Hello family!!
This week started out with ice skating! As a fun fact-- Thailand hasn't mastered it yet here in Udon. HAHA. In fact, it was definitely half melted, and if you fell (which I didn't--booyah) you literally fell in a lake. Or in Makayla's terms, a puddle. (Because Makayla's "spill depth perception, as we all know, is WAY off.) Haha. Love you Mak-Daddy.
So a few awesome things this week! Boss (Sis Jin's son) got his mission call! He's joining our mission here in Thailand in a few months! WOOOOO!
Also, a couple of my favorite girls got baptized this week! They were two of the very first people I met in Thailand. Story came with the picture I sent!
We have two daters again! Belle finally understands that our church is important because we're the only ones with the priesthood of God in order to do those saving ordinances like Baptism. With that knowledge, her whole mind is opened! WOO!
Other than that, we finally had a good find! Someone who is willing and and ready to meet with us, learn, and change! We had a second lesson with him (where he was actually EXPECTING US TO COME! WOO!) and he requested that we went to the church. So we did, and we (me and Sis Narayanan as well as Sis Bii and Sis Yuuy, two members) all headed over with him. Turns out it was much easier for him to talk to us there, because he was able to tell us how he was feeling about his relationship with his parents and their expectations for him without them being there to butt in like last time. He's 29 years old now and he feels like he both has to take care of them and gets pushed around like a kid and he isn't able to progress in life, feel confident, etc.
I can honestly say the spirit was SO STRONG in that lesson. Yuuy and Bii were even raving about it afterwords. I finally had a lesson where I literally felt the Holy Ghost testify through me. We had already talked about the priesthood before in the first lesson a little. But this time I felt like he needed to know who he was and that he was more than who he thought. He told me he so wanted to have the priesthood. But furthermore, I saw it in his eyes.
He came to us first thinking the church would help his temporal problems. I'm so glad Yuuy was there, because her experience was exactly the same. She understands now that there is more to conversion than feeling like if we get baptized and do this and this, we're entitled to fortune and happiness and yada yada. That is just not so. You know what the church does for us? It gives us spiritual strength! Everything we get from it is of a spiritual nature! The things that are IMPORTANT. The things you will actually carry with you, like family, love, hope: all the spiritual gifts.
And having that spiritual strength leads to a brightness of hope and a greater attitude-- making your temporal, worldly problems seemingly insignificant.
By the end of our lesson, a man who came searching for a way to better his worldly state, left hungering for something greater. His name is Knot.
And I so can't wait to see him be baptized one day.
Also goes to show, we need the strength of members!!!
Love,
Sister Painter
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