Week 5

Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:23:18 +0700
Subject: Week 5

Hey family! How is everyone?

I'm so happy to hear about the G's! That's going to be such an awesome experience for them!

This week was a pretty good week here in Roi Et. I really am loving it here. It's such a wonderful place and I wish you all could come see it! We had transfers this week. I stayed with Elder Ackerman here. That's how the new training program works--we stay together 12 weeks. But we did get a new sister here. Sister Roper. She was in the younger Thai district in the MTC. It's wonderful to see someone else here that I knew before I came in country!

We have been doing a good amount of teaching and inviting. Inviting still isn't the best way to do this work, but we actually found this man and his daughter and we have taught them twice. They seem pretty good, but we will see. He is probably in his 40's and I'm not sure what he does. His daughter is 10 and speaks really good English! We are trying to get her to our English class that we teach every Tuesday night. It's our weekly service project that President Smith has outlined for us. We also have a new investigator from English class. Her name in Pohn. She seems really good. We have only taught her once though. She wouldn't answer her phone yesterday when we were trying to set up an appointment. It would be great if we could get her husband to come learn with her, but he has a really unsure work schedule. That's one thing that has really surprised me about Thailand; there is no weekend unless you're a teacher or work for the government. Everyone else is just open every day of the week pretty much. It can make it difficult for getting investigators to church.

One thing that really hit me this week is the importance of attitude. I have always known that your attitude is a very important part of who you are. I was just riding my bike down the street and I thought to my self, if I have a bad attitude, I'm not going to be an effective missionary. This gospel is a gospel of joy. If i am not happy, how am I supposed to share the unique, joyous message of the restoration with someone?

I had an interesting experience this week. We were out inviting, and we got into this one guys house. We asked if we could start with a prayer and then he kind of got mad at us. He asked us, "Why are you doing this?" We told him we were missionaries because we know the gospel is true. He said everyone says that what they have is true. Then he asked us what the real reason we were on missions was. He couldn't accept the fact that it is because we love this gospel and know that it is true.

I got an interesting letter from one of my friends. In it, she said that she has seen the hand of the Lord too many times for faith shakers to come into her life and break her faith. That really made me think. I looked back on things, and I realize that the Lord has blessed me so greatly! He has been so merciful to me. There is no way that I could deny that this gospel is true. With that knowledge, we can look at every trial as a blessing. I believe that if we look at life with a true gospel perspective, looking at life the way our Redeemer does, that we should always find reason to rejoice. We should take on every trial, and instead of thinking, "this is hard," we should be thinking, "what does my Loving Heavenly Father want me to learn from this?" "How is He helping me grow into the son or daughter that He needs me to be?" And then, after that experience, we must not forget to thank the Lord and to acknowledge that He has helped us grow. I believe that when we thank Him for trials that grow us, He will see that we recognize His hand, and then will give us more experiences we can grow from.

We had a lesson with our progressing investigator, Bubphaa yesterday. She has been progressing well, giving up coffee. But she won't accept a baptismal date. She has great faith, and she seems like she is truly penitent, but we just can't figure out her concern. Also, we have two more investigators with a baptismal date. Atid, and his daughter June. His wife is a member already. The hard thing with them is they live 60 Kilos outside the city, so we only teach them on Sundays. But he is making progress in quitting smoking. In three weeks hes gone from like 8 packs a day to two! Its so amazing to see the faith and commitment of these people here. I really love them, and I think its the people here that makes me love Roi Et so much!

Here are some scriptures that I came across in study this week that I really liked.
First of all D&C 107:99-100. I love these two scriptures SO much. They really are helping me to have the right outlook.
Mosiah 28:3
D&C 6:36
Hebrews 5:4
And a quote
"Our leisure, even our play is a matter of serious concern. That is because there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counter claimed by Satan."
C.S. Lewis.
Joshuah 24:15. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.

I love you all, and I hope that you will serve God. keep up the good work! You're the best family, you're in my prayers!
Love,
Elder Todd