The Refiner's Fire

My new boyfriend ;)

So this week has been quite the doozy! I had the awesome opportunity to do a switch-off back in my old area Asoke!!! And while I was there, my "child" Sister Belnap was with Sister Beuchter...also another greeny...Yup..we made them do a greeny switch-off, but honestly, Sister Belnap is waaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond her mission age. She has been such a blessing because yes, she really is talented in both the language and her teaching abilities. So i was not even worried for a second when Sister Peterson asked if Sister Belnap was up to a greeny switch-off for her first switch-off. I knew she was up for the challenge, and they didn't die!!!! :) so i call that a success :) And it was such a blessing for me to return to my old area!!! I never quite realized the impact that those members and converts in Asoke had on my life! It was fun to see some old faces and lots of new faces that have come into the church since I served there! Just a testament to me of how fast the work is moving here in Thailand!

Got to do a switch-off back in my old area Asoke!!!!!

This week has been so great though! We taught a lesson with President ทิพ (Tip), our Branch President, and he just really really helped our investigator Brother อึง (Ung) who has been struggling lately....specifically with smoking, his family accepting the change in his life, and he wasn't sure if he could take every Sunday off from work. But President was just such a boss and brought in the 10 commandments, tithing, basically everything we taught that day, and pointed to how all of these things were for the benefit of his family, to help build them up and strengthen them as a family unit! It was so cool! Brother อึง  then committed to coming to church every Sunday AND to quit smoking cold turkey right then and there! He asked for a Priesthood blessing, and he has been using so much faith since we first met with him!!! And so far so good, he hasn't smoked since that lesson!!! :) and I know it's because he knows that he has a Savior always there beside him to help lift him up when he feels like he can't go any farther! Such a cool lesson. AND, he has a date for baptism THIS SUNDAY!!!!! So everyone pray really hard that the spirit works within him all the time so that he can combat the adversary's attempt to derail him! I know that with faith, Brother อึง will be baptized this week, which will open the door for his wife and son to be baptized as well!!! The church is so true!!!

Learned how to make kimbap...yup...Korean food...woops. Sorry family! I'll learn how to make Thai food eventually!

Not much to do on p-days lately...so we go bowling....and i still stink at it :(

For my spiritual thought this week, I want to talk about the refiner's fire. While I was back in Asoke this week, I met a really really interesting recent convert. His name is Mickey, and he was actually baptized in L.A.! He was baptized this past September, and a few days after his baptism...he really faced the refiner's fire. So a little background on this guy: He got his undergraduate degree from Stanford, and went on to do law school at Harvard...yaaa....he's a genius this guy. Then after working for a bigwig law firm for a while, he realized this was not helping him become the person he truly knew he had the potential to become...So he quit his job to do some soul searching, which led him to travel the world, including Thailand, where he met his wife. And he started this health center business back in LA and in Thailand. So one day while he was home in LA he was doing yoga, and he fell asleep in a position that cut off blood circulation to the bottom half of his legs to the point where he passed out. Hours later, his friends found him unconscious at home in this yoga position, and he woke up in the hospital, paralyzed from the legs down....But never, and I mean NEVER has this man lost hope. Slowly but surely he is regaining nerve function again in his legs, but as a result of that freak accident, in one of his legs he had to get the majority of his calf muscle surgically removed and so walking will never be quite as easy....ya....but seriously, this guy is such a powerhouse! He told us that he KNEW the adversary would try to tare him down after he was baptized, and boy was he right. But he has never given up hope or lost faith. Weeks later after being released from the hospital, Mickey was able to receive the gift of the holy ghost, and has found the church here in Thailand now! 

"The refiner's fire is real, and qualities of character and righteousness that are forged in the furnace of affliction perfect and purify us and prepare us to meet God." (Elder Quentin L. Cook) 

I know that quote is true. I know that Satan will try to do all that he can to tare us down, but with the help of the Savior, with never-ending hope and faith, those hardships can work for our gain. We can gain qualities of character and righteousness that will perfect and purify us for the day where we will stand before our maker, and He will welcome us in with open arms :)

I know this church is true and that God loves and protects His children!

Love always,

Sister Lam

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

What the heck!? It's already 2015????? Seriously, being a missionary has just warped all sense of time for me. I can't believe I spent the entire year of 2014 in Thailand!!!!! CRAZINESS!!!

Doesn't it look like it says "Hell 2015" instead of "Hello 2015"? My companion and I thought it was funny.

This week our investigator Sister พา (Pha) got baptized!!!! She's this cute spunky 25 year old who I just have grown to love sooo much! Her grasp of the Atonement and the repentance process just baffles my mind! She just get's it! I've never seen someone just soooo readily accept everything we've taught and have so much faith to not even question anything. Once the spirit starting working within her from day 1, she just hasn't been able to deny it :) God truly prepares His children! And I've seen it time and time again as I see His children enact the saving grace of the Atonement and truly turn their lives to be in harmony with God's plan and will for them! So ya :) it was a pretty amazing Christmas and New year's gift for me and Sister Belnap to see our investigator make personal covenants with her Heavenly Father.

Sister Pha's Baptism!

Other than that...things have been pretty slow here since everyone pretty much goes out of town for Christmas and the New Year. And seeing as our curfew got changed to 7 for the new year...me and Sister Belnap have just been spending lots of quality time together :) But it has also left me plenty of time to get in some good personal study time!!! I feel like every time I study from D&C my mind is blown and I just get this overwhelming influx of knowledge..and sometimes confusion. I was studying a lot in D&C 88 and 76...which focuses a lot on the different kingdoms of glory we will all be able to receive after we die, are resurrected and judged. I recommend that you all read it, cuz it just clearly states who will receive exaltation and what the requirements are. And that lead to me to a further in depth study of King Benjamin's speech to his people in Mosiah 2-4. If anyone is unclear of what the requirements are, King Benjamin lays it out plainly in these chapters where he pretty much just lays out the Gospel of Christ: faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. These are things we teach our investigators EVERY day, but before my mission....I don't think I can confidently say that I knew these were the requirements for exaltation. So if you did not know....study up!!!!! It's a new year, make it a resolution to study the scriptures every day IN-DEPTH, and I promise the Lord will open your eyes to a deeper and greater level of understanding of His will and word. I have never felt more grateful than I do now for the scriptures our Heavenly Father has blessed us with. They just are a well of knowledge for us who are consistently yearning to gain more knowledge! Not only that, but for those of us who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, our "triple combinations/quads" can be used so much more effectively for our gain when we use the cross references that have been listed for us right there on the same pages!!!! No doubt, inspiration from our very wise Heavenly Father to our leaders in the Church today...So in summary...this week I just have found such a greater love and appreciation for the written word of God! We have the answers to so many of life's questions right in those very pages..or right in the palm of our hands if we have the scriptures downloaded onto our smart handheld devices!!! My advice to you...USE THEM!!!!! They will help us prepare for the day of judgment that will inevitably happen whether we are prepared or not...but I mean...wouldn't it be better if we were prepared?

Love you!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year!

Sister Lam

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

It's weird, cuz I just got to talk to a bunch of you over Skype, but I guess it's only fair that I send out an email to the rest of you who I love so dearly!!! Merry Christmas everyone!!!! I can't believe that I have been in Thailand over a year already!!!! It's weird that my second Christmas here has come so quickly! But sad to say...nothing really too exciting goes on here on Christmas...so me and the other missionaries will just be hitting up a buffet to celebrate together haha. Skyping home though is really what makes Christmas for missionaries here I feel like :)

Ice Cream for Elder Opad's birthday :) the Senior couple the Moleff's were nice enough to treat us all out!

District Sunday Dinner!

And we were lucky enough to see a little bit of white this Christmas...hahahahaha ok sorry the worst pun ever. But our investigator Brother สมษักดิ์(SomSag) got baptized!!! He finally overcame is coffee addiction and felt ready and prepared to enter into the waters of baptism!!! He's such a cute old man! He always calls us to tell us how he's doing and to tell us how he hasn't drinken any coffee. he's the sweetest :) And on another happy note, our other investigator Sister พา (Pha) figured out how she can come to church now on Sundays and so she too will be baptized this upcoming Sunday :)!!!!!! The Lord has definitely been blessing me and Sister Belnap this season, even though Christmas is the HARDEST time to find people to teach because everyone is always going out of town for the holidays. so yes, we feel very very blessed!

Brother สมษักดิ์(SomSag's) Baptism!!!!

I hope you all have an amazing Christmas!! I don't want to take too much of your time cuz I'm sure you're all enjoying time at home with your families, but I just hope that you all remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas :) It is because of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with whom without, we would not be able to live, overcome our sins and return to live with our Father in Heaven again. So during this season of giving, try and give your time, talents, abilities, anything you can really and help others in need. Christ has done everything He can to help us in every thing, so I know that we can all sacrifice a little too and give back since He has given us it all.

I love and miss you all so so much!!!!! Hope to hear from you next week!!! and just a headsup, I'll be emailing again on Thursday..which means wednesday night your time because of the New year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Love always,

Sister Lam

TRAINING!!!! :)

Yup, well if you couldn't catch it from the title of this email... I'm training a new missionary!!! Her name is Sister Belnap and she's from Arkansas, fresh off the plan this week from the MTC :) But honestly, you wouldn't think so with how amazing she already is at the language. Honestly, she's been making my life SOOOOO easy because of how good she is at just about everything!!! I definitely lucked out with this one!

Branch Christmas party and Elder Davis was Santa hahahaha

My old companion Sister Ladle finished her mission :( miss her

And so far, our first week together has started with a bang! We had Sister พลอย (ploy's) baptism yesterday!!! So her story is, she started learning with the Elders and she definitely faced a lot of trials getting to this point. Then her elders moved...so initially, she had a goal of getting baptized like 3 weeks ago, but after she started learning with us, she lost her job and got evicted...tough right? Satan definitely strikes hard when you are trying to do the right things. But after some serious fasting and praying through faith, the Lord gave her a miracle job that provided a free place to stay!!!! So this past Sunday, she was finally able to enter the waters of baptism, and I literally don't know if I've seen anyone smile as much as she did that day. Literally beaming from ear to ear, she smiled the entire time, even when she had to be dunked multiple times into freezing water...ya we let one of our new greenies baptize her...and let's just say he was pretty nervous! But it's ok, cuz she got baptized!!!!!!! And this branch welcomed her in with open arms, to which I am so grateful for. It really just is a testimony each time that members really do make the difference!!!! They are what keep people active and feeling loved!

Sister พลอย (ploy) got baptized!!!!!

New District!

So something that struck me from zone training this past week was a quote by President Senior. He said, "I would rather hope for the impossible and be wrong than not hope and be right." Hope, is something I've been focusing a lot of my studies on lately. We have this one investigator that just has lost hope because her mom is so against her learning. And because her mom is the only family she has, she hates to see her mom upset. Literally, she has just been torn apart because she knows the church is true, but doesn't want to disobey her mom...rough situation right? So I've been praying for her, and this quote really just stuck with me. As missionaries, we HOPE for the impossible every day. We hope that people will accept our message and come unto Christ. And to be frank...we get a lot more no's than yes's....which really can tear you apart inside. But that hope, keeps me going; the hope that I will meet someone who accepts our message every day, the hope that God has prepared specific people for me and my companion to meet, and the hope that we will help Thailand prepare to receive a temple! So even though right now our investigator has lost hope, I have not and will never lose hope for her. If she truly believes this is the true church of Jesus Christ restored on the earth, God will prepare the way for both her AND her mother to be baptized!!!!

NEVER LOSE HOPE!

Ever upwards,

Sister Lam

Sister Nattaya from our branch got her mission call to serve in Australia!!!!!

The end of another transfer already?!?!?!?

It still baffles my mind how quickly 6 week transfers seem to fly by now for me. But this was definitely a pretty amazing transfer with Sister Brown, especially since we went out with a bang and had a baptism our last Sunday together :)

Our last dinner together as a district :(

Yup, yesterday, Sister เจน, our 18 year old investigator joined the fold of God through the waters of baptism!!!!! She is seriously such a miracle story! At first she came to the church specifically to learn English. But once we started teaching her, we started to see how the Holy Ghost works within people! The day we taught the Plan of Salvation is the day that everything changed for her I believe. At first, ya, she wanted to learn and was interested in the things we had to say...but the day we taught the Plan of Salvation is the day the spirit truly worked within her because it answered every question she had, and by the end of the lesson, SHE was the one that told us she needed to be baptized :) And after her baptism, she bore such a strong testimony of how the Holy Ghost works within us to guide us to the truth. And ya, that's so true!!!! She was definitely a miracle for me this past transfer!

Sister เจน's (Jane) baptism

Trying to fill up the font with a hose from outside.

Other events from this week....oh ya we had zone conference, which included the fanciest buffet I have ever been to!!!! So that was a nice bonus. And it was just nice to join together as missionaries and celebrate the birth of our Savior, especially now during this Christmas season!

All of the Bangkok missionaries together for our Christmas zone conference!!

Well...that's all I got for this week! We find out tonight whether or not we're moving or staying for this upcoming transfer...so until then!!!

The public transportation we take in Thailand every day...haha

for my Spiritual thought this week...watch this video!!!

http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529

Love you all!

Sister Lam

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!....and happy December!!!

Yay for Thanksgiving!!! And this year, our thanksgiving was actually pretty good :) We celebrated it on Tuesday actually, but the Senior couple that is in our District invited us over to their apartment for a real homemade American Thanksgiving! So save it to say...it was amazing to get some good American food for once haha. Our District was definitely spoiled :)

Thanksgiving lunch at the Moleff's apartment :)

In addition to that amazing blessing though, we had the awesome opportunity to see 5 of our recent baptisms receive the gift of the Holy Ghost in Sacrament meeting yesterday!!!! it was amazing to hear all of their promised blessings!! The one that hit me the most was the blessing of Sister Bee, who was baptized last week! Her blessing talked about how she would be a missionary to many and it would be her life mission to help others find the truth. But it also promised her blessings of an eternal family sealed in the Temple of our Lord!!!! ya....serious blessings right?!?!?! It just made me even more grateful for the things we get to do EVERY day as a missionary for our Savior. We get to see people change their lives as they decide to follow Christ, and then they share those blessing with others!!!! The Lord truly does hasten His work through His chose vessels!!!

This week, as we have been preparing for an upcoming zone conference, I've been also studying a lot about pushing through trials with a forgiving and repentant heart. One talk that I really loved from this past general conference was from Elder Klebingat. He said, "Acknowledge and face your weaknesses, but don't be immobilized by them."..."Often trials and tribulations are allowed to come into your life bcause of what you are doing right." (Glenn L. Pace). 

This week was a little harder in terms of finding new investigators to teach. We saw a few setbacks...and to be honest, we got discouraged.Hhowever...I know that God does not give us any trial that we cannot handle. Yes, we might get frustrated when things don't work out, but we should not let those set-backs immobilize us. It is for these trails and tribulations that we came to this Earth. We chose to come here to learn and grow, and what better way to grow than through our trials put specifically there for us to learn from?

So this Thanksgiving, I am very very grateful for my trials. It is from them that I've learned the most about forgiveness. It is from those trials that I truly learned of the healing hand of the Lord's Atonement specifically for ME and specifically for YOU as we chose to repent and enact this saving grace. And I am also grateful for all of you who have helped me on this path :) I seriously love all of you so much, and especially now during this holiday season I challenge each and every one of you to reflect on those things that you are grateful for that have truly shaped the person you are today!

With love,

Sister Lam

We went to Wat Arun (huge tourist attraction here in Bangkok) last week for P-day!!! 

Craziness!!

Went to find a new investigator...whose house happens to be in this random jungle in Bangkok! sooo fun! 

So this week was just a week of miracles! I'll start by telling this amazing miracle story. So last week while I was on switchoff's with Sister Beuchter, I found this amazing contact at the mall, this 18 year old kid named Wud. However, he informed me that his phone was broken so there would be no way for us to contact him...yup, bummer right?!!?!? so I set up a return appointment with him for the following Thursday, and I told him I would be there waiting for him at the church so he had better come! We prayed SO SO HARD!!!!! I've never prayed so hard for miracles!!!!! And guess what...Thursday rolls around, and me and my companion get so caught up in long-planning, we show up late to our appointment...and who is there sitting on the couch at the church when we arrive....Brother Wud!!!! The guy I contacted the week before waiting for our appointment :) Not only that, but he arrived an hour early because he was so afraid that he would be late!!!! yup...we felt pretty bad for being late, but only by like 5 minutes, and there he was, SO PREPARED for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. He accepted a baptismal date on the spot!!!! The only problem now is, that he needs to get work off on Sundays so that he can make his baptismal date goal...we're praying really hard that he has the courage to talk to his boss about it cuz he definitely is more on the shy and passive side like our last baptism Brother Ja. But with God, anything is possible, and I know God will provide the way for His children if we show faith and diligence :) I have no doubts that Brother Wud will be blessed and will be able to enter the waters of baptism in the near future!

Second miracle! Our recent convert Sister Duangamon who was baptized last week gave us a referral! Her name is Sister Doy, and she and Duangamon were friends from when they were members of the Hope Church. So we trecked out about an hour away to find her house, which happend to be in the middle of a random jungle in Bangkok, and boy was this lady prepared for us :) She knew that her last few churches were missing something, and the second we brought up the Priesthood and how we need proper authority, you could just feel the spirit. It was exactly the message she needed that filled in the holes that every other church could not! I have such a testimony of the restoration!!!!! and now, she too, has a baptismal date goal :)

Miracles are such an amazing thing we are entitled to receive when we enact our faith in the Lord and in His plan to hasten his work here on the earth! I feel so blessed to be a part of these experiences while here in Thailand!!!!

Another miracle...Sister Bee (one of the Elder's investigators who we love and adore) got baptized on Sunday after District conference! This girl literally beamed from left to right as she came out of the water, and I was lucky enough to help her in and out of the baptismal font. She won all of our hearts as missionaries, and it was just a beautiful site to see as the members rallied around her as well to support her in her decision to become a disciple of Christ! She not only won our hearts, but she really brought us together as a District as we appreciated the true reason for us being here: to help others come unto Christ. It's not about the numbers or the statistics, our job here as missionaries is all about helping others. And that is just what I love to do!!!!

Sister Bee got baptized!!!!!!!!!!

Yup...sorry for the lengthy email...it was just such an incredible week, and I wanted to share these miracles with you!!! I know as we help one another, God will bless us with miracles! So i encourage all of you to help one another, serve one another, but most importantly  love one another :)

Love always,

Sister Lam

Went bowling last P-day for Sister Her's birthday :) (yay for the selfie arm i used to take the pic)

Giant FHE selfy arm pic hahaha