Merry GiveThanks (what?..)

Good week? Are you all about to burst from all the food you ate? Hope so. Go exercise! Fatties. Just kidding (but seriously.. dont get fat).

Great week over here. Lots of fun.. kinda crazy but really good. Kinda surprising at the end of the week to see that our week wasnt as bad as we thought it was going to be.. we both got pretty sick (again) and mine came back worse than before.. i was down and out for a good day and a half.. on wednesday i woke up around 5 clock.. yeah, Elder Furr was pretty bored of all the phone cals by then haha. My fever was pretty high, but we didnt have a thermo so i dont know what it was at. Im good now. Ate some antibiotics and boy! That cleared me out nicely! Never gone to the bathroom so many times in an hour! Too much info? oops

Even though we were sick since tuesday and out on wednesday we still made it out to work in the evenings as much as possible. Theres not like a ton to report but lets just go over investigators shall we? Well, Nog and Tam are doing superb as always.. so prepared, so golden. At one point we were talking and saying we were kinda worried that they might be losing interest or something like that.. nope. First lesson that we taugth them after that little concern of us.. BOOM golden responses to everything. For example.. he wants to get the triple combination and a full copy of the bible (old and new testaments) to study together because "without all 4 it just isnt complete.". Wow. I didnt even come to that realization until like.. just then! Kidding. But that was just one response of theirs. They have both started to repent already from their past sins, and they were pretty adorable about it.. they asked if they were allowed to talk to God even thought they arent pure or if they havent been baptized yet.. put it sipmly, they felt godly sorrow! They felt super bad about some of the things theyve done before and felt ashamed.. but hey! They took it and went to God with it. Perfect. Repentance is a process of hope! They read the Book of Mormon like champs and their kids? Oh my! So adorable. Mom you would have stolen these kids before they awoke in the morning.. i know you would because i want to! So cute. They are name Fino and Pheonix.. Fino just sits in his dads lap and stares at everything.. so funny. He also farted. I laughed. Pheonix is almost 2 years old and just loves to speak in her own language.. doesnt make a bit of sense but who cares right! She is super used to us and love when we come over.. she runs to the door and slams it open and says what im assuming is the equivalent of "come in!". Yeah, we are totally proud of that one.. gained her trust. They're legit. Not really any concerns.

The next woman.. wow. They just keep getting more and more prepared! This woman is named Sandy. She has a Mormon friend. Sees her once a YEAR. Said she was impressed by her and wanted to learn more. Went to conference broadcasts at Church. Told her us that she was really impressed and touched by President Uchtdorf.. yes.. you are reading that right.. she remembered HIS NAME. Like, maybe that is just us, but hearing that from an investigator on the first lesson? Never seen it before. She wanted to know about commandments (After she has already prayed and knows everything is true) so we told her about the Word of Wisdom. Actually, i take that back, we gave her a pamphlet to read after out visit.. called her the next day: "Ive quit coffee already!". Yeah. Epic. No desire to drink it. Unfortunately she is in rangsit, which is north bangkok, and she is just here escaping the water... we will teach her until she has to go back home. Water.. she will get baptized.

So other than that... oh yeah. You will notice that there are 2 pictures attached.. you may remember him and i hope you do. Its Yong from up in Warin. I got a call from Brother Ice in Ubon telling me that Yong passed away on Friday of Last week.. he went to sleep on Thursday night and didnt wake up Friday. He had been working really hard and they said that it was lack of sleep and too much fatigue. It was pretty shocking to me and i didnt really know what to say...but it was true that i wasnt that sad.. i mean i miss him and its really sad of course, but you cant just not think of Alma 40:11 or anything like it.. "all shall rise" from the dead and be brought back to Heavenly Father. I know he left this world with a testimony and he will be ready to meet God. He was great..

Love this work. Its true. It is God's. Love you all

Elder Gudmundsen

Another week

November 21:

That was a fun week. The highlight i think would have to be the zone conference we had on wednesday.. quite the spex.. for those of you scratching you head slash and or being appalled that means spiritual experience. Elder Gong is quite the disciple; very... uhh.. its hard to explain.. you just feel great in his presence. To be completely honest, the zone conference itself wasnt anything super special.. i mean it was great dont get me wrong, but nothing happened that was amazingly out of the ordinary.. it was just, good. You felt good. You left feeling uplifted and you got to see what someone was like who has consecrated their life for longer than only 2 years is like. He taught us about the saviors visit to the nephites and then Joseph Smiths first vision again.. put them together and use it in lessons in order to help investigators feel the spirit in our lessons. Pretty cool. He had us count how many times the Savior mentions baptism in 3 Nephi 11 and 12:1-3 which is 19 times.. it was funny.. he then asked what people thought about it and everyone was going off on baptism baptism and BAPTISM in the first lessons... yes, that is true, we need to be talking about baptism.. i raised my hand: "I liked how the Savior told them to 'come unto him and feel the prints in his hand' first, and then invited them to be baptized.". A little something we forget sometimes thats so important.. they need to have a reason to want to be baptized or believe first. Thats our biggest job. You can talk about baptism all you want, but until they have a reason to want to do it, whether they understand those reasons fully or not, they wont do it. After the conference, Elder Gong and President Smith only had a time for about 6 interviews and i was lucky to get to interview with Elder Gong.. ill tell you about it later, but it was incredible.

In other things, Elder Furr and i are working on things in our zone and we want to be better about using the scriptures in our lessons, from day 1. The way we were talking about it was that we know people use scriptures in teaching the Plan of Salvation and the commandments and stuff, but its a little more difficult to be using them for the message of the restoration.. but we practiced it and it works. Our goal is to be able to not say or answer any question or do anything like the manner with our investigators but only through using the scriptures. We figured that if we could do that, the ivnestigators would be touched by the spirit on their own and see the importance of the Book and would 1) stop asking us and go straight to God and the scriptures and 2) gain a testimony quicker. Its nothing thats super new because its already in preach my gospel and the prophets say to do so, but its a little more difficult than i thought. But, as a testimony and a sign that that was correct, the Lord placed someone in our path who, is quite possibly the most prepared person i have ever met. To put it simply, in the short space of 3 hours, he introduced us to someone from New Zealand, Finland, England, and Missouri.. 1 of those he had just barely met hahah. After all that, we taught him about our message and he had a bunch of questions about baptism and about prayer and being a member and life after death and since we had studied and prepared for this that morning, we answered everything by using the Book of Mormon... you know what he said? "Wow so the Book of Mormon can answer all my questions right? Thats pretty miraculous.". The things he was saying was just so.. miraculous. We were almost laughing in the lesson at how many of his responses were in direct relation to what we had talked about in study.. kinda hard not too. Turns out he has a record in one of the other ELders area books, but all we saw was a lot of previous Elders who quite frankly had no charity. To be completely honest. They said he was weird and that he just wasnt willing to do anything.. i dunno, maybe it was true then, but seriously, by their works shall ye know them, and his works say that hes prepared and wants to be baptized. We did commit him to baptism, but he didnt accept yet just because he wants to feel fully ready. He will though. Hes going to FHE tonight. LEGIT.

Other than that, stuff happened, and it was good. haha.. yeah i know that sounds bland. Oh, i was sick (still kinda am) and now everyone in both zones who were at that zone conference are now sick too hahaha.. i was the carrier! Snap. Elder Furr was hating his life this morning.. ill show you a picture of what weve been suffering later, this cafe doesnt have sd readers.. but ill tell you that it was very long, super slimy, got stuck in the sink drain, and may or may not have come from my nose...

Love you all, this work is true and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Go give it to someone. Get it done!

Elder Gudmundsen

Sup

November 14:

So greetings from Bangkok.. all around us its flooding but right where we're at, its dry! Woot. Also its the cool season! And its been pretty nice lemme tell you.. like, way nice. Dont get me wrong, its nothing comparied to home San Diego, but it aint bad that fo sho!

Hokay.. lets get into it shall we? 2 more daters! Yay! This family that i met back in my solo project (haha.. sound like a rock band) accepted a date to be baptized on the 25 of December.. thats pretty sweet. The father is named Tam and the Mother is Nog (bird). They have 2 ADORABLE kids.. loud as crap, but adorable none the less.. the little guy just sits in his fathers lap all day ur day and just stares at us, and then the other sister loves to play with him and really only ever upsets him haha.. Its been hard to teach sometimes and stay focused, but how can you complain against that? They are kids and they are in a family thats accepting the gospel.. like, cant be a better Christmas gift than that. Tam is suuuupppppppeeeeerrrr prepared by the Lord.. not sure if i put the super long enough, but he is SO prepared. Basically when we extended the hard commitment to be baptized he just said, very calmly, "well yeah, like i said at the beginning i feel like this is where i should be going, so why would i say no?". NOw, that for sure was way sweet, but what came after was pretty astonishing. As Elder Furr and i were talking about it, we knew that Tam had a lot of colleagues who were Christian and had been talking to him already about Christ. We had some fears that some people would try to kick him off the path that the Lord put him on with anti-mormon propoganda. Well, we were right about one thing: THey did TRY to kick him off the path, but we were wrong about the other... you cant stop the TRAIN (if you play GoW you will get that)! They did show him anti mormon stuff and did try to kick him off, but like all people who try to tear us down, they really tear their own rameumptum down. Tam listened for sure, just cause hes too nice to not listen, but after just felt pretty bored and said to himself, "wait.. arent you Christian too? Arent you supposed to love people instead of bashing on other religions?" Oh how right you are Tam! Its funny how when sharing the gospel, we dont have to do anything really.. preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words right? So anyway, the next appointment he told us about what had happened and then continued to say that he wasnt going to stop because he believes that God has put him on this path and hes going to stay on it. Yes please! Remember, "by their works (and words) ye shall know them". Couldnt have said it better. They went to Church yesterday (way dressed up too.. including the babies), and had a great time. The kids? Wow, never seen em quieter. Nog will really like that part. We told him to go to church with a question in his head and that he would get an answer from the speakers.. every time we looked back during sacrament meeting he was paying attention and listening way focused (does that make sense.. okay sure it does). Anyway.. they are legit.. 2 legit to quit!

Nong is still doing good.. hes trying really hard to get friends to church and to english and to family home evening, but has not had much success thus far. Hes good. lazy. But good.

We had a lot of time to go inviting and find some new investigators and man did we work it. Havent had invigorating exerpiences like this in a long time. So we found this family close by where Nog and Tam are and when we invited them, we found out that they didnt have a dude home and her husband was gone. They seemed pretty interested for us to sit down, if but a little confused at first, and so we made it our mission for the next 20 minutes to find a dude that would sit down with us. We called Nong.. no answer. "Hey well be right back we are gonna go grab a friend who lives close by..''.... *walking, walking.... dangit! Hes not home. Walk down the stairs, "hey buddy.. are name is Elder. Whats yours? Sweet, will you come sit in a random house with us while we teach this family? We need a dude to sit with.. . okay see ya later!.... dangit". We were talking to every person around... "hey waht about this guy? Is he old enough? uhnnyuh... hey kid how old are you? 15?!.. Cya!... nope... AH this guy! Hey sorry this is gonna sound really weird but will you come sit with us in this other persons house for 5 minutes? We need a man to sit in with us because of rules.. promise it will be only 5 minutes... you will? Rock on, lets go!" So yeah.. we grabbed this random guy on the stairs and brought him over to that families house.. everyone got along pretty nicely and they family was way receptive to the message too. When we brought him back they asked, "oh is this your friend?" "Yeah, something like" "Do you have a clue what these two young men are doing" "Not at all mam..". Eh.. no worries. Hit 2 birds with one stone right? So epic. Pretty exilerating and we got a return appointment too! It gets crazier.. so we went back to teach them and before that we made the appointment to bring 2 people with us. I was thinking of the family and which member could go good with the daughter.. i noticed that the daughter wore those stupid "big eye" contact lenses, and that another member wears them too.. what?1 I thought it would be funny! But thats really why i called the member and wanted to bring her with us.. little did i know what awaited. We walked into the room first when we went back and then the other member followed.. "AHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAH!" ... hit the deck! So much screaming.. loud noises! Turns out, the member worked with the mother and an office job 2 years ago and studied with the mothers daughter.. coincidence? Yeah right. No way. So all in all, that was a pretty sweet expereience.. the family didnt make it to Church because of family coming in unexpectedly, but they are excited to learn.

In other things, Elder Furr and i are stoked on life.. having a blast and finding out more and more every day that we are seriously the same person.. like, i know people say that all the time, but when i tell you what we are about to go buy from the store and why, you will laugh.. garunteed. Here you go: Ocean Spray, canned, jellied CRANBERRY SAUCE! I think you might actually cry if you heard our conversation last night about how much we love cranberry sauce. Not even joking. We gonna eat cranberry sauce for thanksgiving this year. By the can! Theres many other things, but thats the gyst of it.
As far as teaching, we are doing really well. We do have slightly different styles, but were way open and willing to listen to each other and make our teaching exactly how the Lord wants and needs it to be. Stoked. Hes way diligent and focused and we are hoping we get more than 1 transfer.

Everything else is good.. i know this gospel is so true.. live it, love it, and share it. Dont ever forget whose name we represent. Get out there and make it know!

Elder Gudmundsen

another one bites the dust

November 8:

Yay! I have a true companion for the first time in over 2 weeks! Thats kinda nice. And guess who... Elder Furr! Woot woot! We've been prophesying this companionship since way back in don muang! He was in my district then, and then we separated for about a year, and then he was my zone leader back in ubon and now hes my companion! Totally sweet. We pretty much knew it was going to happen and so we met up, without planning this, by wearing the same tie that we had bought way back in don muang. Yeah. Talk about companionship unity!

So hows everything been going right? Good i guess.. crazy as can be of course. Taught like 4 lessons last week.. that was weird. Had to pick up an Elder from out in the Easan cause hes been having weight problems.. flew in to go the President Smith's doctor and since i didnt have a companion, i got to go.. yay. That was a fun night.. actually i am kidding, it was way boring.. he had to drink 2 liters of exlax.. yeah, 2 liters! Thats a lot. He was in the bathroom for 3 hours! And then the rest of the week was running around with this person, with this companionship, with the APs.. kinda gettin old already! But hey, gotta be flexible of course. Yesterday we didnt email because pday didnt exist.. thought i was gonna pick up Elder Furr at 830 in the moring and then go have studies and pday.. yeah that didnt happen! Elder Komgrid called and put me in charge of the greenies that needed to renew visas.. haha good thing i had no clue where the place was and no idea what to do when i actually got there! Stress yayayayay!

As far as the flooding goes.. i dont really know much any more to be honest! Its still flooding all around us, but im still not seeing it in our area yet. Soon.. im sure. Asoke is central bangkok so all churches and wards around it are closed and so a lot of people are coming to asoke.. its been nice to see some familiar faces. Asoke is pretty much encamped on all sides... one district in our zone is all out of their areas and in ours again, another district is couped up in 1 house and area... the zone next to us is evacuated.. the zone on the other side is starting to evacuate.. haha! Its for fun. And next week, amidst all the craziness, we have a nice mission tour with Elder Gong. He spoke last April about the temple mirrors to eternity.. i think that was the title of his talk. It was way good. Yay! My first zone conference. Should be fun. Especially cause we dont have to do much.. Elder Gong is planned to lead a new role play and give a superb talk. Stoked.

So sorry there wasnt really that much to talk about today.. not that much happened, or at least not that much that i can remember. Apple, Ice and Nang are all confirmed and doing well.. great members and being faithful. Apple and her sister are working some kinks out.. shouldnt be very hard. Nong has his date for the 27th now and we are really pushing to get him a new place to stay. We are trying to get out and find a bunch of new investigators since we are kinda dry right now.. hahah, pun intended. Just as an update of current ivnestigators.. we met 3 really nice cambodians who came here together to study medical school... they are great. First question, not even kidding, "why do we have to be baptized?". Elder Furr and i were talking about the lesson.. pretty much every question they asked was straight from out of Preach My Gospel under the section on "The Book of Mormon answers questions of the soul." Pretty epic.
We met a nice family who are pretty young but they have 2 adorable kids.. 1 of them is super afraid of us haha.. she will cry and cry until she is taken from the room hah. The other little guy just is interested in everything and stares for a long time. Love em.. they are we nice and said they would come to church for sure.

Okay well im ove rit.. hungry and bored hahaha.. you know i love you. Thanks for your support and your prayers.. i feel em. The mission is a little crazy right now, but we are staying on top of things. Im super stoked to work with Elder Furr.. we have been fortelling this for a while.. gonna be fun.

Love you all,

Elder Gudmundsen

Dry.. มั้ง

*Note: Sorry, I'm very behind in posting. I kinda forgot.... Here's the past few.

October 30:
สวัสดีจ้า From Bangkok! Again.. its been 2 days... right? That was the fastest 2 days of my life. Seriously.. felt like a dream!

So President Smith has sent us back to proselyting full time.. kind of caught a lot of people off guard.. but hey! thats the beauty of being missionaries we gotta be flexible right? Right. So we are going back to the regular schedule for the time being.. who knows things could change in the coming week. We are still going to be looking for ways to serve and stuff, but for the most part, its back to finding, teaching and baptizing (which we were still doing while we were serving haha).

So this week admist all the chaos and the fun dirty serving.. yeah we went sand bagging.. we had a baptism! Sister Apple got baptized! She told her family.. no one came.. bummer. But she was happy as ever and it was a powerful, short sabbath at church. Only had 1 hour of sacrament and then the baptism. She gave a very a sweet testimony and it was.. well it was way powerful นั่นแหละ. She expressed extreme gratitude for the Lord and how He gave her her testimony despite the much stubborness she had given him along her learning expereience. She acknowledged gratefulness for the Elders and what we had done for her, but in the end, she knew and expressed that it was all the Lord.. exactly how it should be. The Lord is the ultimate teacher and we are just the conduit for her conversion; "who can glory too much in the Lord?". Although her family didnt come, they werent against it.. at least not vocally so that was good. But we are trying our best to get an appointment with her sister to just have a nice family home evening one night at their house.. FHE is great.. doesnt have to be long or super complicated.. just introduce her to the culture of the church and get her interested again int he family.. she has a little daughter her loves apple and actually wants to go to church really bad, just her mom wont let her haha.. But not for much longer!

Sister Nang is officially confirmed.. Ice isnt.. hahah he had to take an english test and didnt make it.. dummy ahha no worries. He made it for the baptism though and he was still doing well.. those funny slip ups are just a part of becoming a member of the church right อย่าตัดสินเขาเด้อ

As far as the rest of the service goes, everything is good. We had a lot of fun going over to this place called FROC... which stands for what ก็จําไม่ได้แล้ว i cant remember. But we got interviewed! haha.. it was on tv too. I dont know where you could possibly check it out, but everyone at church was saying that they saw it.. and a member may or may not have shown it to us already on his ipad.. (he did). Pretty handsome if i do say so myself. But it made me pretty impressed at how fast things fly across the internet these days.. that thing was on everyones facebooks by the end of the week.. within 2 days! Thats insane. I guess i didnt really realize what Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar and all these otehr people were talking about with the internet needing to be used for good until now. Share those testimonies "like it!".

Okay well this one was short, for obvious reasons.. love you all. Hope everything is well on your end.. everything is mostly on this one. Except for the water, and the flooding, and the dirtyness and the heat and the.. just kidding! We are fine. President and Sister Smith are taking good care of us. You got nothing to be worried about มั้ง. Have fun. Talk to you next week.

Love Elder Gudmundsen

PS: Missed you Sessions.. hopefully you can find your way back? เสียใจอย่างแรง

... underwater

Yo. So President Smith is having us all email our families to say that we are drowning.. just kidding. But he did want us to let you know that we are fine. The water is a lot.. its really a lot. And its all coming to Bangkok and there isnt really anything to stop it so its going to conitnue to flood in for the next couple weeks.. and then stay for the next few months. President Smith has formally halted proselyting for now and sent us out to just serve only. We are wearing regular outfits and just going and finding members taht need help lifting furniture or neighbors, or anyone that needs help. ITs been pretty quiet so far, because most people are still under the impression that it wont flood around Asoke.... but ITS COMING! Everyone in the government says that everyone area will get flooded. Obviously some less than others, but at this point its kind of impossible to predict how much in each area, but for example, in my area we are going to be up to our knees. Thats quite a lot for downtown Asoke. The only area that ive heard that wont really flood is Pakkret where the main office is... this place has a bunch of rich poeple in it so they paid people to guard the walls and sandbags and basically bought their safety by diverting it to the poor people whos houses will already flood. Yeah, thats cool. Other than that place, everywhere else is going to get hit. Its obviously not like a tidal wave and so not dangerous in that sense, but drinking water is soon going to run out, and its just bringing in a lot of garbage and disease and disgusting-ness. We have plenty of water, so dont worry about that.. as President Smith puts it, we have enough water to last us until we finish our missions. Its weird.... i know the flood is coming because ive seen it already in some places, but sometimes it feels like the one part in Austin Powers when the steam roller is rolling towards that guy who is about 50 meters away and he is just yelling '"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" for about 5 minutes.. remember that? Yeah, thats what it feels like..

Lemme say this part straight up.. its been a LONG time since ive seen service this big and this magnificent. We headed down to the Don Muang airport the other day to help pack relief bags of food and stuff and wow.. that was a lot of people. The government donated a couple million things of relief items (shampoos, toilet paper, soap, ramen noodle, laundry detergent, etc) and hundres, thousands of people came together to set up assembly lines and get the bags out to people. Like, i wish I had pictures to show right now, but i didnt really take any at the activities cause there was so much service to do.. i didnt want to stand around and take pictures while people are working their butts off in front of me.. Im serious, it was way cool to see and be a part of. I havent really had that many opportunities to serve on my mission (not because i dont look for them!) and this was a really sweet one indeed. The assembly lines that we put together? SOOOOOO big. It was so insane.... id say 12 bags a minute were getting pumped out. No.. just kidding, 25.. at least! Then after the assembly line of people putting stuff into it, we got an assembly line of people to get them into to trucks and sent off. The coolest thing that happened was that AFTER we assembly-lined (yeah, i made that a verb) those bags into the trucks, it was amazing to turn around and see A HUGE NEW PILE OF BAGS READY! It was incredible.. i couldnt understand how they could get all those bags together that fast waiting for us. You know the sad part after that? The don muang airport is flooded now! Yeah, that flood relief effort is now underwater :) so now they are moved out closer into downtown Bangkok.

Just the other day we went to the Red Cross center in thailand and that was a treat as well.. they had so many canned foods going out to people.. put everything simple, i am just amazed at how willing people have been to help out.. i cant really describe it adequately but lemme just say that its pretty sweet. So thats the schedule for the next few months.. for the next few days we are going to first help our with our members and then get out and help anyone.. everyone, just go find people. Its a great opportunity to proselyte in and of itself because everyone now asks why we are serving so well.. why we speak thai.. etc. Its for fun. Love you. Ill talk to you again on monday.

Love Elder Goodman

Almost underwater

Just kidding.. but not really, everyone above and around us in all directions are starting to get flooded. Yay! For the most part, we are all doing fine.. except for the HUGE fact that i dont have a companion! Yeah, things went down this week.

Contrary to popular belief, and by that i mean most of bangkok, including myself, the water is actually going to make it into central, downtown bangkok. Obviously not nearly as much as up north, but it still will none the less. So, not many people prepraed that well.. so now eveyrone is starting to scramble and its been pretty cool to walk into any major shopping store.. all the food is gone. Water is impossible to find already.. everyone has just sucked it dry. Elder Peacock has pictures of it, but thats the other thing that went down: Their group got sent home on friday! Yeah, the major airport was predicted to flood this coming week around wednesday, so from up top, President Smith decided to get them out of the country before it did get flooded.. yeah, talk about a slap to the face for us. Ive been with different companions everyday for the past few days. Everything is messed up, and now ive got a zone with 35 people in it, camping out in the old church for a couple days. We had over 20 Elders in our DISTRICT yesterday and over 40 at one ward (our ward). It was pretty insane. Its a prime opportunity for Elders to get lazy and just not do anything, OR go out and go shopping (yeah.. prime time this time of year to buy lazer pointers.. did you know?). So we made up a big list of exchanges and just threw every elder out into downtown Asoke to work.. yeah, that worked quite effectively actually.. while i was planning out the exchanges, it was pretty cool to see how many people who are from different areas actually know this area enough to just get out that and drag someone else with them. Pretty cool. On top of all that

Baptism! Ice and Nang both got baptized amidst all the confusion and chaos... it was a nice spiritual experience and it was started off by Richard G. Scott and Bishop Burton... way cool. Richard G Scott is so sweet.. he really loved his wife and whenever he talks about her its kinda hard to keep those tears back.. like Brendon Fraser at a sun set. Apple didnt get baptized this week, but she did pass her interview, only because she wants her family to be able to be there too.. which she hadnt told them yet. Shes doing well and is still committed. She didnt make it to Church... MY BAD! I forgot to tell her it wasnt at 1 in the afternoon but at 10 in the morning! hahaha.. i s**k again!
Ice and Nangs baptisms were so good.. Sister Nang was crying and she looked soooo happy.. it was way good. Ice was superb.. very stoic, reverent and just.. powerful. He had the opportunity to go teaching with us this past week and man.. it was way good. He just took over the lesson and one point and was just bearing down powerful, pure testimony. Like, i dont want to say i was suprised, but man i was suprised! I knew he had a testimony but i didnt realize how powerful it was until he was teaching someone else. Stud. At one point during the conference, before the baptism, he just stopped and said, "You know.. im really glad i met you guys.". In english too. It was pretty cool and then after that, that Elder that was speaking at Stake conference talked about how everyone needs a missionary, whether that missionary is full time, or a member (cause every member is a missionary). I have lots of pictures from this past week.. i mean LOTS. SO much happened and you will love them.. but unfortunately this internet cafe is less than good and the SD card readers arent working.. yeah, bummer. Next week no?

So as for Nong hes doing better.. he was impressed by Elder Scotts talk about pornography.. Nong realizes that it is such a plague as Elder Scott described it.. he was impressed how straightforward he spoke and how it was excatly what society needs to hear... even if they dont like it. Its true.. its pretty bad and SO rampant.. walking down streets and seeing it everywhere is pretty bad.. its also pretty terrible when we walk past a street vendor selling regular american movies like Captain America and Transformers, and the first movie he brings up to you from behind his back is a pornographic film.. he just shoved it in our face as we were walking by asking if we wanted to buy it.. like, SERIOUSLY?! Why is it so bad? Like, they arent even ashamed about it.. selling it in public too.. i know its bad whether in private or in public, but cmon.. where did everyones shame go? I nearly smacked it out of his hand.. they just laughed.. i still love the guy and know hes grown up in a terrible world, but its really sad. Anyway, Nong sees why Elder Scott was so passionate about it. STAY AWAY!

I think my favorite thing this week was not that we had 2 baptisms, nor was it the awesome stake conference, nor was it the fact that Elder Komgrid is AP now, but it was the person who baptized Nang. As we were doing the program (or rather I.. Elder Peacock was gone already.. stress! Not really.. its fun!) I was thinking about who could baptize her.. I asked her who she was good friends with at Church and she said the WML and a ward missionary.. and then the Elders Quorum president.. immediately i knew it had to be him.. i didnt really know why exactly but i felt it was a good idea. So after we chose him and she agreed, we were talking to him and it came to light that he has NEVER used his priesthood authority to baptize anyone. Not that he isnt worthy or anything, but because he simply has never been asked. I know for a fact it was one of the best days for him to use it. So.. like Elder Holland always says: sanctify yourselves ye elders of Israel (and priests)! Be prepared to use your power. Thanks Dad for bringing me up unto the Lord to use the powers of the priesthood to bring salvation to his children.. the power of godliness was indeed manifest in the ordinance of the priesthood.

All i got today. Love you all so much.. this week was way fun and although a little crazy (i mean a lot) its been good growth. Running a zone is fun... didnt you train at the same time stinko? Speaking of which, where are all my friends? You all married already? Thought so. Well, take pictures of your babies (this is a hint to write me.. dont be lazy hahah). K, seriously, love ya. Have fun, stay safe. Dont worry about the flooding.. its only up to my knees.. haha im just kidding (but really, my socks are wet).

Love, Elder Gudmundsen

IM NOT UNDERWATER

The flood is FINE. Im NOT underwater! We are 33 floors above ground level and have plenty of Ramen Noodles.. i think we will be okay! If we arent and end up underwater, well, I think you will have fun time locating Thailand.

Okay so as for things of great importance.............. I dont get letters! Whats that about!?! oves it.

Now for real things.. investigators!

Sweet week... this coming sunday, as long as everything goes as planned, which it should, we will have 3 baptism.. woot! Ice, Nang and Apple.

Lets start with Apple.. so shes been receiving the lessons since March.. yeah you think thats long enough? Id say so. Shes had a testimony but shes always been puting baptism off because she wants a "extremely clear answer." She says the same thing over and over again, even though she acknowledges the very clear fact that she is mormon already.. one of her best friends is one of the ward misionaries too, so its been a long time coming. Yesterday we layed it down for her.. basically told her to stop making so much excuses and just do it.. she has her answers and furthermore, telling God that he isnt anwering clearly the way she wants him to shows an extreme lack of faith, and she wont get the answer shes looking for that way. She got down and prayed.. for 10 minutes. Cried.... shes getting interviewed on wednesday! Yay.

Next is Nang.. yeah i dont even know what to say, shes so legit. Kinda ridiculous how willing she is to do EVERYTHING. Most people tat each with us expect her to have concerns about what we teach and then speak for forever and a year about what she already understands and is willing to do... then she stops them and says I will do it already! Yeah.. legit. Shes getting interviewed tomorrow. Yes, yes, yes. Baptism. Love it.

Then theres Ice of course.. good as ever. Hes super funny. Ready. willing.. diligent. Hes getting more and more friends at Church, but hahh.. hes in the other area. We're over it.. hes already interviewed and passed. That was elder heftels first interview.. he had fun.. forgot the keys to the Church hahah. chill. Ice likes our shrts. i told him about the website.. do we still sell or what?

Anyway, we had another opportunity to serve the people who are getting flooded up north in th other provinces. Its cool to see people rallying together. What else happened.. we had exchanges... I got to excange with Elder Seymour, hes from San Diego! Hes Elder Newmans kid! So sweet. Hes the nicest guy ever and is always your best friend and just.. ah, hes great. You will meet him at my homecoming.. wait, did tat sound trunky? No! Hes dead in 6 months. But that exchange was way fun.. it was a bummer cause we taught 2 referrals who all happen to be in other areas... i dont KNOW where anything is, so when they tell me im just like... uh, is that close by? No? Oh.. dangit. well lets sit down and talk! Lame. They were all pretty good though.. one of them was in our area and is the boyfriend of a girl getting baptized in Elder Wagstaffs area.. yeah and he introduced us to his family. sweet! The dad is way funny.. his name is Tog. He just has a funny accent and he cant see haah.. we showed him the Book of Mormon and he did tha thing where he squints super hard and moves his head back away from it... haha! Then he just exclaims.. "ooh the letters are so small!". We are meeting them tomorrow.. wait, no thats today.. do i lose track of time? Maybe.

Alright well im bored already.. writing is kind of burden now hahh.. just kidding (maybe).. i do love you al.. tanks for your sacrifices.. those mispelling errors are the keyboards fault.. and it totaly looks like asian writing.. im ust over hitting this back space key because this keybaaord is soooo bad! There were a lot of things this week, subtle things, that continue to confirm my testimony of the truthfulnes of this work.. ah man! its so awesome!

Peace!

Elder Goodman

I salute you, Steve Jobs

Hello. Merry General Conference! Yeah, be happy with me even though you have already seen it all! Waaaaayyyyy goooodddd!!!!!!!! did i get enough exclamation points on there to get my point across? Good.

Yeah so i think one of my favorites was from our very own Elder Wadell! I almost peed my pants a little when he stood up.. and then he verbally slapped me haha.. I would like to echo what he said a little bit for the prospective Elders in Encinitas 1: We need 3 things as we arrive on the mission
1. A testimony
2. Worthy of the Spirit
3. Ready to work
Ill show you my notes one day.. next to each of these points theres a nice paratheses and an oops next to it. Yeah, i arrived with hardly any of those things. Fix it! Get that testimony! Otherwise Elder Holland will get in your face! Believe that statement.. if he had time i believe he would REALLY coach us in each and every ward and branch throughout the world. Did everyone get a little "call to repentance" from Elder Ian S. Andern? Yeah thats right, the one that called out all of you addicted to Angry Birds! I thought that was awesome.. hey, its a fun game right? But really, i loved his about managing time.. something i will really use better once i get home (but lets not talk about that! thats in a long time). However, i believe he was tipping his hat to us Dota players.. i garuntee no one is better on a keyboard than us :) Dexteriry! Its legit.

Okay, so anyway, enough about the speakers.. lets get into the investigators! Ice.. yeah he was brimming with joy over watching the speakers.. he really loved it and was astonished and how good eveyrone was at speaking.. he wanted to have skills like them at speaing too haha. But he felt the spirit and it confirmed to him that the speakers, and in particular President Monson, were prophets and servants of God.. hey, whaddya know.. the scriptures say that we can get a confirmation like that! Hes doing well.. we may have to move his date back a little just because of time, but hes progressing nicely and still trying to get his family involved more. He said something that was pretty amusing, but at the same time quite heart felt.. he knows that he has a lot of money.. like a lot, so he felt that it was cool that some people talked about caring for the poor and such and such.. we taught him a little about fasting and fast offerings and he was super stoked to be able to help those in need. He has felt really good about that whole idea.

Next is Apple.. shes doing better. She herself has been "wrestling" with God about what to do about Baptism.. she has been praying and felt that she needs to get baptized more and more... her desire has grown a lot.. shes just somebody who wants to know things 100 percent before she decides to do anything.. which is not necessarily a bad thing, it just takes some time. But in any case, she has been praying and instead of the end of the year to be baptized and she previously told us a few weeks ago, she moved it up to the end of this month! Woohoo! Also she was hesitant about coming to church, but she prayed.. whaddya know, she came haha. Funny how we can get answers to our prayers isnt it? Oh wait, no its not... what a gift :)

After that we have Nang.. did i tell you about her? She bore her testimony last week in sacrament meeting? Yeah shes doing awesome.. shes doing EVERYTHING we tell her because her faith is just.. well, epic. Its already a tree! I swear she skipped the mustard seed part.. it was just the big bang of "growing into a large tree" (or however ALma put it in 32) for her. Yeah.. BOOM. Its there.

Her friend, coincidentally also name Nang, is doing better.. her faith is like the mustard seed.. its slowing growing, but growing none the less. Shes gotten her answers, its just getting to the point of following it with full purpose of heart.

Nong.. hes good. Doing well. but hes LAZY! Hmm... well right up my alley hahaha... but seriously. He really wants to do the stuff, and hes trying, but hes LAZY. He even admits it everytime, but jsut doesnt know how to get rid of it.. get up and work! and serve! Thats what we said. We gave him that talk from Elder Andern about using time wisely and getting OFF technology when its taking up too much of your time and giving you the false idea that you are productive or being busy. Yeah.. take it.

Okay well im bored.. but i still loved you.. i mean love you, did i type that wrong? Haha.. sweet well thanks for your prayers as usually.. for some reason i want to come back to conference.. i dont know.. since being on my mission conference has meant so much more.. I want to thank everyone again for helping me get on my mission.. its been so good and listening to the words of the living prophets is such a blessing. I miss watching it with all of you, but then again, not that much cause im out here hahah! Just kidding. Miss you guys (not THAT much!) and cant wait for one day to watch it again with you. Thanks for everything.. the Book of Mormon IS the word of God. I know it is.

Love,

Elder Gudmundsen

PS: I have an apple belt buckle :)

Happy Conference Weekend

Sup. Hey did you know it was conference weekend? Oh you did? Cool. Well just letting you know it was. So how was it?

Well while you were all lazy-ing it out (just kidding.. but you were all in your pajamas werent you) we had a pretty sweet week. Lets get right into the investigators.

Ice is doing great as ever... hes got a super strong testimony and is preparing for baptism nicely. He went home to visit his family and got the opportunity to talk to them a little bit about changing religions and all that jazz. They said they were cool with it as long as he would still come home for family traditions and honoring the family.. ERRR.. yeah, road block. Not really, he took it just fine. We read Mosiah 18 with him about what it means to be a latter day saint and to "be a witness" of him at all time, in all things and in all places... he was ready; he was willing and he was desirous. After we helped him see that he had a testimony we read him the 10 commandments so that he would understand that being a member of the church you cant take part in those ordinances and things like that... He was fine. Sweet. He said something cool again: "A collection of minds and interests is pretty powerful... but actually i think God is more powerful haha".. and he said that in English.. yeah i know right? Doesnt he speak english like a boss?

Next is the cambodian family.. doing swell. We are having family home evening at their house tonight and they are just so adorable.. the whole family is into it and they will have a date (they accepted the invitation to be baptized) but we dont know what day to set it for because they are yet to be legal citzens. Teaching them and having them come to church is fine, but we cant baptize em yet until they are refugees. Its kinda strange using thai to translate into another language... usually its thai to english, but in this case the thai is OUR primary language of use. Weird. cool

After that we have these 2 new investigators.. both named Nang. They are friends from WAY back when.. i dont know. To put these 2 simply: One of them got up and bore her testimony in sacramanet meeting.. OOOOOO.. yeah i was super surprised because i was in the back translating and then didnt realize that she was our investigator until she stood up. She basically confirmed everything we have been teaching her by getting up there. She wanted to set her own date.. she did, but it was a little too early. Shes still so good. After meeting us, 2 days later she read 15 chapters in the Book of Mormon.. yeah, that may not seem like a lot to some, but thats quite a lot for thai people. Shes golden.

Then we have Nong. Hes a long time investigator now and we actually thought he wasnt all that committed.. hes always been good, but we were worried that he might be grengjai.. i know you have no idea what that means, but there is no literal translation for this word from thai to english. In other words, we thought he was like.... nervous to reject us, or was just doing it because we asked. But it turns out hes way good. He wants to get baptized super hard, but he wants his family to be there. The real test of his faith was getting him to fast about moving apartments.. yeah, if someone does that you know they are committed. He has yet to move just because hes still looking for a place, but he will. Hes a way nice kid.

Another woman we are teaching is named Apple. She is also a long time investigator who is finally doing things herself.. we have been meeting her once a week to build her faith by reading in the BoM, and now shes coming out saying that she wants to be baptized soon. Basically, to sum up this week, people are flocking to us to get baptized. I dont really know why.. actually i do, because we've been obedient and the Lord sees fit to do it that way. We've seen a lot of blessings from the Lord this week and even though we are both feeling kinda sick (yeah dont be worried, we're fine) things are working out.

So a little insight from studies this morning.. i dont know if this is like a super common understanding of scripture comparisons for everyone, but i thought it was pretty cool. This comes from Mosiah 2. Pretty cool that it was conference weekend because thats what i thought about. But when King Benjamin gets up to speak, what happens? Well everyone gathers together: "they pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family...that thereby they might remain in their tents and hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them." Yeah.. uhh, everyone sits on the couch with their family to listen to President Monson? The other prophets? All the King Benjamins of our day. After that: "the multitude being so great that king Benjamin could not teach them all within the walls of the temple, therefore he caused a tower to be erected, that thereby his people might hear the words which he should speak unto them.". Hmmm.. sounds like a pulpit with a microphone :) Next: "they could not all hear his words because of the greatness of the multitude; therefore he caused that the words which he spake should be written and sent forth among those that were not under the sound of his voice, that they might also receive his words.". Lets see.. the Liahona Conference issue? Internet? Cable? Satelite? Pretty cool.. so, with this, i hope everyone had a great conference and that you spent it with your families listening to the word of God.. because thats what it is. I sure hope you got to see every session too because missing a beat of conference is like skipping a page in the Book Of Mormon, and that is NOT VERY WISE. Im stoked to watch it. I know that all those that spoke received inspiration from God for YOU and me. If we will but listen, our lives will improve. I know that almost everything they speak has its roots from the Book of Mormon.. the book is true; every page, every chapter, every verse. Peace and love for this week.

Love

Elder Gudmundsen

PS: I believe you have my stapler.

Hi

Sup. Fast week. Supa fast. LIke.. abnormally fast. Get the point? *Smile*

So what happened.. well, im tired (?) does that suffice? We had a fun sports day today.. and when i say sports, i mean ping pong and when i say day i mean... an hour and then got bored. But it was fun for our zone.. had some time to get closer together and just enjoy some nice new church building (it has quite possibly the coolest toilet system i have ever/ever will see. Seriously.. why isnt this in America? If it is, needs to be in our house before i come home.

Anyway, fun stuff this week.. Ice is doing good as ever.. he still says some of the coolest stuff ever in lessons! Hes such a bum too.. in other words, hes you Josh. Loves Dota.. computers.. laziness.. himself.. hah! Just kidding.. but really. He is going through repentance.. and man is he feeling a part of the atonement.. hes felt super horrible for what hes done in the past (cause theres a lot) and its been eating at him.. We taught him about using Christs Atonement.. and he cried a little bit. Tears means testimony right? Hah.. no. Sorry that was sarcastic. Ill repent for that one. Yeah well he did. And he is super down to fix what he can. It was a pretty emotional lesson though.. for all of us. The Spirit was really strong and as we read ALma 36 and his own conversion story, it came even stronger. Every time I teach about the possibilities for repentance because of the atonement, it brings the spirit in SO strong.. sometimes i forget that my own testimony of that.. but its so true.. because of Christ we can overcome all sin.. no matter how deep, or hurtful they may be. Werd.

Who else.. that cambodian family is amazing.. i WILL be refferring to them as "that cambodian family" cause frankly.. i cant pronounce their names, let alone remember them all for the life of me! but they are way sweet.. super strong faith and they are getting fellowshipped really well at Church. There are a lot of cambodians at our church and they are all so humble.. welcome them in with open arms. Legit. We can only see them twice a week, but when we do, its a bundle of fun... speaking 3 different languages (english too because they can understand it a little bit.). They will get baptized for sure, just it takes a while, what with all the refugee statuses and what not.. no worries.. time can only strengthen them (since they already have a testimony).

Okay well yeah im over it.. times up anyway hahah.. love you, the Church is true.. hope everyone is good. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers each day.. Enc 1: sup. Love you. Peace!

Elder Gudmundsen

P.S: I feel like im on a dead letter list.. true?

Yo

So yeah.. nother fast week. I have VERY little time today because we played sports.. er, Ping POng... its a sport alright! Especially if you play like the people in the photos on our ping pong paddle wrappers :) (its intense!). Good day.. our zone is way chill and everyone had a great time.

Lets see.. what happened thats most important this week.. well, Ice is still doing superb.. hes doing way good. Dude, hes totally you Josh. A bum who loves DOTA

Hello

Sup.. from the Beast

Another week FLEW by.. wow that was way fast. seriously. Good thing i was in our area for 3 days ahahh! We had some back to back exchanges and since i dont know my way area Asoke yet, ive gone over to other areas. Yeah.. fun stuff. All of our districts are doing way good and everyones having a fun time.. this week our zone should be getting 6 people receiving baptism.. yay!

But as for our area.. its doing way well.. lets start with our baptismal date: Ice, ice baby! Just kidding.. but really his name is Ice. Hes like 24 and kind of a bum haha.. hes pretty much a spitting image of you Josh.. way lazy, but way smart.. I would have said hes like me, but im not smart lulz. By the way, he loves Dota.. yeah, of course weve talked about it! His date is for the 23rd of October. I wasnt at the lesson when he got his date, but apparently it was way spiritual and even a couple tears were shed. Nice. He knows its true so if he doesnt do anything its just because hes lazy.. wait, that sounds like most people who end up not getting baptized! Anyway, ill keep it short.. he said something that was so awesome last night.. we asked if he believed that the Book of Mormon was true and he said yes.. because "its too perfect for man to create it". ooo.. i like that! Werd!

Next.. holy awesome-sauce! Cambodians are way sweet.. we met this awesome family and if they dont get baptized i will lose all hope in mankind.. not really, but you know what i mean. Its interesting teaching them because they hardly speak any english, or thai, and so we have to have a translator for us who speaks thai to cambodian.. yeah, talk about weird. We sometimes can make out a few words but most of the time.. negatory. They are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO humble its almost ridiculous. Anyone wonders why some people progress faster than others towards baptism its because of their HUMILITY! One of my favorite verses is in Helaman 3:35 where it reads :"they did wax stronger and stronger in their humility and stronger and stronger in their faith....". Yeah, you see that? Humility comes before faith. Then, every blessing or miracle that they see after that is because "the yielding of the hearts unto God.". Yeah.. they're like that because of THEMSEVLES.

We've got a pretty cute family as well.. a mom and her 2 sons.. they are twins! And quite the handful for sure.. they are both trying to quit smoking right now but as with most 14 year olds who have already started it, its pretty hard to quit.. not even because they are addicted to the cigs but more so because they are addicted to the attention and their friends.. well actually they are addicted to the cigs haha. THe mother is way faithful and trying really hard to keep committments.. shes doing really well frankly they all already know that these things are true. The mother also stopped selling coffee and tea! Yeay.

Okay well these are just a few of out investigators.. but they are the ones progressing best..

Im hungry.. probably go eat Mcdonalds again haha.. jk, but probably. Hey, the slogan is pretty fitting for missionary work (especially right now) : Im Lovin it! That still is the slogan right? Okay well if its not, im lovin it right now.. way sweet. Love you all, everything here is true.. and the book of mormon is too perfect. Werd.

Love Elder Good

Its moves again Already?!

Guess what? Im in Asoke.. AKA: The BEAST. No really.. thats what the mission calls it. Its dead center Bangkok. Its a beast.

SO yeah.. i was dead this week.. like, i cant even begin to describe it.. we rode a bus down and i slept a total of an hour and 30 minutes.. if even that.. throw being sick on top of that and then add the cherry of getting moved to Asoke and it makes for a nice death toll.. I would take 3 second power naps during zone planning; no joke.

Yeah anyway this place is pretty awesome.. the ward we go to is one of the oldest in Thailand, if not THE oldest, and as such it has a lot of the old timers, meaning the very first converts here.. including the woman that translated the first Book of Mormon into the Thai language. And yes, this is legitimately a ward. Its nice to have a Ward Mission Leader too. Hes a former missionary who actually served out in Buriram back in his mish days. My companion is Elder Peacock and im killing him here.. that means hes going home in a transfer is you dont know our language haha. He was actually my zone leader when i first went district leader and he moved right after that.. so i followed him here. We are zone leaders over a 20 missionary zone, including 3 greenies! They're fun.. and guess what, 2 of those trainers are from my MTC district! woohoo! Finally i get to work with my people from my MTC group! Elder Heftel is our district leader and Elder Wagstaff is out in another district.. its cool. Know what else is sweet? My greeny area is in the zone now haha.. hopefully ill get a chance to go on exchanges with them out there haha.

Anyway, im kinda over typing today but i wanted to share a cool experience that happened a couple weeks ago... so we have this brand new building in Bangkok that is just HUGE.. its kinda like the San Diego temple of Thailand, and by that i mean that EVERYONE sees it. The placement was very smart. So anyway, it was dedicated a week or 2 ago and while it was being dedicated by President Smith, and he was in the middle of the prayer, a man was walking by the church and felt something just hit him like a wall of bricks telling him that he NEEDED to go inside of this buildling.. as he looked up, he didnt know what the buildling was, but he went inside to see what made him want to go in.. well they were actually still saying the prayer haha.. but anyway, he felt that huge spirit just overflow out of the buildling and smack him in the face. Right now hes learning and studying and in not much longer he will get baptized. Pretty insane eh? Just remember, people feel the spirit all the time, they just dont know it.. help people around you recognize it! You have the spirit just like that.. give em an experience to make em think "what is this dude?!" and hey.. theyll get baptized! woot.

Aight well i love you a little much a ... what? I dunno. I want to go shopping haha. Anyway, love ya lots.. congratulations Chase once more.. im saying it again because im wearing the tie right now.. didnt get it until thursday and im wearing it for today.. pretty sweet. I would send a pic but im lazy hahah. Not really, they just dont have an SD Card reader here.. and im lazy..

Peace!

Elder Gudmundsen

Out already

So yeah.. im outa Buriram.. dont know where im headed off to, but im moving.

This week was kinda rough.. friday morning i got hit with a pretty nasty cold/flu or whatever it was, i dont really know.. but it stinks. Just the ordinary muscle aches, weakness and chills... didnt stop us from getting out there and teaching.. but alas, there was a limit and we had to come home to rest up. Saturday there was no resting cause Surin had a baptismal candidate being interviewed so I had to make that.. shes a pretty sick person whos got some insane faith.. passed with flying colors. Sunday was the worst... but we all promised to partake of the Sacrament each week and I knew i needed to be an example.. basically dragged myself outa bed and to the Church.. in the end it turned out to be a pretty good Sunday and a lot of Less Actives came to church as well.. rejoice!

So Got is still doing awesome... hes been a great source of referrals and got up yesterday to bear a sweet testimony in sacrament meeting. Both his father and mother were there too and although they had to leave right after the meeting, both of them seemed to enjoy it and seemed proud of their son. Hopefully his father will be able to participate in Family Home Evening tonight.. at least i hope so. Both his parents seem way nice and very humble people.

Amphon is still progressing.. just at her own pace. She is still just so worried that she wont be able to keep every committment or every commandment all the time.. she is willing to keep them, but thinks that they has to be exceptions.. however, there really arent. But, with that said, all we gotta do is help her faith out.

The magician family was actually out of town this past weekend, and they wont get back until tomorrow night ish... but we called them and they are still doing great and reading and praying together.. such a sweet family. It was also the fathers birthday! They are going through the process of repentance and they both feel that they are receiving forgiveness more and more. Such a cool family.

Sag.. no idea what happened to him.. his phones been off the past few days and we havent been able to contact him.. had to take him of the daters list of course.. but we will find him. A kid like that with a the desire to follow heavenly father like THAT? yeah... we gotta find him for sure.

Mai and Ome and doing well.. they got sick as well so we didnt get to teach them after tuesday nor were they at church.. but Mai was pretty funny.. when we taught them on tuesday there was one point when she was speaking and her tongue showed a little more than usual.. she had a piercing! We taught them about obedience to the laws of God and they both agreed to obey whatever the Lord asks of them.. so with that said, i asked her, "so.. can you take that thing on your tongue off :) ? She looked way surprised that we even saw it, but agreed haha. Told them how their bodies are a gift from heavenly father and we need to protect them and treat them with respect.. not really a problem.. they already have pretty strong faith and are willing to do what God asks. Ome: same.

We met this way cool guy name Sade. Hes a little outside the city with his girlfriend and hes currently learning about business and finance.. pretty interesting business i might add.. something called Aimstar? He basically gave us a sales pitch when we first went over to his house, and we realized that most of what he was describing related to the gospel! For example, he explained that for his business its all about inviting to learn more and the people that we invite, whether we know them or not, have the choice to accept it or not, but its totally up to them. It was pretty easy to relate that to the gospel and I felt we should bear testimony that that was preparation for him to be a powerful member and to be able to share the gospel.. he totally loved the idea and wants to follow Heavenly Father. His business takes up a lot of time, so we shared Jacob 2:17 with him.. he aboslutely LOVED it.. especially the part where he would be able to share what he has with other people. Pretty cool.

So this week was overall a pretty good week.. aside from the getting sick part.. but that was also a good experience.. I know that the priesthood has the pwoer to heal, but more often than not, theres a reason why they are called blessings of comfort... Elder Revelli gave me a blessing when i first got sick and man... the wave of comfort that went over me was just... indescribable. Clearly, im not healed, but i didnt necesasrily need to be (or we didnt have enough faith).. but the blessing brought comfort to my soul.. dunno, id say thats healing in and of itself.

The biggest highlight of this week was Brother Walker.. i dont know if you remember him, but hes the super awesome man from Texas who opened an orphanage here in Buriram? Hes the super legit Christian? Anyway, we taught him again and he finished the Book of Mormon. After we opened with a prayer and took the book and looked at it saying that he doesnt accept it as the word of God. Uh... yeah, ill be honest, i was a little nervous in my heart.. but after about 10 seconds, i let it go and just listened... i knew that the Lords promise, "ye shall not be cofounded before men" would be fulfilled in that very lesson. As we listened with love for this man, truths were highlighted within his speech that we could bear testimony to... at the end of it all, we left our testimonies with him, and he said he would continue to read the Book. What transpired within that lesson though (which all of it cant be written) was quite moving and all were edified. In the end, all it did was strengthen my testimony of the truthfulness of the book of Mormon once again: that book is TRUE. No amount of evidence compiled against it can prevail because the promise is true: We can know the truth of ALL things. The Holy Ghost has manifest the truth of it unto me and nothing anyone says can change that.. science will try to prove it wrong, but it the end will only prove it to be completely true. I love that Book. A year ago this week marks the first time i read the Book of Mormon all the way through. Legit.

Okay, well i love you all.. thanks so much for your support and your prayers.. enjoi life :)

Congratulations Chase! You're a stud.

Enc 1: Stay sweet

Love Elder Gudmundsen

Quick Week

Such a fast week.. not gonna lie i have no idea where the time went for this week.

Way, super, hardcore effective week! Got is now a confirmed member of the Church with the Holy Ghost as his companion. He is studying the standard works LIKE MAD and totally going out with house to help like.. a ton. Its so cool. We are gonna have him interview with President Smith at Ubons next district conference in november.. get him out in the field!

Amphon is doing okay. She knows what she has to do but is not really doig them. Her faith is growing. We are still trying to get her to realize that if she just does it, nothing bad will happen. But she thinks that there just HAS to be exceptions to the commandments.. that there always has to be a possibility of SOMETHING coming up that makes it so she cant keep a commandment. FALSE. We simply explained to her that that statement is her making an excuse so that she wont feel so bad when something like that happens. I know because ive done it haha... but thats not the way covenants work.. sure, we probably will mess up here and there, but dont say it! Make the committment to NOT do it. Know that you can. No worries.. we will continue to build her faith and start using Christs atonement in her daily life.

The magic family: So prepared. My kid and i were talking about them and realized that we were totally led to them without knowing it, much like Nephi going to find Laban. The day we found them was the day we decided to play tennis in the evening, which made it so we had to work in the morning.. thats the first thing that was from God; they usually arent home in the mornings. After that.. well, when we planned the night before we had planned to go on the OTHER SIDE of the city. Like.. not even close to that neighborhood. As we were preparing for the day on monday morning, we felt that we should change our plans.. we had to send something through the post office anyway, so we decided to do it right before we went over to that neighborhood. As we biked over there, nothing special happened. But the Spirit guided us, and the FIRST house we stopped at was him, outside, about to smoke. He wasnt going to let us in; he knew who we were. We figured that it would be nice to slow down and just talk to him and be friends.. so we asked to see magic tricks. He showed a couple.. after about 5 minutes, he completely changed and just said, "okay, come on in.". Since then, him and his wife and his family, in the space of 2 weeks have changed so much. They are committed to church and they both started repenting already.. they love Church and like.. ah man i cant even describe it. We havent set their date yet because their repentance process will take a little longer for past transgressions. But they are committed and on board. They love us too.

After them we have 3 more people that were seriously prepared for us.. 2 of them are referrals. We taught them yesterday AFTER they went to church (of which they asked us if they were allowed to go.. yeah, we didnt even get to the invitation). They would have a date, but they are both minors and we havent met the parents yet cause they live in different provinces throughout thailand. We want to give the family a chance to see what their kids are doing and make sure they are completely okay with the change. They are named Ome and Mai. Mai is a 17 year old girl and Ome is 15 year old dude. Mai made my day when she called friday night (mind you, this is before we actually got to teach them with prayrer and committments) saying: "Hello Elder this is Sister Mai" (yeah she called herself sister) "i want to pray tonight.. how do i do it?". I was exceedingly astonished, lemme tell you.

After these 2, there is a guy name Sag. Hes a way nice dude who lost his arm sometime ago. He lives with his brother on a couple days here in buriram and just is kind of lonely. My kid and one of the Surin elders found him while i was on exchanges in Surin. THey set an appointment for saturday, but my kid thought it was sunday... we tried calling but it wouldnt connect, and so we just went to his house yesterday on the time we THOUGH was appointted.. when we got there he was chillin and cleaning a little bit around the house and he looked really surprised when we came up to the house. When we actually got down teaching, he was like.. "man, yesterday i was so sad.. you guys didnt show up and i thught you werent ever gonna come back." It was way sweet cause hes just a super humble guy and well.. i doubt he has that many friends. Hes kinda shy.. even with Heavenly Father haha.. he feels super scared to pray. But he accepted a date for the 8th of October. Pretty sweet.

SO yeah.. fun week. we only have 1 more full week together.. this transfer was short because president smith is going to hong kong on week six.. so transfers is early. its good. Really good week for spiritual growth.. i felt a incredible feeling (reduncancy.. fun) of appreciation for the Restored Gospel again and how beautifully simple it is. Yeah sure there are deep doctrinal principles out there, but when it comes right down to it, its very simple: A young boy went into the woods to pray. God and Jesus visited him. The Gospel is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, HOly Ghost and Endruance. Done. I feel people think that we come to explain the origins of God or seomthing super complicated.. but its not even close. Its so SIMPLE. Yes that was in a Hansel voice from Zoolander. I love it. I mean the Gospel.. zoolander too.

Love ya fam.

Peace



Elder G

Pics

Baptism. Legit

So whats the only thing thats better than Kraken blinking in and ulting, bring the entire team over behind the tower, followed by tempest blinking in and ulting to keep them all from moving, followed by Behemoth blinking in, ulting- twice- and destroying the whole entire team?!

BAPTISM!!!

Yeah, Got got baptized. One of the best experiences ive had in a while.... all the work we've been doing in Buriram is really paying off now.. of course it always was (baptism is not the only thing that measures success of course) but now its just shooting up. It's amazing what one baptism can do.. and fasting.. yeah, he totally fasted on saturday (hes so legit). There were a total of 16 visitors at church yesterday.. yeah thats a ton. When we asked Got who he invited to his baptism he simply responded: "Everyone!". Although the only person that was actually there for his baptism was his father, he was happy; he did his part and "whether they come or not, im committed.". The entire day yesterday was just filled with joyous splendors.. yes i am speaking very elequant.. you like? Anyway, bottom line is, everyone had a great experience.. and the magician family made it! Its amazing how the Lord prepares people to meet the missionaries sometimes.. like, the mother. who is name Plaw, said some things that i have NEVER heard from anyone, let alone someone who has learned as little as she has: "Is there an age limit on baptizing children? I want my little guy to get baptized too" Yeah so within that statement there are couple things that should make you "astonished exceedingly".. the first of course being that she straight up said she WANTS to get baptized. The second is the age limit?! When have you ever heard anyone understand doctrince so sound like that?! I just love talking about babies with people because anyone that thinks that babies have sin are just.. well, i wont say anything else, but you get the point. Then she started talking about wanting to go to the temples and wanting to have an eternal family and wanting to have a temple in thailand and wanting to get married legally cause up until this point her and her husband havent... it just goes on! I was just exceedingly astonished this whole entire time. But hey! D&C says it: "In the ordiances of the priesthood the power of godliness is manifest". She was in the ordiances of the priesthood and was looking for answers.. so she got them. She accepted the baptismal soft committment but we will have that entire family having a date by the end of this week. Pretty sweet too because they live right by the branch president. Anyway, back to Got... he did such a good job. He was so excited and he was seriously wrought upon by the Spirit.. as he got out of the water, he was just overflowing with happiness. By the way did i mention that he finished the Book of Mormon already? Yeah he finished it last week on monday haha. So crazy... put me to shame.. here i am with my 19-and-a-half-years to finish the book of mormon.. embarassing. He was stoked to start working towards his mission too.. get this: "My mom was going to buy me a car after this year but im just going to tell her to not and just give me the money so i can use it for my mission.." WHAT?! Oh man i almost died right there lemme tell you that much. He wants to get into his mission as fast as possible.. so yeah.. thats kinda legit.
So who else saw the baptism.. well we had our Australian friend there as well.. his name is Craig. Hes a way nice guy and hes starting to see differences between us and Catholics.. not like its hard, but hes committed to reading and praying about the Joseph Smith story. Amphon was there as well.. she seemed really stressed out yesterday and so we havent gotten the opportunity to talk her yet.. but we will meet her tonight. We had to move her date because she is not showing signifcant and sufficient signs of committed... ness. No worries.. all people are different and we always ahve to go with them according to their needs.. hers take a little more time than others. She really loves us and enjoys talking.. we are just trying to get her to trust God more and just to know that as long as she keeps the comandments nothing bad with happen. She says shes not afraid buuuttt... yeah. Shes way sweet.

Okay so what else is up.. uh we had zone conference.. pretty sweet. Waking up at 245 in the morning? Although im a fan of feeling like im going to die, it was a little too much. The zone leaders, elder Furr and Elder Pimpsuwan were peeing their pants all week.. it was their first zone conferences ever! For both of them! So they were just freaking out that something would go wrong. it actually went pretty smoothly and everyone was edified. I got stuck with translating duties.. im sick of all these duties! Just kidding, it was fun. Plus i get to whisper funny things in peoples ears every now and then. Word of advice? Go to the bathroom before an important meeting. I thought i was honestly about to wet my pants as a semi-grown immature young adult. Although it would have ruined my pants, someone (everyone) would have gotten a nice laugh.. for about 5 minutes. Anyway, that was all good and fun. Interviews with President Smith- straight forward and to the point.. i like em.

These past few weeks have been awesome weeks for studying.. Elder Revelli and I have both found and received seriously awesome piece of revelation throughout our personal studies... like, seriously... to the "gushing of many tears because of the goodness of God.". Yes. that Good. Sometimes we just get overwhelming experiences as we study because we realize how SIMPLE everything really is.. God is. He loves us. Christ is. He loves us. They both Restored the truth to a 14 year old boy in a grove of trees. Done. Grasp that much and tell me it doesnt make you happy. I know its true. Thanks for you constant support and raising me in the right path to know of the truth. Love you guys. All is well in Zion and we are having a great time. Elder Revelli had a nice struggle with the language last week: D and C section 4.. memorized! He got it and President Smith praised him for how good his tones were.. *chest bump* thats my boy!

aight im oves it. Peace

Elder Gudmundsen

Hows it doin

Sounds like you had a pretty enjoyable week. Me too! By the way, Happy Thai Mothers Day mom!

Lets just get right into it shall we? Got passed his interview! Pretty much passed with flying colors... Elder Pimpsuwan, the zone leader said that it was one of the most well prepared people he has ever interviewed.. dont worry, thats nothing special that we did.. he just yielded his heart unto God and then the Spirit did the rest. Legit. We actually took him teaching with us cause hey! Why not. He bore the sickest testimony ever for Ampon and it made me feel like a tard because it took me 19 +years to get a testimony even close to that. Hes also in 3 Nephi already and will finish the Book of Mormon before his baptism on Sunday.. wow. This baptism on sunday should be huge.. we are going to do our best to make sure EVERYONE is there.. members and ivnestigators alike. The people of Buriram need a serious boost to remember their baptismal convenants.. yes i know, you're probably saying to yourself, "Elder Gudmundsen thats what the sacrament is for.. duh!".. this is also true. However, seeing a baptism for real is a little more of a "comfort for the afflicted" and a "affliction for the comfortable". Its like saying that a lobster pinching your rear hurts... it only has so much meaning until you actually do it and realize that it YES, its true! Its kinda like that. So we are going to get EVERYONE there.. and then Got will be on the road to being a super legit missionary. The biggest hopes i have for the people there are his family... hopefully his whole family can come and see it and realize that hes not just doing something "good" but that its a covenant.
Ampon is doing okay.. she really loves meeting us but she has a serious conflict going on within.. we are trying really hard to help answer her questions but everytime it comes back to Joseph Smith: shes having trouble accepting him for what he was, which of course was a prophet of God. We expalined the pattern of Prophets, Apostasty and Restoration again for her and she seems to understand.. this time we used the Bible to strengthen our point and she seemed almost surprised that it does support our point.. well whaddya know! Its the word of God! Anyway... her biggest concern is that a lot will have to change... change is sometimes hard.. we understand that.. but all those who just simply trust in the Lord WILL see that it works out. Its not an "maybe it will work out" its a IT WILL. Luckily for us, we are learning a lot more about asking questions and listening.. not that we DONT ask questions or DONT listen, but sometimes its a lot easier to talk a lot... but we are tyring to fix that so that its a conversation so everyone is edified. The mission is really emphasizing "teach people, not lessons" and developing good teaching skills like listening and asking questions. I dont know if I ever told you this, but we have DVD palyers now so we can fequently watch the District 2 dvds that go along with PMG during comp study. Its extremely effective to be able to see these techniques in action and its really helped us develop those techniques as well.
Speaking of which... asking questions does a lot of good! We taught that magic family again (which was really good in general.. having a member family there as well goes a long way) and the mom had read a little bit in the Book of Mormon alreayd, but not really understood it that much. The Spirit told us to ask, "why did you read" and she said, to my suprise a little, "ive been wanting to be Christian for some time now.. ive been Budhist my whole life but i dont see it doing much good for me, so i really want to do what Christianity is all about and if its good, well.. be Christian.". I was astonished exceedingly, but i dont know why.. just another testimony that God's words are fulfilled and we will be given what to say and ask when we listen to the Spirit.. it takes focus and concentration, but in the end its more effective, and actually easier. They werent able to make it Church because they had to go out of town, but they will go next week and will see a baptism. Sweet.

So, among other things, not much else haha. I dont really know what else to write anymore haha.. I guess ill just share a short thought from this mornings scripture study: its in Helaman where we learn about the Gadianton roobers being a secret band from the begginning with Cain. The highlight of course is that it says that Satan has power "according as he can get hold upon the hearts of the children of men." It means that Satan has no power over us unless we give it unto him.. we have to invite him to start working on us. We are so much more powerful than he is and in the end... all we gotta do is take a big swing and dome his head with the ban hammer of justice! Dont let him have power of you.

Okay so this was kind of a short email but im oves it. Fun week, good stuff, spiritual experience.. its been fun. Love you all. Thanks for your support and say what up to Enc 1 for me..

Love Elder Gudmundsen

yoyoyo

Hello again.. it is I, Elder G... I am comfortable!

This was a fun week.. kinda rough.. but fun none the less. There was trouble in Bangkok.. we almost got kicked out of the country! Whos "we"? Anyone whos visa was expired: 40 missionaries; me as well. It was fun. The government in Thailand just got a fat make-over and so pretty much they wanted to cut anyone who isnt "a benefit to the country" out. So they changed our visas from a proselyting visa to a working visa.. but then when we actually went to the visa place, they didnt want that many people there, so they just said "go home!". We were waiting in Bangkok for quite a long time, and in the end they still didnt allow everyone to renew them because they were "over it" - pretty much. Lucily i got mine done, but Elder Heslop didnt so he went to bangkok for no reason and he will have to go back in like a week or so haha.. President Smith was very moving about it and simply said, "in the end, we dont have to worry what will happen because this isnt our work: its the Lord's. If we go, we go. But frankly, YOU (foreigners) are NOT the strength of Thailand... these are; all thai missionaries stand up!... this is the strength of Thailand." at that point 30 thai missionaries stood up, and so did every hair on my body. Werd.

While there though, we had the first transfer meeting at a new Church buildling: EPIC! Its basically the san diego temple of Thailand in that EVERYONE sees it. Its right on a huge freeway where thousands of commuters pass it every day, all day... and usually stuck in bumper to bumper traffic... so you just know that everyone is just checking this buildling out like, "what IS that thing?!". Thats exactly why its so close to the freeway! In fact, while i was there, we had some guy just pull in and ask if he could look around.. so i took him on a tour and showed him around.. he asked me a few questions but the best was, "who chose this spot? Whoever they are.. they're way smart.". My thoughts exactly.

That took up a whole day and a half, and the day before that we had to run around and send pictures of us "working" at English class as evidence to warrant having a "working visa". Unfortunately, Elder Heslops camera has some memory card from 50 years in the future and we couldnt find any place that could plug it in! We went to every internet cafe in the city and no body could! Finally the stores told us to bike out to Big C which is about 6 kilometers from there... as we did so, we watch a mean lookin cloud slowly drift towards us.. as we made it to Big Cs entrance, it DUMPED on us. Soaked instantly. Then, after we bought the right card reader, we chased that same storm back towards the internet cafe from the start.. soaked again. At one point we almost fell off our bikes too.. came around a corner and this wall of wind just completely halted our movement. Needless to say, hilarity insued and we almost drowned from laughing at the ridiculosity. Yes, thats a word.

Okay so how bout some actually work right? Yeah Got is pretty sweet.. hes done with everything and now we are just reviewing. He has been sleeping better and made it to Church no problem. Hes got a lot of questions about random stuff but is kinda like a child.. as soon as you tell him how it is, he totally follows it.. his questions are very much like a kid who really doesnt know better, and hes just so scared to do anyting wrong. Its cool. We are getting together with him, brother Golf and Brother Bom this afternoon to play some tennis. NOBODY knows how to play except for Golf and myself, so it should be pretty funny. Im just gonna smack that ball as hard as i can haha.. hopefully its in a place where veyrone can see and laugh. lulz. Got is fully comitted to endure to the end... his faith is way strong and he is FULLY on board. crazy.
Ampon is.. progressing. We didnt get to teach her this week actually because she got sick one day, and then priesthood didnt show up on saturday.. kind of a bummber, but no big. Shes still goin towards baptism but we are trying to just start over and teach her the basics of Prohpets, Apostasy and Restoration throughout history. We did that with this one foreigner (yeah we are kinda teaching a lot lately!) named Roger and it worked pretty well.. hey! Whaddya know! its the way PMG says to do it! Hah.. cool.
We didnt get that much time to invite this past week but we did meet some new people.. they arent quite sticking yet, but they had SUCH good potential when we first met them.. really hope Satan doesnt get to them too hard... We met a really sweet family this morning actually (we switched our schedule to be able to play tennis with Golf this evening) and the father is LEGIT at magic tricks. he taught us a few and is actually kind of Christian. Hes been all over the world and he was willing to try again. Right now he changed to buddhism again because you can "prove" things about it... well we told him that that was false (without literally saying that) and introduced some real evidence of whats true: The Book of Mormon! Hes got 2 little kids and he lives with his wife (who is also a magician) and they are just way chill. At one point, he was showing us this trick and i was so fascinated that i didnt realize i was like Giselle and i literally freaked out and said, "you.. you're a WIZARD!". I giggled to myself. The Mom expressed that shes always wanted to check out church but wasnt sure where to go or what she had to do first.. we imediately told her to come to ours cause its always ready to welcome her! She wants to.

So, im done.. bored and tired. Not really, but i am bored. So i leave you with one of my favorite lines that came from one of our ward missionaries yesterday in testimony meeting: "Good morning everyone.. i just wanted to come up and share a little bit about this week and about what i heard this morning.. i was listening to some members talk about their week and how a lot of stuff was kinda bad, and i just thought to myself, 'well yeah thats great and everything, but why arent you talking to each other about who you can give to the missionaries to teach!"'. I ALMOST clapped for joy at that moment, but i held it in. Amen! That is my question AS WELL. her name is watermelon and shes becoming a super strong member, whos always looking for missionary opportunities. Werd.
Okay well im done. Thanks for your support and prayers.. i love you. Thanks for being good examples and sticking together.. Mom, Dad.. thanks for being you and stickin with it. Theres problems in Buriram with families deserting each other and its really sad to see it tear people up. Glad it never happened for us. Love you most.

Elder Gudmundsen

Yellow

Dear Fam and... wait whats the word for close acquaintances or otherwise important people?.. Oh right, Friends.

So another week goes by and im wondering uhhbbuuhh... where did it go? Supa fast.

Lets get right into it... our Daters: Ampon and Got. They are progressingly relatively well.. Got is struggling with sleep.. he just has really bad insomnia and he almost didnt make it to Church. We called a bunch on sunday morning and he didnt answer so we figured he was asleep. We headed over to his house to wake up him and his aunt said he was just passed out. We knew we had done everything we could do, and so we headed over to Church. I gave him one last telephone call and no answer. So, the final thing? A prayer... Yeah.. prayers are powerful. As i was sitting in sacrament, Got just bursts through the door and im just like "what?! no way!" I asked him what time he got up and what happened.. he said he has no idea, but at about 835 (right after the last phone call i gave him) he just like, shot up out of bed. Yeah, and people say God doesnt answer prayers (as if Joseph Smiths vision wasnt enough). So he made it to partake of the sacrament but after he asked to go home just because when theres a lot of people and a lot of noise he feels really frustrated and gets bad headaches. We went to go see him later but he was pased out again. No worries.. hes sweet.
Ampon is struggling with the Sabbath a little. And it doesnt help much when a lot of the people she knows at Church dont keep it either. She called out her daughter in the middle of the lesson. She knows its from God and knows that she needs to just do it, but like you said Dad, sometimes its just the one step thats the hardest. but like Louis Stevens said, "sometimes you just had to take your pants off and slide on the ice Ren!". Im not sure if that applies, but im using it anyway.. just get out there! The last Liahona, or maybe not the last one but one of the last, talked about 2 boys jumping off of a cliff.. eventually you just have to do it.. there is no in between when it comes to jumping off a cliff.. the same as there is no in between when in it comes to keeping the commandments, or the truth of the Book of Mormon: it is or it isnt. You are comitted, or you are not. We are helping her jump off the cliff.. into a downy soft cloud of love from Heavenly Father. She will be okay. Tonight we are going to completely start over though.. we feel that a restoration of her belief in the Restoration would be helpful.

So other than that we dont have much going on.. not gonna lie. I was in Surin on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Ubon all of Thursday, then in Surin on Saturday for an interview. Not much time in Buriram. We did meet this referral from Sister Watermelon.. shes a pretty diligent and strong member here.. and up until about a month ago, she was unaware that its NOT against the rules to invite people to learn that she doesnt know. She saw a professor at her University and remembered that he was from Australia, so she simply invited him to come to Church! hahaha.. so awesome.. just imagine that: a thai woman inviting you to Church in broken English.. i wouldnt know what to think. Way awesome. His name is Craig and he wants a revival of his faith. Hes someone who in thai we would say "has age" but not a lot. He has a wicked sick australian accent too. He said he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon.
The other foreigner that we met last week... well that was difficult. Satan found her way quick. She must of had some serious potential for the Church. After last sunday when we met her, she read a little in the Book Of Mormon intro, and heard a voice saying "do not read anymore in this book". So she put it down and called us to meet so she could give us the book back. I wasnt there, but Elder Revelli and Elder Heslop told her that "we dont take them back". They tried to explain to her that the voice wasnt from God.. they even shared the fact that Satan tried to stop the restoration from happening PHYSICALLY. But she had made up her mind and wasnt listening. We plead with her to just read in it a little more. My message today? Be careful of what voice you listen to. Someone said it in General Conference, i think it was Elder Packer, where "Satan is fighting against me and God is rooting for me"... its totally true. And the close we get to the truth, the harder things will get... At all times, both sides are trying to claim our souls.. make the right choice. She made the wrong choice... we did not take the Book back, but simply asked her to try reading again. Done.

One of the coolest things this week was the chance to interview a baptismal candidate over in Surin. He is a 62 year old man (adorable beyond recognition) who passed with flying colors. The experience was absolutely wonderful and it was truly amazing how the Spirit led the conversation.. it didnt take long to get on the same level with each other and although i had to speak slow, and as clear as possible cause of his age, he was totally comitted to make a convenant with God. It was pretty cool that i didnt really have to wonder whether or not to pass him for baptism because throughout the interview you can see his comittment level the spirit tells you what to do. That was a highlight of the week.

Okay so i dont have much else today.. im kinda bored and want to go home and rest and write some letters. This transfer is ALREADY over... so fast. Hopefully i dont go anywhere, but who knows.. i dont think i will. No real reason to actually. Well, i love you all.. thanks for your constant prayers that lift me up "to more than i can be".. haha that was lame.. but oh so awesome. But seriously, thanks for your support.. I know that the Book of Mormon is true... like.. dude, so true. Be an example to the believers!.... and find investigators for the missionaries.

Elder Good