11/25/09 "Whoa, You San Speak Thai?!"

Hey Family,

Where do I begin about this past week? We went to Warin Friday night and stayed
at the house in Warin. Saturday morning we had our mission zone conference,
in which the Asia Area Presidency from Hong Kong, consisting of Elder Pratt of
the Quorum of the Seventy, and one of his councilors, Elder Stanley Wan, attended and presented trainin. They are amazing men, and it was really great at the district conference the next day as well! All the branches in the Ubon district, Ubon,Yasothon,Sisagate,Buridam, Surin attended. I was kind of sad, because there was a special meeting for new members after the first meeting, and all these areas had recent converts stand up and bear testimonies, and I'll never forget the testimony of a young girl from Sisagate, I was listening to her bear her testimony, and I am serious, I knew that she absolutely new this gospel was true. And it hit me, "I WANT TO SEE MEMBERS AND INVESTIGATORS HAVE A TESTIMONY LIKE THIS GIRL!!!" I was sad, because these areas each had 5 or 6 recent converts and families.
Yasothon, had only 2 women who were recently baptized come, and it great,
butit seems like there are alot of people in Yasothon who are slowly falling away,

We have really buckled down in our finding efforts. On Saturday, Elder
MCConkie and I talked to President Smith. Basically, what's going
down in the mission right now is that Church leaders all over Thailand,
Bishops, District leaders, Branch Presidents, Ward mission leaders, have just
received training on how to organize member missionary work, which will get
members involved in finding friends and families that will be interested in
learning. The mission president and church leaders did training sessions with
branch leaders on Saturday to prepare the church in Thailand on how to do this.
This is going to be how it is from now on. Members working to find, and
missionaries teach. This is going to really increase the progression of the
church in this country. So anyway, what I was saying was that President Smith wants us to right now just focus on our 5 family list, and our personal finding efforts.
We talked to him about how were going and seeing all these less actives on a weekly
basis( we had a big list of guys), but he wants us to just work on our finding
efforts. And found some way cool guys yesterday.

Man, i really like inviting upbeat energetic people. So yesterday, we met a guy at a fruit store, and he was really excited to talk to us, ("Whoa you can speak Thai! very good very good! It takes white people years to speak like that whoa!") and we started talking to him about what we teach, and he says, "Oh yeah I like to study, I
study about history, maps, religion..." and he wants us to come back and speak
with him more, his name is Noy, and I cant wait to see this guy again. Later was
a guy named Wirasak, and he was the same way, he was like "oohhh very good, you
can speak Thai? whoa, it takes white people forever to speak like that! ooohhh
very good!" and we talked about what we came to do, and he says, "oh yes come
back I want to keep talking to you guys, oooh very good!" I love finding people
like this.

A while back An 18 year old in the branch (our congregation) came up to me and asked me what does he need to do to go on a mission. So, last week we sat down with him and started teaching him how to teach the first lesson, and he was really into it. The next time we sat down with him, we did a role play, and it was sweet! He doesn't live at the house, his mom and sister live on the other side of town, but apparently on Sunday night, Nad and a woman in the branch who is a member of the church went to visit his mom and sister at their house. He said they had
an incredible discussion about religion, and apparently they are both interested in
learning now about the church now. Whoa!

Next, Elder Jenkins and I found a less active member of the church during the last move who owns a photo shop in town. His name is Yoke, and he's a really great guy! He's started to come to the English classes wee teach with his 2 kids. We've started seeing him regularly. We went to see him last week and he was out of the shop, but his Dad (who isn't a member of the church) was there! He said, "Oh I really like the Elders, yes i like studying, I want you to come
back and teach me more!" Great! So we worked it out with Yoke to come see them
both, and last night we met with both Yoke and PawGaow(his dad), and taught
about the Book of Mormon and as we were sitting here, it was a sweet father son
moment, Paw Gaow was explaining to Yoke how God works and and has all power,
and it was so cool! and we have a return appointment for Friday with PawGaow
and Yoke.

Next is Sister Nam and her dad, she told us last week that her dad is
interested in learning. Thats really exciting! So this will be a great adventure,
We now have several partial families to work with. That will be great because
the members can really help get their non-member families learning, and that's
what we really want to see in this branch, is member families.


Elder McConkie and I had a sweet experience at about 9:00 last night. We
stopped at a store to get some food, and some guys were sitting out front. Elder
McConkie started to talk to some guys about the Book of Mormon, and I started to
talk to a guy who was selling Buddhist amulets at this table. He and I started
talking, I introduce myself, where I'm from, all that, and then we started
talking about the Plan of Salvation, and for the next 20 minutes, we had a sweet
discussion about the Plan of Salvation. He was really into it. When I got to
resurrection, he's like, yeah I wanna know about this,keep going, so I told him
about how our bodies and our spirits will be reunited, and that this has to
happen before judgement. I then talked about the 3 degrees of glory, and how our
goal in this life is to try to get there, the celestial kingdom, to be with God again, with our families, and have happiness, forever.
There was a small pause, and he was like, "yeah, that's my goal too, I want to
go there." Wow! So, he invited us back to see him again, along with the
other guys that Elder McConkie invited as well.
Stellar week so far. Use the scriptures, open your mouth and talk to people.
Speak.

Thanks for all of your support,
I gotta go. Thanks guys. I love you!
-Elder Schulte