A Gift for you!

Hello all!  

This week was a hot one.  Like really hot.  Sweat dripping and lots of water drinking.  Nonetheless, I wouldn't trade being a missionary in Thailand for anything in the world!  

As you already know, this week we had transfers.  No one in our District moved except for Elder Arne and Elder Schmitz (then serving in Thonburi).  I don't like being one of the ones left behind...but we got a nice surprise!  Our district has grown.  Now we have 2 Elders in Thonburi, with 2 Sisters and FOUR Elders in Bangkhae.  Yeah!  We are so excited to have 4 Elders here.  We are going to have a blast no doubt.  Elder Pyne is training a greenie, straight from the States.  But it isn't even fair.  He's already awesome at Thai.  He got 2 phone numbers in the first day!  That's not just greenie power - that's great missionary power!  The other two Elders are Elder Beatty (from my MTC group!) and Elder Gandun (in the same group as Sister Sawangwong - He's a native Thai).  Like I said, we are going to have a blast! 

Sister Gift got baptized yesterday!  She was nervous, but she did it!  And Elder Arne's first convert here in Thailand baptized her!  He's 16, but apparently when he received the Priesthood, the person ordaining him didn't know how old he was, so he just made him a Teacher instead of a Priest...so there was a little drama with that, since no one knew it was a problem.  But no worries, he was interviewed, ordained a priest, and baptized Sister Gift all before 2 pm Sunday.  :)  He was way excited!  He only had to baptize her twice!  He would have done perfectly had the water not started draining out as soon as we filled the font.  Oops.  The water was a little low and only her skirt was a little above the water.  I'd say it was pretty good for Brother First's first time!  :)  Sister Gift is awesome.  She even wants to be a missionary someday!  I am so thankful that I can be the conduit of the Spirit that brings such conversion to children of God.  I can guarantee you that it was not us that impressed her and left this desire with her!

In addition to that we got a new dater yesterday!  Sister Lek.  She's pretty awesome.  She has a dat for the 18th, and I think she might even progress to the point where she could make it for the 11th.  But I'll leave that up to Heavenly Father and I'll just keep on teaching. 

This week seems like it was time for everyone to tell Sister Norrell all their personal problems.  At first, it was starting to feel like a heavy burden, but then as I started seeing ways that I could always connect their problems back to the basics of the Gospel, it got a lot easier.  I still am seeking a lot of direction on how to help each of them individually, but I have confidence that no matter what the problem, the purity and fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will help them.

Okay funny story time.  So Saturday, we were teaching Sister Gift and we had some time before a meeting, so we decided to clean the church.  We go to the supply closet and start sweeping and mopping the floors.  Then Sister Sawangwong hears a noise like the stack of boxes is being pushed.  We're all to scared to look - it's only us, Sister Natthaya,and Sister Gift at the church at the time.  It doesn't seem like anything is back there but boxes and dusty air filters.  Finally Sister Natthaya muster up our courage and decide to go look.  I really don't see anything, but then we realize that the hole goes back way further than we thought.  It's slanted because it is under the staircase.  Certainly there was nothing back there in that narrow cubby space.  But we look anyways.  As I strain to see if anything is back there in the hot, humid, dark cubby space, I see something.  It's the top of someone's head.  We both scream run out.  Perfect timing - the Elders are walking up.  They go back and look.  At first they say they see nothing, then all the sudden we hear "Sawadee Brother, thamalay tiinii...." (Hey Brother, what are you doing here?)  Yeah.  Harry Potter was just chilling in his cubby! We were there for like 30 minutes, which means he was probably there a lot longer than that.  Creepy, yes.  Expected...yeah pretty much.  That's the 4th time we've found the same person.  He likes to sleep in the church.  I guess he's found all the good hiding spaces too... I just wonder what he was thinking the entire time we were talking about him... Oh well.  Hopefully that's the last time we find him!

That's it for this week!

Love,

Sister Norrell