Great Things are Happening! 2/8/10

Hey Everyone!

Things are great here. Wow! Yes, I will give a talk on August 8th. That really is
crazy, but that's not too far from now. What a coincidence! I really was thinking
about that this morning, "what am I going to talk about when I get home? How do i
fit two years of experiences in a 10 minute talk?" Just wait and see...

So, great week! We got a lot of stuff done. We had a switchoff with the zone
leaders here in Thonburi, and really hit this place hard. We now really see
who's gonna take a little bit longer to prepare, and who is ready. One of our
guys "Bawg" is really cool, and now has a date for April 14th. Another guy named
"Noom", that we are teaching is doing well, but hasn't yet received an answer that
this is true, so that's what Elder Peiper and I talked about with him.
We talked about all the different ways to get answers to prayers, through
feelings, through scriptures, through verses in the scriptures, and another is
through other people in some situations that you would never expect. So towards
the end of the lesson we were talking about this, and all of a sudden I felt prompted to talk to him about drinking and smoking and how it can "prevent you from from being in tune with the spirit and make it harder to receive an answer to prayers". He wasn't upset about it, but he said that he had tried to quit before, but it didn't last very long, and it would be hard to quit again because he drinks and smokes with friends. So, it got left there. We had to take
him home, but we agreed to meet the next day, Saturday, to talk about getting to
church and stuff. So the next day while I was studying, I was thinking about this
deal a lot, and I decide to look through the most recent conference issue of the
Liahona (church magazine), and came across Richard G. Scott's talk on "Aquiring Spiritual Guidance", and in the middle of the address he talks about one of the keys to acquiring spiritual guidance and answers to prayers is obedience to
commandments. From there I started to think about the Word of Wisdom, and then
opened up to Preach my Gospel (the missionary teaching book) section on teaching the word of wisdom (the LDS code of health), and the
first paragraph talks about being free of things like alcohol and drugs and how it will help us have healthy bodies and be receptive to spiritual guidance. So I
shared this stuff with Elder Parkinson, and we decided, when we visited Noom today,
we would talk about the word of wisdom and receiving spiritual guidance. So, we
did. We went to see him ,and it was great. We asked him right
off the bat "do you believe in God who is our Heavenly Father?" and he answered
"yes, I do", and then we asked him "do you believe that you can receive answers
from God through Prayer?" and he was like "I'm not sure, I haven't gotten an answer
yet..." And I said" Noom, we know you can do this, we know you want to
get an answer, and the Lord WILL help you do this (live the Word of Wisdom) if you just try, if you don't, we cant teach you anymore, it won't do any good". He
said"...okay I'll do it". He said the closing prayer and in it we heard him say "Father please help me to have the strength to be able to keep this commitment..." Wow. So we have been praying for him all week, and will see him on Wednesday to see how it is going. Please pray for Noom, that he'll have the strength to quit. Its so frustrating when we go to teach an investigator and when we get to their home, they are drunk out of their mind. I see the extent of damage that it does to people, not just them, but their families as well. That's one of Satans greatest
tools in Thailand, along with drugs and porn. Oh man. Thank you guys for raising me up to make good choices.

Sorry, I actually am running out of time here. I would be interested in finding out Sister Forbes grandson's name, so at the moves meeting when he's introducing himself at the pulpit, I can stand up and say "I KNOW YOUR GRANDMA!!!!!!"Just kidding, I probably wont do that....."

Elder Parkinson is doing great, we've had some great studies, and have really hit this place hard with progress together. I love all my companions, but am so glad to
work with Elder Parkinson. Anyway, take care guys!
-Elder Schulte