From: bryan.todd@myldsmail.net
Hello Todd Family!
How are you doing? This last week was a busy one! It was great! One of the biggest events was that we moved houses. I always heard that it was a pain to close down an old missionary house. It is. There was SO much junk that missionaries had left there. But the move went well.
That's not super important though. Here's what is. We've really been seeing the Lord's hand this last week. I'm as humbled as ever to be reminded that this is His work.
When President Senior first got to Thailand, there was an new emphasis placed on working with the less-active members and bringing them back to church. President told us that it was the Lord's will that we work through them, and that as we did so, we would be blessed. Once the mission made the change, we set a record for baptisms in one month. As we continued we still had high numbers of baptisms. But as of late, we've slowed down on both number of baptisms and reactivation work.
I believe that there is an interesting correlation between the two. We can't look at them as two unrelated things. When it comes down to it, it is the same redemptive work of God. So we're placing an emphasis on it. We went into MLS and we got a list of the whole branch--some 460 members. We have only 102 on average who are active. SO, where are the rest? We started working on locating them. And as we did the Lord brought us investigators. It's kind of like how Elder Holland said last conference in paraphrasing the Savior, "if I want fish, I can get fish.." Well if the Lord wants investigators, He can get investigators. So here's the rundown on the investigators.
Lek and Tiger. They're doing well. Not a whole lot new with them. They have dates for the 19th. A mother and a son.
Nina. She walked into church yesterday. She had wanted to go to church for years but her parents would not let her. She went to study abroad in Germany and went into a Catholic church. Then, upon coming back to Thailand, she came to church with us yesterday! She want's to follow the Savior. She should be getting baptized on the 26 of this month! We'll have to work more with her, but I'm feeling really optimistic! She already had a Bible and is reading it. Now she has a Book of Mormon too!
Then Brother Tui, another walk-in from last week. He's really beginning to progress. He still doesn't understand a whole lot, but he's reading and praying. He's starting the first steps. We're teaching him about the Savior more in depth tonight. We're going to watch a movie with him at an FHE. That will be great for him!
We had a member bring his two friends, another walk in that's also starting to learn.
It's really good here. I'm learning a lot about the importance of consecration. Right now we're working as a zone on a 40 day fast. We made a list of anything that pokes at our spiritual side. Anything that doesn't let the Spirit work with us and we're fasting from it for the next 40 days. It's based off of a talk by Gene R. Cook.
Sorry today is so short! I'm short on time I love you all!
-- ้ด้วยความรัก
เอ็ลเดอร์ทอดด์
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