11/23/2014

This week I had a week filled with the Spirit. I was guided in so many ways. Everything from personal prayers and answers to being guided to specific homes at specific times. To being inspired by a switch-off with a former companion.

I had a distinct prompting to send a specific scripture to a specific recent convert during my personal prayer one morning. I decided I'd send it to him that evening. During the day, Elder Amonthab told us that the same specific member had called and said he wasn't going to church anymore because of something that was said by another member. I sent the text later, but wished I had sent it earlier, when it could have supported him right in the moment he needed it.

The next day, we had finished eating dinner with the Branch President when I felt like we should stop by and visit another recent convert.(Only she and her daughter are members) We asked him to guide us to her house and we parked. She came out and asked why we were here. We told her we didn't know. The then invited us in. We hesitated, not sure if there was another male in the home, but she assured us there was. We went in to find out that her husband was there. We sat down and were able to talk to him and teach about God. Then, just as we had to leave for another appointment, her son came in and her daughter was able to say a prayer for the entire family; possibly for the first time. This member was so happy as we left that we were able to stop by and begin teaching her husband. And I am so glad that God still trusted me to listen to His guidance.

I went on a switch-off with Elder Winsor!!! Yeah! Haven't been with him in a while. He didn't teach me anything. He simply reminded me of some things. He lit a fire for contacting in my soul.

We didn't ever stand in one place and contact like we usually do. We just talked to everyone we saw. And in one day we got 23 lessons/return appointments set up on the street with people who want to be baptized.

The next day we continued doing this. We found ourselves on the way to lunch, but we had stopped at four way intersection. No traffic light, and the big street was comparable to University avenue, but it had a big grass medium. Elder Evans had stopped and was setting up an appointment at a bus stop with a lady. I had crossed the street by this point and had gotten off my bike and was calling and stopping cars and inviting them. I got one appointment here. Then I waved down a lady driving her motorcycle on the opposite side of the highway. She pulled over, I ran over there, and talked to her. She has been taught by the missionaries before! They used to go visit her every week and she would go to church with her whole family. After all this fiasco ended I walked back across the highway to find Elder Evans having stopped another man on his motorcycle. But this guy didn't have a phone, so we followed him home and taught him his first lesson right there.

There's an entire section in Preach My Gospel that is titled, talk to everyone. Some might think this isn't possible. But I promise that it is. And we are seeing miracles from it.

Love you all

Elder Osborn

Look at this kid!!! So cute!!!!

Sister Bee got baptized!!! Yeah! Her story is fantastic!

11/16/2014

Quick email! This week was so busy! So exciting! 8 new investigators and miracles galore!!!

There is a really solid member here who is married to a foreigner. He isn't a member, but he supports his wife and sits in sacrament meeting patiently for her. We talked to him yesterday. Found out that he actually wanted to talk to us. He wants our help for a lot of different things. He is filled with questions and we could tell how much his wife had shared with him already, because he already had a basic, if not scattered, understanding of the Gospel. We had a long lesson... But he's solid. 

Another new investigator from Cameroon, perfectly willing and accepting of the Book of Mormon and latter-day prophets, but he doesn't see the need to be baptized again. We gave him the commitment to pray about three things for the confirming witness of the Holy Ghost.

1. Is the book of mormon true?

2. Is Joseph Smith a prophet?

3. Do I need to be baptized again?

Other than that he's amazing. I've never known what it's like to teach an investigator who is already Christian. It's so easy! They understand the scriptures, they can find verses. They love Jesus! It's the best. But I love teaching people about Jesus Christ when they don't know anything more than that He is the founder of Christianity. That's all everybody knows about him!!! 

So we get to speak and preach and write of Christ!!!!

Love you all!!

Elder Osborn

 Look! I have super powers!

Rice fields forever!

Water buffalo! ควาย!!!! Kwaaai!

I have no idea what this is...

And try to find out what's wrong with this picture.

11/09/2014

Dear everybody,

So not too much to say, except we had a baptism yesterday!!!! Sister Apple who we started teaching last Sunday was baptized!!! She made her decision before our second lesson. Her conversion and everything else that happened this week was very similar to this phrase in the bible dictionary --

"True faith brings miracles, visions, dreams, healings, and all the gifts of God that he gives to his Saints. By faith one obtains a remission of sins and eventually is able to dwell in God’s presence."

I saw, in my life and in the lives of members and investigators every single one of these things happen this week. 

I feel so blessed to serve the Lord as a representative of Him and His Church. This is the greatest opportunity in the entire world. From all of the miracles and things I've witnessed and seen on my mission I can finally say that I know this is God's kingdom on the earth, established to prepare for the second coming of the Messiah. There is no more doubt in my mind.

Yesterday our Branch President asked all of the missionaries in the Branch to speak. He assigned me to speak on forgiveness. I focused it on forgiving others. Because there are a handful of members who have said that if a specific less active member comes back to church they will stop coming. WHAT!????!!! Are you kidding me?

So I spoke on how we receive forgiveness from the Lord and how that forgiveness is based on the prerequisite of us forgiving others. 

It's so sad that sometimes we plea and beg for forgiveness from Him, but then we try to refuse the healing power of the Atonement to others by failing to forgive fully. All it does is leave the unforgiving with the larger sin.

I am so grateful for the atonement and it's power in healing us and lifting us.

Elder Osborn

This is ลอยกระธง or the lantern festival!! Do you remember the pictures from last year? Well, sad story, they banned the floating lanterns in most of the country because they are dangerous. (something to do with airplanes). So it was just the floating lantern festival.

I apologize for my scary face in this picture.

We went harvesting rice!!!! Look! I have a sickle!! And sheaves. I learned a lot about missionary work as we did this!

And afterwards my favorite meal!!!! With my favorite leaf! And grilled frogs, which we caught, gutted, and then grilled and ate!!! ( I didn't do much of anything but eat it) The Thais did most of it for us.

And this is Sister Apple's baptism!!! She is so solid! Really excited to see where she goes from here!!!

11/02/2014

Dear everybody and anybody,

This week was transfers. We didn't get to go. That was the first time I never got to go. But I am really happy right now in Sagonakon (I like this unofficial spelling better) 

Instead of traveling all night and day and night to go to transfers meeting we stayed here and just worked. We worked a lot. Seeing some miracles.

Yesterday we had an unexpected miracle. A walk-in. She was waiting for a bus to get home a couple days ago and she missed the last bus. She said a prayer and a friend she hadn't seen for years pulled up and gave her a ride. She decided she would change religions. She is a David Archuleta fan and decided to try going to the church that David Archuleta goes to. She did all of her research and watched Meet the Mormons and searched everything on mormon.org. When we taught her the word of wisdom and the law of chastity she got chills because these were the exact standards she had set for herself when she was younger. She described coming to church as "coming back home". She didn't take a date but she wants to learn and study before she makes a decision.

We're back to november again. Or should I say Bovember. It has been a year since our mission was first revamped. Now, instead of the goal being one baptism per companionship. The goal (standard of excellence) is two per companionship. And it's going to be crazy!!

Miracles happen everyday.

For Halloween the branch threw a party. They told us to plan some activities downstairs to entertain all of the guests while they took groups upstairs to go through their haunted house... So we set up a little candy fish pond and apple bobbing. But the tanks were late so we entertained 30 people for an hour with one fishing rod and a whole bunch of tiny little candies. In a rented building for a church. It was the most ghetto halloween party I've ever seen. Everyone looked so bored. Finally the tanks came and we started doing apple bobbing. They struggled and thought that we were just pulling a prank on them instead of actually doing a real halloween activity. One lady just decided to push the apple down the the bottom of the tank to grab it. It worked and she got water everywhere!!

Finally the host came down and said that they were ready. The entire time all of the hosts and hostesses would speak using a certain form of thai that made everything extra terrifying. (In thai there are lots of different languages, each one is used for certain circumstances. For example the word to eat has five different words: แดก(inappropriate in almost every situation), กิน, ทาน, รับประทาน, and เสวย, each having the same meaning but are all used in different circumstances and with different people.)

They brought us into the first room and had us wait as they told scary stories and fed us "medicine" to allow us to enter into the next room, which would kill us if we didn't eat it. (the medicine was a mento and a wasabi pea) The scariest part of this was two of the RCs dressed up as terrifying japanese dolls just doing this weird dance. Absolutely terrifying. It looked like they had no bones!

Oh, and the lighting was just this really dark red light.

Then they made us close our eyes and walk to the next room where they had freaky music playing and they kept commanding us to do things. They had the Elder Evans and I go last. When they had the branch president go, he started screaming and fighting and yelling. It was so freaky. Then they brought me up. -- You know those scary activities we do where you make someone stick their hand into a bucket full of something. Or eat something gross without looking? Yeah, this was Sagonakon Thailand style!!! -- I put my hand in the first one and screamed. It was filled with nasty jelly worms. The second one felt like jello and a slab of meat. Still don't know what was in there. The third one had what I thought was a chicken leg and a chicken breast. Nope. Afterwards I found out it was a frog! It was about three times as big as my fist!!! Massive living frog!! Then they made us eat things. There was something like jello, then a wasabi pea, then something crunchy and squishy. They just kept shoving this stuff in my mouth. I gagged and almost puked. Afterwards I saw that it was that same nasty bug that I had eaten at Sister Jit's house. It wasn't even a bug, more like a large larvae. And they shoved like 5 of them in my mouth.

So yes. Thailand's version of haunted houses are way scarier than anything I saw in America. Oh, and then as we left they gave us a cup of blood with two eyeballs sitting on the top. (it was jello but still way good) One of the kids cried as they went through it.

Yeah... That's all I have to say for this week.

Elder Osborn

LOOK AT THIS CHICKEN! It's still the cutest chicken in the world. And now it's on my shoulder!!

Baptisms!!!

And this is Elder Keller and I taking a break after eating the best meal in the world. Grilled pork with โหระพา. My favorite leaf in the entire world. I ate so much!!!!!!!!