04/13/2014

We're all about to run out and go have a water fight all day, so today will be short. I'll make up for it next week. This week was fantastic. Conference was enlightening and revelatory.

We found some new solid investigators and are set up with a goal of 5 baptisms in our trio this week. We'll see how this goes! We have to work tomorrow, even though the entire country will still be fighting with water in the streets, so we'll try to just work out of the church as much as possible.

Oh, this Protestant thai lady FREAKED OUT on the bus the other day. She said she didn't like our church, I asked why, she said we didn't teach the scriptures, I said I read them for 2 hours a day, she said we don't teach the word of God, (she started to fluster and get unusually angry - even for a white person).

I started quoting Jesus, "Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart... and the second is like unto it, Love thy neighbor as thyself".

She stood up and yelled that she would go call the cops. I told her to calm down a few times until she sat back down and sulked into silence while everyone else on the bus started acting normal again.

I love you all! I promise I'll write better next week!

Elder Osborn

Here's a way delicious dish we ate a few days ago. What I'm sticking in my mouth right there is a chunk of coagulated blood. Way good. :)

I'm way pumped to go invite people to get baptized as I spray them in the face with my squirt gun.

04/07/2014

Well, holidays and birthdays are not really all that exciting on a mission. You just do the same things -- don't get me wrong, doing these same things every day is way better than anything at home.

We went and celebrated by getting some icecream. I was so cold after I was shivering. (I will not share how much ice cream I ate to make me shiver -- in Thailand, in the hot season )

That was fun. But also, more importantly. Last Monday after emailing we got a phone call from President Senior...

So on Wednesday morning we drove Elder Lucas to the mission home for mission leadership conference.

He went zone leader, and I didn't get a replacement. So now I'm with Elder Sayavong and Elder Winsor again! After only 3 weeks... So that was fun. I brought that desk that I really liked from the other room back because I liked it so much. I also brought that soft spinny chair too. 

3 Elders. 1 companionship. 1 district.

Elder Winsor is only a couple months older than me in the mission and Elder Sayavong is still training, so we're a pretty young group down here. But that isn't stopping us from working hard and successfully.

Yes. We got 2 baptisms this week. One of them was a girl who has been an investigator for months and was inherited from the Sisters before -- which is REALLY long here in Thailand now. The other was a woman who came to church for the first time last Sunday -- the 30th. They both got baptized yesterday.

Next week is our general conference weekend and it is songrang. (I think that's how it's spelled).

Songrang is basically the coolest holiday in the world. Way cooler than anything in america. I've heard that it compared with Christmas from some Elders.

So here's what it is:

The entire country stops everything. 79 million people. They stop everything! Stores, restaurants, everything. For three days. Why? So they can have a giant water fight for three days. Yes. You read correctly. A water fight. 79 million people. 3 days. In one of the busiest craziest cities in the world. Bangkok Thailand. 

We're only allowed to play one day, and we have to be in our house by 7 every day, but that's still enough. I'm way pumped!! The idea is that it is played on the three hottest days of the year, just before the rainy season starts. So they have a water fight and try to throw so much water that the gods decide to play too and it rains. Way boss. 

I'm also way excited for general conference. We watch it a week late so they can translate it and broadcast it here. We'll still watch it in English. Super excited. The only problem. It doesn't count as a time for an investigator at church, which means all of the people we had at church on Sunday can't be baptized until the 20th. That's okay, we have 5 really solid investigators with dates for the 20th.

Today we had a way fun sports day. The entire zone got together and played frisbee, soccer, basketball. Way fun! Got to see everybody and run around in the sun for 4 hours.

Also, since Elder Sayavong is still training, we study for an extra hour and a half, so I make phone calls while Elder Winsor does the training, and I get my super long language study again. That's fun, but really long.

Still learning lessons. Humility and charity, knowledge and diligence. 

We had one other investigator who was supposed to get baptized yesterday. She decided she wasn't ready yet. We taught her everything. Explained that if an 8 year old can be ready for baptism, she definitely is. So we just wait for her until she decides that she's ready. It's rough to see that kind of mindset because I've seen too many people fall off the path when they decide to put off their baptism. Satan works really hard to get you to stall, then he just has more time to stop you.

We have a special mission, the Thailand Bangkok Mission has now become a baptizing mission. 218 people were baptized last month. And the bar has been set higher for this month and the next. But it's still not all happy and baptisms. From what I've seen, usually 1 in 3 of the REALLY solid investigators with a baptismal date end up getting baptized. Which is why we work with a lot of people. What we do we've started to call "sifting". We invite hundreds of people a day to be baptized to get a few numbers and appointments set up, then only a small portion of those actually show up, then only a few of those keep learning, and only a couple of those are the "elect" who get baptized the next week. We just sift through the people to find those who have been prepared by the hand of the Lord. Everyone we see who gets baptized has been prepared in some way. It's fascinating to watch.

Saturday was a way interesting day. We took Elder Sayavong to the doctor to get some medication and taught 3 recent convert lessons in the waiting room over the phone. Then that evening while we were teaching three Pakistani guys showed up at the church to talk to us. Two were evangelists, the other was a pastor. All from the Evangelist Church. They had been forced from their country with 150 other leaders of their church because they were christian. They came looking for help. It's hard because we can't help them because of legal complexities. They told us they were walking past and saw the cross on the top of our church... there isn't a cross on our church.

But at the end of our talk they asked if we could pray together. The pastor began singing. He sang hallelujah over and over again in a way cool Middle Eastern sound. The other two kept saying "amen" and "yes" while he sang. Then all of the sudden he had his hands up in the air and started talking really fast in Urdu. It sounded like alien language. He went for about a minute while we just sat there stunned and the other two kept saying amen. then they all crossed themselves and said a final "praise the Lord, amen".

Woah... that was an experience. We walked away from that thinking how grateful we were to be in the true Church of Jesus Christ. That we know how to pray to our Heavenly Father, how to speak with Him. How to converse with Him.

That is why I'm here. To help others know this is true. That they are children of their Heavenly Father and they can receive a remission of their sins.

The people of Thailand really believe that they cannot be relieved of sin. Just on the way here this guy started to argue with us saying that you cannot be relieved from sin. You just have to live with it your whole life. The culture here has a lack of hope. It's sad. You can see it in everyone's eyes, the way they walk. They think that this life is just a stepping stone. They'll be something else next life, won't take knowledge, experience, or family. There's no hope, no desire to be your best. Everyone just sits through life. There's no motivation, no hope for anything. I ask people if they want to be with their children for eternity. They say no. I ask why. They say you can't. I tell them that they can. They just say you can't and you walk on to the next person, hoping this person has a desire and a vision of the eternities.

Some of them see the light. They're so prepared I could say anything and they would agree. I pray for the gift of teaching so God can speak through me to them. I pray to meet those who have the gift of believing on the words of the faithful, so that when I meet them they believe me when I tell them, "You can be freed from sin. You can be clean again."

And it is a special experience to meet someone, see them believe, and watch the light come into their lives as they prepare to be baptized.

Well. I'm off for today. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Don't forget to read your scriptures, pray more than often, go to church, and pay your tithing. Because you can't afford not to keep the commandments.

Elder Osborn

This is sister เบียร์, or Beer. She's the younger girl.

Also we have sister Sutiraa, or สุธีรา. The older woman.

And us at the hospital. We felt so useless as we just sat there waiting, so we took this picture. Look! 3 Elders!

3/31/2014

My new favorite question. "What is baptism?"

I won't answer this question for you, just give you all the opportunity to ponder this beautiful and essential ordinance of salvation and exaltation.

Speaking of baptism. Brother Jum, จุ๋ม got baptized yesterday! I love this guy. He's hilarious, so shy. He is so scared of talking to people he refused to bear his testimony after his baptism... :)

On Friday we were helping some members move out at their house way far away and we were waiting for the bus so we could go back and teach a lesson. We were standing there and a guy pulled up on a motorcycle and asked us, "You guys was away sins, right?" We said yes and set up an appointment. After we got his number and set him up for the next day he just drove away back the way he came. It was almost like he knew we were there. Really cool little miracle. He's getting baptized. He also looks like Vin Diesel. :)

We had some really cool powerful lessons with some of the long-time investigators we inherited from the Sisters before us. Basically one is already interviewed for baptism and the other two are going to get married so they can get baptized too. 

Something really cool that comes along with every baptism we get is we have to go on a switch-off with the zone leaders every time. So basically I get to be companions with Elder Wilko almost every week for a day! He still teaches me new things.

We found this one guy, during the first lesson we taught him every single commandment. That was super fun.

God taught us a lesson - or several - yesterday.  On Saturday we were writing everyone down who is set up to go to church yesterday. We had 23 people!! The next day in Sacrament meeting only two of them came. And we had a walk-in. So only 3. 23 people. Only 3 came. We were pretty frustrated. But because none of those people came we cleaned out our investigator pool and went contacting to replace all of those people we dropped. We found the real contacting wonderland. A residential area, a massive street market, and 4 7-elevens within 100 meters. Woah. We want to go back because nobody has ever really contacted there and it is a perfect set-up for some beautiful contacting. We'll see how many people in that area we can baptize this month.

We play this game called "Where's Waldo?"  Basically whenever we go contacting our goal is to find that ONE person who is way amazing and will get baptized the next week. Most of our new investigators have been this "waldo". we also found one in that one place.

We are learning lots of lessons, humility, charity, love, and prayer. 

We saw a beautiful sunset last night too. :)

A solid week.

Elder Osborn

03/24/2014

This week was the most tiring week of my life.

I was falling asleep in lessons, in between lessons, while sitting on the bus, during exercise time, everywhere! We were pretty darn tired!

Why? Because we had the most successful and productive week yet. Elder Lucas and I taught so many lessons.... Preparing so many people for baptism. We walked out of the week with 16 lessons with a member and 31 other lessons. 9 people at church but only 6 new investigators. On friday we had to go on a split so our investigators could get interviewed. So I got to spend the day with Elder Wilko again!! Then we got home at 10 from the switch-off and had to wake up at 5 for a ward activity the next morning. With over 16 appointments set up for that afternoon and evening... So we basically were running on steam and the life sustaining effects of mountain dew. Sunday was similar. As was every day this week.

Sadly no awesome stories with white people, except for this random russian guy yelling at me from across the way.

But we had a great week. Sister พิมพ์ got baptized. And we have more people set up for next week too! We built an ultra lesson during companion study because we realized we won't have enough time during the week unless we make our lessons more effective. So we tested this new lesson. We taught 2 investigators the plan of salvation, the gospel, the 10 commandments, tithing, fasting, and the law, all in 45 minutes, including a short discussion on how to invite friends to learn too and a review of scripture study.

With this new lesson style - if our member doesn't go off on a tangent - we can teach our investigators everything in two thirty minute lessons. Which gives us more time to go out and find these investigators!

Miracle:

We went out to go contacting on Friday for 10 minutes while we waited for a lesson. We walked across the street and I invited this lady with a little kid and a baby to be baptized. She said she really wanted to be baptized and wanted to be christian. So she's getting baptized this Sunday! Her little son's name is Bread. :) 

Sorry I'm not saying much... Still pretty tired from this week. But this week's just going to be better!

Elder Osborn

 This is Sister Peem. or พิมพ์... thai is way easier.

And Sister Wan's son Bread is on the left of the picture. Cutest little kid.

03/17/2014

Wow. What a week!

To start I will follow up on what happened at the mini transfers this week!

I moved! To the next room. Same house, same area, new desk and a new companion. 

I actually really like this desk. It is bigger than my desk before in the other room. Also the air conditioning blows right on the spot where I sit. AND there's an outlet right next to it so I can charge my stuff with ease. It is a great desk. It also has really handy drawer in it. Plus right behind me is all of the missionary stuff, so I feel like I have this great office! And I almost forgot! My chair is a lot softer in this room too. and it spins.

Okay enough about my desk. My new companion is a champion of champions! Elder Lucas! He's way tall and so we scare all of the people away from us. His Thai is way good. He's just as old as Elder Hunsaker, the assistant, and was actually companions with him in the MTC. He contacts amazing, we both love the same food, and we love baptism.

Why did this mini transfer happen? Because we have a special mission. We have 9 week transfers, and sometimes new missionaries will come in between those nine weeks. So this week new missionaries came. One of them is being trained by Elder Winsor. He's from Laos! A convert of two years. And the only convert in his family. He has such an excitement about everything and I love it.

I never thought I would ever live in the same house as a Laotian person in my life.

Last email I wrote one very short paragraph about two investigators. I can't write a ton about every investigator because they cycle through so quickly. So I'll write more about them now.

The first I found last friday afternoon. I invited him to be baptized and we set up an appointment. Just like any other contact. So normal that I didn't even remember the person when I called to confirm the appointment. He came early to his appointment. He loved it! He loved Sunday the next day! We met with him on Monday after P-day ended too. He quit smoking in 4 days. What a boss! Actually his name is Boss! It was so hard for him he'd run out of lessons to go puke. He really struggled with quitting smoking, but he had such a strong desire it didn't mean anything. He just quit. On monday when we met him he said he had been walking since 10 that morning until 6. Why? Because it helped him not think of smoking. He also prayed the entire time. Why? Because he forgot how to finish his prayer... :)

On Monday while we were teaching the 10 commandments he asked us what happens to little children who die. His child died before birth. We told him that we didn't know when the spirit enters the body, but the scriptures explain that all little children who die return to their Father in heaven. He broke down into tears. More than tears, he was weeping. So of course, I started to cry. He apologized and said he doesn't normally cry. But he didn't know why he was crying. After the lesson I asked him how he was feeling. He tried to describe the feeling of the Holy Ghost but couldn't. We could all feel it so strong you couldn't deny it.

This boy is 22. He has had the hardest past of any person I've ever heard of. You could make a tragedy movie of his life. He was a heavy smoker, he has a massive mullet, and just looks like a punk. He's been involved in some crazy things, whether it's family, fighting, sorcery, or inter-family warfare. But he is the most genuine, pure, humble, kind, respectful, loving person I've met here. On Wednesday I had to tell him that I wouldn't be teaching him anymore. He just asked if I'd be here for his baptism. I told him I would. He was baptized yesterday. :)

It was amazing for me to find someone, love them, teach them everything, and prepare for baptism and switch companionships and watch the other Elders actually get a baptism. I set the stage so Elder Sayavong could get a baptism his first week in country. But Boss wanted me to baptize him. Such a cool experience to meet a guy on Friday and the next Friday he interviews and that Sunday is baptized.

We had a very successful week. Lots of new investigators, tons of lessons, but few contacts. We contacted so much! But with hardly anything to show from it. Except again God produced miracles yesterday. For two companionships we had 14 people at church! This is unheard of! There were 76 people at church, 4 of which were the missionaries and 14 investigators. Wow!!

And now onto stories!

1. Elder Lucas invited a white guy to get baptized. He responded, "I worship the devil."

2. I invited a very nice guy from South Africa. He wanted his girlfriend to get baptized. But wasn't willing to meet with us. So he asked if he could bring his baby the next day to get baptized. I told him we don't baptize children because they are alive in Christ. He walked away dissapointed.

3. We invited a whole bus to get baptized when we got on, then went and stood at the back. One white guy said, "Well that was really effective guys..."

Elder Lucas: It was pretty effective. We now know that no one on this bus wants to be baptized.

Him: No it wasn't

Time passes and he sits there awkwardly until he decides to say: You got up in our faces so I'm going to get up in your face a little. When you grow up you're going to look back at this and think of how silly it was.

We just laughed at him and he sat there in anger the whole ride. Until he got off. Then he mumbled something against us as he got off. I said, "wait sorry! I didn't catch that! Can you say that again?" and put my hand up to my ear. 

He just scowled. 

We saw him at the store 30 minutes later and we said hello. He was still grumpy.

4. We met some other american who went off about how the government is corrupt and taken over by the devil and so is everything else and how the end of the world is coming and all of that junk.

He spoke of the "new world order". Crazy guy. He talked our ears off about all of these conspiracy theories for forever!  He liked us and wanted to learn what the mormons think of the end of the world. We told him about the church in Asoke so he could go there.

What a fun week!

Elder Osborn

 This is Brother Jack!!!

And Brother Boss.... :)

03/10/2014

This week we had no baptisms... But we found many people who want to be baptized. We did some contacting with some of the young women recent converts who are working on their personal progress. They killed it! Not only did they help us contact, they brought their non-member friend. And she helped invite too! In an hour and a half of contacting we had 26 numbers and 14 appointments set up.

We did a lot of contacting, sometimes with amazing success, sometimes with nobody interested. But yesterday God taught us a lesson. We had an unusually slow week, few lessons, few new investigators, and hardly nothing coming from our contacting. In our whole district only two solid new investigators were found. (these investigators are awesome! But for the sake of making this story sound more epic I'll talk about them afterwards. :)  )

So God taught us that He can do His own work. During Sunday school yesterday two families walked into the church. Both gave the same reason for coming. They both were just walking past the church and "felt" like they should go to church today. The other Elders taught the first family the restoration and they all have baptismal dates for the 23rd. Right when the lesson finished, the second family walked into the church. They received the same lesson and they have dates for the 23rd also. One family has a 7-year-old son and the other an 11-year-old son. 

Then, we found out that one of the men sitting in sacrament meeting wasn't actually a member and had been coming by himself for three weeks. He also accepted a date for the 23rd. 

God knows how to do his own work. We - no matter how good we are - have no idea what we're doing. God leads people to Him. We go out and try to find them. No matter how hard I work all week long, I can never get someone to walk into the church. Only the Spirit can do that. We all learned yesterday that our job is simple: work hard. Work smart. And let God do the rest. He'll bless us with miracles when we work for them and have faith.

Speaking of the other two super solid investigators. They are both awesome! I found one talking to everyone. Elder Winsor found the other while we were in a songtao. Still talking to everyone. This is how our mission works. We talk to everybody we see! Everyone!

They both have a very strong desire to be baptized and we've had some powerful lessons with them. Some of the most strong spiritual lessons I've ever had. One of them always takes notes on what we say. Especially with the commandments.

Oh, and we figured out why President Senior told Elder Winsor and I not to "get too comfortable". I'll explain next week, but basically I'm moving.

I should take more pictures of this area. It's a way cool area.

Elder Osborn

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AHHHHHH!!!!!! I almost forgot about the coolest miracle ever!!!!

I got a phone call a couple nights ago from my trainer and my current zone leader, Elder Wilko, giving me an update of Udon. :)

Remember Brother Jack? there were two of them. The one that I lost to his parents, and the one who just disappeared before his baptism. The one who passed his interview one saturday in Udon, but we never heard from him again, was found. The Elders in Udon ran into him and he passed his interview again this week and was baptized yesterday! I almost died when I heard this. He was special to me. One evening I just saw a guy running with his headphones in. I stopped him, invited him, and watched him overcome everything to prepare to be baptized. He was so solid I was excited to teach with him even before he was supposed to be baptized! Then the day of his baptism he just never showed up. We never knew what happened to Jack.  

Now I know that he found his way back. :)

Ah man... I'm gettin' teary eyed just writing this....

03/03/2014

This week we baptized Brother Win. He is awesome! Such a happy man. After his baptism one of the members asked him if he felt excited. He said no. We were really confused until he told us that he just felt peaceful. That made my day. The joy and peace that the Gospel brings to people is visible. You can see it in their eyes, their actions, their words. 

Just before the baptism while we were taking pictures our recent convert Sister Tipa, who got baptized two weeks earlier, asked to take a picture with Brother Win. She is an older woman and is so cute and just loves the church so much! She was just beaming with joy because of him. She was so excited for his baptism I can't even describe her excitement. She was asked to say the closing prayer at the baptism and when she went up to say the prayer she introduced herself first. It was so cute! This lady is the best.

Last night we had a meeting with Bishop Stevenson in Asoke. A good part of the missionaries in Bangkok were there and he spoke on success and how to keep "pressing forward" to higher levels whenever we are successful. He also spoke on commitments and the power of giving a commitment. President Senior spoke on "the medium is the message" and how the first and sometimes the most powerful statement of the message of the restored gospel of Christ is the missionary. How the missionary walks, carries himself, speaks, and smiles. He said to "leave them in exquisite wonder" after you walk away. He spoke of the missionaries in one area out in the Isaan and how the whole town knows the missionaries as the "clean sins guys".

Interesting stories for this week!

1. A guy came into the church for an appointment. He wanted to get baptized that day. We told him he's have to wait until the next sunday. He said no. We didn't really know how to respond. He went off about how I had told him we would baptize him that day in only twenty minutes. I told him I did not tell him that. He got frustrated. We asked him again if he wanted to get baptized. He said yes. We said that the fastest he can get baptized is next Sunday. He said no. This cycle happened a couple more times while we tried to teach him commandments but he refused everything. I looked him in the eyes, he stood up, and we walked him to the door. The member that was helping us told us that he was probably drunk. 

2. We found a guy from Scotland, we gave him everything. Somethings he even noticed were correct, but then he'd shake it off and reject again. Judgement seat is gonna be way awkward for that guy.

3. We found another guy. Elder Winsor asked this white old man where he was from, to which he angrily responded along the lines of, "why does it matter? Thailand I guess. Why? Are you from the government?" "No, I'm a missionary" Elder Winsor invited this white guy to be baptized, he turned around and started freakin' out at Elder Winsor. Elder Winsor just bore his testimony, "I know this is the only way we can be saved, by being baptized." This is the part where I noticed what was going on. I heard this guy yelling in English so I turned around to see Elder Winsor holding out his baptism card and telling this guy he needs to be baptized while this guy is literally spitting with anger. He was spraying spit as he yelled, "That's an opinion!" over and over again. I turned around and he looked at me and yelled it one more time at me. I couldn't control myself. I started laughing out loud. This ticked him off even more as he started to yell, "that's an opinion!" again! Oh my.... I started laughing harder and he just felt awkward cause he realized how stupid he looked in front of this supermarket with tons of people watching. He forced out a couple laughs but stopped pretty quickly and didn't know what to do. He yelled at us, "Go back to Salt Lake with all of your racist, homophobic friends!" I started laughing even harder - almost hard enough to start crying - and said, "Okay - have a nice day". To which he responded, "YOU have a nice day!" as he turned around and hobbled away.  Wow. I am almost crying of laughter again as I'm writing this story! This guy was out of control.

4. I ate my first sandwich in four months. It was subway. It had mustard on it. I was happy.

It is impossible to count how many people I invite to get baptized everyday. I need some kind of counter that I can hold in one hand and my baptism card in the other. If I were to guess how many people everyday - it's probably between 200 and 300.

Well, I'm out of stuff to say for this week.

Elder Osborn

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