Elder Christopher Osborn's Mission Blog: 01/14/2014

This week has been way dece, or should I say pineapple. Because the slang word for dece, or decent in thai, is "pineapple". I'd say that's pretty cool! 555

This week was rough... We had a baptism set up. My good friend Brother Jack. The kid I ran into who thought I was a cop the first time. He was supposed to get baptized yesterday. He went home to sagonakon for a couple days for new years. Next thing we know we can't get a hold of him for a couple days after he was supposed to get back. We had no idea what happened. He just disappeared. We found out on saturday night from one of his friends who is a member, that his parents forbade him from learning with us. The most prepared investigator I've ever seen. Gone in an instant.

You could say I'm not happy about that. Well to be honest I'm ticked. But it isn't something that's going to slow me down. I decided that I am going to get back at Satan by baptizing and bringing even more souls unto Christ. So that same day I called 101 people to repent and be baptized. I got seven people to say yes and set up appointments with them. I don't even know how many Elder Wilko contacted (we split up and contact by ourselves, we can call more people to repentance that way). I feel like I work now with an even greater haste and speak to others with more power and force. I'm not scared to walk up to somebody and say this exactly (translated). "God sentme here to tell you to repent and be baptized. Will you be baptized on the 19th of January?" If they say no, I walk away.

Our whole mission contacts this way. I did it before too. But now I really care about it, because I lost Brother Jack. In the past three days I've personally invited at least 200 people to be baptized. There are 160 of us. The work is exploding because we all are doing what Christ said in 3 Nephi 11,

"And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things. (repeats it for the third time)... Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine... And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them. Therefore, go forth unto this people, and declare the words which I have spoken, unto the ends of the earth."

We literally are inviting "all men everywhere" to be baptized.

Miracles this week: (warning, there are too many for me to write or remember all of them)

Sister quan sacrificed to come to church. She's getting baptized on sunday.

Brother Jack, (the older, not the one we lost) we lost him a few weeks ago. He met with us this week and is progressing to get baptized on the 19th.

Brother puu changed his phone number so we couldn't get ahold of him. He came to church on his own.

A man named sak came to church today, he hadn't come in 10 years, it was his birthday so he thought to rethink his life so he came back to church. We're teaching him now.

Brother ta, after several weeks of no contact came back to church and is going to change his work schedule and quit coffee before next sunday so he can get baptized on the 19th or the 12th.

A family I contacted the day we lost brother jack came to church yesterday and had a great time. They have two young daughters. When I contacted them I asked them to be baptized, they said yes and came to church the next day.

I love the work. It's sad to lose investigators, but we all know that we can replenish all of them within a day or two. The work here is beautiful. Yesterday there was at least 28 baptisms in Thailand. There may have been more because that isn't including one zone's numbers.

I love you all. I love the work more than anything.

Elder Osborn

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