Monday, September 19, 2011

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

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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