Sent May 25:
Well, my group is officially the oldest in the mission! Thats weird! Sent my phiis from the MTC to the airport yesterday... that was fun. I was so dead tired.. but it was cool to see them off.
So i am now looking at my last calendar month left on my mission.. feels weird, but exciting; crazy, but good; nerve-wracking, but fulfilling. Gonna go out with a bang! Our schedule is going to be JAM PACKED til the day i pass out on that plane. Theres no time to be trunky even if i was going to accept it... so much to do, so little time.
For example, we need to find peope who are ready for the gospel! We are trying our best to work with Brother @ but MAN... Satan is such a thorn in my... EAR! Man... something happened that he wont tell us about.. ever since sunday he hasnt been willing to meet and is just coming up with all sorts of different excuses. Its way sad and we know there is a deeper concern that he just wont tell us about. We think it must have been his family.. he brought is niece, Ice, to the church and i bet she went home and talked with her parents, which probably angered them that he was learning about christianity and THEN trying to get their daughter to go too. We are trying are best.. praying a lot. I dont do many things well, but i can certainly pray a lot.
Jiab is doing better.. shes starting to recognize the feelings of the Holy Ghost and is really starting to trust us and share experiences with us. She knows that its true.. period. Just accepting it takes time and being confident in herself and the answer shes received is difficult. She doesnt want to be baptized simply because we want her to.. which is a good sign. But shes showing signs of repentance and faith.. love for others, service, and shes happy. She asked about the other investigator, Rabbit, too. Thats a good sign of charity. We have high confidence that she will be baptized.. she cant really escape it now!
The rest of the week was.. TRANSFERS! Mine, my groups, and most importantly, President and Sister Smith's last one. It was really exciting and mainly because secrets were kept this time. I took video of it so you can see what the best mission in the world looks like in 4 weeks. Kidding..but really. The sister missionaries sang a song for Sister Smith.. that was touching. President Smith gave a very powerful closing testimony if you will.. short and simple: Hes an amazing man. Hes been an incredible example of dedicated service his whole life. He has served 6 missions too... crazy. I love him. His wife, Sister Smith is probably the perfect example of Charity towards all men.. i am convinced that she has a gift unlike any person ive met.. she loves everyone, instantly. Holds no grudges. Period.
I love you all. I am beginning my last transfer (shortened) and it feels great. The work is true. The Gospel is of Jesus Christ himself. And i only have one question (yes, in that accent.. you know the one): Are you happy now? Are you satisfied? Ponder that one for a few weeks and we'll talk more.
Peace and Love
Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Tam and Nog finished the Book of Mormon this week.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
eclairs...
Sent May 18:
...are delicious. Just found out that there is a shop downstairs that sells eclairs for 50 baht.. who knew? Delicious
Well it was fun and fantabulously trunky talking to you on monday.. just kidding (but kind of). I enjoyed it.. Josh, you are jacked. Chaz.
Fun week. After i talked to you we went to Khon Gaen and that was a blast. I was with Elder Leyva from my MTC experience and it was the first time we have gotten to work together in the mission field. Its also his second to last week. Hes doing good and hes a great example of faithfulness and hard work.. also hes super ripped.. his 8 pack is kinda ridiculous. Also everyone flirts with him. We went and taught this referral at the university (taught in a library conference room haha) and it went really well. As we began to testify of the Restoration and that we have a loving Heavenly Father, she started to tear up... im not one thats afraid of slience at all, and so we let her cry for a bit and asked her if she could describe what she was felling right now. She couldnt, but she felt like the past few months shes felt really lonely and has felt like no one is ever around to talk to.. good opportunity to help her get addicted to praryer rather than missionaries (cause that happens a lot) and she cried a little more. When she got it together we began to teach about the Godhead and when she heard that they were separate beings she exclaimed a little bit in agreement. Shes had experiences with other churches before and they always tried to drill it in her that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost were all one person.. but she had a dream not too long ago where she KNEW that that was not true! How cool is that? So basically she got a nice confirmation there and to back it up we got to the Joseph Smith story... she felt like Joseph Smith and when we were about to recite the first vision for her, I asked her to close her eyes and just follow my speech and try and picture it: "I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually untill it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me, i saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, This is my Beloved Son, Hear Him!"....
.....That hit the waterworks.. as she opened her eyes, i held a picture of the first vision that i carry with me everywhere, in front of her. Another confirmation that her dream was both preparation to meeting us, and personal revelation. She cried for a while... I would say those were tears of joy as she started to fight off confusion that has come upon her in the last little while. It was a really good experience and man.. everytime i get to recite the first vision, especially in an atmosphere where its quiet, and nothing is interrupting things, its just pure bliss. We know she got her answer and we committed her to begin to pray out her feelings and her doubts with God; to pray right now for strength and then pray without stopping especially in times where she is not "afflicted" or needing something special. I really hope she continues to progress up there.
The rest of the week was way hectic and crasy...everything just seemed to hit the fan, thrice and fice (thats five times). I wont even get into it, but on the bright and brightest side, we taught Brother @ twice, and 11 thai missionaries came back from the Philipines MTC. They are an extremely fired up group and the coolest thing is that i have worked with every single one of the Elders, minus one. In Don Muang was Elder Dawin (Wisan's son). In Ubon was Brother Ice (Now Elder Wilamas) and then in Buriram was Brother Bom (Elder Saa Nguan Sak). In Asoke there was a Sister named Sophia from Cambodia, and she is now a full time missionary. While here in Pakkret we went up to Chiang Mai and i got on this one brothers back often about being a missionary.. well, he came in too! Its been surreal. I remember President Smith saying earlier in the mission that we couldnt have picked a better time to be a missionary... that statement is true at ALL times. Theres never a better time to be a missionary then RIGHT NOW! Just Nike it. Im almost jealous for some of the new missionaries who get to work with this huge group of thai missionaries, cause thats the future of Thailand.. they are serving right now.
Brother @ is doing fantastic... he loves to talk, but man, everything he says is just so good! Our lessons go over cause he talks so much, but its rarely ever about nothing.. by that i mean he always relates things to the Gospel. Crazy. Hes good, set for baptism and i very confident in the 30th of June. We are constantly asking the questions, "okay, what is going to STOP him from being baptized?".. that may seem like a pessimistic attitude, but hey, we gotta anticipate things that could jeopardize his "salvation and stuff!"... nacho libre moment.
Sister Jiab.. well, we are working with her. We havent seen her since last week and we should see her tonight at a bpatism. Speaking of Baptism, Tam and Noke over in Asoke.. remember them? With their adorable kids? Yeah they both passed for baptism and they are getting baptized tomorrow... Tam asked me to baptize them both.. so im significantly excited for that.
K, Kae nii gaun na jaa! Rag khun ja dai. Im gonna go spend money for you haha. Also cut a new suit. Any suggestions? Too late, bye bye! Love you all! Thank you so much for your support! The Restoration is true.. werd.
Elder Gudmundsen
...are delicious. Just found out that there is a shop downstairs that sells eclairs for 50 baht.. who knew? Delicious
Well it was fun and fantabulously trunky talking to you on monday.. just kidding (but kind of). I enjoyed it.. Josh, you are jacked. Chaz.
Fun week. After i talked to you we went to Khon Gaen and that was a blast. I was with Elder Leyva from my MTC experience and it was the first time we have gotten to work together in the mission field. Its also his second to last week. Hes doing good and hes a great example of faithfulness and hard work.. also hes super ripped.. his 8 pack is kinda ridiculous. Also everyone flirts with him. We went and taught this referral at the university (taught in a library conference room haha) and it went really well. As we began to testify of the Restoration and that we have a loving Heavenly Father, she started to tear up... im not one thats afraid of slience at all, and so we let her cry for a bit and asked her if she could describe what she was felling right now. She couldnt, but she felt like the past few months shes felt really lonely and has felt like no one is ever around to talk to.. good opportunity to help her get addicted to praryer rather than missionaries (cause that happens a lot) and she cried a little more. When she got it together we began to teach about the Godhead and when she heard that they were separate beings she exclaimed a little bit in agreement. Shes had experiences with other churches before and they always tried to drill it in her that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost were all one person.. but she had a dream not too long ago where she KNEW that that was not true! How cool is that? So basically she got a nice confirmation there and to back it up we got to the Joseph Smith story... she felt like Joseph Smith and when we were about to recite the first vision for her, I asked her to close her eyes and just follow my speech and try and picture it: "I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually untill it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me, i saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, This is my Beloved Son, Hear Him!"....
.....That hit the waterworks.. as she opened her eyes, i held a picture of the first vision that i carry with me everywhere, in front of her. Another confirmation that her dream was both preparation to meeting us, and personal revelation. She cried for a while... I would say those were tears of joy as she started to fight off confusion that has come upon her in the last little while. It was a really good experience and man.. everytime i get to recite the first vision, especially in an atmosphere where its quiet, and nothing is interrupting things, its just pure bliss. We know she got her answer and we committed her to begin to pray out her feelings and her doubts with God; to pray right now for strength and then pray without stopping especially in times where she is not "afflicted" or needing something special. I really hope she continues to progress up there.
The rest of the week was way hectic and crasy...everything just seemed to hit the fan, thrice and fice (thats five times). I wont even get into it, but on the bright and brightest side, we taught Brother @ twice, and 11 thai missionaries came back from the Philipines MTC. They are an extremely fired up group and the coolest thing is that i have worked with every single one of the Elders, minus one. In Don Muang was Elder Dawin (Wisan's son). In Ubon was Brother Ice (Now Elder Wilamas) and then in Buriram was Brother Bom (Elder Saa Nguan Sak). In Asoke there was a Sister named Sophia from Cambodia, and she is now a full time missionary. While here in Pakkret we went up to Chiang Mai and i got on this one brothers back often about being a missionary.. well, he came in too! Its been surreal. I remember President Smith saying earlier in the mission that we couldnt have picked a better time to be a missionary... that statement is true at ALL times. Theres never a better time to be a missionary then RIGHT NOW! Just Nike it. Im almost jealous for some of the new missionaries who get to work with this huge group of thai missionaries, cause thats the future of Thailand.. they are serving right now.
Brother @ is doing fantastic... he loves to talk, but man, everything he says is just so good! Our lessons go over cause he talks so much, but its rarely ever about nothing.. by that i mean he always relates things to the Gospel. Crazy. Hes good, set for baptism and i very confident in the 30th of June. We are constantly asking the questions, "okay, what is going to STOP him from being baptized?".. that may seem like a pessimistic attitude, but hey, we gotta anticipate things that could jeopardize his "salvation and stuff!"... nacho libre moment.
Sister Jiab.. well, we are working with her. We havent seen her since last week and we should see her tonight at a bpatism. Speaking of Baptism, Tam and Noke over in Asoke.. remember them? With their adorable kids? Yeah they both passed for baptism and they are getting baptized tomorrow... Tam asked me to baptize them both.. so im significantly excited for that.
K, Kae nii gaun na jaa! Rag khun ja dai. Im gonna go spend money for you haha. Also cut a new suit. Any suggestions? Too late, bye bye! Love you all! Thank you so much for your support! The Restoration is true.. werd.
Elder Gudmundsen
Hello.
Sent May 11:
Well, this will be short because we will be talking in like, 2 days anyway. But i just wanted to give an update about current investigators.
Right now we have only a handful of really solid people who are seeking for the truth. A lot of the people we have found in the last few weeks have kinda just slipped through the cracks. However, 4 of our investigators are SOO AWESOME! I love them a ton. The first is still the man we met last week.. his sisters son got caught by the police for doing "something"; i didnt ask what it was. So hes currently comforting his sister and is out of town. It was kind of a double edged sword (that phrase actually exists in thai) because although he was out of town and hadnt told his family about learning the gospel, he told me, "i havent told them that i am going to change and go Christian" ahahha.. So at least we still know where his desires are for the most part. Not sure when he will be back but he said hes had the Book of Mormon in his back since we gave it to him.
The next is a new man that we met and his name is @. Yes, that is the symbol for the word at. He was found at English this week and was just glowing with that "please help me i want to be christian!" look on his face... you know that one dont you? Anyway, last night he asked us very early on in the appointment, "so, ive been wondering what i have to do in order to kind of.. you know, become christian?" hahah, well that couldnt have been an easier seg way into Baptism. Needless to say, he has a baptismal date for the 30th of June. And yes, that is the same day as the first investigator, SuPab, and also the first sunday after im gone. Both intentional and not so intentional. On one hand, the spirit told us that day, and 2 i kinda just dont want to try and get everyone baptized on my LAST week as if its like a celebration or something.. just get em baptized when their ready and im happy! Ill see myself in the picture anyway (or Josh can photoshop me in haha).
The next 2.. oh man! I love you Erika! I feel like you prepared me for people like these 2.. they are both about your age (however they are single) and just kinda have the same personality. I dont know how to describe, but i see you in them! Its really easy to teach them and i feel like they really are my sisters! The first is named Jiab, and the second is rabbit. What was superb was that they both came late to church (i know, your asking yourself "uh, elder gudmundsen what are you stupid, how is that anything close to superb", right? im getting to it!) and as they were waiting outside, they sat next to each other. Then, when they walked in, i watched them sit down together again! They also sat next to each other the following 2 and half hours as well! They looked like best friends, seriously. You know what was way cool? Both of them were wearing the most modest clothing of anyone at church; dresses down to their ankles! Take that immodesty! Ill probably tell you more about them in later emails, or on monday, but i see them both getting baptized soon.
Anyway, ill keep it at this.. oh, by the way, it was zone conference this past week and i got to give my final testimony :(
It was nice.. felt weird, but hey, all good things must come to an end, and then be replaced by something else thats epic! We ride north! (I got a nickname from the District here as Aomir from LoTR)
Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Happy Mothers day to everyone in E-N-C 1st! You go girl (S)!
Well, this will be short because we will be talking in like, 2 days anyway. But i just wanted to give an update about current investigators.
Right now we have only a handful of really solid people who are seeking for the truth. A lot of the people we have found in the last few weeks have kinda just slipped through the cracks. However, 4 of our investigators are SOO AWESOME! I love them a ton. The first is still the man we met last week.. his sisters son got caught by the police for doing "something"; i didnt ask what it was. So hes currently comforting his sister and is out of town. It was kind of a double edged sword (that phrase actually exists in thai) because although he was out of town and hadnt told his family about learning the gospel, he told me, "i havent told them that i am going to change and go Christian" ahahha.. So at least we still know where his desires are for the most part. Not sure when he will be back but he said hes had the Book of Mormon in his back since we gave it to him.
The next is a new man that we met and his name is @. Yes, that is the symbol for the word at. He was found at English this week and was just glowing with that "please help me i want to be christian!" look on his face... you know that one dont you? Anyway, last night he asked us very early on in the appointment, "so, ive been wondering what i have to do in order to kind of.. you know, become christian?" hahah, well that couldnt have been an easier seg way into Baptism. Needless to say, he has a baptismal date for the 30th of June. And yes, that is the same day as the first investigator, SuPab, and also the first sunday after im gone. Both intentional and not so intentional. On one hand, the spirit told us that day, and 2 i kinda just dont want to try and get everyone baptized on my LAST week as if its like a celebration or something.. just get em baptized when their ready and im happy! Ill see myself in the picture anyway (or Josh can photoshop me in haha).
The next 2.. oh man! I love you Erika! I feel like you prepared me for people like these 2.. they are both about your age (however they are single) and just kinda have the same personality. I dont know how to describe, but i see you in them! Its really easy to teach them and i feel like they really are my sisters! The first is named Jiab, and the second is rabbit. What was superb was that they both came late to church (i know, your asking yourself "uh, elder gudmundsen what are you stupid, how is that anything close to superb", right? im getting to it!) and as they were waiting outside, they sat next to each other. Then, when they walked in, i watched them sit down together again! They also sat next to each other the following 2 and half hours as well! They looked like best friends, seriously. You know what was way cool? Both of them were wearing the most modest clothing of anyone at church; dresses down to their ankles! Take that immodesty! Ill probably tell you more about them in later emails, or on monday, but i see them both getting baptized soon.
Anyway, ill keep it at this.. oh, by the way, it was zone conference this past week and i got to give my final testimony :(
Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Happy Mothers day to everyone in E-N-C 1st! You go girl (S)!
Yo sup dawgs and kittens
Sent May 5:
Hello there. Itsa me, Mario. Not really, but it is Elder Gudmundsen. Did i surprise you? nvm..
Great week so far. Probably one of the most normal weeks ive had being here in the office/pakkret branch. Wednesday was a very enjoyable and productive zone leader council.. super long, and lots of preparation for it. Took a while to get home the night before.. but it went well. It took so much time because its preparing zone leaders for zone conference and then for the following months specialized training too. We also had a group follow up about how the month of april went, in terms of the family history trainings. For the most part the general consensus was that it was great.. really great, but no one has done a thing with it yet. Except for us! We had a family history class on thursday.. booyah! 21 people there too. Not bad for the first one ever in the country. Anyway, the zone leaders were in agreement that the trainings went well and everyone felt the spirit, however now that is passed, the missionaries have forgotten about it. So, everyone is going to follow up more and really get it going. I dunno, personally i think it went really well. It was not perfect by any means, but for the first time? Not bad. They were all investigators (current for the most part) and some were brand new. Starting to realize that the students going to Family History classes will be those from the english class. I think it works nicely because we already spend time and money on passing out flyers for english, which pretty much just serves as our pool for getting people to the family history class; add that on to any other pass-outs we do for family history specifically and you got a good thing going. One thing that i see working well is how this will play in for our key indicators. Those key indicators lead to baptism, and the way we have activities set up at church now, they lead to the sacrament. Tuesday: English with a small spiritual thought... Thursday: Family History with a VERY LARGE spiritual thought and then all that leads them straight back to the church 3 days later. I really see it working well. Now if only everyone can get on the boat here and stop procrastinating!! Just kidding (but really).
Had a nice exchange with Elder Merrill (from my group) and it was way fun. Hes seriously way good at teaching. I really enjoyed it and i think we learned a lot together. Thats almost everyone in my group that ive had a chance to work with.. the only one left is Elder Hess! But hes a district leader else where.. kinda far.
As far as real missionary work (ha) i felt like we made a lot of progress. Weve taught and find a lot these past few weeks, and are trying to get people to stick.. been struggling a little bit. Met a really nice old man (who is 81 and can play the violin like a BOSS) who turned out to be islam. Doesnt actually mean anyting cause hes open to listening, but he loves talking and comparing everything, which just causes mind destruction on a large scale. Last night was an amazing experience.. we were inviting in this neighborhood after dinner and Elder Kambanat made a suggestion to try this one area.. i didnt even realize it until after the fact, but it was exactly like Nephi said; that he was lead not knowing beforehand where he was going. the place we went to wasnt even in our plans, and we found a family. A husband and wife in some of the poorest situations ive seen in a while... very humble, extremely contrite and broken, but not down; happy with what he has. He immediately let us in to talk to him and we could already feel that it was going to be a good experience. He almost instantly started asking questions because heh had a frioend years ago that would always talk about christianity. but never got a godo chance at learning. He sincerely thanked us for coming saying, "ive always wanted to understand more about this Christ being our savior, but ive never had anyone come to tell me what i NEED to do.". Basically "kept from the truth only because he knows not where to find it.". As we started to pray he stopped us and said he needed to put more clothes on (i didnt think much cause we're used to half naked people in towels). After much speaking and listening we found at that he feels like a sinner that needs help.. so we taught a simple lesson about baptism, since there is one today, and committed him to come. We showed him a picture of Christ that made him feel very close to the Savior and wanted to be like him. Hopin he can come today and that work doesnt conflict. Very sweet man, and his wife is actually interested, contrary to our judgement.. she ended up teaching her husband how to pray haha.
For other investigators we have a lot of progressing single women.. i dont know what it is about the world today, but its just impossible to find men! We have Noke, Jiab, and Rabbit, who are all doing fairly well. way busy, but super interested and way motivated and dedicated to understanding the gospel. Just an hour ago i called Rabbit and she picked up saying, "hi! You're calling to ask about how my reading in the Book of Mormon is going, right?"... hahah. Awesome! Follow up is so important.
What else is going on... we went to a crocodile farm today.. that was cool. There was also an elephant break dancing there too. I dont think ive ever seen anything like that. At the same time they had (its raining right now) another one of his friends running around fondling everyone for cash... man, those elephants sure know how to get tips (or steal them depending on how you look at it)!
Thanks for the inspirational messages Dad.. they are super lon---i mean way good :) Personal study this week has been fantastic.. feel like ive learned a lot and it is nice to actually have personal study.. some days it seems like we can never find time, but we made goals and are really working on ways to make being here in the office not such a burden/full of rules being broken. Feels good. Love the work, love the people (love the rain) and i sure hope thats not a hemorrhoid (too much info haha)
Love you!
Elder Gudmundsen
Hello there. Itsa me, Mario. Not really, but it is Elder Gudmundsen. Did i surprise you? nvm..
Great week so far. Probably one of the most normal weeks ive had being here in the office/pakkret branch. Wednesday was a very enjoyable and productive zone leader council.. super long, and lots of preparation for it. Took a while to get home the night before.. but it went well. It took so much time because its preparing zone leaders for zone conference and then for the following months specialized training too. We also had a group follow up about how the month of april went, in terms of the family history trainings. For the most part the general consensus was that it was great.. really great, but no one has done a thing with it yet. Except for us! We had a family history class on thursday.. booyah! 21 people there too. Not bad for the first one ever in the country. Anyway, the zone leaders were in agreement that the trainings went well and everyone felt the spirit, however now that is passed, the missionaries have forgotten about it. So, everyone is going to follow up more and really get it going. I dunno, personally i think it went really well. It was not perfect by any means, but for the first time? Not bad. They were all investigators (current for the most part) and some were brand new. Starting to realize that the students going to Family History classes will be those from the english class. I think it works nicely because we already spend time and money on passing out flyers for english, which pretty much just serves as our pool for getting people to the family history class; add that on to any other pass-outs we do for family history specifically and you got a good thing going. One thing that i see working well is how this will play in for our key indicators. Those key indicators lead to baptism, and the way we have activities set up at church now, they lead to the sacrament. Tuesday: English with a small spiritual thought... Thursday: Family History with a VERY LARGE spiritual thought and then all that leads them straight back to the church 3 days later. I really see it working well. Now if only everyone can get on the boat here and stop procrastinating!! Just kidding (but really).
Had a nice exchange with Elder Merrill (from my group) and it was way fun. Hes seriously way good at teaching. I really enjoyed it and i think we learned a lot together. Thats almost everyone in my group that ive had a chance to work with.. the only one left is Elder Hess! But hes a district leader else where.. kinda far.
As far as real missionary work (ha) i felt like we made a lot of progress. Weve taught and find a lot these past few weeks, and are trying to get people to stick.. been struggling a little bit. Met a really nice old man (who is 81 and can play the violin like a BOSS) who turned out to be islam. Doesnt actually mean anyting cause hes open to listening, but he loves talking and comparing everything, which just causes mind destruction on a large scale. Last night was an amazing experience.. we were inviting in this neighborhood after dinner and Elder Kambanat made a suggestion to try this one area.. i didnt even realize it until after the fact, but it was exactly like Nephi said; that he was lead not knowing beforehand where he was going. the place we went to wasnt even in our plans, and we found a family. A husband and wife in some of the poorest situations ive seen in a while... very humble, extremely contrite and broken, but not down; happy with what he has. He immediately let us in to talk to him and we could already feel that it was going to be a good experience. He almost instantly started asking questions because heh had a frioend years ago that would always talk about christianity. but never got a godo chance at learning. He sincerely thanked us for coming saying, "ive always wanted to understand more about this Christ being our savior, but ive never had anyone come to tell me what i NEED to do.". Basically "kept from the truth only because he knows not where to find it.". As we started to pray he stopped us and said he needed to put more clothes on (i didnt think much cause we're used to half naked people in towels). After much speaking and listening we found at that he feels like a sinner that needs help.. so we taught a simple lesson about baptism, since there is one today, and committed him to come. We showed him a picture of Christ that made him feel very close to the Savior and wanted to be like him. Hopin he can come today and that work doesnt conflict. Very sweet man, and his wife is actually interested, contrary to our judgement.. she ended up teaching her husband how to pray haha.
For other investigators we have a lot of progressing single women.. i dont know what it is about the world today, but its just impossible to find men! We have Noke, Jiab, and Rabbit, who are all doing fairly well. way busy, but super interested and way motivated and dedicated to understanding the gospel. Just an hour ago i called Rabbit and she picked up saying, "hi! You're calling to ask about how my reading in the Book of Mormon is going, right?"... hahah. Awesome! Follow up is so important.
What else is going on... we went to a crocodile farm today.. that was cool. There was also an elephant break dancing there too. I dont think ive ever seen anything like that. At the same time they had (its raining right now) another one of his friends running around fondling everyone for cash... man, those elephants sure know how to get tips (or steal them depending on how you look at it)!
Thanks for the inspirational messages Dad.. they are super lon---i mean way good :) Personal study this week has been fantastic.. feel like ive learned a lot and it is nice to actually have personal study.. some days it seems like we can never find time, but we made goals and are really working on ways to make being here in the office not such a burden/full of rules being broken. Feels good. Love the work, love the people (love the rain) and i sure hope thats not a hemorrhoid (too much info haha)
Love you!
Elder Gudmundsen
Red
Sent April 28:
It's WAY hot. 43 celsius. Werd. You dig? I think you could use the accumulation of every Elders sweat to fill a swimming pool.. quite frankly i wouldnt be surprised if there wasnt an Elder to go swimming in it after.
Anyway, now that you have a semi vivid image of what my back looks like (delicious?) we can move on! Bee tee dubs, some animal spontaneously combusted in P-Loke (the furance) because the ground was so hot... HAH! Thats crayz. A train in Bangkok (in Don Muang) was derailed becaseue the bars heated and expanded. I dont think anyone was hurt, but i did see the crash.. gnarly. Two people died also. Thats weird. President Smith told us to tell every missionary that they need to drink 2 liters of water every morning before leaving the house. yeah... 2 liters. Im gonna get fat off of water... Elder Kambanat is a hose.. constantly in the bathroom.. we're both small bodies! We cant hold that much! Forget it.
Okay, family history is really starting to pick up coal in order to pick up steam (hahah, its slow alright!). Almost done with all the trainings in District Meetings and so far things have gone great! It feels good to see all the zone leaders being way passionate about it.. especially the ones that werent all for it at the beginning. Everyone is starting to catch the vision! We havent been able to open a class yet, but its happening this coming thursday! Im way stoked. Sister Tem, our new convert in that big family from last month, just received a calling as a Family history specialist! haha yes! Perfect timing. I think the members are a little nervous about it because we are putting a lot of the role on their shoulders (since they can use computers and we cant). We are going to type up a definitive agenda.. it looks good if i do say so myself. We're also worked out some role plays while up in Ubon yesterday.. and then i went out and tried it with Elder Hanni.. worked WAY well actually. The idea is kinda full of stuff, but when we actulaly tried it we felt the spirit. Something about looking at those pedigree charts stops a lot of people that would nromally say "no" say yes. We went and taught an investigator that Elder Chapman and i found in ubon the LAST time i was up there on exchanges. I remember him and remembered that he said "i dont have time" about 15 times in the first five minutes. This time, after showing him my pedigree chart and explaining why we do it, he just stared at it. FInally he said, "....... lemme ask my wife first". Hahah it was a baby step, but a step none the less. After that we went swimming.. jk, but really.. it just dumped on us yestreday.. i was freezing! A tree fell down too. Way crazy wind. Later on i took some pictures of an incredible view on the airplane.. like, crazy stuff.
For all of those investigators that we met last week.. well, its been pretty hard to get them to stick. One, being gone so much is a bummer, and two, they may not be that prepared. But, tonight we will be over by there and will contact a bunch of them.. see if we can get them to get in the path for real.
Sorry this one was way short, but i feel like im gonna pass out.. way tired right now haha. I love you guys, hope all is well in zion. I want to hear some more stories about our family.. what else you got? Especially your side mom.. i know nothing about them! Book of Mormon is true, this work is SO true. I love it.
Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Glad you arent fat anymore haha.. great work Dad
It's WAY hot. 43 celsius. Werd. You dig? I think you could use the accumulation of every Elders sweat to fill a swimming pool.. quite frankly i wouldnt be surprised if there wasnt an Elder to go swimming in it after.
Anyway, now that you have a semi vivid image of what my back looks like (delicious?) we can move on! Bee tee dubs, some animal spontaneously combusted in P-Loke (the furance) because the ground was so hot... HAH! Thats crayz. A train in Bangkok (in Don Muang) was derailed becaseue the bars heated and expanded. I dont think anyone was hurt, but i did see the crash.. gnarly. Two people died also. Thats weird. President Smith told us to tell every missionary that they need to drink 2 liters of water every morning before leaving the house. yeah... 2 liters. Im gonna get fat off of water... Elder Kambanat is a hose.. constantly in the bathroom.. we're both small bodies! We cant hold that much! Forget it.
Okay, family history is really starting to pick up coal in order to pick up steam (hahah, its slow alright!). Almost done with all the trainings in District Meetings and so far things have gone great! It feels good to see all the zone leaders being way passionate about it.. especially the ones that werent all for it at the beginning. Everyone is starting to catch the vision! We havent been able to open a class yet, but its happening this coming thursday! Im way stoked. Sister Tem, our new convert in that big family from last month, just received a calling as a Family history specialist! haha yes! Perfect timing. I think the members are a little nervous about it because we are putting a lot of the role on their shoulders (since they can use computers and we cant). We are going to type up a definitive agenda.. it looks good if i do say so myself. We're also worked out some role plays while up in Ubon yesterday.. and then i went out and tried it with Elder Hanni.. worked WAY well actually. The idea is kinda full of stuff, but when we actulaly tried it we felt the spirit. Something about looking at those pedigree charts stops a lot of people that would nromally say "no" say yes. We went and taught an investigator that Elder Chapman and i found in ubon the LAST time i was up there on exchanges. I remember him and remembered that he said "i dont have time" about 15 times in the first five minutes. This time, after showing him my pedigree chart and explaining why we do it, he just stared at it. FInally he said, "....... lemme ask my wife first". Hahah it was a baby step, but a step none the less. After that we went swimming.. jk, but really.. it just dumped on us yestreday.. i was freezing! A tree fell down too. Way crazy wind. Later on i took some pictures of an incredible view on the airplane.. like, crazy stuff.
For all of those investigators that we met last week.. well, its been pretty hard to get them to stick. One, being gone so much is a bummer, and two, they may not be that prepared. But, tonight we will be over by there and will contact a bunch of them.. see if we can get them to get in the path for real.
Sorry this one was way short, but i feel like im gonna pass out.. way tired right now haha. I love you guys, hope all is well in zion. I want to hear some more stories about our family.. what else you got? Especially your side mom.. i know nothing about them! Book of Mormon is true, this work is SO true. I love it.
Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Glad you arent fat anymore haha.. great work Dad
Yellow
Sent April 21:
Why hello there. Are you all sabaaydeemai? Hope so. I am sabaaydeemaag.
I felt like this week was a much success (yes i just wrote that). This week was the start of the district meetings which trained on this months specialized training, which of course is family history. I gotta say.. the spirit was very strong this week. We sat in on 3 district meetings this week and they all went really well. I think the term "spirit of Elijah" has never really been understood by anyone until this week (myself included). The excitement from the other missionaries about using it finding and teaching was contagious! Elder Gambanat is really excited for it as well, and some may call us big dreamers, but we say, "why not?". This program is going to be bigger than it is.. and the Lord is going to open doors that no one ever has thought possible. I dont know if you know this, but Thai records are absolutlely turrible. They have no records for anyone unless your chinese. On top of that, it hasnt been that long since "last names" were introduced and so when you go back in history there are so many people with the same name, and no one with last names. Side note: interesting that the gospel was restored after thai people got last names. Paw Dee. Anyway we believe that as the members and investigators and missionaries really put a great effort into this program to find thai ancestry lines, the lord wll accept our efforst and open something big. I dont know what, but everyone thinks its impossible to break passed a certain line of ancestry which makes us say, "bring it on. Is there anything too hard for the Lord?". I think me says no. I wont be here for it, but ill certainly hear about it in the future. Elder Gambanat also talked about something kind of amusing.. everytime we talk to people about religion, they say that their ancestors are buddhist. However, if they could do their family history and make it back to Adam and Eve, well.... see where hes going? Just kidding! You're ancestors are not buddhist! Maybe you should change to make them happy haha.
This week we were up in Chiang Mai on exchanges with the zone leaders and Elder Wagstaff and I (yes, the same guy that was in my MTC group) decided to try and use Family History a lot in our inviting and what not. We biked out to a group of flat buildlings (very far.. like, extremely far.. so far) and kinda struck out for an hour or so. Finaly we made it to this room with an older woman and her son sitting and drawing. They were very nice and let us to sit down and cool off. It was obvious from the get go that the son (about 27) was not fully there. He seemd very slow and after a few minutes we could kinda understand that his mind was behind anything done or said by about 10 or 15 seconds. Anyway he asked me if i was chinese and if i was 32 years old.. ouch. I answered no to both and asked him if he was chinese. He answered yes. He said that his father was. We asked them if they had ever done their family history and they sadly said no, but that they had wanted to. Elder Wagstaff got out his pedigree chart and gave it to her... after which, uhh.. i dont think ive felt the spirit this strong on.. ever. Or atleast in a while. She instantly blew up with excitement and grabbed her glasses to read it.. but shes too old so she couldnt see it, so she grabbed her magnifying glass and started reading from start to finish. Elder Wagstaff and i just sat there in amazement at how excited she got. Soon after her daughter came home and after looking confused at the 2 farangs sitting on their couch, proceed to ask her mom what she was looking at... BOOM another one bites the dust! She got even more excited than the mother! She began to explain how she had once done her family chart but lost it and couldnt do it again; Shes always wanted to though. They started telling each other how they wanted to do it and we took the opportunity to invite them to church to meet with a representative who could help them get started again. They very willingly said yes. We askedif we could share a short message about why we do family history work and they looked like pros when they got on their knees to pray, including the handicapped son. After we prayed we testified of the importance of finding out about our kindred dead and how we have sacred places to do ordinances for salvation for them. Now, remember how i said the son was slow? Right after the prayer we very simply said that finding out about our ancestors gives us meaning and connection to the past.. instantly the son exlaimed and did a motion with his hands.. he made the connection with what we were teaching, and although he could not put what he understood just now to words, it was very sweet. He understood that there is a line from him going back of people who have helped him and love him, and he felt the spirit. So did we. It was very powerful. They said that would go to church and start their family history this sunday. So cool right? In a later district meeting (yesterday actually) one of the zone leaders confessed a story about when i told him about family history being taught in specialized training and he kinda made a face like, "really? thats dumb?" scolded him...well, after studying it and using it with a soon to be recent convert who broke down crying upon learning about her ancestors, he was convinced that it was a good time to start using family history. The Spirit of Elijah is real!!!!
In other sweet stuff, our areas is getting build up again.. admist the travel and the plane flights and all the other stuff we have managed to find some new people in our area (even though the assistants may or may not be moving soon). Its been fun. It feels good to fly out to the isan in the morning, teach a distrct meeting in the afternoon, fly back in thea fternoon and make it back in time to go out and invite on the very things we taught. Very fulfilling. Did i tell you i love this work?
Had an interview with President Smith this week.. hes getting interviews out of the way before his last zone conference cause its going to be BUSY. It was a very nice interview and i felt very edified.. normally the interviews feel kinda rushed, but this time around i could see that hes really trying to free up his time so he doesnt look bored or rushed in the interview. It worked. He revealed some interesting stuff and i gotta say.. i felt good. I may tell you later.
Did i tell you that its hot? Well, its way hot outside. We were out in the Isan one day this week and on a Tuk-Tuk.. that wind was not enjoyable.. it was like fire going up your nose without end! So hot! I called a zone leader one day and when he picked up he sounded when upset.. "whats wrong Elder?" "Its... WAY hot outside.. its 107 man!". hahah.. i lawled. Elder Wagstaff sweats like a boss.. 10 mintues after i stopped sweating hes still going! Its good.
K well im done for today. I leave you with an experience from last night.. we taught this guy who was housing a monk for a few nights (fancy that, monks cant stay at a hotel alone..looks bad) and after the lesson, the monk came home. When finding out we were missionaries his immediate response was "all religions just teach us to be good". Now, besides feeling pity for the guy, i thought to myself "what do i sound like when i testify of the Book of Mormon, or the savior?'. Do i sound like that? Do any of us testify of these eternal truths with as much confidence as this monk searching for the truth, but not obtaining it? I came to the conlusion that i can do better. When we testify we gotta sound confident! Not arrogant or prideful, but meek and powerful! Not like this monk with 0 confidence. Dont get me wrong, he was a nice guy, and i cant really blame him.. he doesnt know any better.. hes doing the best with what he has. Review your testimony and then grab it by the horns and release it on someone!... with love :)
This is the work of the savior. I know its true.
Love, Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Who do you know that the missionaries can teach?
Why hello there. Are you all sabaaydeemai? Hope so. I am sabaaydeemaag.
I felt like this week was a much success (yes i just wrote that). This week was the start of the district meetings which trained on this months specialized training, which of course is family history. I gotta say.. the spirit was very strong this week. We sat in on 3 district meetings this week and they all went really well. I think the term "spirit of Elijah" has never really been understood by anyone until this week (myself included). The excitement from the other missionaries about using it finding and teaching was contagious! Elder Gambanat is really excited for it as well, and some may call us big dreamers, but we say, "why not?". This program is going to be bigger than it is.. and the Lord is going to open doors that no one ever has thought possible. I dont know if you know this, but Thai records are absolutlely turrible. They have no records for anyone unless your chinese. On top of that, it hasnt been that long since "last names" were introduced and so when you go back in history there are so many people with the same name, and no one with last names. Side note: interesting that the gospel was restored after thai people got last names. Paw Dee. Anyway we believe that as the members and investigators and missionaries really put a great effort into this program to find thai ancestry lines, the lord wll accept our efforst and open something big. I dont know what, but everyone thinks its impossible to break passed a certain line of ancestry which makes us say, "bring it on. Is there anything too hard for the Lord?". I think me says no. I wont be here for it, but ill certainly hear about it in the future. Elder Gambanat also talked about something kind of amusing.. everytime we talk to people about religion, they say that their ancestors are buddhist. However, if they could do their family history and make it back to Adam and Eve, well.... see where hes going? Just kidding! You're ancestors are not buddhist! Maybe you should change to make them happy haha.
This week we were up in Chiang Mai on exchanges with the zone leaders and Elder Wagstaff and I (yes, the same guy that was in my MTC group) decided to try and use Family History a lot in our inviting and what not. We biked out to a group of flat buildlings (very far.. like, extremely far.. so far) and kinda struck out for an hour or so. Finaly we made it to this room with an older woman and her son sitting and drawing. They were very nice and let us to sit down and cool off. It was obvious from the get go that the son (about 27) was not fully there. He seemd very slow and after a few minutes we could kinda understand that his mind was behind anything done or said by about 10 or 15 seconds. Anyway he asked me if i was chinese and if i was 32 years old.. ouch. I answered no to both and asked him if he was chinese. He answered yes. He said that his father was. We asked them if they had ever done their family history and they sadly said no, but that they had wanted to. Elder Wagstaff got out his pedigree chart and gave it to her... after which, uhh.. i dont think ive felt the spirit this strong on.. ever. Or atleast in a while. She instantly blew up with excitement and grabbed her glasses to read it.. but shes too old so she couldnt see it, so she grabbed her magnifying glass and started reading from start to finish. Elder Wagstaff and i just sat there in amazement at how excited she got. Soon after her daughter came home and after looking confused at the 2 farangs sitting on their couch, proceed to ask her mom what she was looking at... BOOM another one bites the dust! She got even more excited than the mother! She began to explain how she had once done her family chart but lost it and couldnt do it again; Shes always wanted to though. They started telling each other how they wanted to do it and we took the opportunity to invite them to church to meet with a representative who could help them get started again. They very willingly said yes. We askedif we could share a short message about why we do family history work and they looked like pros when they got on their knees to pray, including the handicapped son. After we prayed we testified of the importance of finding out about our kindred dead and how we have sacred places to do ordinances for salvation for them. Now, remember how i said the son was slow? Right after the prayer we very simply said that finding out about our ancestors gives us meaning and connection to the past.. instantly the son exlaimed and did a motion with his hands.. he made the connection with what we were teaching, and although he could not put what he understood just now to words, it was very sweet. He understood that there is a line from him going back of people who have helped him and love him, and he felt the spirit. So did we. It was very powerful. They said that would go to church and start their family history this sunday. So cool right? In a later district meeting (yesterday actually) one of the zone leaders confessed a story about when i told him about family history being taught in specialized training and he kinda made a face like, "really? thats dumb?" scolded him...well, after studying it and using it with a soon to be recent convert who broke down crying upon learning about her ancestors, he was convinced that it was a good time to start using family history. The Spirit of Elijah is real!!!!
In other sweet stuff, our areas is getting build up again.. admist the travel and the plane flights and all the other stuff we have managed to find some new people in our area (even though the assistants may or may not be moving soon). Its been fun. It feels good to fly out to the isan in the morning, teach a distrct meeting in the afternoon, fly back in thea fternoon and make it back in time to go out and invite on the very things we taught. Very fulfilling. Did i tell you i love this work?
Had an interview with President Smith this week.. hes getting interviews out of the way before his last zone conference cause its going to be BUSY. It was a very nice interview and i felt very edified.. normally the interviews feel kinda rushed, but this time around i could see that hes really trying to free up his time so he doesnt look bored or rushed in the interview. It worked. He revealed some interesting stuff and i gotta say.. i felt good. I may tell you later.
Did i tell you that its hot? Well, its way hot outside. We were out in the Isan one day this week and on a Tuk-Tuk.. that wind was not enjoyable.. it was like fire going up your nose without end! So hot! I called a zone leader one day and when he picked up he sounded when upset.. "whats wrong Elder?" "Its... WAY hot outside.. its 107 man!". hahah.. i lawled. Elder Wagstaff sweats like a boss.. 10 mintues after i stopped sweating hes still going! Its good.
K well im done for today. I leave you with an experience from last night.. we taught this guy who was housing a monk for a few nights (fancy that, monks cant stay at a hotel alone..looks bad) and after the lesson, the monk came home. When finding out we were missionaries his immediate response was "all religions just teach us to be good". Now, besides feeling pity for the guy, i thought to myself "what do i sound like when i testify of the Book of Mormon, or the savior?'. Do i sound like that? Do any of us testify of these eternal truths with as much confidence as this monk searching for the truth, but not obtaining it? I came to the conlusion that i can do better. When we testify we gotta sound confident! Not arrogant or prideful, but meek and powerful! Not like this monk with 0 confidence. Dont get me wrong, he was a nice guy, and i cant really blame him.. he doesnt know any better.. hes doing the best with what he has. Review your testimony and then grab it by the horns and release it on someone!... with love :)
This is the work of the savior. I know its true.
Love, Elder Gudmundsen
PS: Who do you know that the missionaries can teach?
Sup
Sent April 15
Fun week. Probably the busiest week ive ever had on my mission. One word: Transfers. I feel like ive gained a new found gratitude for the so called "people behind the scenes" now that i was one. There is just SOO much that goes into a transfers meeting that 98 percent of our missionaries dont even know about. To them (and me before this) its just a 1 hour meeting and then go back to your areas. For us, its an entire week of planning and action with just so little time to do it. Our plans were super good on monday and then piece by piece, here and there, things would start to chip off the masterpiece. Nothing went horribly wrong, just little things make a big difference. For the msot part everything went pretty smoothly. It was an unusal transfer because there were 16 missionaries coming in to the country (by far the biggest that President Smith has seen while here) and 17 dying (6 of which were Thai). Everything from getting to the airport, loading allll that luggage back to the church, getting all of them interviewed by President Smith, getting their pictures taken, having a medical check up and getting them out to invite all between 1:00 and 6:00 pm... no easy task. We were running around like crazy. I really enjoyed it though, especially getting to see "greeny" fire again.. man, they were so stoke to be in Thailand.. kinda forgot that thats how i was almost two year.. now i just feel old and seasoned. All 16 of them are way prepared and crazy excited. Its funny to see how weird and exciting everything is to them.. a simple taxi they saw while we were driving home, which seems like nothing to me, was one of the coolest things to them. Their thai-glish was stellar.
Transfers day was very much filled.. let me remind you that transfers was on the last work day, for the entire country, before the holiday began. Busses out of Bangkok were impossible to find. The meeting itself went very smooth and Elder Revelli sang his solo for "His Hands" again.. very powerful. When i announced that he was singing his entire MTC group just looked at each other confused thinking, "he can sing?!". President Smith had one of the thai Elders come up and say something as well. His name is Elder Anon. This past week he was called home from the military to see if he would have to be drafted into the military or not.. the process? After body check ups he has to literally grab a ball out of a basket-like thing which is either red or black. Well i cant say it better than President Smith did: This is not my work, this is the work of the Lord. When Elder Anon went home and went to the military camp he walked up to the officer to register his name. The Officer looked at him and asked him why he was dressed so professionally; for work or school. He said neither and that he was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ. The guy paused and then asked, rather frankly, "you mean that group of white guys always biking around?". Elder Anon said yes. The officer continued to tell him that he didnt need to be here and that he could go home. Is that not cool or what? Elder Kambanat is officially in here at the office. Did i mention what happened with new Mission Presidents? The Brethren made a switch in mission presidents because of medical problems.. so now our new mission president doesnt speak Thai! Just made Elder Kambanat's schedule and role even higher than it was going to be before. The Assistants role is now changed drastically cause the new MP is going to not only need someone to take him around for a while, but also to translate for him in interviews, or in meetings. Fun. On top of that, the mission office is moving, along with the mission home, so things are going to be fun in the next 2 and a half months. Anyway, after transfers we had to help everyone get where they needed to be, which took the ENTIRE rest of the day from 12 noon to 1 am in the morning. We got up at 4 am the next day to take the missionaries to the airport (which included Elder Furr and McDonald) and we left the airport at 7:30 to take Elder Seymour back to the office to meet his parents.. that was a really sweet moment. After that we met with President to talk about what could be done better for the next big group coming in, and instead of going to sleep after that, we changed and made our way downtown for Songkran... yeah, that was fun. I think every missionary is Bangkok was in the same place this year. It was insanity. It was very different from last year.. up in Ubon the entire city is just completely filled with people, but here in Bangkok they closed down a few streets for everyone to gather in and play.. and when i say everyone i mean everyone. There were SOOO many people. A bunch of foreigners too. It was a good day to play because it was HOT. We played until 5 ish and then went home... then we had more work to do to get the remaining Elders and Sisters out of Bangkok.. so all in all, we got back to our house and had a normal planning session and i think i literally crawled into bed and passed out. One of the weirdest days i think ive had so far.
I dont know if you guys would like Song Kran or not.. but it was super fun.. dont know if i mentioned that yet. We didnt have any problems this year with decepticons or anything like that, and I actually got really good at dodging women trying to put powder on my face.. since i had a squirt gun (which was pretty powerful actually) all you gotta do is wait for some person who thinks they are going to succeed in getting powder on your face to be in front of you and shot em right in the eye (or their open mouth).. they just cant deal with it! And you get a good laugh out of the many different flinching faces you get to see. Elder Heslop and i had a giggle fit the whole time. My personal favorite this year was taking their own phrase, which would be somewhere along the lines of, "may i put powder on your face!" and say it while taking their powder from them and dumping it on their faces.. BOOM. Way funny. Josh, you would love this holiday for sure. But alas, it is now over. The streets are empty and im quite positive that we are the only people in the entire country working right now.
As far as investigators go.. well, pretty dry right now. However our area is Elder Kambanats old greeny area (Yes, he actually already has served here). At some point in time they switch or re-drew the areas and so now we are finding out all his old investigators. Pretty sweet. Since it was Song Kran everyone that we have taught in the last 6 weeks is just kinda,.... dissapeared. Seriously.. they dont pick up their phones! Our District LEader managed to get a baptism out of the week though.. thats nice.
We finally finished the schedule and calendar for this transfesr.. its a packed one. Something exciting: There are 10 thai missionaries coming in to the field this month on the 28th. Thats the biggest group that President Smith has ever seen. Boss. In addition there are 7 coming from provo and 5 going home.. which means we get to open areas! yay! Time is going to flyyyyy like the eagles. Gotta run! Love you all and thanks for all youve done. Thanks for sharing that story about our ancestors Dad.. im using it in the trainings for the next 2 weeks.. the one about building the steps in the manti temple? I imagined him building those stairs and thinking to himself how he was "building steps to heaven" in a way.. at least to the celestial room of the temple. I've taken that phrase now and we are going to use it help our missionaries build steps to heaven for their investigators. It may sound cheesy, but it sure sounds good to the ears in thai. We are opening an investigator family history class next thursday and the entire 2 up coming weeks will be spent training the missionaries. Yay. By the way, we ate dinner with the Kim's again.. they had 2 non member friends over for dinner as well and we got a chance to share our message in english.. boy was that weird.. felt like a moron trying to talk to an idiot.. why is english soo hard?! Anyway, ill talk to you next week.
Love, Elder Gudmundsen
Fun week. Probably the busiest week ive ever had on my mission. One word: Transfers. I feel like ive gained a new found gratitude for the so called "people behind the scenes" now that i was one. There is just SOO much that goes into a transfers meeting that 98 percent of our missionaries dont even know about. To them (and me before this) its just a 1 hour meeting and then go back to your areas. For us, its an entire week of planning and action with just so little time to do it. Our plans were super good on monday and then piece by piece, here and there, things would start to chip off the masterpiece. Nothing went horribly wrong, just little things make a big difference. For the msot part everything went pretty smoothly. It was an unusal transfer because there were 16 missionaries coming in to the country (by far the biggest that President Smith has seen while here) and 17 dying (6 of which were Thai). Everything from getting to the airport, loading allll that luggage back to the church, getting all of them interviewed by President Smith, getting their pictures taken, having a medical check up and getting them out to invite all between 1:00 and 6:00 pm... no easy task. We were running around like crazy. I really enjoyed it though, especially getting to see "greeny" fire again.. man, they were so stoke to be in Thailand.. kinda forgot that thats how i was almost two year.. now i just feel old and seasoned. All 16 of them are way prepared and crazy excited. Its funny to see how weird and exciting everything is to them.. a simple taxi they saw while we were driving home, which seems like nothing to me, was one of the coolest things to them. Their thai-glish was stellar.
Transfers day was very much filled.. let me remind you that transfers was on the last work day, for the entire country, before the holiday began. Busses out of Bangkok were impossible to find. The meeting itself went very smooth and Elder Revelli sang his solo for "His Hands" again.. very powerful. When i announced that he was singing his entire MTC group just looked at each other confused thinking, "he can sing?!". President Smith had one of the thai Elders come up and say something as well. His name is Elder Anon. This past week he was called home from the military to see if he would have to be drafted into the military or not.. the process? After body check ups he has to literally grab a ball out of a basket-like thing which is either red or black. Well i cant say it better than President Smith did: This is not my work, this is the work of the Lord. When Elder Anon went home and went to the military camp he walked up to the officer to register his name. The Officer looked at him and asked him why he was dressed so professionally; for work or school. He said neither and that he was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ. The guy paused and then asked, rather frankly, "you mean that group of white guys always biking around?". Elder Anon said yes. The officer continued to tell him that he didnt need to be here and that he could go home. Is that not cool or what? Elder Kambanat is officially in here at the office. Did i mention what happened with new Mission Presidents? The Brethren made a switch in mission presidents because of medical problems.. so now our new mission president doesnt speak Thai! Just made Elder Kambanat's schedule and role even higher than it was going to be before. The Assistants role is now changed drastically cause the new MP is going to not only need someone to take him around for a while, but also to translate for him in interviews, or in meetings. Fun. On top of that, the mission office is moving, along with the mission home, so things are going to be fun in the next 2 and a half months. Anyway, after transfers we had to help everyone get where they needed to be, which took the ENTIRE rest of the day from 12 noon to 1 am in the morning. We got up at 4 am the next day to take the missionaries to the airport (which included Elder Furr and McDonald) and we left the airport at 7:30 to take Elder Seymour back to the office to meet his parents.. that was a really sweet moment. After that we met with President to talk about what could be done better for the next big group coming in, and instead of going to sleep after that, we changed and made our way downtown for Songkran... yeah, that was fun. I think every missionary is Bangkok was in the same place this year. It was insanity. It was very different from last year.. up in Ubon the entire city is just completely filled with people, but here in Bangkok they closed down a few streets for everyone to gather in and play.. and when i say everyone i mean everyone. There were SOOO many people. A bunch of foreigners too. It was a good day to play because it was HOT. We played until 5 ish and then went home... then we had more work to do to get the remaining Elders and Sisters out of Bangkok.. so all in all, we got back to our house and had a normal planning session and i think i literally crawled into bed and passed out. One of the weirdest days i think ive had so far.
I dont know if you guys would like Song Kran or not.. but it was super fun.. dont know if i mentioned that yet. We didnt have any problems this year with decepticons or anything like that, and I actually got really good at dodging women trying to put powder on my face.. since i had a squirt gun (which was pretty powerful actually) all you gotta do is wait for some person who thinks they are going to succeed in getting powder on your face to be in front of you and shot em right in the eye (or their open mouth).. they just cant deal with it! And you get a good laugh out of the many different flinching faces you get to see. Elder Heslop and i had a giggle fit the whole time. My personal favorite this year was taking their own phrase, which would be somewhere along the lines of, "may i put powder on your face!" and say it while taking their powder from them and dumping it on their faces.. BOOM. Way funny. Josh, you would love this holiday for sure. But alas, it is now over. The streets are empty and im quite positive that we are the only people in the entire country working right now.
As far as investigators go.. well, pretty dry right now. However our area is Elder Kambanats old greeny area (Yes, he actually already has served here). At some point in time they switch or re-drew the areas and so now we are finding out all his old investigators. Pretty sweet. Since it was Song Kran everyone that we have taught in the last 6 weeks is just kinda,.... dissapeared. Seriously.. they dont pick up their phones! Our District LEader managed to get a baptism out of the week though.. thats nice.
We finally finished the schedule and calendar for this transfesr.. its a packed one. Something exciting: There are 10 thai missionaries coming in to the field this month on the 28th. Thats the biggest group that President Smith has ever seen. Boss. In addition there are 7 coming from provo and 5 going home.. which means we get to open areas! yay! Time is going to flyyyyy like the eagles. Gotta run! Love you all and thanks for all youve done. Thanks for sharing that story about our ancestors Dad.. im using it in the trainings for the next 2 weeks.. the one about building the steps in the manti temple? I imagined him building those stairs and thinking to himself how he was "building steps to heaven" in a way.. at least to the celestial room of the temple. I've taken that phrase now and we are going to use it help our missionaries build steps to heaven for their investigators. It may sound cheesy, but it sure sounds good to the ears in thai. We are opening an investigator family history class next thursday and the entire 2 up coming weeks will be spent training the missionaries. Yay. By the way, we ate dinner with the Kim's again.. they had 2 non member friends over for dinner as well and we got a chance to share our message in english.. boy was that weird.. felt like a moron trying to talk to an idiot.. why is english soo hard?! Anyway, ill talk to you next week.
Love, Elder Gudmundsen
Success!
Sent April 8:
So.. we officially presented our pitch on Family History to our zone leaders.. and i feel it was much success! Everyone seemed to receive it really well and the spirit was in abundance fo sho. Werd. Moving forward will take patience but we are ready. So i might as well tell you who is going to be leading out with me for the rest of my mission.. its Elder Kampanat! You remember him? He was my companion back in Buriram. Yes, being surprised is probably a correct response because that now means that i will finish my mission having been companions with Thai Elders for 9 transfers and with Americans for 7. Can't touch this! He actually just got off the phone with President Smith haha. Im sure hes pretty nervous/excited. Its gonna be good. He's totally a machine. He was probably the most quietest yet excited zone leader of the bunch. He's on board and i think his attitude and personality will really help the mission grow, especially in this time that we are changing mission presidents in about 2 and a half months. He's been prepared and he will get it done. Our mission is Obedient; period. And he is an obedient missionary. For some reason when mission presidents change, missionaries like to think that its the beginning of "comfortableness" in the rules; not so. Some of the members are convinced thats the case too; some people will be in for an unpleasant surprise. We actually talked about obedience at zone leader council... i didnt talk much, but all i said was what i noticed on a flight coming home one evening. On every commercial flight ive ever been on, one of the first things the attendants say is to stay seated with our seat belts fastened until the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt light (among a few other things). That light as right in front of our faces. Well, one night i closed my eyes and decided to have a little fun; i wanted to see how many i would hear: *click.. click... click, click...". In one flight i counted 27 clicks before the light was turned off (most of them RIGHT as the plane came to a halt, seemingly with no possible danger). It was very simple to me, yet profound, and like Elder Holland described last conference, "the Lord has drawn lines very clearly" on this field of which we must obey. To those 27 who released their seat belt when they were told not to, i wondered what went through their head... "no big deal... nothing will happen" "the plane stopped already, why should i have to keep it on". The similarities are striking when seeing missionaries dis-obey... no matter what we may think, we are clearly told what to do, and we should not have to question that, ever. I went on an exchanged this week with Elder Hardy.. he was in my MTC phii group. Before his mission he was in the army.. boy, i find it both embarrassing and a blessing that we aren't like the army; they beat their troops into obedience, but they also don't often ask questions. President Smith called me while i was with Elder Hardy and he asked me, "why didnt you tell me that i had it set for both Elder Merrel's to be companions?!" He said it while laughing, but i simply said, "uh.. uhnnyha.. its not my board! Its your call isnt it?". Elder Hardy over heard and said that;s kinda what the army was like.. you get told to do something and you never follow it by saying, "why?". I like that. The Lord lovingly gives us reasons to certain of his commandments, but in the end we should rarely have to ask the Lord, "why?". It was a fun exchanged.. hes a great Elder and his got some amazing stories about the army.. crazy different world. Elder Hardy is 25. Im impressed with his perspective on things.. at the end of the exchange i told him i appreciated the way he respects leaders even though hes older than all of them. He looked at me and said, "i dont know why older missionaries have a hard time with that sometimes.. one, you're a leader called of the Lord, and two why should i have a superiority complex? I look up to you guys.. i admire you all for getting out here at 19 when for some reasons i had to wait until i was older. I love serving with you.". Probably one of the best responses ive heard from someone on my mission. Theres always this "culture of human nature" to jam a stick up our rear (pardon me) and put ourselves on a theoretical "rameumptom" of sorts, when really there is no place for it. Love him. Its sad hes dying in 5 days. Oh yeah.. on a funny note, when he had his own little "cell" in the army, he had pictures up of his family on the walls instead of the traditional porn.. a fellow soldier, who happened to be a woman, came in one day and looked rather perplexed.. She sharply asked, "what? Are you gay?". hahah
On Friday we had to hop on a plane and go to Ubon and then go to surin for Elder Komgrits military stuff.. that was fun. I got to sit on my butt for 4 and a half hours.. did you know that cement is NOT soft to the touch? Whouda thunk roight? No i did not spell that wrong. On the bright side i got to talk to a few people about the gospel. One of them was Elder Komgrits former class mates.. he was interested.. like a lot. i love those! Its really fun to mess with them because you know from the way they ask questions that they arent gonna leave.. so i would like read the book of mormon between his questions, like i was done talking.. and then he would just be like, "whats that?" "Oh, its a book"..................................."what's it cal---" "The Book of Mormon! wanna read it?" "Yeah!". Pretty much like that. His name was Joe. Nice guy. Probably wasnt super popular.. i base that clearly on the fact that he remembered who Elder Komgrit was and Elder Komgrit didnt remember him. Sad. He lives in Bangkok so hopefully he gets in contact with the Elders around here. I met a mother who was sitting with her son.. he was skipping out on the draft and after learning that i could speak thai fairly well she looked at him and was like, "hey, wouldnt it be cool go to America and preach Buddhism?!"... yeah, good luck.
The night before the army stuff (which would be yesterday evening.. wow thats a lot easier to say) we ate dinner with Elder Komgrits parents.. that was way nice. His dad is way cool. Got to talk to him for a long time. His mom is cool too. You can tell his Dad is super proud of him. How couldnt you be? Except the fat part.. he aint too proud a that hahah.. when he picked us up at the bus station he took one look at him and said, "wow.. you as fat as a water buffalo!" (simliar to "fat as a cow" for us).. i lawl'ed.
We only got to watch saturday sessions of conference.. SO GOOD! I think Elder Bednar was my favorite of the 3.. way straight foward and i really enjoyed learning about his father.. especially how he baptized him. Way cool. havent gotten to see sunday's yet because of the military junk. But should be able to watch it this week on the computer. Love it. So glad we have this event every 6 months. I would ask for it more often than that, but im pretty sure it takes 6 months for everyone to come up with a talk pleasing to the Lord! That would be nerve wracking. Speaking of what should be nerve wracking is translating.. which they did awful. At one point they didnt turn off the mic and we could hear them talking to each other haha.. when Elder Archuletta came on you could hear a loud whisper, "NO WAY!". At one other point we heard the translator obviously talking to the thai translator say, "i have a question! how do you read this word!". hahaha. lulz. Face palm too. I heard President Uchtdorf was nice and in your face.. not like Elder Holland, but nice and straight to the point. good.
Okay im rambling. Love you all. Hope you had a great Easter weekend and arent getting fat from eating. This week is going to be crazy.. gotta pick up those 16 missionaries from the airport and get them out tracting on their first day. Transfers week is always hectic. But i think we got our heads around it nicely. Its gonna be weird seeing Elder McDonald and Elder Furr off onto a plane.. ahh! They're dead! Also, its SongKran festival weekend.. on snap. Its gonna be insane! Im excited for playing with water though.. legit. K, much love. Peace,
Elder Gudmundsen
So.. we officially presented our pitch on Family History to our zone leaders.. and i feel it was much success! Everyone seemed to receive it really well and the spirit was in abundance fo sho. Werd. Moving forward will take patience but we are ready. So i might as well tell you who is going to be leading out with me for the rest of my mission.. its Elder Kampanat! You remember him? He was my companion back in Buriram. Yes, being surprised is probably a correct response because that now means that i will finish my mission having been companions with Thai Elders for 9 transfers and with Americans for 7. Can't touch this! He actually just got off the phone with President Smith haha. Im sure hes pretty nervous/excited. Its gonna be good. He's totally a machine. He was probably the most quietest yet excited zone leader of the bunch. He's on board and i think his attitude and personality will really help the mission grow, especially in this time that we are changing mission presidents in about 2 and a half months. He's been prepared and he will get it done. Our mission is Obedient; period. And he is an obedient missionary. For some reason when mission presidents change, missionaries like to think that its the beginning of "comfortableness" in the rules; not so. Some of the members are convinced thats the case too; some people will be in for an unpleasant surprise. We actually talked about obedience at zone leader council... i didnt talk much, but all i said was what i noticed on a flight coming home one evening. On every commercial flight ive ever been on, one of the first things the attendants say is to stay seated with our seat belts fastened until the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt light (among a few other things). That light as right in front of our faces. Well, one night i closed my eyes and decided to have a little fun; i wanted to see how many i would hear: *click.. click... click, click...". In one flight i counted 27 clicks before the light was turned off (most of them RIGHT as the plane came to a halt, seemingly with no possible danger). It was very simple to me, yet profound, and like Elder Holland described last conference, "the Lord has drawn lines very clearly" on this field of which we must obey. To those 27 who released their seat belt when they were told not to, i wondered what went through their head... "no big deal... nothing will happen" "the plane stopped already, why should i have to keep it on". The similarities are striking when seeing missionaries dis-obey... no matter what we may think, we are clearly told what to do, and we should not have to question that, ever. I went on an exchanged this week with Elder Hardy.. he was in my MTC phii group. Before his mission he was in the army.. boy, i find it both embarrassing and a blessing that we aren't like the army; they beat their troops into obedience, but they also don't often ask questions. President Smith called me while i was with Elder Hardy and he asked me, "why didnt you tell me that i had it set for both Elder Merrel's to be companions?!" He said it while laughing, but i simply said, "uh.. uhnnyha.. its not my board! Its your call isnt it?". Elder Hardy over heard and said that;s kinda what the army was like.. you get told to do something and you never follow it by saying, "why?". I like that. The Lord lovingly gives us reasons to certain of his commandments, but in the end we should rarely have to ask the Lord, "why?". It was a fun exchanged.. hes a great Elder and his got some amazing stories about the army.. crazy different world. Elder Hardy is 25. Im impressed with his perspective on things.. at the end of the exchange i told him i appreciated the way he respects leaders even though hes older than all of them. He looked at me and said, "i dont know why older missionaries have a hard time with that sometimes.. one, you're a leader called of the Lord, and two why should i have a superiority complex? I look up to you guys.. i admire you all for getting out here at 19 when for some reasons i had to wait until i was older. I love serving with you.". Probably one of the best responses ive heard from someone on my mission. Theres always this "culture of human nature" to jam a stick up our rear (pardon me) and put ourselves on a theoretical "rameumptom" of sorts, when really there is no place for it. Love him. Its sad hes dying in 5 days. Oh yeah.. on a funny note, when he had his own little "cell" in the army, he had pictures up of his family on the walls instead of the traditional porn.. a fellow soldier, who happened to be a woman, came in one day and looked rather perplexed.. She sharply asked, "what? Are you gay?". hahah
On Friday we had to hop on a plane and go to Ubon and then go to surin for Elder Komgrits military stuff.. that was fun. I got to sit on my butt for 4 and a half hours.. did you know that cement is NOT soft to the touch? Whouda thunk roight? No i did not spell that wrong. On the bright side i got to talk to a few people about the gospel. One of them was Elder Komgrits former class mates.. he was interested.. like a lot. i love those! Its really fun to mess with them because you know from the way they ask questions that they arent gonna leave.. so i would like read the book of mormon between his questions, like i was done talking.. and then he would just be like, "whats that?" "Oh, its a book"..................................."what's it cal---" "The Book of Mormon! wanna read it?" "Yeah!". Pretty much like that. His name was Joe. Nice guy. Probably wasnt super popular.. i base that clearly on the fact that he remembered who Elder Komgrit was and Elder Komgrit didnt remember him. Sad. He lives in Bangkok so hopefully he gets in contact with the Elders around here. I met a mother who was sitting with her son.. he was skipping out on the draft and after learning that i could speak thai fairly well she looked at him and was like, "hey, wouldnt it be cool go to America and preach Buddhism?!"... yeah, good luck.
The night before the army stuff (which would be yesterday evening.. wow thats a lot easier to say) we ate dinner with Elder Komgrits parents.. that was way nice. His dad is way cool. Got to talk to him for a long time. His mom is cool too. You can tell his Dad is super proud of him. How couldnt you be? Except the fat part.. he aint too proud a that hahah.. when he picked us up at the bus station he took one look at him and said, "wow.. you as fat as a water buffalo!" (simliar to "fat as a cow" for us).. i lawl'ed.
We only got to watch saturday sessions of conference.. SO GOOD! I think Elder Bednar was my favorite of the 3.. way straight foward and i really enjoyed learning about his father.. especially how he baptized him. Way cool. havent gotten to see sunday's yet because of the military junk. But should be able to watch it this week on the computer. Love it. So glad we have this event every 6 months. I would ask for it more often than that, but im pretty sure it takes 6 months for everyone to come up with a talk pleasing to the Lord! That would be nerve wracking. Speaking of what should be nerve wracking is translating.. which they did awful. At one point they didnt turn off the mic and we could hear them talking to each other haha.. when Elder Archuletta came on you could hear a loud whisper, "NO WAY!". At one other point we heard the translator obviously talking to the thai translator say, "i have a question! how do you read this word!". hahaha. lulz. Face palm too. I heard President Uchtdorf was nice and in your face.. not like Elder Holland, but nice and straight to the point. good.
Okay im rambling. Love you all. Hope you had a great Easter weekend and arent getting fat from eating. This week is going to be crazy.. gotta pick up those 16 missionaries from the airport and get them out tracting on their first day. Transfers week is always hectic. But i think we got our heads around it nicely. Its gonna be weird seeing Elder McDonald and Elder Furr off onto a plane.. ahh! They're dead! Also, its SongKran festival weekend.. on snap. Its gonna be insane! Im excited for playing with water though.. legit. K, much love. Peace,
Elder Gudmundsen
Happy Easter!
Sent April 1:
I love you all! Hope your easter was fantastic this year! Just wanted to share my feelings today.. put simply there was a lot of crying (on my part).
I was asked to sing a duet in sacrament today (i had practiced) and for some reason i didnt think about it yesterday as i started my fast. Sunday morning came around and i realized that i had to sing... oops. I started pryaing super hard to be able to sing. Guys.. it wasnt the best performance ever, but i know that i was helped out today. Ive never sang at the podium in front of a microphone before and theres no way i sang by myself. The words and notes just seem to come out (theres fasting for ya). After that Elder Revelli (my kid) sang His Hands.. i lost it when the climax comes in at "they piece them". Its a powerful song and its all true.. i testify that they pierced his hands and he accepted it because of love. The glorious event of the Resurrection after his death truly is the greatest event in all human history.
Love, Elder Gudmundsen
I love you all! Hope your easter was fantastic this year! Just wanted to share my feelings today.. put simply there was a lot of crying (on my part).
I was asked to sing a duet in sacrament today (i had practiced) and for some reason i didnt think about it yesterday as i started my fast. Sunday morning came around and i realized that i had to sing... oops. I started pryaing super hard to be able to sing. Guys.. it wasnt the best performance ever, but i know that i was helped out today. Ive never sang at the podium in front of a microphone before and theres no way i sang by myself. The words and notes just seem to come out (theres fasting for ya). After that Elder Revelli (my kid) sang His Hands.. i lost it when the climax comes in at "they piece them". Its a powerful song and its all true.. i testify that they pierced his hands and he accepted it because of love. The glorious event of the Resurrection after his death truly is the greatest event in all human history.
Love, Elder Gudmundsen
Shalom
Sent March 31:
Well.. kind of an interesting week.. we have no lessons this week! haha. We were in Khon Kaen monday-tuesday and ubon from wednesday to thursday. Friday was at the office the whole time because we had to finish the specialized training on family history and present it to President Smith. Good news, is its all done and he approved it. Gotta say.. im proud of the product we came up with. We tried to make the training simple and grounded in doctrine from the scriptures. It was kinda weird.. the night before i was kinda stressin on it cause i felt like it wasnt.. complete. I couldnt figure out what it was and i was prayin really hard to figure it out, and when i finally came to the office to type it all up, it just kinda threw itself on paper. Im confident in the product and i think its gonna really explode.
On sunday i met with the family history director of Thailand and the consultant for the branch here in Pakkret. At first it was kinda awkward and they seemed confused at why we were meeting --by the way we met in the districts family history center.. pretty impressive. For this unit, that part wont be a problem, but for outside areas.. eh, we shall see. After about ten minutes of presenting the idea (using PMG of course) the sister, named Sister Wan of the country, just seemed to get it; it just clicked. She was explaining the vision that we have to the consultant and she started to get it too. After that it was smooth sailing. Just seemd like everything after that was what theyw anted to do. The vision that i see is very simple: as missionaries we are responsible and have a part in every aspect of the work (most importantly is teaching and baptizing) including finding, teaching and baptizing, retention of new converts, and activation of less active members. They we i see it is that this covers them all. When we go into coordination meeting and do it right, we come out with plans that encompass these 4 topics. Since we are training about how to use it in finding that part will be covered. The teaching will naturally come when people ask us why we do the work of family history. My favorite here is about retention. I read in preach my gospel the other day in the section under "establishing the church" which is actually right on topic with last months training about assuring real growth (which is not just baptism, but increase in church attendance). It says that those are have testimonies are baptized and confirmed, keep covenants, and prepare actively to go to the temple. I thought about that... how can they prepare to go to the temple without names of their ancestors. Also, if they have their eyes set on the temple, its a natural thing to stay strong. I think about the converts ive seen baptized and they are not all still strong. But the ones who are are the ones who have their eyes continually set on the temple. For activation.. pretty self explanatory. A lot of people are excited about this thing and i feel its going to take Thailand in a new direction.. that is assuming of course that people hop on board. It wont be hard thats for sure.. those who are family history consultants are they because they love it! Why would they reject it right? Ive contacted every director in the country for all 7 district/stakes and am currently compiling a list of every consultant for every branch. So far ive had no negative feedback (well, some just havent responded yet haha) but only very enthusiastic responses. Yay. When i get home i might show you the clip i made and the write up too; its a beaute! Just kidding. But really.
So you remember that father i told you about? Nugune? He got offended when nobody said hi to him at church one day.. dont know if i told you that but yeah thats it. Anyway, i was super bummed because he hadnt been picking up the phone lately and today.. he called me! He really has been super busy and not able to even pick up the phone. But he called to say thanks and that hes still praying every day and reading as much as i can when free. He said hes trying to clear everything so he can come to church. Hes been reading too and understands that everything good is from Christ and been super grateful for the trials hes experienced lately. That got me stoked for him again.. i dont know when he will be able to come again, but hes trying.
We had this other investigator from English.. way nice and has a ton of questions. Hes one of those that loves to write down everything we say in lessons. Hey, not exactly my style cause im lazy, but at least we know hes listening! He said he would come tomorrow.. yay, he gets to watch me sing in sacrament. Dont get too excited Dad! I already told you i would go to choir with you! Im singing a duet with Brother Art here in the branch.. hes probably the most talented musician in the country. We are singing "How great is the miracle". Very pretty. Great lyrics too. Short, and sweet. Wish me luck.
K love you. Gotta run. I know the work is true and im excited to see where Family History will take us. Even more excited (well, maybe not more) to take this home and work there! Oh.. by the way, im registering for classes this coming week.. Thats weird.
Well.. kind of an interesting week.. we have no lessons this week! haha. We were in Khon Kaen monday-tuesday and ubon from wednesday to thursday. Friday was at the office the whole time because we had to finish the specialized training on family history and present it to President Smith. Good news, is its all done and he approved it. Gotta say.. im proud of the product we came up with. We tried to make the training simple and grounded in doctrine from the scriptures. It was kinda weird.. the night before i was kinda stressin on it cause i felt like it wasnt.. complete. I couldnt figure out what it was and i was prayin really hard to figure it out, and when i finally came to the office to type it all up, it just kinda threw itself on paper. Im confident in the product and i think its gonna really explode.
On sunday i met with the family history director of Thailand and the consultant for the branch here in Pakkret. At first it was kinda awkward and they seemed confused at why we were meeting --by the way we met in the districts family history center.. pretty impressive. For this unit, that part wont be a problem, but for outside areas.. eh, we shall see. After about ten minutes of presenting the idea (using PMG of course) the sister, named Sister Wan of the country, just seemed to get it; it just clicked. She was explaining the vision that we have to the consultant and she started to get it too. After that it was smooth sailing. Just seemd like everything after that was what theyw anted to do. The vision that i see is very simple: as missionaries we are responsible and have a part in every aspect of the work (most importantly is teaching and baptizing) including finding, teaching and baptizing, retention of new converts, and activation of less active members. They we i see it is that this covers them all. When we go into coordination meeting and do it right, we come out with plans that encompass these 4 topics. Since we are training about how to use it in finding that part will be covered. The teaching will naturally come when people ask us why we do the work of family history. My favorite here is about retention. I read in preach my gospel the other day in the section under "establishing the church" which is actually right on topic with last months training about assuring real growth (which is not just baptism, but increase in church attendance). It says that those are have testimonies are baptized and confirmed, keep covenants, and prepare actively to go to the temple. I thought about that... how can they prepare to go to the temple without names of their ancestors. Also, if they have their eyes set on the temple, its a natural thing to stay strong. I think about the converts ive seen baptized and they are not all still strong. But the ones who are are the ones who have their eyes continually set on the temple. For activation.. pretty self explanatory. A lot of people are excited about this thing and i feel its going to take Thailand in a new direction.. that is assuming of course that people hop on board. It wont be hard thats for sure.. those who are family history consultants are they because they love it! Why would they reject it right? Ive contacted every director in the country for all 7 district/stakes and am currently compiling a list of every consultant for every branch. So far ive had no negative feedback (well, some just havent responded yet haha) but only very enthusiastic responses. Yay. When i get home i might show you the clip i made and the write up too; its a beaute! Just kidding. But really.
So you remember that father i told you about? Nugune? He got offended when nobody said hi to him at church one day.. dont know if i told you that but yeah thats it. Anyway, i was super bummed because he hadnt been picking up the phone lately and today.. he called me! He really has been super busy and not able to even pick up the phone. But he called to say thanks and that hes still praying every day and reading as much as i can when free. He said hes trying to clear everything so he can come to church. Hes been reading too and understands that everything good is from Christ and been super grateful for the trials hes experienced lately. That got me stoked for him again.. i dont know when he will be able to come again, but hes trying.
We had this other investigator from English.. way nice and has a ton of questions. Hes one of those that loves to write down everything we say in lessons. Hey, not exactly my style cause im lazy, but at least we know hes listening! He said he would come tomorrow.. yay, he gets to watch me sing in sacrament. Dont get too excited Dad! I already told you i would go to choir with you! Im singing a duet with Brother Art here in the branch.. hes probably the most talented musician in the country. We are singing "How great is the miracle". Very pretty. Great lyrics too. Short, and sweet. Wish me luck.
K love you. Gotta run. I know the work is true and im excited to see where Family History will take us. Even more excited (well, maybe not more) to take this home and work there! Oh.. by the way, im registering for classes this coming week.. Thats weird.
Hello
Sent March 23:
Pretty fast week. Im 21. yay. I feel old. Bummer.
We met with President Smith... transfers is going to be crazy. Song Kran is coming.. its going to be crazy. Fun. I know who my next companion is haha. But its a secret.
So we had some more specialized trainings this week and they have all been really productive. Im really impressed with how many different things President Smith saw coming from this activity (if you forgot the name its called the "Grinders".).. I dont know if i actually explalined this activity that well.. but it comes from the doctrine on finding, which the missionary department is currently focusing on this month (all around the world) because apparently we arent finding enough. After discussing the doctrine on finding from Preach My Gospel Chapter 9, we do this activity where we pick 3 topics that we usually talk about when knocking on doors (the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, The restoration, etc) and come up with a 1 minute "short powerful statement" that encompasses the topic and links it back to the message of the restoration. At this point, President Smith tells everyone they should be writing the paragraph down because we will then use it to role play (sort of like a script). Here is where i see its kinda tricky, because its not hard to remember the stuff written down... but what happens (every time) is people quickly write it down, and then use the FIRST time through during the one minute role play. By the 2nd or 3rd time, no one is using notes, and the statements that they began with have changed already. When President Smith points that out, everyone nods there head in glorious agreement. The next thing, and my favorite part, is when he asks the NEWEST missionary how long he has been in the country, and they say about 3 weeks. He then asks the person that was role playing with the new missionary "did you understand him?" "yes". This activity helps even the worst (pardon my bluntness) speaker of the language able to give a powerful statement that the holy ghost can take to the herats of investigators. Its powerful every time.
Now, this was the specialized training that came from the missionary department (and we have a specialized training on something every month). Next month was supposed to be on repentance, but President wants it to be in May during zone conferences instead. So he needed a new topic for the month of April. After reading my email about our efforts to increase the use of Family History in the mission, he called on Wednesday (my birfday) and said he wanted me to design a specialized training on family history. Whoa. That was big. So right now im kinda trying to get my thoughts together on what is going to work. We are meeting the family history consultants here in the district and the branch this coming sunday, and are going to try and get the lists of everyone throughout the country. This could be big.. really big. We have to stay with it because its going to take some time to make it an effective program. But like i said, inviting and english are 2 of the tiniest bullets in Preach My Gospel.. Family HIstory is huge. Theres no way this is not going to work.
Other than this, we have the normal office work, and exchanges. Nothing super special. Trying to use time most effectively, which has proven to be difficult.. theres so much to do, and its all important.. picking the right thing to do on the right day is crucial.
Okay, love you guys. Thanks for the packages of delicious candy.. that will last me till i die. Was a good week. I miss you (kind of) and am really grateful to be part of our perfect (hahah, right) family. You're all psycho. hahah Peace!
Elder Gudmundsen
We met with President Smith... transfers is going to be crazy. Song Kran is coming.. its going to be crazy. Fun. I know who my next companion is haha. But its a secret.
So we had some more specialized trainings this week and they have all been really productive. Im really impressed with how many different things President Smith saw coming from this activity (if you forgot the name its called the "Grinders".).. I dont know if i actually explalined this activity that well.. but it comes from the doctrine on finding, which the missionary department is currently focusing on this month (all around the world) because apparently we arent finding enough. After discussing the doctrine on finding from Preach My Gospel Chapter 9, we do this activity where we pick 3 topics that we usually talk about when knocking on doors (the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, The restoration, etc) and come up with a 1 minute "short powerful statement" that encompasses the topic and links it back to the message of the restoration. At this point, President Smith tells everyone they should be writing the paragraph down because we will then use it to role play (sort of like a script). Here is where i see its kinda tricky, because its not hard to remember the stuff written down... but what happens (every time) is people quickly write it down, and then use the FIRST time through during the one minute role play. By the 2nd or 3rd time, no one is using notes, and the statements that they began with have changed already. When President Smith points that out, everyone nods there head in glorious agreement. The next thing, and my favorite part, is when he asks the NEWEST missionary how long he has been in the country, and they say about 3 weeks. He then asks the person that was role playing with the new missionary "did you understand him?" "yes". This activity helps even the worst (pardon my bluntness) speaker of the language able to give a powerful statement that the holy ghost can take to the herats of investigators. Its powerful every time.
Now, this was the specialized training that came from the missionary department (and we have a specialized training on something every month). Next month was supposed to be on repentance, but President wants it to be in May during zone conferences instead. So he needed a new topic for the month of April. After reading my email about our efforts to increase the use of Family History in the mission, he called on Wednesday (my birfday) and said he wanted me to design a specialized training on family history. Whoa. That was big. So right now im kinda trying to get my thoughts together on what is going to work. We are meeting the family history consultants here in the district and the branch this coming sunday, and are going to try and get the lists of everyone throughout the country. This could be big.. really big. We have to stay with it because its going to take some time to make it an effective program. But like i said, inviting and english are 2 of the tiniest bullets in Preach My Gospel.. Family HIstory is huge. Theres no way this is not going to work.
Other than this, we have the normal office work, and exchanges. Nothing super special. Trying to use time most effectively, which has proven to be difficult.. theres so much to do, and its all important.. picking the right thing to do on the right day is crucial.
Okay, love you guys. Thanks for the packages of delicious candy.. that will last me till i die. Was a good week. I miss you (kind of) and am really grateful to be part of our perfect (hahah, right) family. You're all psycho. hahah Peace!
Elder Gudmundsen
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