I got to go with Elder Powers and Elder Kawin. Two amazing missionaries. I could go on and on about how เก่ง they are at everything, but i'll hold back today. While in Chiang Rai we woke up early in the morning (for our exercise) to go on a bike ride to a cave! It was so fun and we explored it by phone light.
Then we were inspired, and the stars aligned, the sister who the Sisters just baptized yesterday; her mom is a cave guide in a massive cave in Chiang Dao. Which is about 1.5 hours away. So today we explored the cave!!!! It was huge!! Multiple kilometers and freaky creatures. And not only that, but the guide used lanterns instead of flashlights!! So cool!!! I took a ton of pictures for all of you but the card-reader is broken.
Okay, as for missionary work we are working with this investigator named Chok. He is wonderful, very similar to Brother Gaw, the recent convert who gave a talk yesterday and baptized someone! He has told us that he just feels like he has 50/50 faith. He wants to have 100 faith before he gets baptized. This encouraged a long study on faith and how much faith someone needs to be able to act on the faith they have.
We gave him Alma 32 for study and invited Brother Gaw to our next lesson. We opened it up and asked what he learned, "Faith and humility" was his answer. We taught about humility how it means teachable and he said something like this, "Elders, don't get me wrong. Just because I have lots of doubts and questions doesn't mean I'm trying to attack your religion, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't humble and full of faith. I drive half an hour plus to each lesson with you. I'm questioning the things I've been taught my entire life. It's hard. I'm just trying to find out: What is the truth? I've been taught that after death I'll be born again and so on and on. But someone here said that we only have one life here. I want to know, what is the truth?"
So he does have faith!!! We explained how much we value that he asks questions and has doubts and that none of that offends us. We are just here to show him the pathway to exaltation. He came to church for the second time yesterday. His first week he learned about a sin of omission, of living according to your own wisdom. This bugged him, he started to ask, "so why do we come on this earth anyways, if living in our wisdom is a sin?". It was amazing, because during language study that morning I asked Elder Kawin to teach me the vocab to tell a story so I could share it if I ever needed to.
"A battleship radar detected another vessel in it's course. The captain ordered the communications officer to send a message 'alter your course 30 degrees or we will shoot. This is a battleship.' The response was, 'we cannot alter our course'. The officer told the captain and the captain ordered him to send it again. 'We are a battleship, alter your course 30 degrees or we will sink you.' The response from the other vessel was simple, 'We cannot alter our course, this is a lighthouse.' "
I told Brother Chok this story and explained: The shore is God and His holy Commandments. We are the battleship. The shore is never going to move, it stays the same, always. Those who live according to their own wisdom find themselves shipwrecked. But those who use their own wisdom to live in accordance of God's higher Wisdom, find themselves sailing anywhere they want in safety and happiness.
We're expecting Brother Chok to get baptized before we go home.
I got food poisoning this week and was up all one night puking and such. First time in Thailand! I thought I might get away without ever puking here. Elder Davis has been sick too, might be the cold/flu. Not sure.
We visited the less active man who is struggling with health. It's getting pretty bad now. He told us that maybe God will just let him rest soon. Being with him made me feel a little ungrateful for the gift of health.
We'll be going on two more switchoffs this week and next week is MLC. It's gonna be a tiring one. We'll try to get some work done in this area.
Love you,
Elder Osborn
No comments:
Post a Comment