Siam I Am: what i found in my soup. referrals.

September 7, 2014

this week... was honestly a little weird.

don't remember a lot of it. so i'll be using my planner as my source of information today...

monday says: ADVENTURE. written in capital letters. sounds pretty legit.

truth be told. we went to the park. with a giant buddha statue in the middle. laid in the grass. (can i just say how AWESOME that was?! i don't think i've been so happy... scratch that. i have. but it was goooooood.) fed the fish. almost got eaten by fish. started raining. stuck all of my valuable techno-stuffs inside of the fish food bag... knowing i was going to regret it. but not willing to take any chances. getting a call from our investigator on the way home telling us he was already there. did i forget to mention that the phone was in the fish-food bag? didn't bother to take it out. so had to smell the fish food while i was telling him to wait there until we got there. then... getting him down the street to the house. another adventure. i'm a sister. can't have him sit on the back of my bike...... so the elders try. little lao elder can't muster up enough strength to get the bike moving. switch bikes. big farang elder hops on and wooosh! off they go. so funny. but not really an uncommon site here in thailand. fhe was great. by the end of it, our so-so invesigator had definitely felt something. or maybe it was the competition of the jenga game. (which i totally dominated bee-tee-dubs.) there is something that is irreplaceable about interaction with members. i will speak more of this LATER!

tuesday. a meeting day. an english day. teaching english. still not my fav. but it's good. i just make a fool of myself every week... it's as much of a learning experience for me as it is for them. learning how to spell "grandparents" in thai. "boo-ya-daa-yay" except when i spelled it... i spelled "die" instead... it means dead. ha. oops. everyone was like NO NO NO! and i couldn't figure it out. then i read it. oops. :)

wednesday was a switch off with the sister training leader from asoke! (that's where the office is...) who also happens to be one of my good friends! we didn't rig anything. i swears. ;)

but it was so much fun. we went an found an LA... got stuck in a rain storm. luckily she had a poncho. so we shared. so here's two white girls walking around with a poncho covering... their bags. are we missionaries or what? we didn't even care we were soaking. as long as the scriptures and our planners were safe. while we were talking to the LA, she told us that he mom wouldn't let her come to church. so we turn to the mom, a nice old lady of approximately 70+ years of age. who wouldn't consent to letting her daughter go to church. as we sat there trying to bargain, beg, bribe?... she would NOT consent to letting her daughter go. so as we left, sister jax turns to her and says "we will pray for you that you open your heart..." with the biggest smile and most charity that i've ever seen anyone say something like that with...

got my companion back. had the scariest... and possibly the shortest? taxi drive of my whole life back home.

the rest of the week was fairly predicable. meeting with the branch mission leader... (ha. NOT normal. we just got a new one. he's awesome. it's the first meeting i've had since december. sad huh?) teaching the sister of a recent convert. going to asoke and getting to meet elder allen. the executive director of the missionary department... coming home and checking our carbon monoxide detector (sister brown doesn't want to die on her mission. come to think of it... i don't think i do either...) FIRE FIRE FIRE! the whole time she was sitting on her bed plugging her ears and saying, "why won't it go off?"

we survived.

bad news of the week.

i ran out of sticky notes. any of my companions know... i use sticky notes like nobody's business. so. today's p-day business: to go buy more sticky notes. :) who cares about food? i need my stickies!!!

sunday was.... i think i need to take a breath. wow.

stressful. i think that's the only word for it.

and i don't even know why. trying to get people to church. when i finally decided that it was in god's hands... in walks our second investigator! i think that was "hint: don't stress about this! i got it" from god.

he knows what he's doing.

aside from all that... i have a few thoughts of this week.

when we met with elder allen, he talked to us about the importance of having relationships with members. about how our numbers (which come mostly, if not all, from contacting) aren't right. that the numbers should be higher coming from referrals. so i'm repenting. god always provides a way... and i believe that. so i was told to get more referrals. that's what i'm going to do. (i'll report back next week.)

but, on the flip side. this is my plea: don't make the missionaries back home (wherever they are!) need to go contacting! the way this work is SUPPOSED to work, is through cooperation with the members. it works SO much better that way. we are teaching the sister of a recent convert. she's awesome. she talks to her sister about this all the time. she feels the spirit not just when she meets with us, but when she talks to her sister as well. she has a friend, she has a connection... and i think that satan is working really hard on her right now because he knows that she will stay. i think he realizes that is the major danger... if they don't have that connection... they get lost. and fast. we see it all the time. but IF THE MEMBERS ARE THE SOURCE... they stay.

just my soapbox, prayer, pleading, battle cry of the day...

i love this work. it's amazing. it's awesome. and it changes everyone involved. (not just the person that gets baptized.)

in the words of my branch mission leader (translated of course):

if you eat, you'll get full... but then you'll get hungry again.

it's like sharing the gospel. for a while you will feel full, but then you'll want to share the gospel again, so that you get that feeling back.

thai people also like food. so... it makes sense.

thank you for being the wonderful people you are! i love you!

sister ellis