Answer: Baptisms
This week seemed so slow.... Maybe it was because all of our investigators are out of town. Thai people love their families. So they travel back home at least once a week. For 2 or more days every time. Sometimes I feel like they are at home with their families more than they are in their current city working or going to school. So yes. Two different investigators went to Bangkok this week. And two went home for the weekend. So... We only had one investigator at church. That was rough. Balanced streak. Over. This guy's name is Tap. He is a boss!!! He goes to school over at the college right next to the church. He is learning to be an english teacher so his english is amazing!! One evening I am sitting in my chair in the hallway while Elder Wilko is interviewing for baptism again and the Sisters ask me if we have an investigator supposed to be there. We always have appointments at the church so I asked his name and looked through my book for his name. Don't have it. I said it was probably the other Elders. A couple minutes later they come back and say he wasn't theirs either. Who is this guy? Elder Hunsaker sits in the chair for a minute while I go investigate. I walk into the room and this guy says in perfect english, "It was you!" Okay, I guess he's our investigator. haha.
Split: I'm teaching with Elder Cahoon and this guy says that he's always seen us over at the college but has just avoided us. He told us he felt bad after ignoring me again yesterday so he came to the church.
Fast forward. This guy is at the church 30 minutes early for sacrament meeting. He stays for the baptism, and we teach him a lesson after too. He loved it! We're meeting with him again at six today. He was at the church for 6 hours!! What a champ!
Haha I feel like we didn't get enough new investigators this week.... We got nine. But we always want to get more. If we can get 10 a week we will baptize people every week. That is cool.
The past three days they have had a huge music festival at the lake. So we went contacting there! Everyone was moving quickly and it was definitely not quiet, so we went with the simple contact, "Do you want to wash your sins away?" This is the easiest phrase to use to invite someone to be baptized because in thai it only uses 5 sylabbles. Way fast! I'm pretty sure I invited over 200 people to be baptized yesterday.
On friday we went up to Nong Khai to sing for a wheelchair donation ceremony. They always love to make huge deals out of everything. The Church donated 40 wheelchairs up there and so 40 disabled people made their way to this building where we were to donate these wheelchairs. They never showed up! The truck with the wheelchairs left bangkok yesterday but never made it to Nong Khai. So all of the speeches went along this line, "We are so grateful you all came today. We know you expect to ride your brand new wheelchair home today, but we apologize because you don't have one to ride home. We'll get them to you when they get here."
It was so sad that 40 disabled people came expecting to get a new wheelchair but went home without one. Oh the irony.
We went up to a famous statue garden in Nong Khai last p-day too! Way cool! Everything was massive and really interesting.
I found an inactive member yesterday. He was telling me how he wasn't ready to go to church. Then he told me how we wasn't going to be ready until he went to church. Not to be rude, but that is stupid. So I told him it was. He said I spoke too boldly and too straight to the point, then he started correcting my thai by telling me I didn't use the correct words, but he couldn't actually give me an example of my bad Thai. He asked me how long I've been in the mission. I said it didn't matter. He asked if I was a greenie. I said it didn't matter. He asked me how old I am. I said 18 as I looked him in the eyes. He looked away and said, trying to one me up, that he is in his 40s and has been a member for over 20 years. I told him to look me in the eyes and I said, " But you still don't understand. Do you remember the gospel of Christ? Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end.? Do you remember?" I told him that right now he is failing to endure to the end. I told him that if he doesn't endure to the end, he does not have the Holy Ghost, his baptism meant nothing, his repentance wasn't real, and his faith does not exist. He was silent. I told him I wasn't impressed. I told him his family - who are all great members - are disappointed and sad because of him. I told him he had no excuses to not go to church. He agreed. I told him to repent. He said he wasn't clean enough to go back to church but that he would repent at home. I told him he would never be clean until he went to church.
I can't express my feelings about less active members. I just know that in the last day it's going to be very uncomfortable for them.
I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he CANNOT be saved.
I speak boldly because nothing else works.
In more positive words there was much rejoicing because of 3 more souls coming unto Christ yesterday through following their Lord and Savior into the water. (wow, that was a really dramatic sentence! haha) Sister May decided that she wanted me to baptize her on Friday. But she was worried because I was sick. (i wasn't sick...) And since I would have felt really bad if I had faked and said I wasn't feeling well I ended up baptizing this girl. The other Elders just let it go because they thought it was hilarious. those punks...
I started a video journal because I can say things much faster than I can write them, plus there is a lot more emotion in it that I can't write effectively.
Transfers are this week, so I don't know if I'll leave this area or not. I've been here for 4 months so it's pretty likely I'll leave. But whatever happens I'll leave tons of daters for the next Elder.
Elder Wilko is still a boss. :)
Elder Osborn
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