Sup

Sent Jan.8:

Good week. Fast as sin (dont ask about the comparison).

Elder Furr are almost to the end of our long awaited companionship... NO! But alas, it must come. This week will be about as long as the concentration duration of a 2 year old... Yeah, that short. Can you dig?

Weve got a couple training meetings, followed by some exchanges (yay i get to exchange with Elder Komgrid!) and then another training meeting, which should be amazing by the way, and then thats the week.. done! Should be fun. There is a country-wide leadership training meeting happening this saturday that is being taught by Elder Gong (the same that conducted the mission tour not long ago). I get to go. Yay.

So over here in Asoke, lets go over our investigators shall we? Sandy.. doin great. She fasted.. barely made it. Ironically after that (and right before her interview for baptism) she broke her fast.. by eating at a restaurant next to the Church... face palm. Instead of having her go in and interview for the 2nd time and get rejected, Brother Tom (yes, my companion Elder Tom) sat down with her and just simply laid it down: "You cant be baptized now". She took it well and of course felt super regretfull.. but she understands the importance of it. She went home and was praying and reading and repenting and called us back to say that she is glad that she now has more time to give the amount of importance to the Sabbath Day as it requires. Good.
Her son (whos name is Got Money! hahahah.. thats so boss) is totally on board. Like, even Sandy is surprised.. he cried when his father made him go to school before church.. but the stud somehow came to church on his own anyway. Yeah. Boss. He loves Koreans.. nuff said, right? haha. But he feels way good at chruch. Bam.
Next would of course be Tam and Nog. Doin way good.. they looked way happy yesterday. Funny story.. last week i was talking to this member and trying to get a referral out of her (didnt get it as of yesterday) and committed her to take this book of Mormon and write her testimony in it and give it to a friend. She said she would.. unfortunately it wasnt a clean/new book of Mormon.. it was Tam's! Haha he left it on a chair and so i just grabbed it quickly. Later that night he was freaking out trying to find it and when we finally figured out where it had went, we of course gave it back.. yesterday. He took it and just lit up like a baby on Christmas morning! He was like flippin through it just lookin to make sure that all his notes were there and his papers.. quite adorable. Fino and Phoenix are doing great.. cute as ever. They will be interviewed this week assuming all goes according to plan.
This one gay named Niyom.. i think ive written about him already.. he drives a taxi? Yeah, hes got a date for the 11th of Feb but we met some obstacles with question 4 in which he will have to have a 2nd interview. He understands why they were wrong and is on the path to godly sorrow. Mack is like his best friend.. we taught him on saturday at 1130 and we left to teach another apointment.. we came back around the church at 330 to eat and begin our fast, and he was still there chatting away with Mack.. its really quite adorable how much Niyom respects Mack.. you remember that taxi driver from a ways back? 2 things happened with that guy.. the first would be his son went to Church. and the 2nd would be the fact that we are gathering a possy of taxi drivers to go get him to church.. Pow. Anyway, hes a stud.
So on to that kid.. one day we were waiting for a member to meet us in Tam and Nogs neighborhood to go teach a lesson and as we were waiting a group of kids came over to talk to us.. they asked if we were going to go see Dong (how else am i supposed to right it?). We answered "uhh.. no not today, why?" "Cause he goes upstairs everynight and prays.. says hes gonna be Christian soon."... Elder Furr and i just did a double take at each other.. "well.. if his father isnt interested lets at least get the kid!". On saturday we stopped by the house after a long while and sat down just to ask if Dong wanted to go to Church. he said yes but he doesnt have a way to go. "if we came to pick you up will you go" "Yes!". So we did. Brother Elijah came in his oversized american toyota sienna (without license plates and the drivers side on the wrong side of the vehicle) and picked him up. As we were walking down the stairs to the car, i kid you not.. at least 7 times we heard from people, "hey where you going? Dong what are you doing? Where you going?.... "Church!... Church. Church!.. Church... Church!".. hahaha such a stud. Hes only 13 but he made it to church and then had a fun time. He hung out with Sandys kid too.. about the same age. Sister Nang took care of him when we were teaching.. good thing too shes old enough to be his mother! Lulz. We took him home.. we didnt hear the questions and frankly we didnt need to to know what was asked.. Just dongs responses suffice.. "Church!.. Church.!" haha. Bam and Pow.

In other things.. I had a fun time on exchanges.. had to go interview this guy from another district leaders area for baptism.. he lives out in Chonburi which is not actually an area.. its about an hour and a half from the nearest church unit but half of that church units members are from it (why hasnt it opened yet? Dunno..). Anyway.. we exchanged and started heading out there at about 3 oclock.. long story short, we got there at 730.. yeah, we knew we werent getting home on time for sure.. but i mean when you are already passed the point of no return (on time) we had to make it worth while.. I didnt start the interview until 745 and then stopped just to talk to Elder Larson (the AP) about it just so he knew what was up. He said to keep going and just get home when we could. I was feeling pretty bad about not being obedient, but his counsel afterwards made it a lot better. I wont tell you what time we get home (or how either.. that can be another day.). It was a good experience though and he did end up passing. During the interview we were talking about the Book of Mormon and its power and although he believed, I asked him if he had every prayed about it to gain a higher more firm confirmation.. he said no. So we got on our knees and he asked Heavenly Father about the Book of Mormon. When he was done, he sat up and just kinda stared off in a daze.. i asked him how he felt and he said he couldnt describe it, but that he knew for sure it was from God. It was pretty powerful and my short story doesnt do it justice. Same thing happened to Elijah's daughter.. the international Elders were teaching a vietnamese family at his house and they committed the family to pray about the Book of Mormon. Elijahs daughter over heard and asked later "we can pray about anything we want?!". Elijah testified of it, and his daughter (like.. 8 years old) went into her room and asked God if it was true.. she said she felt at peace and really happy and knew it was from God. On sunday she bore her testimony in sacrament meeting! Bam.. anyone ever scared of testifying in front of the congregation? How bout when nobody can understand you? Boss! I testify to those things to.. if you pray about it and listen, you can and will get an answer (of course in the Lords timing). Pretty amazing. Its nothing new either, but everytime its miraculous.

Well, i think im done for today. I leave you with the words of President George Albert Smith: "Our religion must find expression in our everyday lives".. I like that. Ask yourself: Does it? If it does, awesome. If not, find out how to do so. Like everything else, i cant promise that the Lord will bless you with riches, but i can promise that he will richly bless you. Love you guys. Thanks for your support.

Elder Gudmundsen

PS: Read your scriptures. I wanna hear your SpiT's (spiritual thoughts).