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| Eagle Scout skills! |
"This was a full and successful week. We got balanced! This means that we have a standard for each week, which is..: 2 daters, 2 at Sacrament, 10 lessons with a member or recent convert, 14 other lessons, and 2 new investigators. It is the hardest thing to do and we have only gotten balanced once and it was at the last minute. We got the last dater on Sunday and the last new investigator at 7:00pm on Sunday night!! Crazy! We are super happy and it may be the only time we do it this transfer."
"P-days go by faster than light! We go to Tesco for food and then the next thing we know it's 6:00 pm! This Monday, we are going to make suits and go to a big market. Next week we are going to go to a big zoo, if the Zone Leaders let us. Then we are going to go to a Tiger place. I don't really know all the details, but it sounds super fun! The plans were made last minute."
"Tuesdays we have to leave our area and go meet with the Bishop of Bangkapi and then teach English class there. Beginning this Tuesday, we will finally have our own English class in Lat Phrao, so we are super excited and hope that it will be successful. I do like going down to Bangkapi because all the missionaries will go and get a bunch of chickens and have a feast. We eat chicken, rice and milk mostly, but it is so delicious. We also will watch a bunch of Mormon Messages and Bible videos. Oh by the way, could you get the two Mormon Message dvds and send them to me? I'd like to use them with our investigators."
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| Bangkapi Ward fun! |
"Wednesday we didn't have much to do, but we were still low on our
key indicators, so we did 5 hours of contacting and man, was it tiring.
Then we had to go back to Bangkapi for correlation meeting with the ward
mission leader. However, he was late and so were the other
missionaries, so we were trapped outside the church for almost an hour
waiting. We played with some stray cats which were nasty and I didn't
dare touch them. haha Finally they showed up and there were about 15
other people waiting there with us. We all started cheering when they
arrived and it was funny. We started a little member party in the
dark in front of the church. haha"
"On Thursday, we had weekly planning meeting which takes two hours and then we had to go teach Brother Israel Thai. Afterwards, we went home and got the rest of our studies done and made phone calls. We had about 40 calls to make and the worst part is that most of them aren't any good. We got maybe one promising lead and we will meet with him on Tuesday. I'll be crossing my fingers."
"Friday came and we were still low on our key indicators. We had planned two lessons for the day. After studies, we went to a less active member's home. She is an older lady that I think is less active because she has a hard time getting to church on her own. But, she showed up on Sunday which was good. I lead the lesson. I taught about having faith in Jesus Christ in order to receive miracles. It went really well. We also talked about all kinds of strange foods that she and the other members with us had eaten and it was gross. haha She told us that she had fermented egg and I said I'd eat it, so she brought it out! We ate fermented egg... so nasty! Afterwards on our way to sports day, we saw a little park with a playground and it looked super ghetto, but we went and played on the things there. It was really funny and I've got pictures for you. We also went to a market to buy some food and we saw a guy selling live shrimp to eat, so yes, we ate live jumping shrimp! haha It was so weird!"
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| They found a playground! |
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| Enjoying a live shrimp snack! |
"We taught Brother Oat again and the lesson was super spiritual. We asked him if he would fast with us and he said yes, so we fasted together on Sunday. Brother Oat is so ready for baptism. He has learned so much and has already gotten an answer that this gospel is true."
"Saturday, we did a lot of contacting again. We taught a recent convert and then went to a Book of Mormon class that we started. I really just sit there and have no idea what is going on because I don't understand the royal Thai language too well and that is how the Book of Mormon is written. I follow along the best I can. We taught Brother Oat a quick lesson about the Army of Helaman and then went home."
"On Sunday, we taught 4 lessons after church and one was with our new dater, Sister Wasana. She is Catholic, but wants to learn more because of her friend, Sister Oh, who is so nice and happy. We asked her to be baptized on October 20th, so hopefully we'll get there. We were so tired because we had been fasting and were busy all day, but I know that the Lord blessed us. We had church in Lat Phrao, taught Brother Oat and went contacting again. When we finally got home, we said a prayer because we needed one more new investigator to be balanced. We called the first person and made an appointment, so we were balanced! We were so happy! We could finally lay down and relax and talked a long time until we went to bed. It was a busy and crazy week with many benefits. I love and miss you so much!"
Elder Jacob Smith
