is to baptize an old woman. a crochety old buddhist woman that has been buddhist all her life.
well... somjeet is not crochety. she is 71. and she was buddhist most of her life. and she got baptized yesterday!
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baptisms in the river. no where else in Thailand!
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it was a great day.
her story... is not very long. it starts more than a month ago in front of big c. then she left for 3 weeks to go vacation with her family. we wrote it down in our planners to call her on such-and-such a date. (but probably not really sure if she was interested or just giving us an excuse...) so we called her. our first appointment with her was friday the 6th of june. she got baptized on sunday the 15th. i always wonder how the lord does these things... but then i remember that he knows a lot more than i do, so i just trust that he knows what he is doing.
we had a few ripples... she keeps some buddhist stuff in her house, mostly for sentimental reasons. we just told her that she can't "Y" it. (sorry... don't know how to spell that one.)
but she came to church yesterday and paid her tithing. she doesn't even have an income... she is a retired teacher and she still wanted to pay tithing. cutest thing ever. and she is probably a midget. don't know for sure... but she's pretty small. it was funny just to look over at her and see her swinging her legs during sacrament meeting because her feet don't even touch the floor.
what else about her? oh. she kept telling us she was going to "dam nam" which means "go diving" in thai. she could remember how to say "baptisama"... it is a weird word though. she also loved to tell us how good she was a swimming. calling herself a "child of the river." man. love her.
miracle #2 at church. dot com. our 15 year old investigator. lots of missionaries see the "student uniforms" and don't talk to them because teaching them isn't always the most successful thing. (usually they just want to be friends with the white people) dot com (yes. that is his name) showed up, and at first he told us that he was interested... because katy perry was christian. sometimes they just like anything that has to do with america/culture etc etc etc... so we taught him the restoration. we'd planned on just a intro lesson and talk all about baptism, but sister mullen kind of "ahemed" and held up a restoration pamphlet and started talking about god's love for us........ it was such a good lesson. we watched the restoration video. and before he left, he told us that he felt so good! that he had come just interested in the foreign aspect of our church... but left with much different feelings. he even prayed like a boss. after that, we told him to go home and read the book of mormon and pray. he told us that one day during school his teacher wasn't really even teaching, so he pulled the book of mormon out in class and started reading! we've been teaching him even since. he comes to church every week. he is really good friends with the members. and he even brought us a referral.... (i just love it when investigators are doing missionary work!) but his mom wouldn't give him permission to be baptized. so we came up with a plan. we told him to pray. and then we committed him to asking his mom once every two weeks until he was 18. just so that he could show her how serious he was about it. she cracked. the first week! that's what a little bit of faith can do!
so he's getting baptized. if i get transferred this next thursday... i probably won't be here to see it. but that's ok. this work is too wonderful to be selfish...
we do have some crazy members too. gamon gave his first talk this week. tried to pull out the white board... (last wee we reviewed what he was going to do, and he told us he was going to give out prizes for the person that answered correctly.) all i can say is... he'll be a good teacher. we'll work on the talk-part. he also doesn't quite understand what a testimony is either. he knows it ends with "in the name of jesus christ, amen." but... he pretty much turns it into a prayer every time. he. he. he. we get weird looks from some of the older members. then just shrug and go back to listening...
that's another crazy thing. thai people... don't really tell you if they aren't showing up. it's just something they do. they don't want to disappoint you........ but they don't want to talk to you either. so magically their phone will shut off. or it will ring forever. so one of our speakers... didn't show up. and our other two speakers cumulatively spoke for about 10 minutes. with 20 minutes left in the program, we decided to throw in a special musical number, and then an elder got up and spoke for the remaining 15 minutes on charity. i probably should start preparing some kind of "impromptu" talk... just in case.
gamon. sorry. this guy is just too funny. every ward/branch/unit needs a crazy person. likes to pray with his eyes open. even funnier when we have a new investigator... because they always get curious and open their eyes. so then... we have two people just staring at each other during the prayer. while he's saying "bless this invesigator blah blah blah..." oh. too good.
we also had to remind him that the pamphlet... as good as it is... doesn't substitute for scripture. even if it is easier to understand.
his talk on the restoration consisted of: god is our loving heavenly father and the gospel blesses families. yup. that's it.
(just so you don't get the wrong impression - gamon is AWESOME.) he's just not there all the time.
side notes in my language study:
(things you can only learn from talking with thai people)
i learned the word for crush (translates as "to sneak-like" someone)
damnation
camel
auspiciousness
and to slip (thank you joseph smith movie)
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| my asian selfie |
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