December 30, 2008

Dear Family,

It was so great to hear from you on Christmas day! Yeah the connection was bad, but I could actually hear you guys really well, it didn't break here, but I will share with you some of the things that have happened over the past fews days. So on Christmas day, all the Bangkok zones got together on a boat and we got to have a christmas party while floating down the Chao Praya River through Bangkok. I am sending pictures of some of the shrines we passed by and cool lokking boats. It was a lot of fun, we did a white elephant christmas exchange, and President Dodge's son, who just returned from a mission in Germany/Austria mission came to the party. I asked him later if he had been to Graz and met the Suppons and he said he had so that was cool.

Well anyway, I got the package you guys sent with the pants and the charger and food, that was great to get on Christmas day. I opened the package you guys sent earlier, thanks so much for everything in it, and I think the portable ping pong set and Blokus is awesome! Elder Jones and I are going to the church today to play for a little while. Oh, he liked the Kokomo Tshirt, he wears it to bed everynight. Gr. and Gr. Webb sent a Christmas package and they sent a string of Christmas lights that I added to your felt tree. That was great. I sent a picutre of it. I recieved a package from Gramps and Nana with beef jerky and and candy, that was great to get. And i recieved several gifts from Elder Jones's family, like a bike light and a bike seat cushion, so i will write them and thank them. Christmas was a lot of fun!

Well here in Bangna we have a couple progressing investigators that we are teaching. We are still teaching Wiroon, we are able to meet with him frequently in the evenings, and he is reading and praying alot, but we are still trying to get him to come to church. the investigators are out of town for new years so we wont see them for a few days. other than that, we are actually having a hard time finding people to teach. we have done a lot of inviting over the last several days, but thats pretty much all that we have been doing because most of our investgators are out of town. So Elder Jones had an idea yesterday day and we went out and did it. We have a huge stack of Liahona issues in Thai from over the past several months, and we went around to local shops, and left them on top of the magazine stacks in the waiting rooms of these shops. We taped information flyers on the back of them, so if anybody reads the magazines and wants to learn more, they can call us. so we will see what happens. We just need to keep finding and talking to people.As far as study goes, i have been reading in the Book of Mormon, and right now i am in Mosiah 21, near the end of the record of Zeniff. Other things that I do for study includes reading from the ensigns and liahonas(we have so many here at the house) and keeping a study journal, and I write down thoughts about various things I study in the morning, like Christlike attributes, the Atonement and what it means to me, and thoughts about ways to be a better missionary, and while I was writing some of these things down, I had an idea of, rather than just writing down thoughts, put them in the form of a question, and ask myself these things throughout the day. So, I made a card with the following questions: What is your attitude like today? What hymn are you thinking about today? Have you learned 10 new vocab words today? Did you consider Doctrine and Covenants 58:27 today? How many people did you talk to today? Did you boldly share your testimony today? Did you remember the name of Christ today? Are you striving to fulfill your daily goals? Did you compliment your companion today? Are you standing up tall today? So I carry this card around, and when it feels like the day is starting to drag, I look at this card and remind myself that I need to be talking to more people and boldly sharing the gospel with Bang-na. This mission is fun but very hard at times, but I am striving to have a positive attitude. So if you guys have any suggestions of how to keep going, write back about any ideas you have. Well, Im sending more pictures of the christmas party and around Bang-na. Thanks for all of your support, I wish I had more right now. Oh, about two weeks ago, Elder Jones and I were really sick, and I had a really deep voice, I could sing all the way down to a really low C. Elder Jones and I did a switch off one day with the zone leaders, so I got to go to Asoge for a night that was a lot of fun, I'll tell you guys about that in the next email. it was great, but I'm out of time! I'll send pictures.

Love Elder Schulte