BKK

We got our whole zone to fly down to Bangkok together for a meeting to see Elder Cook. 22 missionaries on a plane. Good times. Even funnier is that for our trip back we bought 11 of the 21 seats on the bus!

Parties.

Went to go teach some members and an investigator, so we park our bikes on the side of the pathway. 25 minutes later as we are getting ready to leave, this thing was on my seat. I'm not too sure what it is exactly. Just a bit random to be chilling on my bike seat.

There's been a lot of stuff happening this week but honestly it just feels like everything has blended together cause I haven't emailed in like 2 weeks. Also barely took any photos so I'm not too sure what happened. Yeah we have flown back and forth a ton these past two weeks. Met a bunch of people. Taught one of the older brothers of a member, he's 20 years old. He always talks about how strong he used to be, so every time we go and teach him we start our lesson off with 25 pushups and then end the lesson with another 25. Just a little something to get the blood flowing.

It's been super rainy. Flooding and muddy. Basically means that all the shirts I have left needed to get washed as soon as I get home for the day. In this rush, I forgot to take a black pen out from my pocket and ran a load in the laundry. Lo and behold I check the washing machine 30 minutes later and the black pen exploded over two shirts (coincidentally neither of those shirts had any mud/dirt marks). The countdown for shirts is now at three, two short sleeves and one long sleeve shirt. Which is also ironic cause someone just reminded me that 3 weeks from today I'll be in Bangkok again having my last day as a missionary. HAHAHHA wow.

Yeah. I don't feel old. But then again....who knows.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1976/10/to-die-well?lang=eng

"And it has been said that the most important event in life is death. We live to die and then we die to live. Death is a kind of graduation day for life. It is our only means of entrance to our eternal lives. And it seems to me to be a very helpful procedure to spend a little time preliving our death. That is, what kind of person would you like to be when the last hour of your life arrives?

The last hour is the key hour. That is the hour that judges all of the other hours. No one can tell whether or not his life has been successful until his last hour. As Sophocles said, “We must wait till evening to know how pleasant the day has been.”"

"To Die Well" -Sterling W. Sill

Went on another companion exchange with an elder that had shared this talk with me. Yes, it is a bit old, but wow. It really summarizes how to just live and ease transitions of our life. Many times people think about their mission and stress out about their "Death Date" aka the day in which they stop being missionaries. In these final weeks this is the last hour of my two years. A great time of reflection and a time to keep on working hard until the last minute. So yes, my mission may be coming to a close soon, but that is no reason to let things go out of control. Things will still be the same, the work effort will never leave me, and the love and attributes I have developed will remain. I want to get down to those last few moments being satisfied with the things that I have done and the person I have become. 

Companion Exchanges with Elder Morris Ft. 10 baht Coke from our investigators

Also...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Pretty sure you're somewhere in the Pacific ocean atm, but I'll see you in a few weeks so it'll be chill.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Happy Mother's Day! and I killed a snake

It's been a busy week.

Killed a snake.  It was way small but the members kept on yelling and saying
that it was poisonous. They said if it wasn't it would run away, but because it
wasn't slithering away and it was getting ready to strike it must be poisonous.
Pretty interesting experience. That day a member had told us "Elders, free your
schedule for two hours, we are going to go find people." So we hopped into her
little three wheeled tuk tuk and we went all around the countryside. Super fun!

Weekday baptisms.

Sister Ming is Chinese! She's come a long way. From knowing nothing to
having faith grown step by step. It's been amazing to see her change and
quit drinking tea. There have been many things happening in her life that
has truly prepared her for the gospel. Her mother always supported her
going to church because the mother loves Christianity. Then her husband
also supports her because he loves to read and said that the Book of Mormon
is an amazing book full of wonderful truths. And then the big speed bump that

had held her back was tea. She always noticed one of her work associates only
drank water and never drank tea. One day she decided to ask him why he doesn't
drink tea and it turns out that he's a member from Bangkok! So many signs
just supporting her to be baptized.

B.Choke was invited by a missionary outside of a 7-11 convenience store. He was
always interested in changing religions, just didn't know what we had to do. Luckily
we found him, taught him, and helped him be baptized. He humbly accepted all
the things he needed to change and then did so. He changed. He repented. pretty
awesome. The members also found this dog walking around and we had to get it
off the church property.....

That's the week wrapped up. I know this work is real. I've got a monthish left to go
and dedicate myself. 

Time is running out!

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Trackers.

"When you confirm to go to church but you don't show up. We go and find you."

Another one of those weird weeks because I had just emailed on Wednesday. So really there was only 4 days since the last time that I had emailed.

Elder Rawlinson is out, coming in to replace him is this awesome guy. Elder Dugquem is way young...ish. Don't have pics this week because I forgot to charge the camera. So these will have to do.

On Thursday had a companion exchange and I gotta to interview an investigator that I had met while I was in Samut Prakan over a year ago. He's come a long way, and although missionaries haven't always kept in contact with him, he never gave up reading or praying. There is a plan and the door will be opened for these people.

"Give me a sec. Gotta ponder on how to approach this."

Not much to write this week. Pretty amazing opportunity to be serving with Elder Dugquem. He's a convert, similar story to my first companion Elder Sayavong. I love serving with converts, their testimony is so strong and it really gets to our investigators.

We've got amazing potential coming up for Udon. But also because we both are a little OCD when it comes to planning ahead, we have planned every switchoff and meeting/conference that we have to plan. Turns out our days in our area our limited. That doesn't mean that the miracles will stop. Miracles will never stop, because our faith will never be out. 

This past Saturday, had a sports night activity. We've been working with some youth to get the basketball court pumping on Saturday night. We finish our meetings and then go outside STOKED to play sports and just see this girl and a guy she brought...So we were like, chill. Go and start playing with them and the guy is looking a bit rough but he's way nice and pretty good at basketball. We joke around and play some, then invite him to church and he says "Yeah probably." Sunday, he shows up to church with his sister. Turns out this was the former investigator that Elder Rawlinson and me have been tracking down. He's way chill and is just loving church. We joke around and then his sister asks him "When are you gonna get baptized?" He laughs, then I ask him straight up "Do you want to get baptized soon?" His answer was money. He said, "Elders, a year ago my mom forced me to come to church every week. Today I came on my own without anyone telling me to get ready. I wouldn't be coming to church if I didn't want to change my life and get baptized."

So yeah. We can help him out.

"I call them on the phone and then he listens to see if he can hear the phone ringing. We could."

“It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. … If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers”-Gordon B. Hinckley

The stoke has never stopped. So many blessings, from working in some of the most amazing areas to being with the best companions in the world. I know everything will work out. Whatever happens. Wherever you are. Whenever it goes down. It will work out.

Prayer and Patience.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Winding down.

Some members asked if we were free on Monday to help them. So we said yeah. They told us they just needed help planting bananas. We assumed it literally meant just planting some little plants, in the shade. Nothing too hot....Well that wasn't what happened.

The sister missionaries that came planted some bananas. We dug around 60 holes around 2 x 1 ft and around 2 ft deep. We worked for two hours in the sun and our hands were pretty wrecked. So as I type this email I try not to screech in pain because of all the blisters, both popped and unpopped that cover my hands. But it was totally worth the experience. I'll get some of the pics from Elder Rawlinson up later.​

​Yeah. After two hours in the sun we had to rush back from the middle of nowhere 30kms outside of the city back into the city to keep on teaching.

​She's actually a referral from another investigator. The other guy pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth but she stuck around. Sis Mimi is pretty chill. She's also Vietnamese. But speaks Thai! The guy baptizing her has been a member for only like 5 months, and literally the day after he baptized Sis Mimi he had to go into army basic training. So accepting and willing to act upon all the commandments that we teach her. What's up. Miracles are still happening everywhere.

Studying in the bible, finally finished the New Testament. Found some way amazing things from Thessalonians. As I look and understand the New Testament more, many of these books are the apostles letters back to those people that they love the most. Their converts and the people that they helped learn about the gospel.

1 Thessalonians 2:8, 17, 20

"So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us...But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire...For ye are our glory and joy."

Looking back on my mission. I've seen miracles every day, seeing these people literally change their lives and come unto Christ. It has been an amazing blessing and I wouldn't trade in my time here for anything. Time is running out, I've got a few more weeks left. It's gonna be so much fun and so much hard work. I literally do the things I do and work with all my heart, might, mind, and strength because of all the lives that we have helped change. I love these people, this is literally my joy seeing these people who have converted unto the love of God.

Dude. 6 weeks.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Loei and Baptism

So yeah. We go out and sight see pretty hard in Thailand. The sights are just so good. But honestly, the work is like 10x cooler and better.

Went through a giant rock maze.

But other than that, this week was a blur. Seriously. Like it flew by. We had two companion exchanges this week so I got the awesome opportunity to work with two super young missionaries. The first was Elder Christensen and we made a goal to go out and have a ton of fun. So we ate street food! Wherever we were, if I saw something interesting I stopped, asked for a sample of the weird fried thing and then had him eat it. The reactions were priceless, we ate weird fried stuff from the street, got some different flavored flower juices, and just ate some things that I had no idea what they were. By the end of the day we had seen amazing breakthroughs with investigators, some of them confirming to a solid baptismal date, and then right as we finished up our day Elder Christensen says "I don't feel so good, I think I'm sick."

He proceeded to spend the last 1.5 hours of the day in the bathroom.

It seems all the awesome food finally caught up to him. He also quoted that the best and worst part of the day was all the food that we had eaten hahahhaha.

Then the second comp exchange was with a missionary only on his 2nd transfer. His name is Elder Denny. He's so adorable. He was leading me around in his area. I literally have no idea where to go and where to find food, so he just took the lead in teaching. Well the lead in everything. It was amazing! He's got a strong desire to serve and he really knows what he's doing. Idk how missionaries are so on it these days, I'm pretty sure I was clueless on my second transfer.... It was your basic day of going out, and having a ton of fun. And miracles.

Just yesterday we had a baptism for this grandma. She's been an investigator for around 7 months now. At first she was just curious why her friend (another grandma that's almost 80 years old) always had these young white guys coming over and helping her with stuff. That curiosity had led her to meeting with the missionaries. At first she didn't want anything to do with them and she was just sorta anti. So the missionaries stopped teaching her. Then my comp and his comp from last transfer went to try and teach her. And then stopped teaching her also. But then the she started coming to church, showing some interest, and we decided to seize the opportunity. We probably saw her almost every day for the past month. She has read all of the Book of Mormon, literally every page from cover to cover including the index, and is in the Bible now. She's just so old that every time we ask her "How's your day, anything cool to do?" all she says is "I'm too old to do anything, all I do is read scriptures!" 

Literally such a breakthrough, we brought different people to help us teach her and all of these people really helped Grandma Lamduan come to this point to get baptized. The stone cut out of the mountain with no hands is rolling and coming forth to fill the earth!

Romans 8:24-25

"For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

Read this in studies and just felt so amazed. To hope and wait for these things, these promised blessings in patience. But this wasn't the end, also found this amazing quote about faith from Elder Wirthlin.

"Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father. Without all three—first, absolute confidence; second, action; and third, absolute conformity—without these three all we have is a counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith."

There is no holding back in these things that we do. It is absolute confidence, action, and absolute conformity. There is no compromising. It just is. You just do. You just go. If you're gonna complain about your conditions and just complain that's it. You did nothing, just complain. Always the smarter thing is to take some time, plan, then act. Act in full confidence with absolute conformity. This quote has summed up the things that I've seen on my mission. Anything less than the absolute is weak. So yes, our faith is weak, and that leaves a ton of room for improvement, and it's all about the improvement!

So work hard, give it all up, cause this is it.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

It's Songkran Time

Went to Bangkok.

​Got into Bangkok at like midnight, then taxied over to Rangsit and slept there for like 6 hours. Left to get into Asoke for a meeting and then switchoffs with the Assistants.

Sometimes you just gotta chill nice and easy.

Heard a bunch of buzzing noise as we biked around so then we found this dead rat. Cause of death unknown.

Went district inviting at this park. Apparently these ducks are famous in Thailand?

Yesterday.

We still did work. Yesterday we had a ton of appointments set up with members. We leave the house at 8:30 am and the streets of Udon are just quiet. Like no one. So we go out and start teaching, get into a few different houses and teach members, less actives, recent converts, investigators. It was pretty chill until we go and stop to eat lunch. Grab lunch and then we just hear a bunch of loud party music and see people shooting water everywhere from the back of this truck. And me and Elder Rawlinson just look at each other like "No. We will not get wet." But we pass them and then start heading out to see one of the grandmas that we teach. On the way down we politely declined getting wet by all the people.

Get down to teach the lady. Straight MIRACLE. She shares how if we didn't bring a certain member to help us teach her, she probably wouldn't be getting baptized for a long time. But last time we met her we had given her two options, to be baptized on the 16th or the 23rd. She prayed and feels like the 23rd is the day. So that's the day.

On the way back up though. Well someone threw a little water at us. At that point we decided. Well. If we need to bike back up the street, might as well have a good attitude about it. So we biked and tried to avoid them. but when theres a child throwing a bucket of water every 15 meters and theres cars zipping past on the right side of you...well yeah. You just gotta accept it all.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/dont-look-around-look-up?lang=eng

"Look up to Jesus Christ—the wise advice of my father—strengthens my faith whenever I face challenges in life. He taught me how to apply the teachings of Christ, as in these words: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”"

General conference this weekend was way legit. So much good stuff! Just looking up! Especially here in Thailand. It's poured rain the past few days and now the water festival. Everything is wet. But in these times, we know that teachings of Christ are still true and that the work goes on. Just keep on working happy and everything will be alright. Miracles are real.

It's play time.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Finders

We've spent the most of our time back in the middle of nowhere. Feels good to be back in the country side.

The area, Udonthani, is pretty big. It's interesting because it's very evenly spread out across the whole city area. There really isn't like one area that's just super heavily concentrated with a ton of people. So we have to get creative and go out finding in different areas during the day and then just sorta guess and feel where we need to go at night to go and talk to more people.

​We've been finding. Just like hours and hours of being out in the sun talking to people and staying stoked. With the occasional picture break for 5 minutes. Gotta keep work at a steady pace and take breaks when necessary.

Story of our lives this week. We've been biking around and like for some reason could not find a place to eat food so we went to 7-11 and bought some stuff to microwave. S/O to my comp for being so Chinese that he eats spaghetti with chopsticks.

And by eating I mean Elder Rawlinson bought some food, I bought some cookies and a liter of soda. That's been my dinner almost every other night.

The church here in Udorn is massive, I need to get a side view pic of it also. It's got a volleyball court, futsal, and then a basketball hoop.

Went out 35 kms to go share about why we wanted to be a missionary and what blessings we have received. The members gave us a ride out, but because they needed to stay their for the youth activity we had to try and find a way back into the city. So we chilled under this little hut and tried our best to wave down any thing that looked like public transportation.

Eventually flagged down this oversized truck with benches. Bad choice. LITERALLY THE SLOWEST POSSIBLE THING TO STOP. It took forever. Buses and like ​mini vans were zooming past us. But we made it back to the city so that's what counts.

Oh yeah, so back in the country side people like to speak Thai....a little different, with a bit of an accent. I've been in Bangkok so long that coming out here, I am shocked when people start breaking out into this accent cause in Bangkok it was pretty inapporpriate and most people got annoyed. But then I stop, remembered where I was, then let it go. I feel like a new missionary again cause sometimes they'll just go off in Lao and then I have no idea what to say. So throwback to my days of being that awkward friend at a party. I'm at it again ahahahahah.

I think they were going for like a golden gate bridge thing? but the bridge was blue.

So this Sunday we had a bunch of people confirmed to like come to church. But then it's 8:45 am church starts in 15, and none of our investigators showed up. They all called and said that they had something else or that they were sick.

So we prayed. And just used a little faith, asking that some door somewhere would be opened for someone to come to church that day. And then we went up and sat through sacrament meeting. We get out of sacrament meeting not sure what to think, but then we see a guy. We're not sure who he was but he was talking with a bunch of members. (Turns out the members didn't know him either, but they just do a really boss job at fellowshipping people and making them feel like they've been friends forever)

The prayer was answered. A less active member brought her husband who is not a member. Bam. 1st person.

Then we start the 2nd hour of church. A lady walks in and sits down in the class. #2. Then 15 minutes later another lady walks in and sits down. #3.

We swoop in, get their numbers, set up a time to meet them, and just like that what we thought was a mediocre Sunday got pretty good. Taught some of our other investigators and they're down to get baptized soon. Then Sunday night came. As a district we are working to achieve a goal called "Balanced." At night we weren't that close. But then when we saw how close we were to achieving the standard, me and Elder Rawlinson decided that we will try and get back out into the area as fast as we could to work and try to hit the standard.

So we did. Finished studies and planning then got out with 2 hours left in the night. We tried our hardest to get everyone else in the district stoked but they had just decided it was Sunday night and chill time. Which is alright. But yeah. A missionaries day doesn't really end until 9 p.m. and even then, the day isn't done.

But it was ok. So me and Elder Rawlinson go out and just start inviting and finding and teaching people in this park and getting return appointments and finding people that are pretty determined to get baptized this month.

It was epic. Met so many cool people, and also found this bridge.

Acts 5:29

"Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men."

Back story, the apostles are going about doing their apostolic things then some people come and command them to stop. These people use all sorts of worldly methods to stop and gain control over these people. But this was their response. To obey God rather than men. 

Obedience to God's commandments will bring blessings and miracles. I know that's true. People are so confused as to why and how we as missionaries can go out teaching and talking to people in this Buddhist country. But we do it for love, because we love God we want to obey His commandments. Love. Obedience. Miracles.

Chilling.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.