No... WAY!

(From May 2)

So its true isnt it? Hes finally dead? Didnt think that would ever happen. About 2 hours ago we walked into a cafe to eat lunch and some foreigner saw that we were American so he asked us if we had heard the news.. of course we hadnt (who does he think we are? some people who ARENT missionaries?!pssh.. ) and he just says, "they killed Bin Laden". We were just shocked and then this guy just pulled up a video saying that its confirmed and that its not some copy cat but its for real.. WHOA! So this is really good news, but also really bad news.. probably gonna be some retaliation right? Think he will be like a martyr? what'er... big stuff

Okay! How are you all? Happy Monday the 2nd of May! Whats the occasion? uhhynyuh.. Anyway.. Brother Promise and Sister Boon : totally got baptized! Yeah, it was pretty sweet. They came to church on their own too :) Brother Had was away on a youth activity so they made sure that they could come on their own without any hiccups. This was one of the most spiritual baptisms ive felt.. i dont know what it was, but when they were standing in the water, it was absolutely silent.. usually theres some little kid talking (or someone else talking) that takes away from the spirit.. but for this one.. nope. Complete silence. Really moving. Whats that scriptures? The power of God is manifest in the ordinances? True. When they shared their testimonies, it was very short and simple.. but very powerful. Brother Promise simply said, "thank you to everyone for helping me escape the darkness and be brought into the light of Christ." He had wanted to say a lot actually, but he was pretty nervous haha. It was all good though. What really surprised me was a response from an investigator of the Ubon Elders.. it was her first day at Church and when we asked her how she liked it, she said it was great.. well, actually the way she said it was like a "yeah it was okay whatever" kind of response. That parts pretty normal. But when we asked about the Baptism, she said something that ive never heard anyone say before: "The Baptism? Oh that.. that was different.. that was excellent. That was SACRED." Of course we as members know it is, but people dont make a connection as deep as that... usually. Shes a really funny woman named Nit, and she speaks NOTHING but Easan. None of us can really speak it very well, but we can understand it.

Who else.. Brother Rag.. hes doing a lot better. He hasnt drank alcohol for 4 days now! Smoking, he has yet to quit completely, but that should be a big problem. He didnt get to go to Church because he got sick.. but he was telling the truth.. we went by and saw him yesterday and he had a pretty fat fever. Also, he was a little shaken up by his neighbor.. she talked a lot of crap about us to him and pretty much swore at us. He didnt like it very much. That was an interesting story though.. so, we met this old guy at the house next to Brother Rag, and he seemed pretty interested.. we couldnt gauge it from the first lesson so we told him we would come back.. he seemed a little surprised that we kept our word and invited us in. He had to finish eating first and so we just waited for a few minutes. When he was done, he came and sat down and right as he did, some lady that we couldnt see, started yelling from the back of the house," what business do you have?! probably better if you left!" and all sorts of stuff like this.. finally she comes out front and looks at us again saying, "what business do you have? Anything? Leave. Now.". What should we do? We didnt want to make her angry but we didnt want to lose this man who was interested.. we told her that she didnt need to listen if she didnt want to but this man wants to learn. At that point she started getting pretty heated and said, "why do you care about him? Hes a retard! He doesnt know anything! If you want to teach him leave my house first! Go somewhere else!." A member that was with us said, "why dont we go teach him at Brother Rags house?" to which she said, "if thats the case, pack your bags and leave with your friends too!" Us: "uhh.. maybe we should just leave then.. Thanks so much we are leaving already!" Super awkward but also quite amusing that someone could be closed off that hard! At the same time, it was a good experience to look back on and see how i walked away from it.. im proud to see, i walked away loving her. We told Brother Rag that although she wasnt the nicest about it, she didnt kow what she was doing.. told him he had to forgive her. Read 3 Nephi 12 about loving your enemies. Good stuff.. forgive your enemies!

Sister Krisina is doing okay.. she didnt get baptized this week cause she had to go to Bangkok.. but shes ready for this saturday and all should go according to our plans. YES! High five! Lulz.

So remember what you said Dad? About sitting those people out in the middle of nowhere down and teaching them? Yeah, well I was on an exchange with Elder Grover, my nong, and we went out there again.. Brother Promise took us over to this HUGE group of people that were chilling under the shade on prayer mats and said there were a few people interested.. after seeing the huge group Elder Grover looks at me and says, "what do we do man?" "Sit em all down and teach em! Lets put those 'prayer mats' to good use no?" We brought everyone in.. about 20 plus people, and taught them about Heavenly Father. Only about 10 minutes. It was pretty cool. It isnt the best way to teach, cause you cant focus peoples needs, but we at least had the opportunity to tell people about the good news. Also, we saw a couple of people that looked fairly interested. We'll check it out this week.

So, this is all i got for today.. love you all! The Gospel is so good.. im almost done with The Book of Mormon.. first time through it? 19 years. 2nd time? Approximately 6 months. Id say thats a slight improvement. Was pretty sweet to see how much good stuff i missed the first time though it.. i was reading in 3 Nephi 11 when Christ was administering to the Nephites and found SO much that i never saw before. Its good. BULLSEYE.

Love ya,

Elder G