Adventures in Thailand!

Visit to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

This week has been crazy and exhausting.  I love being a missionary!  I have been reminded several times this week of how lucky I am to be able to devote all my time and service to the Lord and His children.  I am really starting to learn the value and importance of losing yourself in the service of the Lord, and how we really find ourselves in the process.  I love being able to wake up in the morning and have 3 hours of study and 1 hour of language study, all devoted to the Lord and the progression of the work.  I love that in studying for people that we teach instead of for myself, I learn so much more.  The scriptures hold so much joy and knowledge and comfort, I can't imagine going a day without drinking from the waters of life!  I came to a realization just this morning.  The scriptures, as we know, are the most important tool we have for teaching.  No man can dispute with the words of prophets.  And I realized this morning that even the Book of Mormon follows the process of the doctrine of Christ:  faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.  So cool!  I love the scriptures.  I could spend all my time reading them.  When my hour of personal study is up, I wonder where it went and wish I could have another!  They have such power and I think of how blessed I am to be able to read them and teach from them daily.

The Elders in my District (Elder Buehner, Elder Harley, Elder Pyne, Elder Xiawong)

The view from the wat and Sister Ng and I in front of the crazy stairs leading up to the wat!

Sister Ng and I having fun in the fancy hotel after the power went out at our house.

Beautiful Sunset!

We got a new family this week!  We are so excited to get to teach them more and more.  We taught them one time this week after meeting them in public transportation.  They got on at the hospital, and they had a brand new baby boy.  So Cute!  We are so excited to be able to teach them about eternal families and how the gospel of Jesus Christ can help them in their lives.  The only problem is that they are actually from Laos, and Thai (especially our not perfect Thai) is hard for them to understand and reading is also difficult.  But we called about getting two Books of Mormon in Laotian and we should be getting them this week!  We will see them again tomorrow for sure!  :D 

Us in the little river that we had to cross to get to the member's house...yeah, he lived out in the mountains and across a river.  

 

The hot springs we went to after visiting a member.

View from a member's house

A canal they channel from the hot springs. 

We saw a sign that said "Food and Egg", and we thought it was just some weird translation from Thai to English.  But nope.  Those hooks are for baskets of eggs that boil in the hot springs!  Nothing like the smell of sulfur and of literal boiling eggs.  :P

We also had two more baptisms this past Saturday.  Chiang Mai is growing!  Sister Ng and I have really tried to focus a lot of our efforts on seeing Less Actives and new Converts, and then especially people who have been baptized in the past year and do not come to church now.  The retention rate is pretty low, actually.   We have a LOT of people to work with, and the members are excited to help us!  We are especially really seeing the fruits of that labor!  We had 4 less active members come to church yesterday!!! :D  We are so excited to help them rekindle their testimony and get them back on the straight and narrow path! 

Meeting with investigators has been interesting this week.  It's been difficult to meet with them, because literally EVERYONE in Thailand works.  All the time.  So we are really trying to work out our schedules with them so that we can meet with them, and help them come closer to Christ.  We have a couple really promising ones.  We are hoping to have at least two with a baptismal date goal this week!  I love seeing the desire work within them to make that goal.  I love hearing them express their desire to change their lives and follow the example of the Savior.  I love missionary work!  I love seeing a mom and daughter, both less active members who don't feel comfortable at church, want us to come back to their house 4 times in one week.  I love having the mom give us hugs and just express her gratitude for our service and attention to her and her daughter without saying a word.  I love feeling like my service is pleasing to the Lord even when people choose not to accept our message.  I love knowing that he is "going before us in the wilderness"  and that I can know that "it is by Him that we are led".  

A rice field in front of a member's house

I was so amazed this week.  Everywhere we went - restaurants, stores, roddangs, everyone just seemed to stop and stare at our tags and read our names.  Some of them would say, I'm Christian too!  And we would just be able to talk to them, invite them to church, whatever we can.  We went to a fulong restaurant this past week and our waiter just talked to us for a while.  We gave him a pamphlet, and as we were leaving he was showing his co-workers the pamphlet.  We got his phone number, and hopefully he will have time off work to meet with us!  We are meeting people everywhere who are interested in our message and our purpose.  It's amazing how the Lord works and how much His hand really is in this work!  

The lantern festival they have in Chiang Mai (because all the tourists complained about there being nothing to do here during rainy season apparently...)

First mail received in Thailand!

The Sisters in our district:  me, SIster Ng, Sister DuPlessis and Sister Zatarain at the same house.

I'm running out of time.  I also forgot a lot of the details of this week, but they're in my journal for safe keeping!  I think we are going to ride elephants today... :D

Sorry I still didn't get the pictures you asked for this week!  I will try my hardest to remember for next week.  :)

 

Love,

Sister Norrell

Note from Amber's Mom: I think the pictures she is referring to are the ones we requested of her bicycle and the home where she and the other Sisters are currently living.  She certainly sent a lot of pictures this week to make up for lost time, so we don't mind waiting on these few.