there is a special one for her birthday, but the nicest one is her baptismal date. :)
So basically the work is going great!! I am loving life! We had the greatest district meeting too on monday! Well, actually our district meetings are always amazing! Elder Lilly is an amazing teacher and we are always just so motivated to get out and work hard afterwards! We got to share our testimonies in this meeting and it just felt so good to share the very strongest testimony I have ever had that this church is true and this is the greatest work there is! :) ahh, life is so good. I miss you all tons, but am very happy.
Take care! Write me! :) PLEASE!
Love Always,
Mel
PS I cant believe I almost forgot! Today I held a huge boaconstricter!!! (snake) It was awesome, pics to come!! :)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Yuu the Theeb!
Hello everyone!
That's right, I am currently chillen in Bangkok right now. AHH what an adventure this is! It is SO different than the last time I was here (the first day in the country) it's a lot more... normal. But still WAY cool!! Ahh, I love it. I'm in a really good mood right now, so I will probably throw in a lot of AHHH's and I love it!!'s because I am just that happy!
SOO many great things happened this week.... let's see if I can even fit them in! First off we had an amazing district meeting (we seriously have the best district in the mission... just 2 elders and us two, but we are on FIRE!) So we are sitting there reading the vision we wrote a month ago and seeing how everything we wrote is REALLY happening!! The Lord really accepted our vision and made it happen through our hard work!! We call this moves, the Good's and the Positive's, cause that's what its all about! OK... so I am sitting there after a most amazing district meeting and I say to everyone, Guys... really... does it REALLY get better than this??!! AHH, i dont think so.
OK! So there are lots of really sweet little miracles that have been happening, but im only going to share a few for times sake and then i just have to tell you how awesome church was!!!!!!!!!!! So sister brad and I are seriously so blessed because this past week we have just been in the right place at the right time all the time! It just feels so good to be riding my bike a long way, knowing that what we are doing may seem like its not worth the time, but to know in my heart that it is right, and then to see after the fact that it really was right! ok. so we had to go clear on one side of town by 6 but we both just knew we had to go visit Phon (the one who came to church last week who is awesome) but we had a feeling she wouldn't be there, so we took the time to write her a letter in thai. As we are going, we think, lets go buy our bus tickets for bangkok because it is on the way... turns out you cant buy them in advance, BUT the member that we have been praying for who we haven't been able to get a hold of suddenly WORKS there! So we talk to her and yea, the Lord answers prayers. AND it gets better... Phon wasn't there like we thought, but she called us the next day and told us how much she loved and appreciated that note and how we are her closest friends right now (she is going through work problems and a divorce) yes, the Lord answers prayers...
OK so then Sunday happens. We are way stoked because Em, the elders investigator got baptized and Sally and their daughter were there too!! It was awesome. I loved finally seeing a baptism (there are surely more to come!) So we taught Sally and it was sweet, she is totally ready to be baptized November 8th. AND we are also excited because Mae was coming to church for the first time!! (in Korat, she has been an investigator for 2 years and is SOO close to baptism, its not even funny! Just marriage issues and she's in there like swimwear!) ok.... It gets better... Gigi, this sweet investigator who is really busy all the time calls us at 8:30 to ask how to get to the church... that's right, she came to church! It was great, during the 2nd hour of church the lesson was on the law of chastity and she said, I totally agree with this! This is how I live my life and i know a lot of people dont agree with it, but i really like it... ok. she needs to be a member! she is so great. I just love her. OK... you guessed it, IT GETS BETTER! So a member in the ward, Brother Nipon called us saturday night with a referal. He said he wanted us to come right then and teach her but we had an appointment, so she came to church on sunday and I sat next to her. I could totally understand her! Well, for the most part. She is telling me how much she loves the book of mormon and how good she feels throughout the whole sacrament meeting!! haha. she is AWESOME. she loves it already! AHH I am so happy.
OK, so Sorry Lyndsay, I was a week early, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! :) I miss your letters! I will try to get one out to you next week! And dad thanks for sharing that awesome experience about the lady and the records, isn't it amazing to see the Lord answering prayers through you! Keep up the missionary work in the ward. The Bishop is the head of the missionary work, the missionaries are only tools in the work. You're great.
Oh man, I love you all so much. Especially you that have read this far! I know missionary stories aren't the most fun to read when you aren't there seeing the miracles, but I am so so grateful to all of you who are supporting me in my mission. I am the happiest I've ever been and I know I have the capability to always be this happy in life. It's my choice, and I choose happiness!
I love you,
Melissa
That's right, I am currently chillen in Bangkok right now. AHH what an adventure this is! It is SO different than the last time I was here (the first day in the country) it's a lot more... normal. But still WAY cool!! Ahh, I love it. I'm in a really good mood right now, so I will probably throw in a lot of AHHH's and I love it!!'s because I am just that happy!
SOO many great things happened this week.... let's see if I can even fit them in! First off we had an amazing district meeting (we seriously have the best district in the mission... just 2 elders and us two, but we are on FIRE!) So we are sitting there reading the vision we wrote a month ago and seeing how everything we wrote is REALLY happening!! The Lord really accepted our vision and made it happen through our hard work!! We call this moves, the Good's and the Positive's, cause that's what its all about! OK... so I am sitting there after a most amazing district meeting and I say to everyone, Guys... really... does it REALLY get better than this??!! AHH, i dont think so.
OK! So there are lots of really sweet little miracles that have been happening, but im only going to share a few for times sake and then i just have to tell you how awesome church was!!!!!!!!!!! So sister brad and I are seriously so blessed because this past week we have just been in the right place at the right time all the time! It just feels so good to be riding my bike a long way, knowing that what we are doing may seem like its not worth the time, but to know in my heart that it is right, and then to see after the fact that it really was right! ok. so we had to go clear on one side of town by 6 but we both just knew we had to go visit Phon (the one who came to church last week who is awesome) but we had a feeling she wouldn't be there, so we took the time to write her a letter in thai. As we are going, we think, lets go buy our bus tickets for bangkok because it is on the way... turns out you cant buy them in advance, BUT the member that we have been praying for who we haven't been able to get a hold of suddenly WORKS there! So we talk to her and yea, the Lord answers prayers. AND it gets better... Phon wasn't there like we thought, but she called us the next day and told us how much she loved and appreciated that note and how we are her closest friends right now (she is going through work problems and a divorce) yes, the Lord answers prayers...
OK so then Sunday happens. We are way stoked because Em, the elders investigator got baptized and Sally and their daughter were there too!! It was awesome. I loved finally seeing a baptism (there are surely more to come!) So we taught Sally and it was sweet, she is totally ready to be baptized November 8th. AND we are also excited because Mae was coming to church for the first time!! (in Korat, she has been an investigator for 2 years and is SOO close to baptism, its not even funny! Just marriage issues and she's in there like swimwear!) ok.... It gets better... Gigi, this sweet investigator who is really busy all the time calls us at 8:30 to ask how to get to the church... that's right, she came to church! It was great, during the 2nd hour of church the lesson was on the law of chastity and she said, I totally agree with this! This is how I live my life and i know a lot of people dont agree with it, but i really like it... ok. she needs to be a member! she is so great. I just love her. OK... you guessed it, IT GETS BETTER! So a member in the ward, Brother Nipon called us saturday night with a referal. He said he wanted us to come right then and teach her but we had an appointment, so she came to church on sunday and I sat next to her. I could totally understand her! Well, for the most part. She is telling me how much she loves the book of mormon and how good she feels throughout the whole sacrament meeting!! haha. she is AWESOME. she loves it already! AHH I am so happy.
OK, so Sorry Lyndsay, I was a week early, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! :) I miss your letters! I will try to get one out to you next week! And dad thanks for sharing that awesome experience about the lady and the records, isn't it amazing to see the Lord answering prayers through you! Keep up the missionary work in the ward. The Bishop is the head of the missionary work, the missionaries are only tools in the work. You're great.
Oh man, I love you all so much. Especially you that have read this far! I know missionary stories aren't the most fun to read when you aren't there seeing the miracles, but I am so so grateful to all of you who are supporting me in my mission. I am the happiest I've ever been and I know I have the capability to always be this happy in life. It's my choice, and I choose happiness!
I love you,
Melissa
Monday, October 26, 2009
Kamlang theiw nay Roi Et!
Sawatdii Kha!
For all of you who don't read Thai, which is all of you, I am currently staying in Roi-et, a little town about 3 hours east of Korat. I love it!! We are doing switch offs right now with the Sisters and I had the most amazing experience last night! I got to switch off with Sister Widchatra (she is thai) and she is amazing!!! She has so much power with the people we teach, first because she can speak with them in their own language, and second because she is just amazing! I learned so much from her in the little time we got to be companions.
So yesterday we had our Zone Lesson in Mahaa Sarakham in the morning and then came to Roi-et in the afternoon. Sister Brad went with Sister Lifferth and I went with Sister Widchadtra. She went to BYU Hawaii before her mission so she speaks good english. She is so cute!! She is like my hero now... haha ok. So we had lots of appointments and since Roi-et is so much smaller than Korat, we could do appointments every hour. Our first appointment was with a member and it was amazing because I could really understand what was being said almost the whole time! My language is improving every day, but I just felt like it was extra good last night. So I was way confident in myself. Our next appointment was an investigator. The spirit was SO strong in the lesson and I participated a lot in the teaching. I always participate, but I just felt really good about the things I was saying. Sister Widchadtra is so good, she was commiting her with boldness! We left the appointment glowing! Sister W. said she was impressed with how much I contributed! :) Our next appointment was just as amazing. The lady we taught, Wiphon, told me in english that Thai's feel lucky when they get to practice their english with foreigners. So keeping that in mind, I bore a simple but powerful testimony in english about how much the gospel blessed my family. It was powerful. Her son was there and she wants him to be a member so he can have more friends, she is worried about him. I said the things the spirit told me to say, and then Sister W. clarified, because the boy didn't understand everything. But he felt it! It was so good. I love it.
Things in Korat are going great too. Uncle Gary sent me an awesome letter talking about how the gospel blesses family. If every ward had a mission leader like Uncle Gary, the work would be doubling! He is so good!! Those missionaries are very lucky to have him!! Sister Brad and I studied what he wrote, talked about it, and translated it and have been teaching very powerful lessons about how the gospel blesses families. The best lesson for sure was to Phon, oh man I LOVE her!! She is getting baptized, I just know it! We are still just introducing right now, but she loves praying and for sure believes in God. We had an awesome teaching appointment with her in her new home she just had build in the outskirts of Korat, her house is WAY beautiful! She came to church on Sunday and really felt the spirit. Church was AWESOME on Sunday too!! We normally have about 60 people at church, this week we had close to 90!!! the chapel was full. We need to get 120 regularly attending to get a new, bigger church. That's the goal!! The youth just had a seminary activity with the region and they went up and bore their testimonies, it was so sweet! Phon loved it!! :) AAAAND the elders have a baptism this Sunday! YAY! my first baptism! His name is M and he is awesome! Now we are teaching his wife and daughters, who are way sweet and hope to be baptizing them soon too! Once M gets baptized and gets the priesthood, he can do it. Ah, i love the gospel!! :)
As for our other investigators, we have William and Penapah, who will hopefully have the money to come to church soon and get baptized, Mae- who will get baptized once she works out marriage issues. Fern, who is in the same boat. Som, who is just great, she is 18 and very inquisitive. Were hoping she will want to be baptized soon too. And On and Jo, who are related to one of the members. Great things are happening in Korat! The work is going forward!!! :)
OK, well time is coming to a close :( Happy Belated Birthday Aunt Terry! AND Happy, Happy Birthday to Mike today! And Lyndsay and Larissa on Friday!! :) I love you guys!
Well life is just good. And I am so so happy!!!
I love you all!
Melissa
For all of you who don't read Thai, which is all of you, I am currently staying in Roi-et, a little town about 3 hours east of Korat. I love it!! We are doing switch offs right now with the Sisters and I had the most amazing experience last night! I got to switch off with Sister Widchatra (she is thai) and she is amazing!!! She has so much power with the people we teach, first because she can speak with them in their own language, and second because she is just amazing! I learned so much from her in the little time we got to be companions.
So yesterday we had our Zone Lesson in Mahaa Sarakham in the morning and then came to Roi-et in the afternoon. Sister Brad went with Sister Lifferth and I went with Sister Widchadtra. She went to BYU Hawaii before her mission so she speaks good english. She is so cute!! She is like my hero now... haha ok. So we had lots of appointments and since Roi-et is so much smaller than Korat, we could do appointments every hour. Our first appointment was with a member and it was amazing because I could really understand what was being said almost the whole time! My language is improving every day, but I just felt like it was extra good last night. So I was way confident in myself. Our next appointment was an investigator. The spirit was SO strong in the lesson and I participated a lot in the teaching. I always participate, but I just felt really good about the things I was saying. Sister Widchadtra is so good, she was commiting her with boldness! We left the appointment glowing! Sister W. said she was impressed with how much I contributed! :) Our next appointment was just as amazing. The lady we taught, Wiphon, told me in english that Thai's feel lucky when they get to practice their english with foreigners. So keeping that in mind, I bore a simple but powerful testimony in english about how much the gospel blessed my family. It was powerful. Her son was there and she wants him to be a member so he can have more friends, she is worried about him. I said the things the spirit told me to say, and then Sister W. clarified, because the boy didn't understand everything. But he felt it! It was so good. I love it.
Things in Korat are going great too. Uncle Gary sent me an awesome letter talking about how the gospel blesses family. If every ward had a mission leader like Uncle Gary, the work would be doubling! He is so good!! Those missionaries are very lucky to have him!! Sister Brad and I studied what he wrote, talked about it, and translated it and have been teaching very powerful lessons about how the gospel blesses families. The best lesson for sure was to Phon, oh man I LOVE her!! She is getting baptized, I just know it! We are still just introducing right now, but she loves praying and for sure believes in God. We had an awesome teaching appointment with her in her new home she just had build in the outskirts of Korat, her house is WAY beautiful! She came to church on Sunday and really felt the spirit. Church was AWESOME on Sunday too!! We normally have about 60 people at church, this week we had close to 90!!! the chapel was full. We need to get 120 regularly attending to get a new, bigger church. That's the goal!! The youth just had a seminary activity with the region and they went up and bore their testimonies, it was so sweet! Phon loved it!! :) AAAAND the elders have a baptism this Sunday! YAY! my first baptism! His name is M and he is awesome! Now we are teaching his wife and daughters, who are way sweet and hope to be baptizing them soon too! Once M gets baptized and gets the priesthood, he can do it. Ah, i love the gospel!! :)
As for our other investigators, we have William and Penapah, who will hopefully have the money to come to church soon and get baptized, Mae- who will get baptized once she works out marriage issues. Fern, who is in the same boat. Som, who is just great, she is 18 and very inquisitive. Were hoping she will want to be baptized soon too. And On and Jo, who are related to one of the members. Great things are happening in Korat! The work is going forward!!! :)
OK, well time is coming to a close :( Happy Belated Birthday Aunt Terry! AND Happy, Happy Birthday to Mike today! And Lyndsay and Larissa on Friday!! :) I love you guys!
Well life is just good. And I am so so happy!!!
I love you all!
Melissa
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Family and Friends!!!
Ahh! Another amazing week in Thailand has come and gone. I apologize, this letter is going to be very short because I just HAD to watch President Holland's amazing talk in English (we only got to see the talks in Thai :( ) and I wanted to get my pictures downloaded and reply to the people who wrote me and now I am very short on time. So this is gonna be a quick one. But I have tons to say!!
First of all, CONGRATS CHRIS AND ANNIE!! holy cow! the Patterson family is growing! You will both be great parents. And Annie and Amy get to be pregnant together! :) Amy looks adorable! I want pregnant pics of Annie too!! You're gonna be the cutest little pregnant woman! And Kyle is ADORABLE! Sister Brad and I just loved the pics you send mom! :) I love babies!
Kurtis and Ashley, woah... model status! Your pictures are beautiful. What a cute couple you are! It's good to see Kurtis so happy :)
OK, so I think that is it for family business, I am so glad everyone is doing so good!
Thailand is great. We had my second mission conference on Thursday and it was just amazing. First of all, I love it because we get to travel to get there and the Esan (Northeast part of Thailand) is INCREDIBLY beautiful. Everytime we travel I just can't believe how lucky I am to live here. But the conference was SO good. Words just can't sufficiently describe how amazing I feel. The only way I can really define it is true happiness. I honestly think it's a happiness that consumes the heart and can only be felt by the righteous. Because when you feel this kind of complete happiness, it is just a strong witness that the love you are feeling is straight from the Lord. There are no doubts in my mind that this is His work and His true church and I have every capability under heaven to bring to past mighty miracles (Mosiah 8:18).
Next to the satisfaction of serving the Lord by preaching the gospel, is the joy I feel from my daily scripture studies. The scriptures are just packed full of amazing cousel that, when followed, allows us to have that happiness I described earlier.
OK well, like always, there is just so much more I want to say about everything, but time is slim and I want to talk about the pictures. (remember our crazy humid climate!) HA!
Ahh, I love Thailand!! :)
OK, last but certianly not least..... where the heck is Mike?! I think he died... Someone let me know if Mike died! In other words.....mike write me!
OK!!! I love you all SO so much. I love the letters I receive! It really makes a difference! Would love to hear from all of you!!!
Love,
Ahh! Another amazing week in Thailand has come and gone. I apologize, this letter is going to be very short because I just HAD to watch President Holland's amazing talk in English (we only got to see the talks in Thai :( ) and I wanted to get my pictures downloaded and reply to the people who wrote me and now I am very short on time. So this is gonna be a quick one. But I have tons to say!!
First of all, CONGRATS CHRIS AND ANNIE!! holy cow! the Patterson family is growing! You will both be great parents. And Annie and Amy get to be pregnant together! :) Amy looks adorable! I want pregnant pics of Annie too!! You're gonna be the cutest little pregnant woman! And Kyle is ADORABLE! Sister Brad and I just loved the pics you send mom! :) I love babies!
Kurtis and Ashley, woah... model status! Your pictures are beautiful. What a cute couple you are! It's good to see Kurtis so happy :)
OK, so I think that is it for family business, I am so glad everyone is doing so good!
Thailand is great. We had my second mission conference on Thursday and it was just amazing. First of all, I love it because we get to travel to get there and the Esan (Northeast part of Thailand) is INCREDIBLY beautiful. Everytime we travel I just can't believe how lucky I am to live here. But the conference was SO good. Words just can't sufficiently describe how amazing I feel. The only way I can really define it is true happiness. I honestly think it's a happiness that consumes the heart and can only be felt by the righteous. Because when you feel this kind of complete happiness, it is just a strong witness that the love you are feeling is straight from the Lord. There are no doubts in my mind that this is His work and His true church and I have every capability under heaven to bring to past mighty miracles (Mosiah 8:18).
Next to the satisfaction of serving the Lord by preaching the gospel, is the joy I feel from my daily scripture studies. The scriptures are just packed full of amazing cousel that, when followed, allows us to have that happiness I described earlier.
OK well, like always, there is just so much more I want to say about everything, but time is slim and I want to talk about the pictures. (remember our crazy humid climate!) HA!
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| From Melissa's Mission |
Our district! Elder Blaustine, Elder Lilly and Our Mission Leader Brother Michael! And me and Sister Bradfield. |
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| From Melissa's Mission |
Yes, I really do live in this beautiful jungle! :) Sister Daa is an awesome member and will be a missionary when she is 21! She is helping us find less actives. |
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| From Melissa's Mission |
This is me in the back of a Songtaw (Song means 2, taw means bench... its basically a truck with two benches in the bed and rails on the back as you can see in the picture...) it's a major mode of transportation here. The buses go far places and the Songtaws stay in town. |
Ahh, I love Thailand!! :)
OK, last but certianly not least..... where the heck is Mike?! I think he died... Someone let me know if Mike died! In other words.....mike write me!
OK!!! I love you all SO so much. I love the letters I receive! It really makes a difference! Would love to hear from all of you!!!
Love,
Friday, October 9, 2009
goin' to thesunthesun
Hello everyone!
Oh man what a week it has been! I feel like a whole new person from last week! But from what I am noticing, that is pretty typical on the mission. You learn life lessons and grow at way faster rates than normal life. OK. So I have some funny stories. (oh man we had fun this week) Some spiritual stories, and some growing and learning stories. Ahh it's been a good week.
OK. SO funny stories... You may be wondering about my subject heading... so, we have this member named Wiwat who, lets face it, is just kinda crazy. He is the nicest guy and LOVES the church. He is the one in sacrament who is singing really loud and off tune and sometimes people look at him, but he doesn't care, he just loves it! I love that about him. So testimony meeting, he gets up to bear his testimony.... uh oh. Another thing about Wiwat is that it has been hard for him to give up some of the Buddist rituals... So I still can't really understand thai completely, just words and phrases. and when they talk fast its hard to know exactly what they are saying, but i heard sadsanapud (buddhist religion) and was a little worried. Then i heard him start saying things like "the moon the moon" and "the sun the sun" really fast. I wasn't sure if it was English or not, and Bambi, who was sitting next to me said she had no idea what he was talking about... but then everyone started laughing and realized that what he was bearing his testimony about what that Buddhists were all going to the Terrestrial kingdom (the moon the moon) and HE was going to the Celestial Kingdom (the sun the sun). HA! So now it is a running joke between us that we are all going to thesunthesun!
Another classic missionary moment I had this week was when we were teaching a members son and his wife the first vision. We started to just introduce prophets and then the member, Sister Ying, who is just great, but talks really really fast, (i really can't understand her) started to clarify, but just got so excited that she ended up telling the entire Joseph Smith story in under a minute... and in one breath... We had no idea where she was going with it until we heard her say con fan thaan (hear him- as in, this is my beloved son hear him) we couldn't stop laughing. On the way home we laughed and laughed about it. I guess you just had to be there, because I am still laughing about it right now... :)
OK, so on a more serious note. This has been a week of so much growth for me. Sunday was hard. William and Penapha weren't able to make it to church which means they can't get baptized on October 18th. My heart was set on it, but I learned I need to trust in the Lords timing, not mine. We got a new district leader named Elder Lily who is just great. We had an awesome District meeting on Monday about how we are going to motivate the members of Korat to expand their visions to what this branch can become. He also asked us to write our visions for Korat, our companionship, and our own lives the day we finish our missions, 5 years from now and 10 years from now. The visions I wrote are so special to me! I may send them home fam. My favorite part about them is that they are all centered on me being worthy to enter the temple, studying the scriptures, raising a righteous family, and staying close to the Lord. There is no mention of salaries, cool cars I hope to drive, or what I want to look like. I hope to always stay true to these visions and not let those other things get in the way of the happiness my life can and will have as I stay close to the spirit. I would challenge all of you that read this to pick a time in the not-to-distant future of significance and write a vision for where you see yourself at that time, then 5 years and 10 years from now. I think it will surprise you to see what you will write. After I did this I read my patriarchal blessing and found that numerous things I wrote were in my blessing, sometimes word for word.
OK last story, this is about how I overcame discouragement this week. First off I need to say, there is no such thing as a bad day on the mission. Sure, you will have times where bad things happen, but every day, good and great things happen. Well, it was one of those times where I'm just not having the greatest moment. One of those times where you know you will overcome it, but in the moment, it just doesn't feel like it... So, of course, I prayed to know how I could overcome these feelings of discouragement and on Monday morning as I was getting ready, Come Come Ye Saints
was playing, and I heard a line that struck me in a way that has never struck me before. "Why should we think to earn a great reward, if we now shun the fight?" I was overcome with emotion as I thought of the pioneers suffering great amounts of mental and physical pains- literally fighting to get to the place where they could freely worship Our God. EVERYDAY we fight the fight against sin... EVERYDAY. Exaltation comes with a very big price tag. And in my moment of discouragement, I didn't want to do anything bad, I wasn't going to go break my covenants with the Lord, or anything to that degree; but I wanted to give up, I wanted to give in, I was ready to shun the fight. The miracle I learned in that lesson was that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the means by which we can have the power to overcome these feelings and have the strength to keep fighting and to even win the battle with sin!! (See David A. Bednar's talk In the Strength of the Lord) AH, it's true, it's true. I can not deny it.
Well, we are continuing to teach great investigators... I will talk more about them next week as I am running out of time (as always...) but I hope and pray all of you are doing well. I really do love you all and think about you from time to time. Please write me and let me know how you are all doing. I mean that sincerely. I miss you all, but I am so happy to be here in Thailand.
Keep praying, Keep pondering, Keep the Faith.
Love,
Melissa
PS: Thanks Jakey, you're the best! :P
Oh man what a week it has been! I feel like a whole new person from last week! But from what I am noticing, that is pretty typical on the mission. You learn life lessons and grow at way faster rates than normal life. OK. So I have some funny stories. (oh man we had fun this week) Some spiritual stories, and some growing and learning stories. Ahh it's been a good week.
OK. SO funny stories... You may be wondering about my subject heading... so, we have this member named Wiwat who, lets face it, is just kinda crazy. He is the nicest guy and LOVES the church. He is the one in sacrament who is singing really loud and off tune and sometimes people look at him, but he doesn't care, he just loves it! I love that about him. So testimony meeting, he gets up to bear his testimony.... uh oh. Another thing about Wiwat is that it has been hard for him to give up some of the Buddist rituals... So I still can't really understand thai completely, just words and phrases. and when they talk fast its hard to know exactly what they are saying, but i heard sadsanapud (buddhist religion) and was a little worried. Then i heard him start saying things like "the moon the moon" and "the sun the sun" really fast. I wasn't sure if it was English or not, and Bambi, who was sitting next to me said she had no idea what he was talking about... but then everyone started laughing and realized that what he was bearing his testimony about what that Buddhists were all going to the Terrestrial kingdom (the moon the moon) and HE was going to the Celestial Kingdom (the sun the sun). HA! So now it is a running joke between us that we are all going to thesunthesun!
Another classic missionary moment I had this week was when we were teaching a members son and his wife the first vision. We started to just introduce prophets and then the member, Sister Ying, who is just great, but talks really really fast, (i really can't understand her) started to clarify, but just got so excited that she ended up telling the entire Joseph Smith story in under a minute... and in one breath... We had no idea where she was going with it until we heard her say con fan thaan (hear him- as in, this is my beloved son hear him) we couldn't stop laughing. On the way home we laughed and laughed about it. I guess you just had to be there, because I am still laughing about it right now... :)
OK, so on a more serious note. This has been a week of so much growth for me. Sunday was hard. William and Penapha weren't able to make it to church which means they can't get baptized on October 18th. My heart was set on it, but I learned I need to trust in the Lords timing, not mine. We got a new district leader named Elder Lily who is just great. We had an awesome District meeting on Monday about how we are going to motivate the members of Korat to expand their visions to what this branch can become. He also asked us to write our visions for Korat, our companionship, and our own lives the day we finish our missions, 5 years from now and 10 years from now. The visions I wrote are so special to me! I may send them home fam. My favorite part about them is that they are all centered on me being worthy to enter the temple, studying the scriptures, raising a righteous family, and staying close to the Lord. There is no mention of salaries, cool cars I hope to drive, or what I want to look like. I hope to always stay true to these visions and not let those other things get in the way of the happiness my life can and will have as I stay close to the spirit. I would challenge all of you that read this to pick a time in the not-to-distant future of significance and write a vision for where you see yourself at that time, then 5 years and 10 years from now. I think it will surprise you to see what you will write. After I did this I read my patriarchal blessing and found that numerous things I wrote were in my blessing, sometimes word for word.
OK last story, this is about how I overcame discouragement this week. First off I need to say, there is no such thing as a bad day on the mission. Sure, you will have times where bad things happen, but every day, good and great things happen. Well, it was one of those times where I'm just not having the greatest moment. One of those times where you know you will overcome it, but in the moment, it just doesn't feel like it... So, of course, I prayed to know how I could overcome these feelings of discouragement and on Monday morning as I was getting ready, Come Come Ye Saints
was playing, and I heard a line that struck me in a way that has never struck me before. "Why should we think to earn a great reward, if we now shun the fight?" I was overcome with emotion as I thought of the pioneers suffering great amounts of mental and physical pains- literally fighting to get to the place where they could freely worship Our God. EVERYDAY we fight the fight against sin... EVERYDAY. Exaltation comes with a very big price tag. And in my moment of discouragement, I didn't want to do anything bad, I wasn't going to go break my covenants with the Lord, or anything to that degree; but I wanted to give up, I wanted to give in, I was ready to shun the fight. The miracle I learned in that lesson was that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the means by which we can have the power to overcome these feelings and have the strength to keep fighting and to even win the battle with sin!! (See David A. Bednar's talk In the Strength of the Lord) AH, it's true, it's true. I can not deny it.
Well, we are continuing to teach great investigators... I will talk more about them next week as I am running out of time (as always...) but I hope and pray all of you are doing well. I really do love you all and think about you from time to time. Please write me and let me know how you are all doing. I mean that sincerely. I miss you all, but I am so happy to be here in Thailand.
Keep praying, Keep pondering, Keep the Faith.
Love,
Melissa
PS: Thanks Jakey, you're the best! :P
Thursday, October 1, 2009
And it just keeps getting better...
Friends and Family,
Oh man... what an amazing week it's been since I have written you last!! Great things always happen on Thursdays because I have to wait a whole week before I can write you about them! So Thursday started off pretty unproductive. We were long planning and then got a call from an investigator Annie, who is great, that we haven't talked to for a long time! We were so excited and went to a restaurant to see her and her friend. It turns out her friend was this Australian guy who has had a way crazy life! We got into conversation and ended up staying way too long. We had correlation at 5 and then nothing really to do at night... This girl who lives by the church, whose name is Fern, is Korats eternal investigator. She has been investigating for years and no one can just drop her because she has a great testimony, but just won't be baptized.
So we decided to go visit her, and oh what a blessing that was! She was way happy to see us and told us that she had been praying and got answers to her prayers and knew that God loved her. She was so happy! We asked her, "Fern, why aren't you baptized?!" and she said, "I want to be!" She has to wait for her boyfriend to move out, because she knows she can't get baptized if she is living with him, so when he goes off to be a soldier she is going to get baptized! When he comes back they will get married!! We were so pumped!! And it was funny because right before we went to teach her we were saying, she just has to get baptized one day... maybe it will take someone special to do it. And now she is!
So that was great, but honestly, Sunday was the best day of my mission and one of the best days of my life!! First Saturday, we had a whole day planned out and everything fell through (the life of a missionary) but President Smith and Sister Smith came and we visited Sister Dim and her family (the one I wrote about a few weeks ago) It was great...President Smith boldly invited them to come back to church... he was kind of weary about coming back because he feels like he has lost his name and doesn't think he is worthy of his priesthood anymore. (He was the former branch president) But on Sunday THEY CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was amazing! Only for the third hour, but it was him and his wife, his daughter and one grandchild! It was so special!! :)
So that was great, but what really made Sunday special for me was that WILLIAM AND PENAPAH CAME TO CHURCH!!! (remember them?) OH man I wish I could just bottle up the smile she had on her face as she walked into the church, she was radiating!! She sat down in the chapel and just wept as she prayed a sweet prayer of gratitude to her Heavenly Father. Words can not describe the joy it brought to me just to see that. She was thanking Sister Brad and I the whole time! And Relief Society was just an amazing, life changing time for me. I am sitting there with Penapah, feeling so happy, and in walks Sister Dim and her daughter, back to church for the first time in 8 years, and Sister Smith tells this amazing heart warming experience about a time she felt the love Heavenly Father has for Thai people in the Hong Kong temple... Sister Brad translated and everyone was in tears. Penapah and I just sat there and cried! My life felt complete! I felt like every choice and decision I had made in my life, all the times I went to church and church activities and chose to follow the Savior, led me to this amazing experience in my life!! I will never forget it as long as I live! I felt true joy!
This past Sunday we had 11 investigators at church and 7 of them have baptismal dates for October 18th! We will see how things work out!! Oh man, I just love this work!
Yesterday was pretty awesome too. I want to go into great detail, but am running out of time. basically we road our bike really far and really fast (i dont really know how far, but I was beat after...) and met a 17 year old girl who told us she wanted to be a member of the church and asked what she had to do to be one... WHAT?! Who asks that! hahah. Love it! She is a great girl. Her name is Som. I am so excited to teach her!! :)
OK... so some shout outs! First, Ashley thanks so much for writing me! I really appriciate the words of encouragement from a fellow (former) sister missionary! I'm so happy that you are getting to know my family. They are awesome! Hope you and Kurtis have a great time at Conference!! Give him a hug for me!
Oh yea, Conference... we don't get to see it until next weekend, so this is just a regular week, but we do get to watch it in English.
Eric Sawyer... thanks so much for asking about me! Sounds like you're doing awesome! The best way to write is dear elder.com. It's .89 cents I think! I get mail once a week, but haven't received many letters since being in Thailand.
Lyndsay, you are amazing. Thanks for all the support, I love you so much! All the letters you wrote me at the MTC are at home, but I can send you the one you sent here.
Everyone else, my wonderful family, Grandpa and Ginny, my awesome aunts, uncles, and cousins, and of course my great friends, I love you and miss you and cannot wait to hear from ALL of you!! Hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Melissa!
Oh man... what an amazing week it's been since I have written you last!! Great things always happen on Thursdays because I have to wait a whole week before I can write you about them! So Thursday started off pretty unproductive. We were long planning and then got a call from an investigator Annie, who is great, that we haven't talked to for a long time! We were so excited and went to a restaurant to see her and her friend. It turns out her friend was this Australian guy who has had a way crazy life! We got into conversation and ended up staying way too long. We had correlation at 5 and then nothing really to do at night... This girl who lives by the church, whose name is Fern, is Korats eternal investigator. She has been investigating for years and no one can just drop her because she has a great testimony, but just won't be baptized.
So we decided to go visit her, and oh what a blessing that was! She was way happy to see us and told us that she had been praying and got answers to her prayers and knew that God loved her. She was so happy! We asked her, "Fern, why aren't you baptized?!" and she said, "I want to be!" She has to wait for her boyfriend to move out, because she knows she can't get baptized if she is living with him, so when he goes off to be a soldier she is going to get baptized! When he comes back they will get married!! We were so pumped!! And it was funny because right before we went to teach her we were saying, she just has to get baptized one day... maybe it will take someone special to do it. And now she is!
So that was great, but honestly, Sunday was the best day of my mission and one of the best days of my life!! First Saturday, we had a whole day planned out and everything fell through (the life of a missionary) but President Smith and Sister Smith came and we visited Sister Dim and her family (the one I wrote about a few weeks ago) It was great...President Smith boldly invited them to come back to church... he was kind of weary about coming back because he feels like he has lost his name and doesn't think he is worthy of his priesthood anymore. (He was the former branch president) But on Sunday THEY CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was amazing! Only for the third hour, but it was him and his wife, his daughter and one grandchild! It was so special!! :)
So that was great, but what really made Sunday special for me was that WILLIAM AND PENAPAH CAME TO CHURCH!!! (remember them?) OH man I wish I could just bottle up the smile she had on her face as she walked into the church, she was radiating!! She sat down in the chapel and just wept as she prayed a sweet prayer of gratitude to her Heavenly Father. Words can not describe the joy it brought to me just to see that. She was thanking Sister Brad and I the whole time! And Relief Society was just an amazing, life changing time for me. I am sitting there with Penapah, feeling so happy, and in walks Sister Dim and her daughter, back to church for the first time in 8 years, and Sister Smith tells this amazing heart warming experience about a time she felt the love Heavenly Father has for Thai people in the Hong Kong temple... Sister Brad translated and everyone was in tears. Penapah and I just sat there and cried! My life felt complete! I felt like every choice and decision I had made in my life, all the times I went to church and church activities and chose to follow the Savior, led me to this amazing experience in my life!! I will never forget it as long as I live! I felt true joy!
This past Sunday we had 11 investigators at church and 7 of them have baptismal dates for October 18th! We will see how things work out!! Oh man, I just love this work!
Yesterday was pretty awesome too. I want to go into great detail, but am running out of time. basically we road our bike really far and really fast (i dont really know how far, but I was beat after...) and met a 17 year old girl who told us she wanted to be a member of the church and asked what she had to do to be one... WHAT?! Who asks that! hahah. Love it! She is a great girl. Her name is Som. I am so excited to teach her!! :)
OK... so some shout outs! First, Ashley thanks so much for writing me! I really appriciate the words of encouragement from a fellow (former) sister missionary! I'm so happy that you are getting to know my family. They are awesome! Hope you and Kurtis have a great time at Conference!! Give him a hug for me!
Oh yea, Conference... we don't get to see it until next weekend, so this is just a regular week, but we do get to watch it in English.
Eric Sawyer... thanks so much for asking about me! Sounds like you're doing awesome! The best way to write is dear elder.com. It's .89 cents I think! I get mail once a week, but haven't received many letters since being in Thailand.
Lyndsay, you are amazing. Thanks for all the support, I love you so much! All the letters you wrote me at the MTC are at home, but I can send you the one you sent here.
Everyone else, my wonderful family, Grandpa and Ginny, my awesome aunts, uncles, and cousins, and of course my great friends, I love you and miss you and cannot wait to hear from ALL of you!! Hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Melissa!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Work Progresses!
Family and Friends!
So I have pretty much had the best week of my mission so far. So many things to say and so little time. First of all, I was glad to hear that you all had a great time at Disneyland and missed me a lot! To be honest, I completely forgot you went! Which I am glad, because there is nothing better than being at Disneyland with the whole family!! Awesome that Kurtis and Ashley surprised you Jake, but c'mon guys this is Kurtis we are talking about... I KNEW he would do it. :) I even told Sister Bradfield last week.
Ok, I think I will start today with the miracles. Family be excited because I have written you a detailed letter of this experience, but I am only giving the readers digest version now... OK, so last Tuesday we had a return appointment with this sweet family that we had taught a great "basics" lesson (basics are the Godhead and an invitation to pray) SO we call to confirm and the man says no it's not a good time!! We were distraught. But I followed what the Spirit told me was the best thing to do, and we decided to go on thursday unannounced (they told us the first time that we could come back anytime) with Brother Ooh, who is the awesome member who just had the baby.
So we get there, and the lights are off and the gate is locked. Ah, we were bummed. Right when we were about to leave I felt a strong impression to look inside. The husband, Narong was sleeping on a mat!! Well, if there is one thing I learned from the MTC it is that you need to follow the Spirit and be BOLD! So I woke him up! OK,so we go in the house. Imagine this, we are sitting, two American girls with a clean cut, nice looking Thai man, in front of this tired, groggy man who really wants nothing to do with us at that moment. We needed his wife to be there... he wouldn't go get her, but by miracle, she came on her own!! (she had been sleeping also) OK, so were ready to teach, but they are still WAY tired!
The Lord wanted these people to be taught, and I can promise you there were not enough Thai words in mine and Sister Bradfields limited vocabulary combined to get these people to take us seriously at that moment, but Brother Ooh, OOOOH BROTHER OoH! He shined like a star! Turns out they have the same line of work and could totally related to them! He just layed it down and told them how important the message was. I swear he was speaking the words of angels and I could understand him! So basically we taught the sweetest lesson and their 10 year old son will be the temple president for the Thailand Bangkok temple. :) haha. (we'll see...)
So basically Sister Bradfield and I felt on top of the world after that, like How can life get any better than this?! and you know what, it did!! Remember in my last e mail, I said we had 7 new people? well 4 of those were just referrals that didn't end up going through... (happens a lot because people are too nice to say no) well this week we had 10 new investigators!! 10 new people that want to learn more about Jesus Christ!! Yesterday was pretty awesome too. We taught 4 lessons with 4 different members (which is pretty amazing) After every lesson I just feel so jazzed and excited about the work.
OH and an update on William and Penapah, we visited them on monday and they are coming to church this Sunday!! (we are helping them just this once) but President will be there because he is giving a fireside to the members about preparing for the temple because a lot of them are planning to go next year. I am so excited!!
Well basically, life is amazing and I would not want to be anywhere but right here! I think about home every single day, but it doesn't slow me down, it helps me to want to be a better missionary so that when I come home I can feel like I did my best and look back on these days as being the best. I love you all so much and Can't wait to hear from everyone! Please write me!!
Love,
Melissa
So I have pretty much had the best week of my mission so far. So many things to say and so little time. First of all, I was glad to hear that you all had a great time at Disneyland and missed me a lot! To be honest, I completely forgot you went! Which I am glad, because there is nothing better than being at Disneyland with the whole family!! Awesome that Kurtis and Ashley surprised you Jake, but c'mon guys this is Kurtis we are talking about... I KNEW he would do it. :) I even told Sister Bradfield last week.
Ok, I think I will start today with the miracles. Family be excited because I have written you a detailed letter of this experience, but I am only giving the readers digest version now... OK, so last Tuesday we had a return appointment with this sweet family that we had taught a great "basics" lesson (basics are the Godhead and an invitation to pray) SO we call to confirm and the man says no it's not a good time!! We were distraught. But I followed what the Spirit told me was the best thing to do, and we decided to go on thursday unannounced (they told us the first time that we could come back anytime) with Brother Ooh, who is the awesome member who just had the baby.
So we get there, and the lights are off and the gate is locked. Ah, we were bummed. Right when we were about to leave I felt a strong impression to look inside. The husband, Narong was sleeping on a mat!! Well, if there is one thing I learned from the MTC it is that you need to follow the Spirit and be BOLD! So I woke him up! OK,so we go in the house. Imagine this, we are sitting, two American girls with a clean cut, nice looking Thai man, in front of this tired, groggy man who really wants nothing to do with us at that moment. We needed his wife to be there... he wouldn't go get her, but by miracle, she came on her own!! (she had been sleeping also) OK, so were ready to teach, but they are still WAY tired!
The Lord wanted these people to be taught, and I can promise you there were not enough Thai words in mine and Sister Bradfields limited vocabulary combined to get these people to take us seriously at that moment, but Brother Ooh, OOOOH BROTHER OoH! He shined like a star! Turns out they have the same line of work and could totally related to them! He just layed it down and told them how important the message was. I swear he was speaking the words of angels and I could understand him! So basically we taught the sweetest lesson and their 10 year old son will be the temple president for the Thailand Bangkok temple. :) haha. (we'll see...)
So basically Sister Bradfield and I felt on top of the world after that, like How can life get any better than this?! and you know what, it did!! Remember in my last e mail, I said we had 7 new people? well 4 of those were just referrals that didn't end up going through... (happens a lot because people are too nice to say no) well this week we had 10 new investigators!! 10 new people that want to learn more about Jesus Christ!! Yesterday was pretty awesome too. We taught 4 lessons with 4 different members (which is pretty amazing) After every lesson I just feel so jazzed and excited about the work.
OH and an update on William and Penapah, we visited them on monday and they are coming to church this Sunday!! (we are helping them just this once) but President will be there because he is giving a fireside to the members about preparing for the temple because a lot of them are planning to go next year. I am so excited!!
Well basically, life is amazing and I would not want to be anywhere but right here! I think about home every single day, but it doesn't slow me down, it helps me to want to be a better missionary so that when I come home I can feel like I did my best and look back on these days as being the best. I love you all so much and Can't wait to hear from everyone! Please write me!!
Love,
Melissa
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| From Melissa's Mission |
Sister Bambi and her friend Meow that we are teaching! :) I had just finished a long bike ride and was very hot and sweaty!
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| From Melissa's Mission |
Goong was just baptised... she is so cute!
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| From Melissa's Mission |
Me cooking Thai food!!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
And the World Keeps Turning...
Hello Family and Friends!
How happy I am to be emailing you today! Sometimes I just have to pinch myself to know this is real and that I am actually living in Thailand preaching a glorious message!! But it is! And it is true, SO true!!
OK... a LOT has happened this week so time to recap! First we had 9/9/09 which was a big day for the branch because little Noelle was born (and at 9am!!) I have a picture, but the internet cafe I am in doesn't do pics, so it will come next week! Her parents, Sister Tuu and Brother Ooh (everyone goes by their nicknames here, first names are long and hard) are the most amazing members in the branch! Brother Ooh has been a member for less than two years and has not missed a single week of church. He has read the Book of Mormon twice and is now on his third time, he loves it. He helps us so much with teaching. But on the same day, Sister Wan's mom, who has been sick for a while, died. It has been interesting to see how Thai's do funerals. (I have a picture of that too... I'll explain more next week.)
So then it was 9/10/09 Denisa's Birthday!! I thought about her and how much I miss her!!! Mom, PLEASE let her know I was thinking about her and get me her address so I can write her.
9/11- Emily's Birthday! Happy Birthday Emily!! :) I can't believe it has been 8 years since the attack. Sister Bradfield and I were singing patriotic songs on our bikes, it was fun! Birthday shout-outs to Joe and Kinzie, too! So sorry if I forget anyone!
And finally 9/15! My Parents have been married for 25 years!!! :) You were supposed to go to Hawaii, but I guess Disneyland is second best... :) But I am VERY sad you are going without me... mean.. haha. It's ok, I just won't think about it. Well, you guys are the best parents ever. You did everything right in raising me and the boys. I am so grateful mom for all those times when I was 13 and wanted to sleep instead of going to church (or seminary in high school) and you wouldn't take no for an answer. You are my best friend :) And dad, you're just the best example ever. Keep being awesome, and stay healthy because we need another 25 years out of you both AT LEAST! Love you!!!
OK last matter of business and then I'll share some amazing stories... Larissa, I have not forgotten about your umbrella, I am looking for it, but I don't think I will find the white one with the pink flowers where I am serving now. When I go to Bangkok I will find it and send it! :)
So this week has been just incredible. I have had some new challenges with the newness of the mission wearing off and coming to realize that I am working all day everyday for a long time. But it's still great. I am still very enthusiastic, it just takes a little more work now. I still love it here. I like to quote Alma alot, Yea and I desire to dwell with these people for a time, perhaps even until the day I die... (haha not really... but I do love it here!!) I write down miracles that happen everyday. My favorite this week was yesterday when we were teaching Meew and Creem, two girls who work with a member name Bambi (nickname of course ;) Bambi has a solid testimony and has been a member for awhile. So she has been sharing the gospel with Meew, who is SO cute! (I have a picture of her too... next week) and she LOVES it!! I didn't understand everything she said, but she most definitely feels the Holy Ghost and, I'm sure, will be ready for baptism soon. My first baptism!! We'll see how teaching goes.
So the amazing thing that happened is that Creem, who is Bambi's husbands mother has never been interested in learning, but decided to sit in on the lesson. Meew was bearing amazing testimony of how reading the Book of Mormon and praying brings her real happiness and then when she was done, she asked Creem to say something about what they had learned, and she just started crying!! They were all crying as they explained that Creem's parents died when she was young and how it felt good for her to know that she had a Heavenly Father who truly loved her. The spirit was so strong. Sister Bradfield and I left that lesson on cloud nine! This gospel is so true, it's amazing!!
My time is coming to a close. But I love you all very much! And can't wait to hear from you all!!
And Lyndsay! You're letter is being sent today, I started it last week, but didn't get to finish... I love you and you are amazing!! :)
Life is great, the gospel is true. Missionary work is the most important/fun thing to do!! I love you all!
Love,
Melissa
How happy I am to be emailing you today! Sometimes I just have to pinch myself to know this is real and that I am actually living in Thailand preaching a glorious message!! But it is! And it is true, SO true!!
OK... a LOT has happened this week so time to recap! First we had 9/9/09 which was a big day for the branch because little Noelle was born (and at 9am!!) I have a picture, but the internet cafe I am in doesn't do pics, so it will come next week! Her parents, Sister Tuu and Brother Ooh (everyone goes by their nicknames here, first names are long and hard) are the most amazing members in the branch! Brother Ooh has been a member for less than two years and has not missed a single week of church. He has read the Book of Mormon twice and is now on his third time, he loves it. He helps us so much with teaching. But on the same day, Sister Wan's mom, who has been sick for a while, died. It has been interesting to see how Thai's do funerals. (I have a picture of that too... I'll explain more next week.)
So then it was 9/10/09 Denisa's Birthday!! I thought about her and how much I miss her!!! Mom, PLEASE let her know I was thinking about her and get me her address so I can write her.
9/11- Emily's Birthday! Happy Birthday Emily!! :) I can't believe it has been 8 years since the attack. Sister Bradfield and I were singing patriotic songs on our bikes, it was fun! Birthday shout-outs to Joe and Kinzie, too! So sorry if I forget anyone!
And finally 9/15! My Parents have been married for 25 years!!! :) You were supposed to go to Hawaii, but I guess Disneyland is second best... :) But I am VERY sad you are going without me... mean.. haha. It's ok, I just won't think about it. Well, you guys are the best parents ever. You did everything right in raising me and the boys. I am so grateful mom for all those times when I was 13 and wanted to sleep instead of going to church (or seminary in high school) and you wouldn't take no for an answer. You are my best friend :) And dad, you're just the best example ever. Keep being awesome, and stay healthy because we need another 25 years out of you both AT LEAST! Love you!!!
OK last matter of business and then I'll share some amazing stories... Larissa, I have not forgotten about your umbrella, I am looking for it, but I don't think I will find the white one with the pink flowers where I am serving now. When I go to Bangkok I will find it and send it! :)
So this week has been just incredible. I have had some new challenges with the newness of the mission wearing off and coming to realize that I am working all day everyday for a long time. But it's still great. I am still very enthusiastic, it just takes a little more work now. I still love it here. I like to quote Alma alot, Yea and I desire to dwell with these people for a time, perhaps even until the day I die... (haha not really... but I do love it here!!) I write down miracles that happen everyday. My favorite this week was yesterday when we were teaching Meew and Creem, two girls who work with a member name Bambi (nickname of course ;) Bambi has a solid testimony and has been a member for awhile. So she has been sharing the gospel with Meew, who is SO cute! (I have a picture of her too... next week) and she LOVES it!! I didn't understand everything she said, but she most definitely feels the Holy Ghost and, I'm sure, will be ready for baptism soon. My first baptism!! We'll see how teaching goes.
So the amazing thing that happened is that Creem, who is Bambi's husbands mother has never been interested in learning, but decided to sit in on the lesson. Meew was bearing amazing testimony of how reading the Book of Mormon and praying brings her real happiness and then when she was done, she asked Creem to say something about what they had learned, and she just started crying!! They were all crying as they explained that Creem's parents died when she was young and how it felt good for her to know that she had a Heavenly Father who truly loved her. The spirit was so strong. Sister Bradfield and I left that lesson on cloud nine! This gospel is so true, it's amazing!!
My time is coming to a close. But I love you all very much! And can't wait to hear from you all!!
And Lyndsay! You're letter is being sent today, I started it last week, but didn't get to finish... I love you and you are amazing!! :)
Life is great, the gospel is true. Missionary work is the most important/fun thing to do!! I love you all!
Love,
Melissa
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Ok Mom, what you have been waiting for.... PICTURES!! :) Much much more are coming in the mail.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKE!!! Oh my goodness.... I can not believe you are 16. Wow. I feel like I was just 16, but that was 6 years ago. I'm glad you liked the treats... I'll keep em coming!! :)
Ok, so you are probably wondering why this email is coming a day early... we just had THE MOST AMAZING P-day EVER! We did it a day early because the Zone Leaders came to do switch offs with the Elders and came with us on our grand excursion! Details about that later, now lets talk about the work!
It is going amazingly well. We have gotten 7 new investigators in the past 4 days, which is awesome, because we also lost a few this week. Its hard to let go when you know they have really felt the spirit, especially hard for Sister Bradfield who taught them all, I didn't really know the ones we had to let go. So we will see how all of their first lessons go!
But the real sing thii adsacan (miracle) happened on Sunday night. Ok, from the beginning... So we were talking to one of our strongest members, Sister Boom, who has been a member for like 20 years. We said, how can we help you? And she said, go visit the members. She gave us a list of about 10 people who were inactive and we called them all, ONE picked up (Sister Dim) and invited us to come over Sunday night. Sweet.
So we go to her house (it was actually her sons house) and we get to talking. I understood a good amount of the conversation, but not everything. Basically, her husband was the Branch President for about 6 or 7 years like 10 or 15 yeas ago, the whole family was baptized AND sealed in the temple!! So even thought I didn't really understand why they weren't active anymore, Alma 26:31 came in my mind and the spirit told me I needed to share it and bear my testimony. I did and they loved it. The son, who is about 30, really liked it and really identified with it. We ended up giving him that Book of Mormon and he was excited to start reading it again.
So we left the sons house and went to Sister Dim's. It was amazing. She went into her garage and pulled out two dusty old pictures of Jesus Christ. She wiped them off and just stared at them, the spirit was so strong. No words could be said, but so many things were being felt. So she excused herself again and came back with a huge Thai Bible and 2 Book of Mormons. The first was from 1990. It was a gift given to them after they went to the temple. On the front cover page was a note written in Thai and 2 scriptures, one in 3rd Nephi about keeping covenants and enduring to the end, and 2 Nephi 31:20, enduring to the end. She read them out loud as we looked on in english.... again. SO powerful. THEN she opened the second book of mormon, it was from the Sister Missionary who taught them the gospel, this one was in english. It said something like, "I am giving you this Book of Mormon so you will always remember me and know that this book is true" and had her testimony in it. Her name is Teresa Sorenson. Sister Dim remembered her and loved her very much.
So if this isn't amazing enough, in walks her husband, the old branch president!! When he saw us, a look of guilt washed over his face. He knew exactly who we were... Despite the obvious feelings of guilt, he was very nice to us. He asked how the members were and told us to tell them he missed them. I didn't understand everything he said, but Sister Bradfield filled me in that he was remincing about times when the members would come over and have family home evening. He said they were all like a big family. He said the missionaries were always over, serving them. There was an amazing spirit in the room. Sister Bradfield and I were beaming, I literally could not keep myself from smiling, there was just an immense feeling of joy in the room. Sister Dim asked me to give the closing prayer, I was so scared!! She even asked me to use her real name while praying and ask for a blessing for the family. It was a big deal. The spirit told me exactly what to say and I prayed the most sincere, heartfilled prayer I have ever prayed in Thai to this day. It was absolutely incredible. Sister Bradfield and I left their house literally beaming with the spirit. I felt like if I tried, I could have walked on water at that moment. I never want to forget it!!
So basically... the mission is amazing!
I only have a short time left, so let me explain my pictures...
First is me and Elder Hatch with some of the kids in the Branch, they are so fun!!! I love playing with them and they love me :) Please keep in mind that it is very hot and extremely humid here. Sweaty, no makeup, and hair not done is just how it is over here!
Next is Sister Bradfield and I with 2 members, that is our Chapel. It's small, but it fills up for the most part for Sacrament.
he next one is where I went today... Khao Yay national park it is GEORGOUS!!! I took lots of pics and I will send a CD home. That is a waterfall behind me that we hiked to.
And the rest are of us riding the elephant!!! OH MAN IT WAS AWESOME!!! We literally rode elephants through the jungle!! Wish you all could have been there! :)
So more pictures to come snail mail... and a cd of them all too.
OK so email me tonight and I will be able to read it tomorrow (and possibly send a very short reply) I want to see some pictures of Jakes Birthday celebrations and know how everyone is loving life!
Also, I realized that you can still dear elder me! (only now it costs a dollar to send) so I would LOVE to hear from you all and promise to write back those who write me and send amazing pictures too!! :)
OK. I love you all. Keep supporting the missionaries! This is the best, most rewarding work there is! I love, love, love it!
Love You all SOOO much! Can't wait to hear from you all!
Love Melissa
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKE!!! Oh my goodness.... I can not believe you are 16. Wow. I feel like I was just 16, but that was 6 years ago. I'm glad you liked the treats... I'll keep em coming!! :)
Ok, so you are probably wondering why this email is coming a day early... we just had THE MOST AMAZING P-day EVER! We did it a day early because the Zone Leaders came to do switch offs with the Elders and came with us on our grand excursion! Details about that later, now lets talk about the work!
It is going amazingly well. We have gotten 7 new investigators in the past 4 days, which is awesome, because we also lost a few this week. Its hard to let go when you know they have really felt the spirit, especially hard for Sister Bradfield who taught them all, I didn't really know the ones we had to let go. So we will see how all of their first lessons go!
But the real sing thii adsacan (miracle) happened on Sunday night. Ok, from the beginning... So we were talking to one of our strongest members, Sister Boom, who has been a member for like 20 years. We said, how can we help you? And she said, go visit the members. She gave us a list of about 10 people who were inactive and we called them all, ONE picked up (Sister Dim) and invited us to come over Sunday night. Sweet.
So we go to her house (it was actually her sons house) and we get to talking. I understood a good amount of the conversation, but not everything. Basically, her husband was the Branch President for about 6 or 7 years like 10 or 15 yeas ago, the whole family was baptized AND sealed in the temple!! So even thought I didn't really understand why they weren't active anymore, Alma 26:31 came in my mind and the spirit told me I needed to share it and bear my testimony. I did and they loved it. The son, who is about 30, really liked it and really identified with it. We ended up giving him that Book of Mormon and he was excited to start reading it again.
So we left the sons house and went to Sister Dim's. It was amazing. She went into her garage and pulled out two dusty old pictures of Jesus Christ. She wiped them off and just stared at them, the spirit was so strong. No words could be said, but so many things were being felt. So she excused herself again and came back with a huge Thai Bible and 2 Book of Mormons. The first was from 1990. It was a gift given to them after they went to the temple. On the front cover page was a note written in Thai and 2 scriptures, one in 3rd Nephi about keeping covenants and enduring to the end, and 2 Nephi 31:20, enduring to the end. She read them out loud as we looked on in english.... again. SO powerful. THEN she opened the second book of mormon, it was from the Sister Missionary who taught them the gospel, this one was in english. It said something like, "I am giving you this Book of Mormon so you will always remember me and know that this book is true" and had her testimony in it. Her name is Teresa Sorenson. Sister Dim remembered her and loved her very much.
So if this isn't amazing enough, in walks her husband, the old branch president!! When he saw us, a look of guilt washed over his face. He knew exactly who we were... Despite the obvious feelings of guilt, he was very nice to us. He asked how the members were and told us to tell them he missed them. I didn't understand everything he said, but Sister Bradfield filled me in that he was remincing about times when the members would come over and have family home evening. He said they were all like a big family. He said the missionaries were always over, serving them. There was an amazing spirit in the room. Sister Bradfield and I were beaming, I literally could not keep myself from smiling, there was just an immense feeling of joy in the room. Sister Dim asked me to give the closing prayer, I was so scared!! She even asked me to use her real name while praying and ask for a blessing for the family. It was a big deal. The spirit told me exactly what to say and I prayed the most sincere, heartfilled prayer I have ever prayed in Thai to this day. It was absolutely incredible. Sister Bradfield and I left their house literally beaming with the spirit. I felt like if I tried, I could have walked on water at that moment. I never want to forget it!!
So basically... the mission is amazing!
I only have a short time left, so let me explain my pictures...
First is me and Elder Hatch with some of the kids in the Branch, they are so fun!!! I love playing with them and they love me :) Please keep in mind that it is very hot and extremely humid here. Sweaty, no makeup, and hair not done is just how it is over here!
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| From Melissa's Mission |
Next is Sister Bradfield and I with 2 members, that is our Chapel. It's small, but it fills up for the most part for Sacrament.
 |
| From Melissa's Mission |
he next one is where I went today... Khao Yay national park it is GEORGOUS!!! I took lots of pics and I will send a CD home. That is a waterfall behind me that we hiked to.
And the rest are of us riding the elephant!!! OH MAN IT WAS AWESOME!!! We literally rode elephants through the jungle!! Wish you all could have been there! :)
So more pictures to come snail mail... and a cd of them all too.
 |
| From Melissa's Mission |
 |
| From Melissa's Mission |
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| From Melissa's Mission |
 |
| From Melissa's Mission |
OK so email me tonight and I will be able to read it tomorrow (and possibly send a very short reply) I want to see some pictures of Jakes Birthday celebrations and know how everyone is loving life!
Also, I realized that you can still dear elder me! (only now it costs a dollar to send) so I would LOVE to hear from you all and promise to write back those who write me and send amazing pictures too!! :)
OK. I love you all. Keep supporting the missionaries! This is the best, most rewarding work there is! I love, love, love it!
Love You all SOOO much! Can't wait to hear from you all!
Love Melissa
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
A treat!
Hello all of you sleeping people on the other side of the world!
Another amazing week has passed! Funny how the MTC seems so far away! Well I have an amazing story to share with you and some cool "firsts" I've had in Thailand this week!
So, we have two investigators named William and Penapah. William is from England and is married to Penapah, who is a khonthai. They have an incredible story, and the best part is, it's still in the making! I met them the first week I was here and thought they were pretty awesome. We visited them again yesterday and had such a great spiritual experience.
They first found the elders some months ago. Penapah says she was so depressed. They live on a farm about an hour outside of Korat near Sii Kiaw. The farm failed and for two years they were just always down and depressed, sleeping all day with nothing to do but think about how sad they were. But one day, they were in Korat for some reason and they saw the Elders. Penapah is just beaming as she tells me, they had such a light about them. I knew right away that they were happy and I wanted to be happy like them.
So the Elders made the hour long trek and began teaching them. They LOVE the gospel. They have the New Testament in Thai and English (in the same book) so they can read it together. They both have last May's Ensign and Penapha told me that she reads the talks over and over and every time she finds new things that she loves. She showed it to me and it is all marked up with highlighter and notes.
We taught them about Baptism and the Temple and they ask us great questions. They understand the gospel so well. It is amazing to see the excitement in their eyes as they learn more. Every principal we explain just clicks right away, as if we were only reminding them. I just can't even tell you how much I love these two!
Ok, so here is the catch. They are poor. They don't have a car. William can't ride a bus because of a problem he has with his leg. They could borrow a car on Sunday's but just don't have the money. All they need to do is come to church and then they can get baptized, and they want to so bad. It is amazing to see that even in the situation they are in, they are so happy and upbeat. They love the gospel and they spend a lot of their time studying.
So the most amazing experience I have had on my mission so far... William gave the closing prayer, and it was so humble and heartfelt. He prayed for the Lord to prepare a way for them to get to church so they could get baptized. I just know the Lord will bless these humble, faithful people to get to church. I told Sister Bradfield as we were leaving, how much I wanted to buy them a car!! What an example of faith they are!
Ahh, the mission is great! The church is true. I love Thailand! Ok, here are some of my firsts... The one I am most proud of is my first time using the sqatter... it was a success!! I can't tell you how nervous I was, but I survived! hahaha. (That's a bathroom for those of you who don't know!) OK, so I also saw this way cool grass called shy grass... it has open leaves and when you touch it the leaves close up! haha I thought it was cool...
Umm I ate my first pickled mango... wan't really a fan. But I also had ice cream on a hot dog bun... YES ice cream on a hot dog bun! It was actually good! It has rice in it too, of course... Here, when someone asks you if you have eaten yet they say: kin khaaw ruu yang? which literally means: eaten rice yet? Even if you don't eat rice, that's how you say it.
We also got to visit a lot of hospitals! One because a recent convert was in the hospital, so we went to see her, and another (on the same day) because we were visiting an investigator who was watching her little nephew who has a tumor in his brain. It was so sad to see the little kids all on these tiny little beds all next to each other in a big room. There were probably about 50 or 60 in this big room. It was cute thought, a little boy who had a bandage on his head looked at me and just smiled. I smiled back. Everytime I looked at him he smiled at me as if it were the first time he saw me. So i went and talked to him. He hurt his head playing soccer. He said he had been there a week! Poor thing. He seemed fine though and I think I made his day, because he was so happy to see me!
Well, the work is great. I love it here! I miss you all at home, but would rather have you all just come here with me! :) Thank you for the prayers, they are greatly appriciated! Love you all!
Love,
Melissa
PS Everyone needs to do a youtube search for this guy: Biethstar....he is like the Thai Michael Jackson. I am totally buying this CD before I leave. People love him here!
Another amazing week has passed! Funny how the MTC seems so far away! Well I have an amazing story to share with you and some cool "firsts" I've had in Thailand this week!
So, we have two investigators named William and Penapah. William is from England and is married to Penapah, who is a khonthai. They have an incredible story, and the best part is, it's still in the making! I met them the first week I was here and thought they were pretty awesome. We visited them again yesterday and had such a great spiritual experience.
They first found the elders some months ago. Penapah says she was so depressed. They live on a farm about an hour outside of Korat near Sii Kiaw. The farm failed and for two years they were just always down and depressed, sleeping all day with nothing to do but think about how sad they were. But one day, they were in Korat for some reason and they saw the Elders. Penapah is just beaming as she tells me, they had such a light about them. I knew right away that they were happy and I wanted to be happy like them.
So the Elders made the hour long trek and began teaching them. They LOVE the gospel. They have the New Testament in Thai and English (in the same book) so they can read it together. They both have last May's Ensign and Penapha told me that she reads the talks over and over and every time she finds new things that she loves. She showed it to me and it is all marked up with highlighter and notes.
We taught them about Baptism and the Temple and they ask us great questions. They understand the gospel so well. It is amazing to see the excitement in their eyes as they learn more. Every principal we explain just clicks right away, as if we were only reminding them. I just can't even tell you how much I love these two!
Ok, so here is the catch. They are poor. They don't have a car. William can't ride a bus because of a problem he has with his leg. They could borrow a car on Sunday's but just don't have the money. All they need to do is come to church and then they can get baptized, and they want to so bad. It is amazing to see that even in the situation they are in, they are so happy and upbeat. They love the gospel and they spend a lot of their time studying.
So the most amazing experience I have had on my mission so far... William gave the closing prayer, and it was so humble and heartfelt. He prayed for the Lord to prepare a way for them to get to church so they could get baptized. I just know the Lord will bless these humble, faithful people to get to church. I told Sister Bradfield as we were leaving, how much I wanted to buy them a car!! What an example of faith they are!
Ahh, the mission is great! The church is true. I love Thailand! Ok, here are some of my firsts... The one I am most proud of is my first time using the sqatter... it was a success!! I can't tell you how nervous I was, but I survived! hahaha. (That's a bathroom for those of you who don't know!) OK, so I also saw this way cool grass called shy grass... it has open leaves and when you touch it the leaves close up! haha I thought it was cool...
Umm I ate my first pickled mango... wan't really a fan. But I also had ice cream on a hot dog bun... YES ice cream on a hot dog bun! It was actually good! It has rice in it too, of course... Here, when someone asks you if you have eaten yet they say: kin khaaw ruu yang? which literally means: eaten rice yet? Even if you don't eat rice, that's how you say it.
We also got to visit a lot of hospitals! One because a recent convert was in the hospital, so we went to see her, and another (on the same day) because we were visiting an investigator who was watching her little nephew who has a tumor in his brain. It was so sad to see the little kids all on these tiny little beds all next to each other in a big room. There were probably about 50 or 60 in this big room. It was cute thought, a little boy who had a bandage on his head looked at me and just smiled. I smiled back. Everytime I looked at him he smiled at me as if it were the first time he saw me. So i went and talked to him. He hurt his head playing soccer. He said he had been there a week! Poor thing. He seemed fine though and I think I made his day, because he was so happy to see me!
Well, the work is great. I love it here! I miss you all at home, but would rather have you all just come here with me! :) Thank you for the prayers, they are greatly appriciated! Love you all!
Love,
Melissa
PS Everyone needs to do a youtube search for this guy: Biethstar....he is like the Thai Michael Jackson. I am totally buying this CD before I leave. People love him here!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Korat is hoppin!
Family and Friends!
Oh man... so many miracles happen when you are a missionary! I wish I had the time to just type up my journal for all of you to read (mom would really like that...) but, as a missionary usually is, I am short on time and only have time to share a few of the many miracles I have had since being in Korat. Plus I want to talk about some cultural things and our adventure today!
OK... so first of all I had my first Zone Conference yesterday. It was INCREDIBLE!! I can not even describe how much I love my mission president and his wife. I feel so motivated and uplifted. Missionary work is the most amazing thing in the world. I have so many plans and goals for the little branch in Korat. We all wrote vision statements as a district and ours is awesome. It is cool that President Smith served here 40 years ago when there were 2 branches in all of Thailand... Now there is a stake and well, i dont know how many branches, but a lot. We are working towards another stake soon in the Isan (north east of thailand) and I just know it will happen. One thing I want to do is start up a choir and go out into the community and sing I am a Child of God, I Believe in Chirst and Joseph's First Prayer, with narration in between. It sounds great in my head, we'll see how it works out.
At zone conference we were eating lunch and this women came and sat with a bunch of us, but for whatever reason, wanted to talk to me. My Thai is still not that good, so it was hard at first, but I really started to understand her. She had just gotten a job cleaning the church, but had not been taught by the missionaries yet. I gave her a BoM and taught her about prophets and baptism. She loved it!! She told me she wanted to get baptized! So we set up teaching with the elders who lived in the area. It was a miracle!
Another miracle that was really cool was on friday we got a mysterious call from a member Sister Bradfield didn't even know. She just said that she wanted to meet us at the church at 7 and for it to be just us, no one else. It turns out it was a girl who has been a member for 7 years, but inactive for 2. AND she brought a friend who wanted to learn! We taught the friend (Gigi) and she loved it. She has been reading her BoM and we are teaching her again tonight. The girl, Nan has had a pretty hard past, but I think the Lord is working on her and she will be coming back to church. I am so excited!
Church is amazing! There are about 70 people who come weekly, which is good. The chapel is small so it is pretty full. The members are amazing and they love me :) My favorite is a recent convert named Nok who is awesome. She knows some english, but not too much so we have a lot of fun talking!! :) It is so funny how close we have become and we can't even really talk that well together. We have lots of fun together. We also went out to ice cream with 2 girls May and Kay who are cousins. They are 15 and 18 and we had SO much fun laughing and joking around! It was good because May is still investigating and Kay is very sweet but was feeling left out because we always spend so much time with May teaching. It was good fellow shipping and a lot of fun!
I am just having the time of my life here! Sister Bradfield is amazing. She is the best trainer I could ever ask for. She is so patient and low stress and is always giving me compliments and bringing my confidence up. I cant imagine being here without her! Dad asked for my address for google earth... I think it is Mucamoga street soi 13... I dont know what that will do. We have ac in the room and fans, so that is nice.
Mom, I am gonna need you to put some money in my personal account. As for packages... american treats are fun. We can pretty much get anything here but its a little different. Mostly healthy please, but some treats are nice too!
So KURTIS HAS A GIRLFRIEND?! plag plag... hahah. Thanks for sending pictures. She is really cute and I wish I could meet her. I know anyone Kurtis likes has to be amazing! And since mom and dad both say she is great, I certainly believe it! I was going to make that my subject line for my email, but I decided to save Kurtis the embarrassment and let only the people who really read these to know about it ;)
OK well there is still so much to say, but time is of the essence! I'll have to tell you about my adventure next week. Love you all!!
Choog dii!!!
Melissa
Oh man... so many miracles happen when you are a missionary! I wish I had the time to just type up my journal for all of you to read (mom would really like that...) but, as a missionary usually is, I am short on time and only have time to share a few of the many miracles I have had since being in Korat. Plus I want to talk about some cultural things and our adventure today!
OK... so first of all I had my first Zone Conference yesterday. It was INCREDIBLE!! I can not even describe how much I love my mission president and his wife. I feel so motivated and uplifted. Missionary work is the most amazing thing in the world. I have so many plans and goals for the little branch in Korat. We all wrote vision statements as a district and ours is awesome. It is cool that President Smith served here 40 years ago when there were 2 branches in all of Thailand... Now there is a stake and well, i dont know how many branches, but a lot. We are working towards another stake soon in the Isan (north east of thailand) and I just know it will happen. One thing I want to do is start up a choir and go out into the community and sing I am a Child of God, I Believe in Chirst and Joseph's First Prayer, with narration in between. It sounds great in my head, we'll see how it works out.
At zone conference we were eating lunch and this women came and sat with a bunch of us, but for whatever reason, wanted to talk to me. My Thai is still not that good, so it was hard at first, but I really started to understand her. She had just gotten a job cleaning the church, but had not been taught by the missionaries yet. I gave her a BoM and taught her about prophets and baptism. She loved it!! She told me she wanted to get baptized! So we set up teaching with the elders who lived in the area. It was a miracle!
Another miracle that was really cool was on friday we got a mysterious call from a member Sister Bradfield didn't even know. She just said that she wanted to meet us at the church at 7 and for it to be just us, no one else. It turns out it was a girl who has been a member for 7 years, but inactive for 2. AND she brought a friend who wanted to learn! We taught the friend (Gigi) and she loved it. She has been reading her BoM and we are teaching her again tonight. The girl, Nan has had a pretty hard past, but I think the Lord is working on her and she will be coming back to church. I am so excited!
Church is amazing! There are about 70 people who come weekly, which is good. The chapel is small so it is pretty full. The members are amazing and they love me :) My favorite is a recent convert named Nok who is awesome. She knows some english, but not too much so we have a lot of fun talking!! :) It is so funny how close we have become and we can't even really talk that well together. We have lots of fun together. We also went out to ice cream with 2 girls May and Kay who are cousins. They are 15 and 18 and we had SO much fun laughing and joking around! It was good because May is still investigating and Kay is very sweet but was feeling left out because we always spend so much time with May teaching. It was good fellow shipping and a lot of fun!
I am just having the time of my life here! Sister Bradfield is amazing. She is the best trainer I could ever ask for. She is so patient and low stress and is always giving me compliments and bringing my confidence up. I cant imagine being here without her! Dad asked for my address for google earth... I think it is Mucamoga street soi 13... I dont know what that will do. We have ac in the room and fans, so that is nice.
Mom, I am gonna need you to put some money in my personal account. As for packages... american treats are fun. We can pretty much get anything here but its a little different. Mostly healthy please, but some treats are nice too!
So KURTIS HAS A GIRLFRIEND?! plag plag... hahah. Thanks for sending pictures. She is really cute and I wish I could meet her. I know anyone Kurtis likes has to be amazing! And since mom and dad both say she is great, I certainly believe it! I was going to make that my subject line for my email, but I decided to save Kurtis the embarrassment and let only the people who really read these to know about it ;)
OK well there is still so much to say, but time is of the essence! I'll have to tell you about my adventure next week. Love you all!!
Choog dii!!!
Melissa
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Greetings from Prateed Thay!
Family and Friends!!
Thailand is simply incredible!!! Oh my goodness... so much to say! Let's see if I can get it all out! OK, so first the plane ride. It honestly wasn't that bad! Sure it was long, but the airline we flew on was really nice! (the sleeping pill didn't hurt either :) The strangest thing was leaving SLC at 9 at night, traveling all night and all day then getting to Thailand at 10 in the morning when it felt like we should be going to sleep. So, we met Prataan (president) Smith and Sister Smith and we were all just so excited, despite the lack of sleep. The sisters got to ride with Prataan and the elders went with the APs in the mission vans. So, here I am, half way around the world, driving on the wrong side of the road in this amazing foforeignountry!!! I loved it. Bangkok is HUGE... its a big city with lots of high rise buildings and they just go on forever. It would be like looking at the skyline of Sacramento all over the Sacramento region... that big. Traffic is insane here!! The lines on the roads are more like suggestions, people are always in the shoulders and most people drive motorcycles, so those are everywhere. So we get to Prataans, and oh man is the mission home nice!! You saw the picture... We ate lunch, we to the Mission office, took pictures (which were surprisingly not too bad given that I had just got off of a 20 hour flight and had little sleep) He interviewed all of us, we had an AMAZING Thai dinner and by 7 we were out! Everyone was SOO tired, we looked like zombies at dinner.
SO Thursday was moves meeting and it was so fun because the whole mission came. We sang Called To Serve in Thai and they sang it so fast none of us greenies could keep up!! All the greenies sat on the front row and the new trainers sat behind us, but no one knew who was training who. Sister Lo was there and I was really hoping she would train me, but she is training Sister Akagi, which I think is really good. Sister Lo will be perfect for her. OK so the big moment... my trainer is Sister Bradfield from Sandy UT and we are serving in a town called Korat which is AMAZING!! I absolutely love it here... it is seriously the best place to start out. It is 3 hours northeast of Bangkok, so it is smaller, but it is definitely a bigger town. There is a mall and everything. People still drive crazy here, but its not nearly as crazy as Bangkok.
Alright, so Korat... oh man, I just love it. First of all- THE PEOPLE!! they are so nice and so amazing! The members are so solid and the work is going great right now. We have 7 people who just got baptized in the past few months, 2 just past Sunday, and lots of investigators, some who are really progressing. The members help us out a ton and we teach about 2 lessons with a member every day, about. We teach investigators, less actives and members and everyone is so happy to have us in their home. We are so busy teaching all the time we barely have time to find new people!! We also have gotten 4 referals, just this week!! SO yea... this is the perfect area to greenie in. Thai people are SOO nice. They LOVE giving complements. I swear I have never looked so bad in my life (sweating, no make up, hair not done) and still everyone here says I am beautiful. I will say one thing in Thai and everyone says I am gang (that means skillful) I am actually pretty surprised at how much I understand. Sometimes I am completely lost, but a lot of times I understand. I always help with the teaching. My sentences aren't always right and I know I don't say all the words right, but people understand me!! And Sister Bradfield always clarifys when I am trying to say something I don't know the words for. One hard thing is after I say something, the people usually start talking about how good my Thai is for just being here a few days and dont really focus on what I am saying... So it is nice and makes me feel good that they are praising me, but I'm looking forward to not being so new that they have to say that everytime. I have learned SOO much this past week. I love it.
OK, the culture. WOW I love the Thai way of life. Especially in Korat. Everything is Sabaai (litterally means fine but its more like, laid back, chill, go with the flow kind of fine) I'm not gonna lie, their driving freaked me out at first just because its like there are no traffic laws, everyone drives where ever, cars will stop on the side of the street and it just seemed really chaotic... but now that I've been here a while, I realize it so sabaai... everyone's just trying to get to their destination and if someone stops in front of them, you just go around them! There is no such thing as road rage. The horn is only used to let someone know you are there, never to get angry at someone for being in the way. If someone is stall and you can't get around them... you just wait. People are so patient here. SO we ride our bikes everywhere, even on the freeway!! and across intersections. At first I was way stressed out to go through intersections (there are rarely lights, so you just go when you can) but pretty quick I just realized that I don't need to worry, its just sabaai... you go when you can, and if you're blocking someone, they will just go around you. It's awesome. I love riding my bike. My second day on the bike I did have a skirt get caught in my tire, which was funny. But it's all good, it wasn't very good material anyways. I am going shopping today for more skirts. I bought a shirt last night. It cost $6!! It's so cute!!
OK well... the work is just going amazing. I LOVE sharing the gospel. I never thought it could be so fun. People are very receptive to it here. They believe that all religion is good and teaches people to be good, we are really respected. Well next week I will have pictures and talk more about investigators and the work. Time is running out. I miss you all and I love you all!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sister Larson
Thailand is simply incredible!!! Oh my goodness... so much to say! Let's see if I can get it all out! OK, so first the plane ride. It honestly wasn't that bad! Sure it was long, but the airline we flew on was really nice! (the sleeping pill didn't hurt either :) The strangest thing was leaving SLC at 9 at night, traveling all night and all day then getting to Thailand at 10 in the morning when it felt like we should be going to sleep. So, we met Prataan (president) Smith and Sister Smith and we were all just so excited, despite the lack of sleep. The sisters got to ride with Prataan and the elders went with the APs in the mission vans. So, here I am, half way around the world, driving on the wrong side of the road in this amazing foforeignountry!!! I loved it. Bangkok is HUGE... its a big city with lots of high rise buildings and they just go on forever. It would be like looking at the skyline of Sacramento all over the Sacramento region... that big. Traffic is insane here!! The lines on the roads are more like suggestions, people are always in the shoulders and most people drive motorcycles, so those are everywhere. So we get to Prataans, and oh man is the mission home nice!! You saw the picture... We ate lunch, we to the Mission office, took pictures (which were surprisingly not too bad given that I had just got off of a 20 hour flight and had little sleep) He interviewed all of us, we had an AMAZING Thai dinner and by 7 we were out! Everyone was SOO tired, we looked like zombies at dinner.
SO Thursday was moves meeting and it was so fun because the whole mission came. We sang Called To Serve in Thai and they sang it so fast none of us greenies could keep up!! All the greenies sat on the front row and the new trainers sat behind us, but no one knew who was training who. Sister Lo was there and I was really hoping she would train me, but she is training Sister Akagi, which I think is really good. Sister Lo will be perfect for her. OK so the big moment... my trainer is Sister Bradfield from Sandy UT and we are serving in a town called Korat which is AMAZING!! I absolutely love it here... it is seriously the best place to start out. It is 3 hours northeast of Bangkok, so it is smaller, but it is definitely a bigger town. There is a mall and everything. People still drive crazy here, but its not nearly as crazy as Bangkok.
Alright, so Korat... oh man, I just love it. First of all- THE PEOPLE!! they are so nice and so amazing! The members are so solid and the work is going great right now. We have 7 people who just got baptized in the past few months, 2 just past Sunday, and lots of investigators, some who are really progressing. The members help us out a ton and we teach about 2 lessons with a member every day, about. We teach investigators, less actives and members and everyone is so happy to have us in their home. We are so busy teaching all the time we barely have time to find new people!! We also have gotten 4 referals, just this week!! SO yea... this is the perfect area to greenie in. Thai people are SOO nice. They LOVE giving complements. I swear I have never looked so bad in my life (sweating, no make up, hair not done) and still everyone here says I am beautiful. I will say one thing in Thai and everyone says I am gang (that means skillful) I am actually pretty surprised at how much I understand. Sometimes I am completely lost, but a lot of times I understand. I always help with the teaching. My sentences aren't always right and I know I don't say all the words right, but people understand me!! And Sister Bradfield always clarifys when I am trying to say something I don't know the words for. One hard thing is after I say something, the people usually start talking about how good my Thai is for just being here a few days and dont really focus on what I am saying... So it is nice and makes me feel good that they are praising me, but I'm looking forward to not being so new that they have to say that everytime. I have learned SOO much this past week. I love it.
OK, the culture. WOW I love the Thai way of life. Especially in Korat. Everything is Sabaai (litterally means fine but its more like, laid back, chill, go with the flow kind of fine) I'm not gonna lie, their driving freaked me out at first just because its like there are no traffic laws, everyone drives where ever, cars will stop on the side of the street and it just seemed really chaotic... but now that I've been here a while, I realize it so sabaai... everyone's just trying to get to their destination and if someone stops in front of them, you just go around them! There is no such thing as road rage. The horn is only used to let someone know you are there, never to get angry at someone for being in the way. If someone is stall and you can't get around them... you just wait. People are so patient here. SO we ride our bikes everywhere, even on the freeway!! and across intersections. At first I was way stressed out to go through intersections (there are rarely lights, so you just go when you can) but pretty quick I just realized that I don't need to worry, its just sabaai... you go when you can, and if you're blocking someone, they will just go around you. It's awesome. I love riding my bike. My second day on the bike I did have a skirt get caught in my tire, which was funny. But it's all good, it wasn't very good material anyways. I am going shopping today for more skirts. I bought a shirt last night. It cost $6!! It's so cute!!
OK well... the work is just going amazing. I LOVE sharing the gospel. I never thought it could be so fun. People are very receptive to it here. They believe that all religion is good and teaches people to be good, we are really respected. Well next week I will have pictures and talk more about investigators and the work. Time is running out. I miss you all and I love you all!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sister Larson
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