Obedience brings blessings!

This week was really interesting.  As is usual when it comes to being a missionary. We contacted a lot, and saw pretty much nothing come out of it.  But really, we might have gotten numbers from 10 people, which is less than half of our average.  It was a little discouraging, but we kept on being obedient in doing our 2 hours each day (probably more than that too!).  

Then it all started getting crazy on Friday.  We tried out this new area for contacting, only to find out that no one was really there.  Then we bought water and powerade, sat down, chugged it, then got told by a one-eyed dog that it was time for us to keep moving on. But there was still no people. So we jumped on a song taew, just for the heck of it, and to see where it would go.  Turns out, it goes all the way down and doesn't turn around.  We got to the end and the other 2 people were like "Where are you going?"  Which really means, "You crazy white people, where did you think you were going, and how lost are you really?"  We just told them that we didn't know where we were going, we were just going on an adventure.   So we had to get another song taew to get back, plus we were rushing because some random person called us and said that he wanted to meet with us.  He was waiting at the church for like 15 minutes, but thankfully the Elders were already heading there to open the door.  We get there and she is just sitting there waiting for us.  She's super good!  Has a problem with the Law of Chastity, but even after she left church without telling anyone, she called us after and asked us when she could get baptized.  SWEET!  Her friend from a different Branch referred her to us, and it seems like she is willing to do whatever it takes to get baptized! 

So we taught her, then waited forever for the International Sisters' investigator to show up.  They (the Sisters) couldn't make it, so we volunteered to teach it for them.  We finally went out to retrieve them (3 black guys from Cameroon) and sat down to teach.  This turned into a 2 hour lesson about the Restoration.  All we could do was bear testimony.  It was very interesting.  And as much as I wanted to shake the main guy by the lapel several times, I was still able to feel directed by the Spirit and still smiling.  If anything came out of that lesson (that wasn't simply my brain being turned to mush) it was that my own personal testimony in the Restoration, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the Lord's promise that we will not be confounded before men was strengthened.

 Even though it was a little rough, the Lord blessed us with two new investigators that just came out of nowhere!  And then there was the third.  

Sitting at church yesterday, not really knowing who is going to show up, but just praying that everything would work out.  Then all the sudden the Elders (at the end of church) are like "Your guy in the red shirt is a boss!"  (We thought it was their investigator, but he said that girls invited him...)

He is so perfect!  He was looking for a new Christian church (he was already Protestant) and it just so happened that one of us gave him the baptism card with the map to the church.  So he came, on his own, no one called him to get him there, and he got there on time.  He is so great!  He likes how our church has order and is peaceful and calm.  YAY!  He was really excited about the Restoration, and he wants to keep coming to our church!  I am so amazed at the way the Lord works in our lives, and all according to our obedience.

Random miracle:  Brother Sinh, the Cambodian man we taught came to church yesterday!  I haven't seen him since he was baptized in March (Partially because he went back to Cambodia for a long time...I thought he was never coming back).  But he is still going strong!  I was so thankful to get to see him.  I was really worried, and I know that God heard all my prayers aboout him.  He was so prepared, and he didn't just fall off the face of the earth.  We were able to give him pictures from his baptism, and also a new Cambodian Book of Mormon.  Now he is moving to Saphaan Sung, but I am so thankful that I got to see him again!  I don't think I have ever prayed for someone so much in my life!  God took care of him and He made sure that I was around to see him and help him get in contact with the church again!

Overall, this week I learned that we can trust in God and in His promises.  I studied a lot about obedience, and I learned that when we are obedient to the Lord's commandments and to the small still promptings of the Holy Spirit, we will be blessed in His own way and according to His own timing.  I learned that listening to the Spirit, and always being worthy of that Gift is one of the most important ways we can learn and be kept in the right way.  If we are unsure of our standing with God, we can look at our obedience and to our diligence and heed to the promptings He gives us.  

"Through the Holy Ghost we can feel God's love and direction for us.  This gift is a foretaste of eternal joy and a promise of eternal life." - Preach My Gospel

3 Nephi 27:19-20
 "19 And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washedtheir garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end.
  20 Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may standspotless before me at the last day."

Doctrine and Covenants 19:23
"23 Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me."

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/obedience-through-our-faithfulness?lang=eng

So this is the part two of baptism:  Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It completes baptism and it is super important.  It is crucial to our salvation, and we will be happier once we get it.  We can be directed in life, and when we listen to the Holy Ghost's gentle promptings, we will be led to happiness and joy in this life and in the life to come.  SO this is why we baptize!  To save souls and help them find their way back to God's presence through obedience to the commandments and through the help of the Holy Ghost.  Hooray for God's eternal plan of happiness!
 Love you all.  This is the last email I will send as a 20 year old.  Next time, maybe I will be wiser.  No promises... But I will be older that is for sure!

Love,
Sister Norrell

Pictures:
We went to the Superhero exhibit again.  It was fun.  :)

We found these Popsicles.  They are bananas with chocolate on the inside.  Half the fun is peeling the jelly-like banana art off to reveal the chocolate inside.  It was only 10 baht.  Might as well be free since it was so much fun to eat!  But I think it would taste better if it was actually banana flavored...  

My favorite little friend:  Steak. 

There was some construction going on at the church.  It is really fun to teach with the sound of jackhammers in the background beating out all the concrete around the church.  :P 

The hard life as missionaries.  

I wore holes in the Crocs I have had since Chiang Mai...Actually that happened earlier this month.  But the holes have been getting bigger and the pavement has been getting hotter.  I decided it was time when I saw that I was starting to get callouses on the bottom of my feet in the exact shape as the holes.  So I finally had to buy some new ones.  Thanks to my trusty rusty old Crocs! 

This is what happens when missionaries are waiting for the other missionaries to leave so we can go out to eat.  Invited all day.  Tired, hungry, and spiritually high.  ALL THE TIME. 

Elder Hartung was washing dishes after Branch lunch time on Sunday.  He is just a really tall kid! 

Brother Sinh came!  

I bought some persimmons from the market across the street from our house.  SO tasty!  5 for 20 baht (roughly 65 cents in US)! Can't beat it! 

Half-miracles?

Half-Miracles?

So this week...we spent so much time contacting.  SO MUCH TIME.  Like 4-5 hours straight for at least 4 days.  It was insane!  Out in the hot sun, sweating like crazy, inviting people to repent and be baptized.  I don't think I have contacting so hard in my life as we did this week.  Even in areas where that is all you can do, I think we still did it more this week.  At some times, we really just would rather teach a Recent Convert in the church, but we knew that contacting was definitely the best use of our time!  So we did a lot of weeding and sorting.  It was great and I think we even got sunburned just a little!

It all climaxed on Saturday night, where we were trying out a new idea from the Zone.  Basically we invite all our potential investigators to a meeting, where we teach them the basics of how church works on Sunday.  It was great!  People just kept showing up.  And they were all people we had contacted.  I think in total we had 7 of the 10 people that showed up.  We were more than surprised.  I wasn't expecting it at all!  It was a great tender mercy from the Lord, to say the least.

Sunday morning, NO ONE is answering their phones to come to church.  NO ONE.  It was the worst feeling ever. I don't know what happened, but we had only 2 investigators show up.  One is our cute friend working towards a baptismal date in August (she's 15) and then the other is Sister Fa's little sister.  That was it.  None of our 7 came!  It wasn't the best feeling in the world to say the least. 

SO it all just left me wondering.  Is there such thing as a half-miracle?  When Saturday night was a miracle, but then it didn't follow through until Sunday...it really left me confused and with a lot to consider.  I talked to Sister Ellis a lot about it, and I even studied about it this morning.  It all lead back to one simple principle - God's will and timing.

If there are such things as "Half-Miracles" then God's infinite and eternal plan is half-baked.  And that is most DEFINITELY NOT the case!  I can pray all I want for something to happen, and I can have faith, but if it is not the right time or the will of the Lord, then it will not happen.  Faith is not just about bringing about miracles, but it is also found when just trusting God above yourself and others.  He is the supreme force in the Universe, and there's nothing I can do to change His will.  Sometimes I just wonder:  If I could really see what was going on around me, no doubt there would be miracles on every corner.  Half of the miracle was the part I could see.  The other half of it is the half I have to have faith in.  Things I can't see, but that I believe are true.  I know that God would not let our efforts go to waste, and even though it didn't quite produce the results that I wanted or expected to see, I am sure that it was all part of God's plan that I have yet to see in its fullness and glory.

Alma 32:21-22

 21 And now as I said concerning faith—afaith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye bhope for things which are cnot seen, which are true.

 22 And now, behold, I say unto you, and I would that ye should remember, that God is amerciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word.

3 Nephi 9:20

20 And ye shall offer for a a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.

So, to sum it all up, God is blessing us, even when we don't know it.  But we can have faith in His plan that all things will work together for our good, even if it isn't what we expect to receive. 

Love you all!

Sister Norrell

Pictures:

We went to the Dusit Zoo last week!  We saw some pretty cool stuff.  :)

Turtles!  This is about the closest I got to touching the animals...picking up turtles from the turtle pond.  They had a bird and a big nasty yellow snake they could put on you...but I wasn't in for that much nature. ;)

Water Monitor Lizards and Bears

I tried to see if my tongue was as long as the giraffes.  I just broke the social norms in public, and I didn't even get close to measuring up!

And there is this weird painting among all the other animal paintings on the wall to the zoo...we were a little disturbed...but not enough to not take a picture of it!

We rode some foot power paddle boats...whatever those are called in English... with all the missionaries and members, it kinda turned into bumper boats and seeing who could go the fastest.  We only had one casualty!  Elder Kandun kinda sorta fell in the water.  Just his wallet was wet from paddling too fast.

It rained.  Really hard.  We were stuck for about 20 minutes.  Typical Thailand!

We went into the mall to use the bathroom during our contacting time.  We got a little distracted by their super hero exhibit.  I think we are going back today!

Yes.  This is the Joker.  And notice the cat.  That is a real cat.  I think all the Thai people were taking more pictures of the cat than the statues.  

If anyone can tell me what this one is (the gold one with long lucious locks) I will be very grateful, because we all have no idea!  

Me and the random thing...whatever that is. 

And spiderman. Not my favorite hero but I couldn't resist! 

I don't know what happened, but we just kept finding all these weird sacrifice looking things when we were contacting.  Scary?  Very.  Picture worthy too!

Deliciousness.  I don't know what it is, really.  Maybe tapioca with taro and coconut milk?  So good!

Water Monsters!

Hello from Thailand!

This week has been great.  We didn't really get soaked one time!  That means it was really just hot.  But the work goes on!   That can't stop the missionaries in Thailand!

We had a great District Meeting this past week, and it really just fired us up.  We are going to make Bangkhae a ward, whether Satan likes it or not.  We hit the ground running, and we started with the end in mind. We had 7 investigators at church yesterday!  Something I have never seen from my own companionship.  But we are so excited to just be able to keep working as we see the work progress.  And of course, we don't do it ourselves or by ourselves.  God is with us every step of the way!  Without Him, we are nothing.  I am just so thankful for the plan that God has created for us, and for Jesus Christ who is central to that plan.  He makes it all happen, even after all we can do!  :)

I don't have a lot of time, but I promise to write more next week!
Love,
Sister Norrell

P.S.  Sorry this email had nothing to do with Water Monsters.  :)

Pictures:

Choosing the right!  Even in Thailand!

This is how people protect their houses from intruders in Thailand.  Broken bottles cemented to the top of the walls.

Elder Hartung had the Greenie Blues. So we made him a present. I am so glad that Sister Ellis is a great companion and gets my weird cheesy humor.  :)

Pictures!

Pictures from our "outrageous" lives as missionaries!  Just some everyday stuff here in Thailand!

This is the Thai fruit that we love so much! Lychee (red) and Mangosteen (purple).  The loves of my life for these 18 months.  It is even better when members love the missionaries and give then fruit!  Thai people know how to pick the best ones.  I, however, am still perfecting that skill.  I'll get it sooner or later!  

A spirit house thingy that we always pass.  I just think it is ironic that all the graffiti is in the background. Also, I think the Spirits must really like Fanta.

Sign in a super High-So bathroom near Starbucks.  Yeah...no squatting, people! 

Thailand = stray dogs everywhere.  Even outside banks! 

It has been really hot the past week - which means that it also rains a ton.  This is at the church after we just fought the rain going to visit a Recent Convert.

We got a package in the mail and here are the contents. Sisster Sawangwong literally packed EVERYTHING in the span of like 1 hour before she left (remember, she didn't know she was moving?). So these are a couple of things that she didn't intend to pack, that just kinda got thrown in: Scissors that belong to the house, the remote for the mini DVD player, our house money book (for the house...complete with a record and receipts that is essential to us getting reimbursed when we are out of money), and our Finding Faith in Christ video. It was like Christmas!

One of our most frequented restaurants near the church.  Food is decent, good price, and no visible rats! Only a cute little fluffy dog with no teeth.  His name is Steak.  I'll get a picture of him this week!

Critters! Elder Proctor caught a lizard thing in the church. Elder Gandun's exact words (almost exact....he said them in Thai): "When it grows up it will probably be a snake!" or "เมื่อมันโตขึ้นมันจะเป็นงู"   Yeah. I don't know how or when a lizard will turn into a snake, but that's what he said!

At all the noodle places they have a "condiments" type thing on the table.  They always have sugar.  So of course, that attracts the flies.  I would say it doesn't attract my business, but that is almost unavoidable most places in Thailand. 

I celebrated the fourth of July with a  random pancake from an open market.  I'm not really sure what compelled me to buy it, but it tasted decent and I didn't really want to spend real money on other American things like McDonalds, KFC, or Swensen's.

Inviting at Big C Extra!

And then there are some random pictures from transfers! Me and Sister Ng!

 "We're loving it! (Being missionaries!)" 

Jelly Cones!

Hello all!

This week was so good.  We got a lot of new investigators, had a lot of appointments fall through, and put in a lot of long, hot, sweaty hours of street contacting.  But I love it.  Every moment of it.  Even when we are out getting rejected by people who think being Buddhist exempts them from having to listen to us and coming to know the truth, it is all very very worth it in the end.  I love coming home hot, sticky, rejected to the limit, sometimes soaked with rain, but always with a smile on my face, a miracle in mind, and strong desire just to fall asleep.  That is what missionary work is, and I wouldn't trade it for the world!

We also had the opportunity to go on a companion exchange this past Saturday.  Our goal was to contact practically all day in order to find new investigators.  So that is what Sister Steele and I did all day, even in the rain when no one was wanting to be outside, and most of all not wanting to talk to us.  I was struggling.  3 hours and I felt like I had seen absolutely 0 success.  I was praying the entire time to Heavenly Father to please just help us to find one person who needed us.  If I only got one number, that is all I cared about if they were someone who needed our help.  It isn't that I just wanted to see success, but I wanted to help someone who needed it. I wanted to find that one prepared person that I knew God had for us.  I just needed help being guided to them or having them being led to us.  We had a sports night at the church, so we decided head back in that direction, but also to use our time wisely.  We still had about half an hour left to contact before we needed to be there so we went to Big C Extra near the church.  Still nothing.  A little disappointed, but knowing I did my best, we started to make our way around the puddles to go home. Then, I saw her.  I don't know how my brain knew to speak English with her, but let's just say the Spirit does great things.  Her name is Vivian and she's Chinese.  Turns out she is an exchange student with one of the Elder's investigators who is getting baptized next week.  She said she would come to church!  Let's just say I was saying so many prayers of thanks the rest of the day, and even more so when she actually came to church!

Her English isn't super good, which made it a little hard to teach her.  When we were teaching her the Restoration, I just felt some kind of disconnect.  Her friend had to translate some, but I felt like that wasn't the source of the disconnect.  Again, me and the Spirit just putting words in my mouth so I don't have to think about when or how to say them, I just flat out asked her if she believed in God. She said no, but that she didn't believe in anything.  At best she believed in Science because that is what people always told her that she needed to believe.  BUT she said that in just this one time coming to church, she already started to believe in God.  We taught her about baptism, and at the end, I felt like it was finally a good time to ask her about being baptized.  I wasn't sure what she would say, but she said YES.  Almost immediately.  I think we were all shocked.  The Spirit worked with her in that 45 minutes enough to tell her that these things are true and that God is real.  She is getting baptized next week!  Yay for miracles and God's amazing grace!  We can't do this work without him!  I am so grateful that I get to serve His children here in Thailand.  :)

I hope everyone had an awesome 4th of July.  Sister Ellis and I bought Jelly Cones from KFC.  Basically it tastes like ice cream dipped in warm strawberry jello, but then it hardens and becomes more jello-like consistency.  It is pretty awesome.  And pretty darn Asian.  I think it would be a hit in Utah, though!  :)

Love,
Sister Norrell