Become Creators of Circumstances

​Went over to Rangsit and played some bowling with new members and investigators and the Rangsit fam.

It's been a way epic week of crazy work. By crazy, just so much things going on all over the place. We had a massive family night at one of our investigators house. He made real spaghetti! None of that weird stuff with ketchup in it. But like real real homemade sauce. SO GOOD.

So funny story. This past Tuesday we had 52 people at English class. Yeah. Like what? How? I don't even know. But even funnier is that our English class attendance rivals that of our Sunday meetings....or so we thought. Cause plot twist. Sunday comes around, and we got 76 people at Sacrament meeting. There has been pretty steady growth ever since the first Sunday of this year where we had all of around 30 members....But yeah. We are here expanding this ward's vision of what is possible. Their goal for this year is to get 80 people at sacrament. And wow. Like bam. its been 3 months in, and they've almost got their goal. Yeeee.

So confused. The guy in the internet cafe is blasting Taylor Swift today. Thai gamers like to listen to Taylor Swift? Back on to the real stuff....

Lunch break. Fun fact about serving with Elder Ellis. You will almost never eat dinner cause we don't have time for it. So it turns out my companion has supplemented this by eating two plates of anything whenever we stop to eat. But then it has gotten to the point where like anytime he sits down to eat he has to eat two plates to feel full. So sometimes he ends up eating like a total of 4-5 plates of rice in one day then like a bowl of noodles, and a countless amount of fried food on sticks that we buy off the street.

Here in BBT, we have become creators of circumstances. These transfers have not been us sitting around praying for the work to be easy, but rather it has been us going out and doing. Just doing. Enduring. Serving with faith, hope, and charity. And now it's all coming together. The pieces are starting to fall in place. Under the direction of our district leader we have made a BBT Title of Liberty. Something to get us stoked each day that we wake up and remember why we work each day. It's something around the lines of "We the missionaries of BBT strive to become creators of circumstances be viewing all those around us having the potential to be baptized. We are soldiers of Christ working with one repentant soul at a time. Believe it. Pray about it. Fight for it."

Pretty inspiring stuff to wake up and see a two meter tall poster of Captain Moroni with these words every morning. It's been a fun two transfers of creating the circumstances that lead to baptism. This upcoming week will be a big one for us here in BBT. It is looking like 3 of our investigators will probably be getting baptized this Sunday. The interview process is rolling along and now the only problem we have is trying to find a pair of pants and a shirt that is big enough for one of the guy investigators....It's a good problem to have.

Alma 44:3-4

"3- But now, ye behold that the Lord is with us; and ye behold that he has delivered you into our hands. And now I would that ye should understand that this is done unto us because of our religion and our faith in Christ. And now ye see that ye cannot destroy this our faith. 4- Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith."

We will never fail as long as we hold fast to the faith that we have right now. 

This week I had read a talk from President Ezra Taft Benson entitled "Do Not Despair." It goes through 12 "tools" that we can use to overcome feelings of doubt and sadness. Many of which I have used in the past. So going through I'm thinking, meh. Nothing new. But then I get to point #11. It is simply entitled "Endurance." The explanation on this point is that at times there is simply now way to remedy the sadness other than just having some endurance. So that's what the answer was. To just endure. And oh how happy am I that I have been enduring. It gives some advice on how to endure, my personal favorite was to recount the victories and be STOKED (well he didn't use the word stoked, but yeah....) for the future. So that's it. Endure and stay stoked. I like it.

Last quick story: I had baptized the guy in the white on the right at the end of last transfer, and here he is at the last Sunday of this transfer baptizing one of the other Elder's investigators. Yeah. Even more crazy is that these two have the same exact birthday, just 20 years apart. ​

And that's a wrap for the week. Creating the circumstances for teaching repentance and baptizing converts.

Endure with an eternal stoke.

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.