Typings from Thailand: The Hard Things Help Us Grow and Learn

Hey everyone!

It's super weird having P-day so quickly becuse of the random one we had this last thursday, but from now on they'll be back to normal. Still a lot happened though.

Right now, as I write this, my district and I are all in Chiang Rai, 3 hours away from Chiang Mai. Chiang Rai is kinda ghetto, but its chill because we get to ride ostritchs here today. And maybe see a white wat.

Friday there was an activity at the church for new years. It was super fun and crazy. The missionaries were in charge of leading the games, so we played games like Red Rover, Pop the Balloon tied to your foot, and whatnot. It was so fun because EVERYONE played and I had all these older ladies trying to attack the balloon on my food. I owned the people in Red Rover.

Sister Ellis and I had invited our new investigator วม (May) who we had met while teaching English class tuesday. She's super cool and is just the nicest ever. She went around the party, introducing herself to everyone...and even cleaned up after we ate. I actually felt super bad about that one because we went to go and find her to teach her, and there she was in the kitchen washing all the dishes.

Before we taught her the ward members had come up with a show... now you have to know this, Thai people love shows..and seem to try and have one at every opportunity. This show involved someone dressed as an angel, superman, the devil, etc. And basically the best way I can describe it was that it was a big interpretive dance to rock music. I thought it was different, to say the least, but Mae loved it! She even cried a bit. We had a great lesson with her, and she wants to get baptized this week so badly. The only problem is she lives with her boyfriend and 3 year old, but they aren't married because her bf is from Burma, and they aren't allowed to get married here or something like that. My Thai isn't quite skilled enough to figure out all the details. She talked to the branch president though, and is going to try and convice her boyfriend to make a trip back to Burma so they can get married. Hopefully it all works out.

On Saturday none of our investigators showed up for their appointments, so we did a lot of waiting around at the church. We were having a recent convert help us teach the lesson, and when the investigator didn't show up, we ended up teaching her. She is really worried at the moment about what she should do when she finishes university, or if she should go on a mission. We talked to her a bit, and then somehow ended up going to the primary room, and playing her primary songs on the piano and singing along. Because she is an RC (recent convert) she had never even heard the songs, and she LOVED them. Sister Ellis was playing the piano, and Nim and I were singing. She didn't know any of the tunes though, so I sang them all...by myself. And anyone that knows me, knows that singing is not one of my strong suits...especially in Thai...in a launguage that is very hard to read. However, up until that day I didn't realize how powerful those primary songs are, as she was really touched...and thanked me so much for singing them to her. I felt so grateful to have been able to hear those songs my whole life, and to always be able to reflect on the simple truths.

One song she loved is the one that Sawyer sang this summer in Waterton..."My Heavenly Father Loves Me." Another one that she wanted us to play over and over again was, "I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands...I know the lord provides a way, he wants me to obey." I just want to share my testimony about those simple things. Our Heavenly Father truly does love us and that's where it starts. First and foremost with love. Heavenly Father also has a plan for us, even if we can't see it all from the onset..the bottom of the high mountain we all have to climb in our lives. However, it is only through seeking His will for us, that he is able to provide a way for us to get to the top...and he does everytime. My friend Destiny recently sent me a quote in a letter that I think is by president Eyring it says, "You can tell you are on the right path when it is almost certainly uphill." Heavenly Father has a vision of who he wants us to be, and sometimes we can only become that by doing hard things. That's how we grow and learn.

Anyways, that's about all for this week, one other funny/crazy thing that happened was we were doing some planning on Friday... and all of a sudden we hear this super loud music and flashing lights outside our house. We run outside to see what it was, and it was this "Party Truck" with a bunch of people dancing in front of it. It's apparently like a moving party, that drives up super slowly, and people just have a dance party in front of it. I took a picture it was so funny. Never a dull moment in Thailand.