Another transfer already over!

 District Photo! "quick everyone make a funny face!"

I literally cannot believe that this transfer has already flown by! My companion Sister Barton "dies" this week, so by next week I will have a new companion and could have a new area as well. Transfer week always makes me nervous ha!

Learned how to cook like a Thai person!

But let's see..this week we just did a lot of work with members and were truly blessed to have 4 member referrals come to church! It's so awesome having ward members here that just want all of their friends to learn about the gospel that has so blessed their lives for the better! And like I mentioned last week, it's sooooooo good to work and find through the members of the church! I truly have a testimony of that after seeing how well it worked once we tried to seek out referrals this week :) the church is true!

Went tracting with this cute girl who's will be serving in our mission starting in December!

Well I feel like this is just gonna be a short email, but I'll leave you all with a spiritual thought for the day: 

So I was reading a talk by Elder Russell M. Nelson entitled, "Begin with the End in Mind." He posed a curious question..."What would you like said about you at your funeral?"....ok weird I know, but it truly just gave me perspective on what this life (our time on earth) is really about. In the grand eternal perspective, our mortal lives are just a tiny blip on our spirit's journey. Are we confident enough to say that we truly have focussed our lives on things of eternal significance, or have we left the path to pursue more worldy things? The "end" he refers to is the goal we all have (at least I hope) to return to live with God in the Celestial Kingdom. So if you think you have strayed from the path, come back! Prepare yourself now to meet God! Don't be lazy! ;)

Just a little food for thought this week :)

This week...ate meal worms...

Miss you all! Can't wait to find out what happens at transfers!

Love always,

Sister Lam

Member brought us a treat with this drawing attached...she can't really spell in English...or she just thinks I'm Sister Lame :(

Uplifted!

This past week we had the amazing opportunity to get counsel from Elder Funk of the 70 and Elder Allen, the managing director of the missionary department! Only missionaries serving in Bangkok were invited to attend, so yes, I'm feeling so grateful that I'm serving in Bangkok!

Got to see some of my favorite members when we went to Asoke (my old area) for the conference with Elder Allen.

And seriously, this could not have come at a better time. I feel like lately our mission has been getting more caught up on baptismal numbers as opposed to truly converted souls..and that is exactly what Elder Allen counseled us on.

In our mission...we are really good at FINDING, TEACHING, AND BAPTIZING. But there in lies the problem. A lot of what we do is "cold" contacting, which means we just find people off of the street who are interested. Elder Allen counseled us that, yes, this is good, but these converts are the hardest to retain! And we have seen this these past few months as our number of less actives has increased. 

It is through our recent converts and members in the ward that we should be finding the majority of our investigators because then, that person already has a support system in the church. The low hanging fruit is right in front of us many times, but we have been looking for the hard to reach fruit! So many missionaries, myself included, sometimes think we can do it on our own. But we simply cannot do it alone AND do it well. And, there is no point to missionary work unless we hold on to the fruits of that effort! So when we baptize, it should be when the person is truly on the road to conversion, as we all are. 

I think many people here believe that if they are baptized they are automatically cleansed from sin and saved...that is not true! It is through enduring to the end that we truly can be saved in the kingdom of heaven. But these recent converts can be helped by both the missionaries AND the members as we work together. President Hinckley said that new converts need 1) a friend in the church, 2) a responsibility or calling, and 3) to be nourished by the good word of God. As we strive to hold on to the fruits of our effort, we must be willing to do what we can to support them!

So yes..I learned A TON! it was such an amazing conference that just really fired me up on working better with the members and seeking referrals from them! Our goal in the mission now is to not decrease the rate of baptism, but to increase the rate of conversion! And that can be better achieved as we work through and with our members!

I'm not super good at cooking...but I know how to throw a lot of stuff in a pot :) (get ready to eat A LOT of this family when I come home)

"If we look around with observant eyes and the motive of a caring heart, we will recognize the opportunities the Lord places in front of us to help others rise up and move toward their true potential." (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)

I love you all so much, and I am so grateful for this work we have all been called to do! Keep up the faith, and we can all help in building up the Lord's kingdom on the Earth!

love always,

Sister Lam

Me with the cricket I ate (from last week's email).

I ate a bug!!!

Yup, I ate my first official bug...a cricket yesterday at church...kinda got forced to do it...but now at least I can say I did it! Definitely crunchy and gross...don't recommend it, but the Thai people love them apparently. And when in Thailand..do as the Thais I guess haha.

So this week was way fun! The bangkapi church has been closed down for the past few months, and this past saturday we had this huge open house, where like the mayor or something from this area even came to reopen our building! It was way fun! So we spent a lot of our time out on the streets, and even door to door contacting to get people in the area to come and check out our church! And we focussed on our theme of "Families can be together forever." So much of our focus was on Baptism and the temples!!! SSOOOOO good, and we got a lot of new investigators out of it! Success!!!

Putting together these gifts for our ward's open house!

The theme was "families can be together forever." So we had this awesome temple display!

Some of my favorite people the day of the open house!

So after our miracle baptism a couple of weeks ago, we've been struggling to find people. But this open house was exactly what we needed, and now we have 2 new investigators that are sooo solid! One is Sister จอ๋ม (Jom) and Brother ตูน (Duun). And both came to church on Sunday! MIRACLES!!!! We are praying really hard that one of them will be ready for baptism this next week...so keep your fingers crossed!

Some of the little girls we've been teaching!

For my spiritual thought this week I thought I'd share something I read in a talk the other day really stayed with me. "Just be the same person you are in the dark that you are in the light." This is a quote by Jabari Parker...for those of you who don't know him, he's an LDS basketball player. But how true is this quote! So much of the time we act differently around different groups of people. When in reality, we should be the same person, and not be putting up a certain front. God knows us in every way, and so He defintely knows who we are when we are in front of people and when we are alone. I hope we all are true to ourselves in every situation. Don't hide your faith!!!!

K that's all for this week!

Love ya!

Sister Lam

Be Diligent!

I've been officially welcomed into the ward! haha

"Diligence is steady, consistent, earnest, and energetic effort in doing the Lord's work." (Preach My Gospel)

This is something I've been learning a lot about this past transfer. So things in Bangkapi don't move quite as fast as they do over in Asoke. We spend the majority of our day trying to find people to teach...which means 4-5+ hours of contacting on our feet everyday...all day. Ha, though my feet, ankles and knees may be swollen, and I sweat bucket loads in the heat, in all these things, I've learned to be diligent in my efforts in doing the Lord's work!

I think at first, I found these long contacting days, tiresome and not really all that beneficial. But since being on a mission and doing this every day all day, it doesn't really feel like work when you are just out there trying to help people gain eternal salvation! If Christ could sacrifice his life for each one of us, I can sacrifice 5 hours in the sun every day :)

"When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power." (Ezra Taft Benson)

Members took us out for Korean BBQ!

So ya..this week was kind of hard...and we didn't get any new investigators at church...but we still saw miracles!!! This past Sunday our recently baptized convert Sister ตู๋ (Doo) was confirmed and officially welcomed into the ward! And not to top that but our recent convert Brother เจก (Jake) received the priesthood!! We are soon on our way to bringing a temple here to thailand!!!!

Sister Norrell, me, and a member :)

Love you all!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO STOTT AND CAMI WHO GOT MARRIED THIS PAST WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!! I am so lucky to have these 2 in my life :)

Baptisms!!

Yesterday (Sunday) we were blessed to see our investigator ตู๋ (Duu) enter the waters of baptism! And boy was this girl prepared! Rather than us inviting her to be baptized (we were on our way to asking her though) she straight up tells us that she's ready and already talked to the Bishop about it! HA, yup such a golden investigator! Her baptismal service was awesome, and all the members here are so good at fellowshipping; Sister ตู๋ (Duu) is definitely in very good hands here :)

Our investigator ตู๋ (Duu) got baptized!!!!

Love this girl!!!

So I'm back to speaking Thai...24/7...and boy...is it hard! I got so used to speaking and teaching in English in Asoke, that I'm afraid my Thai has gotten pretty sucky, excuse my language. It's times like these that I know I really have to rely on the Lord and the Spirit when I teach because ultimately it is the spirit that will touch the heart of the investigator..not my mediocre Thai. But in order to teach by the Spirit, that also means we have to be worthy of and listen to the spirit to discern the needs of our investigators! This is something I learn more and more each day with the thousands of people we talk to. 

And yes..THOUSANDS! So because this is a Thai speaking area..we are back to contacting 2 hours every day...and with our numbers a little lower...we have been contacting 5+ hours. It's definitely been wrecking my feet, but I know that this work is worth it! Every spare moment we have when we're not teaching, is dedicated to going out and finding!

Got to celebrate Sister Norrell's one year in country mark!

"Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea the power of God unto the convincing of men." (D&C 11:21)

Me and Sister Mamea (our Greeny) before eating lunch with the members!

Shoutout to one of my best friends Cami Jensen...soon to be Cami Bushnell this week!!!! I love you so much!!! CONGRATULATIONS Stott, you definitely are the luckiest guy in the world! (But I hope you know you have to share her when i get back!!! ;) )

I got transferred!!!!

Well, it's official. I am no longer serving in the International ward anymore :( But it's ok, because I'm serving in an amazing Thai ward in Bangkapi...which is still in the same zone as my last area hahahaha! And boy is my Thai rusty! Haha, but luckily I was placed as companions with Sister Barton, from Bountiful Utah, and her Thai is sooo sooo good! But this is her last transfer in the misson, so yup, I'm "killing" another companion...this will be #3. Apparently I was just meant to have a bazillion companions on my mission or something ha!

Got called to serve in Bangkapi with my new companion Sister Barton!

Back to eatin good ol' Thai food!

Me and Sister Barton also live with 2 other sisters: Sister Norrell (from Alabama) and Sister Memea (from Hawaii). Sister Mamea is also a greeny!!!! But you wouldn't think she was cuz she speaks Thai like a pro already...like WAAAY better than I was when I was a greeny! It's been so fun living with them! We also had to switch houses with the elders, cuz it used to be a 4 elder and 2 sister area, but now it's 4 sisters and 2 elders....so cleaning out their house was an interesting event...not to mention the fact that they didn't fix any of their ac units..so we had to sleep on the floor downstairs until the bedroom ac got fixed. oh the joys of being a missionary! :)

Me and the 3 sisters I have been blessed to serve with this transfer!

So Bangkapi is an amazing ward! They are so unified, and they like to document just about everything on Facebook...so the unattractive amount of pictures of me have just skyrocketted on facebook...ugh haha. But right now we are preparing for our church building's open house at the end of the month. And while we were in this meeting, I thought they were all just being friendly and trying to meet us new sisters...when they were all trying to see what skills we had to help them build up this event!!! The second I said I was a PR major, they all pounced, and I all of a sudden turned into a skilled PR executive who could put the whole event together for them and promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...you name it. NOT TRUE! I think they forgot I was a missionary for a sec and thought I could just hop onto the internet like a normal human being. haha, so it was funny trying to find ways that I could really help them. So they put me in charge of designing and creating the flyers that they will post everywhere, and we will pass out to people as we invite, and will post on Facebook as well #nopressure...hopefully I can bring out those rusty skills of mine!

My new home for the next little while ;)

On a spiritual note, we have a baptism this next sunday! Her name is Sister Duu, and she is soooo cute and ready to be baptized! She was a walk-in to the church, and she came to church on Sunday and stayed all 3 hours and loved it! I love these Thai people so much!!! She truly is a miracle! So ya, she accepted a date for this next Sunday, and until then, we just need to teach her everything! So should be a pretty busy week!

I made dinner for our new district!

Something else I've learned since being a missionary is that God will not always shout the answers to you. Sometimes you need to just make a decision and THEN the confirmation will come as to whether it is right or wrong. "You must learn to walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness; then the light will appear and show the way before you." (Harold B. Lee)

Love and miss you guys!!!! Keep emailing me :) I love to hear about all of your lives!

-Sister Lam

Transfer week again!

I cannot believe that this transfer is already over!!!!! I am so sad that my time with Sister Greenwood has already come to an end! She has been such an amazing companion and has just taught me so much about being selfless and having Christlike love. I will be sad to say goodbye to her, especially since she's going home!!!

It was our District Leader Elder Passey's Birthday on Sunday, so we had a fun District dinner to celebrate!

This week was a little crazy. Last monday, We got a call informing us that Sister Ng was getting transferred randomly to another area for the last 10 days of the transfer. So she quickly had to pack her bags, and it's just been me and Sister Greenwood for a little while now. So it's been weird going around without 1/3 of our companionship, but me and Sister Greenwood managed ok. We were kind of struggling though this week in terms of finding new people to teach. But when Sunday rolled around, we had these 2 people from Ethiopia just walk into Sacrament Meeting and come up to us afterwards saying that they wanted to learn more! Such a miracle!

We met the girl from the movie "17 Miracles" at church on Sunday! (yup, definitely don't have a very large variety of movies to chose from, so she's become a celebrity amongst us missionaries) I definitely recommend the movie though!

Sorry this email is pretty lame and short, but I've attached a link to this mormon message we were able to use with one of our investigators this week that I think really changed his perspective on the experience of Joseph Smith and how we can apply it to ourselves! Hope you like it!

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages/topics/prayer?v=2505987918001

Love you all so much! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my niece and nephew this week! 

Happy Birthday to my nephew Aidan and my niece Sammi!!!!