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