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