This week was an adventure. Well every week is an adventure when you are in Thailand.
English Class Fail- At the end of english class we have a 10 minute spiritual thought where we try and help the students feel the spirit so they will be interested in learning more about the Church. For the past few weeks the thought just hasn't been working. We have been trying to watch a Mormon message or some other Church video and each time something goes wrong. Well this past week we had it all worked out. The laptop was there ready to go. The projector was all set up. The video was picked. All of our ducks were in a row (as Mom would say). So we start the video. It was about the birth of Christ. The angel is appearing to the shepherds and telling them about the Baby Jesus and everything is going great. The shepherds start in to town to find Jesus and are about to find Him when the video freezes. Right before the climax of the video, the most important part, it stops. Bummer. E. Wilamas got up and tried to save it by explaining that the shepherds were about to find the Baby Jesus but everyone was still pretty confused. So what was supposed to be a spiritual thought turned into a train wreck. #goodtimesinenglishclass
This week was District Conference. Elder Gong of the Seventy was here. He is in the Asia Area Presidency. He is phenomenal. The meetings were super great and perfect for our investigators. They talked a lot about doing the basics (Reading the scrips daily, praying daily, going to church weekly, paying a full tithe) in order to prepare Thailand for a temple. These people have incredible love and appreciation for the temple. It is remarkable. The leaders are really trying to help the members understand they need to be worthy for a temple before they will receive one. It was fabulous.
#Scareoftheweek: The person who was supposed to translate for the Saturday evening session wasn't there (it was E. Mondragon (aka one of the zone leaders) and they got stuck with some business or something). I was sitting with the choir (right behind where the translator was supposed to sit). The meeting starts and the other members of the choir realize the translator isn't there, so they hand the microphone to me and tell me to start translating. Fear. Nausea. Cold Sweats. Hot Sweats. Throat Swelling. Cardiac Arrest. These are just a few of the symptoms I started experiencing. So I start moving to the front row where the microphone is, trying to comprehend the fact that I'm about to translate for Elder Gong and President Senior (they are kind of a big deal) not to mention all the other members in the audience. Luckily Sister Murray walks up and saves the day (she translates every week for sacrament meeting and is pretty baller). She asked if I was going to translate. Yeah right. So she sits down, looking just as stressed as I was until she showed up, turns to me and says pray for me. I did. Twice. She did well in the end though and the meeting was stellar. Narrowly avoided a catastrophe. #translatinghorrorstories
We had an investigator interview for baptism on Sunday. She didn't pass. It was a bummer. She has never prayed and asked God about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith or anything really. She feels like asking God questions is sort of like challenging God. She believes everything and is willing to keep all the commandments though, she just lacks that spiritual witness. I realized how important that spiritual witness really is. When tough times come, if we don't have that spiritual witness our belief will crumble. No matter how strong we think our belief is, it can't withstand the storms of Satan. We need to build a firm foundation in Christ and to do that we need to pray and ask. When we have that spiritual witness, we can withstand the buffetings of Satan because our foundation is firm, steadfast. We also need to understand that God loves us and is waiting for us to ask. He won't upbraid us for asking, He will rejoice that we are knocking.
Well Thailand is still great. Being a missionary is supreme. I miss you all. Life is good and I am happy.
Much Love,
Elder M. Riley Creer
The Only
#hashtags:
We were going to go ride elephants today but our guy cancelled on us because it is too wet. #rainseasonstrikesagain
E. Wilamas' Favorite Phrase: "You Sneaky Mom!" #Yes
Sorry no pics this week, this computer is being a creep.
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