week over in Utah (except for the cold of course), and it's been a
great week here in Thonburi. Yes, of course the week has flown by once
again, and yeah Dad, I'm almost on my 12th month! Are you kidding me?
It feels like I was just barely ordering my ice cream at Leatherby's
before going into the MTC. I'll be on the downhill slope before I know
it. Maybe it needs to slow down a little bit...? So a bunch of stuff
happened this week, hopefully I'll be able to cover it all. I'm
feeling a lot better. My sore throat was gone by the end the day last
Monday, and the congestion was gone the next day. I was definitely
blessed, thanks for the prayers! Sounds like it's hitting a lot of you
pretty hard, so I'll be praying for all of you. It's just gone from
person to person over here, and they all think it's because the
weather went from hot to "cold" (a difference of probably 5 degrees or
less). At least I'm past it now. Monday night, we went and saw Dan,
and will again tonight. I'll take a picture with him so you can see
him. Tuesday, the highlight was English class. We got 3 new people who
are interested in learning about the Gospel! The downside...two of
them are two 17-year-old girls, and because they're not 18, they have
to get a permission slip signed. But their parents live way far away,
and they're only in Bangkok for school. We told them they could send
them, have the parents sign, and then give them to us. Hopefully that
happens. The other guy was a soldier from the Navy base close to the
church, and we have an appointment to meet with him this Wednesday, so
pray for him! The actual English class was pretty good, too.
Apparently a couple of people say I'm too serious when I teach, so I
tried to loosen it up and have more fun. I'm pretty sure it worked,
because it was definitely a lot of fun. Wednesday was an awesome day!
We had to go into Asoke (downtown Bangkok) for Zone specialty
training. On the way there though, I got super sick as we were riding
on the skytrain. I nearly threw up all over the place, but luckily the
train stopped soon enough to where I could run out and sit down. Close
call! The training was awesome. For the first little while, we had
some training on Thai culture and "anti-flirting" techniques. Man,
there is a lot of stuff that Elders, and Americans in general, do that
could be seen as flirting. We'll definitely have to watch ourselves
more. We then talked about setting solid goals, and being guided by
the Spirit in our teaching. Apparently, in one of Elder Bednar's
talks, he says that teaching the Gospel without the Spirit is
priestcraft. Pretty crazy, and that puts the importance of the Spirit
into an even greater perspective. At the end of the training, I was
able to get my package! Thanks so much! That was definitely an awesome
one. Ha I was actually telling Elder Oakeson about how much I loved
taffy cookies the other day, so it was perfect. And I'm devouring
those books! So much good stuff in them, I would recommend them to
anyone. One thing I really liked was from Lectures on Faith. Everyone
has faith, even God. God has to have faith in order to have power,
even if His faith is in Himself. Interesting thought. That night we
officially finished up Jume's teaching. She was so ready to be
baptized. Thursday was pretty good. We did switch-offs with the Bang
Khae elders at around 4. I stayed in Thonburi with Elder Jex. The
highlight of our day was teaching Sis. Soda. She's a 16-year-old girl
who has been going to English class for a long time, and right when we
said we could teach her if she got the slip signed, she jumped right
on it. We introduced prayer, and I think she'll progress very quickly.
Friday was just stressful. It seemed like there was almost nothing
super-productive that me and E. Jex could do during the day, but we
decided to pass out english fliers (for the first time in Thonburi),
have Coordination meeting, and do a couple of other things. I was
stressed, but we got through it. It's rough when you don't have a lot
of investigators, because we've been banned from going door-to-door,
asking members for referrals (that's a rough one, wouldn't you agree
Derek?), and a few other things. So we have to be creative in order to
fill some of the free time and still be doing the Lord's work. If you
have ideas, please let me know! It is very possible that I will be
going senior companion this next transfer, and I'm a bit nervous. Pray
for me! That night, Sis. Jume was interviewed for baptism and passed!
We (the Thonburi Elders) have been banned by our District leader from
teaching her the after-baptism lessons. He really wants the Ward to do
their part and take care of her. Hopefully they step it up. Saturday
was super stressful, because we had to make the baptismal program, and
NOBODY was answering their phones. After a lot of prayer, we finally
got all of the assignments filled (now that was a testimony of prayer
to me). That night, we were able to meet with Soda and Jume again, and
had great lessons with them. We challenged Soda to be baptized, and
she accepted! Because she's under-age, and her parents aren't members,
she'll have to go to church for 3 straight months before she can be
baptized. April 20th is her date. Pray for her! Sunday was great, and
went really smoothly. Apparently the piano player in the Ward moved
away, so now it's my spot again. I'm not complaining though. Our
bishop, Bishop Arun, gave a really powerful talk, telling the members
that if they don't take care of their church, it'll be taken away and
they'll have to go somewhere else for Sunday services. You could feel
the silence in the room. I say again, hopefully they step it up. The
baptismal service went great. She only had to be baptized once, which
was awesome (she was scared of having to do it multiple times), and
she bore a great testimony. She'll be a solid member if she gets taken
care of. Today, we went downtown to a market, and then ate at this
huge mall called Central World. That's one thing I gotta compliment
Thailand on, they have great malls. We weren't able to meet with Nung
or Dukadan this past week, because they were both sick, but hopefully
this week. Please pray that we'll find more investigators who stick
around long enough to hear the Good News! Transfers this week. I'm
almost 90% sure that I'll stay in Thonburi and get a new comp
(probably a junior one). I'll let you know what happens next week!
I've had a blast serving with Elder Oakeson and will miss him if he
moves. Oh, and we're still planning on moving sometime, we just have
to find sometime to look for new houses.
Well, gotta go. The Church is True!
Love, Elder Sharp
Pics:
Baptism
Some food that I eat pretty often. Delicious.
Birthday
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