Happy Birthday Elder Todd! 21 and happy in Ubon.

Busy week in Udon!

Working with people of Ubon!

Tolman and Todd in Tuk Tuk

February 18, 2013

Hey Todd family!

Isn't life just peachy? Things can't get much better than they are! 

Thanks for all of your birthday wishes!  I love you and thank you all! 

And for Christian, I'm really excited for you! A mission in Texas will be a great experience. It sounds like there are going to be a lot of  mission calls coming soon.  That's good,  because there is a lot of work to be done. 

Things here in Ubon are really going well. I feel blessed that the Lord sent me here. And things are so great with Elder Tolman! We've had a lot to do and been super busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

So, as far as highlights from this week--they're all connected with the wonderful people that I've been blessed to work with. 

Sister Boom has now come to understand the Sabbath day. She didn't really understand it before. But now she's looking really good to make her baptism on Saturday! We're looking forward to that! It will be a great day. We didn't really get to see her a whole lot this week. It just so happens that her schedule for work interferes with our proselyting hours. 

Ton is also doing really well! He has a humble heart  and good intentions. He loves the activities and the friends that he has made in the Church. We're working with him on getting the fundamentals down. He's really struggling with reading. It's hard because there is a different language form of speech used for reading books.  And the Book of Mormon uses a TON of hi-so, formal, and royal vocabulary. So, a lot of the people out here don't quite get it. But the cool thing is the more he reads, the more he understands. He should be looking good for a March baptism. 

We are also teaching a couple named Pong and Can. They have two daughters that are members. They are way good! We had an absolutely amazing lesson with them this last week. 

Elder Tolman and I have been looking for ways to improve our teaching. One of the things that a member in Asoke mentioned is that people don't understand enough about the Savior.  So we made a goal to teach from the Bible along with the Book of Mormon. It's a bit of a problem. In the MTC there was almost a negative attitude towards the translation of the Thai Bible and a lot of people, as a result, don't use it. But they recently came out with a new translation, translated from Hebrew. It's actually not too bad and seems, in some ways, to be more accurate with definitions that are in the Bible Dictionary.  So we decided we're going to start using it as we teach about the ministry of Christ.  

In our lesson with Pong, we used EVERY book of Scripture:  The Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. We're so blessed that we had so much scripture to explain what we were teaching. 

Do we ever murmur that God gives us so much of His word? Why should we? So often we say, "A Bible, a Bible, we have a Bible, it's called the Book of Mormon, and we need no more Bible." We need to really use the full cannon of scripture to the convincing of the Jew and gentile that Jesus is the Christ. I testify that He is. The first principle of the gospel is faith in HIM. Principles 2, 3 4, 20, 90 cannot come until we have that faith. 

Oh, so back to the lesson.  It was AMAZING. We taught about the Plan of Salvation. The Spirit was so strong and they expressed their desires to be baptized! We were so grateful that the Spirit unfolded these things to their understanding. 

I testify that as we use the scriptures, we will have greater light and understanding come into our lives. It is the word of God, and there is power therein. Never neglect it, or fail to read. I love you all. Have a great week! Go make someone smile!

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