i had a hard time thinking about what to write about this week.
mostly because it seems like ages ago that i was actually in kamphaengphet,
thursday we all went to chiang mai, and rolled back into town at 1 in the morning... missionary life in the boonies. it's interesting. ;)
so we started out last week by getting a call from a member. telling us to come and eat lunch with her and her parents. who aren't members. she'd be paying for lunch. welllllll... it's hard to say no to a free lunch - even if it IS on a pday. so we went. ate lunch. and then got talked into riding out with them to their house. 8 kilos? i don't think so. it was wayyyyyyyyyyy far out there. but we did get a free ice cream and 3 jackfruits out of the adventure... so i'm not complaining.
until tuesday. when i decided to cut into said jackfruit. big mistake. i didn't know what a jackfruit actually was. the pointy plant that looks like durian... i thought to myself... this will be easy! so i just into the plant. as i'm pulling it apart i see the sticky insides pull away from each other... like they didn't want to be parted and were holding on for dear life. i think i should have gotten a hint right there. but no. i persevered. next thing i know, i'm about elbow deep in stick. cutting away at the stupid basket-ball sized plant. massacring it is probably a better description...
finally. i finished the first half. so irritated and sticky that i decided that it was worth it to pay someone else to deal with it and just buy it at the market. never again.
on wednesday we decided to go find a members house. usually when this starts, we go to the post office. they recognize us now. coming to look for ANOTHER house. and they always draw us nice little pictures...
we get to the house... have a nice little lesson with her, then her father starts talking to us. after about 45 minutes of listening to him talk about religion (he was very christian and knew a LOT about the bible), my companion says we need to go. whew. sometimes i wish i understood thai just a little better. he was starting to bible bash a little... in thai. now that's not fair! i can't even debate in english! so we just bore our testimonies and got out of there as we politely could.
so interesting.
i love little miracles. i seem to get them a lot. like contacting on wednesday night... having all 4 missionaries there and having 3 of the new members come out to help us as well (they are the best!) standing at the very end of a LONG line of people all asking everyone passing by to be baptized... i thought there was no hope for me to get ANY numbers. lo and behold... i get a girl that walks up to me and asks me what it is. is interested. i get a number.
i just stood there laughing for a few minutes because i knew that heavenly father was just making sure that i knew who was in charge. and that even the missionary at the very end could still get a number if he wanted her to.
thursday. chiang mai. for zone conference.
we left our area... for ever! but it was good. we took all of our recent converts with us to a missionary "camp" they had up there with the whole district.
then we had zone conference. the theme was "raising expectations", which i feel is what they have been doing here. they gave us all sticky notes and told us to jump and put them as high as we could on the wall. this sister wasn't going down without a fight. :) i only had about 6 elders beat me... and i was in a dress. (back to the REAL point of the story...) then they gave us another sticky note and told us to beat the last one. i think i did a belly flop on the wall. not so graceful. but i didn't disgrace myself too much. all my family can still be proud....
saturday they asked my companion and i to go with a group to lamphang. they didn't have any investigators so we were supposed to go and get a bunch of numbers. the problem is that by the time we got there, we had less than two hours before we had to turn around and go home to be at the night session of conference. in the end, we ended up missing that too. so... the logical part of my brain kept asking if it was really worth it. but then i remembered 1 nephi 3:7... i will go and do the things that my zone leaders command... or something like that. ;)
sunday was full of meetings, stress, the spirit, and all those other good things.
we had to wait for our bus to leave at 8:20. which means we got home at 1 in the morning this morning. not the bedtime of the white handbook... but for whatever reason i could NOT go to bed. i hopped on my bike at 1 and was rearing to go... i only regretted my lack of sleep this morning when the alarm went off...
well that's it for this week!
i was studying this week, and i was reading... (wow... that's a novel idea)
i was reading in ether. chapter 10. verse 28. when it says there were never a more blessed people. it reminded me of another scripture i read. 4 nephi 1:16. and i thought about it a lot this week. it is so interesting to be here at the beginning stages of a unit of the church. you see everyone that is just baptized and they are so willing to learn and to be obedient. then you see them as they try to figure out how this is going to be a lifelong thing. of fitting the church into their lives. and then i realized - it isn't a matter of fitting the church and religion into our lives... it is a matter of making our lives fit into our religion. of realizing what is really important. the problems come when we make things in our lives more important than god. when we decided that we care more about what people think than what god thinks.
so to everyone out there - สุ้ ๆ ต่อไป! (it means keep fighting!)
love you all!
ซิสเตอร์ เอลลิส
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