Busy trying to teach everyone...

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 94

Week Sixteen in Roi Et

Monday, March 30, 2015

Hey everyone!

This was a pretty awesome past week!

On Monday we went to a science center museum kind of place which was pretty cool so that is the majority of the pictures are from this week!

Anyways, this past week we were just so busy trying to teach everyone and have time for the things we needed to do!

Our main priority this last week was teaching Sister Bai so she could get baptized and it went very smoothly she was so awesome and had no concerns. She was baptized! 

We were also pushing for Sister Na and we were supposed to meet with her, but she ended having to go out of town for work so we pushed her date to this next week.

The Cambodian guys in Sisaket gave us a referral of their friend that lives here in Roi Et and we got to meet with him and he accepted a date to be baptized on the 5th. He's way awesome and came to church yesterday and for the baptism! His only concern is not working on Sunday, but he already said he'd ask for it off! So pray that he can get Sundays off so he can be baptized next week!

We also are working with Naan, he came to District Conference last Sunday. We met with him on Saturday and he is pretty awesome. He is preparing to be baptized on the 5th also and we are going to start working with his family (his wife and daughter). He has some problems with the Word of Wisdom with smoking, and also he drinks tea and coffee so we are praying to help him quit these things; he is really smart and understands it. The only problem I think he may have will just be getting rid of Buddhism. He stayed for the 3 hours of church and the baptism too.

Our other person we are working with for this Sunday is Moli she is the Mom of a RC. We got in contact with her a few weeks ago at an FHE at the RC's house. We left her a Book of Mormon and last week she came to the District Conference Adult Session, so that was cool. We went and taught her at her home and she was very open. She came to church yesterday. We are preparing her to be baptized on the 5th also and her son will be able to baptize her; it should be so awesome! Her only concern is telling these other Christian people that come and teach her every Sunday that they can't come anymore. The awesome thing is they leave her all these books and have invited her to their things and for a year now and she's never read a thing or gone to anything. We left her that Book of Mormon and she has been reading it every day since and she is already in 2 Nephi; it's so cool. 

So as you can see we are shooting for 4 baptisms this next week and it is totally possible we had an awesome week at church! We had 122 people in Sacrament with 29 RC's. My companionship had 8 investigators which was also great! Sister Bai was baptized and the Sisters had 2 baptisms. Now next month our goal is 3 baptisms per companionship so that is what we are working for. The other goal is the video “Because He lives”, we are trying to get 100,000 people in Thailand to watch the video by next Sunday, it is awesome and the members are loving it. We have an Easter activity planned on Saturday.

That is all for this week we are heading to the Elephant Village in Surin today. We got special permission to go! We are going with Brother Keng so it should be fun. Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

Snickers, Olive Oil, and District Conference...

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 93

Week Fifteen in Roi Et

Monday, March 24, 2015

Hey everyone!

Well this was a pretty great last week! It was a little disorganized at some point, but it was still way awesome and ended up working out okay.

Preparation for Zone and District Conference was wild also! Sister Stoker had to make Carrot cake for 350 people, so guess what we did on Friday? Yep we were grinding carrots with a cheese grater for a few hours ha-ha! Thursday we went with them to buy all the food for the Sunday night dinner of Zone Conference where we had scalloped potatoes, BBQ chicken, hot rolls, and carrots with banana splits for dessert.

District Conference was amazing and there was just such a great spirit. To start it off though; President Senior called us at 8:30 Saturday morning and says; Elder Watkins I need you guys to go get me 20 little Snicker bars and some olive oil for the 27 new Melchizedek Priesthood holders then I need you to rent me a Van to take us to Khon Kaen on Monday after Zone Conference, and also my flight is coming in an hour late so will you cancel the car that was going to pick us up at the Airport because Elder Stoker will be picking us up now. I'm like…Uh, okay; I'll do my best ha-ha! So we went right away and got the olive oil and the Snickers. I made the phone calls and got the van rented and then canceled the car to pick him. You’d think; oh well that's nice, no more stress ha-ha. Ha-ha you're wrong. While President was doing interviews and all the stuff he was running late so he didn’t get to interview hardly with anyone and since we are ZL's we are literally last priority ha-ha. Anyway then Sister Senior calls me and is like I need to you to come to the hotel at 2:30 p.m. to translate for my  workshop class I am doing. So we get there and she also gives us the all vials to fill up with olive oil, but the oil is at the church ha-ha. So I call the other Elders and they bring it and I ask them to fill them up and when I come back and look at them they are like greenish in color. Sister Senior says; it has to be virgin olive oil.  The bottle said it was virgin, but she says we want it to be pure so you'll need to go by more. So after we finished translating and before the Adult Session, Elder Keller and I book it to the store and buy more. Luckily, they didn't need them until the following day so we think; no worries we will just get them ready tonight before we go to bed. After I translated for the Adult Session which was good, but hard for me because I was concentrating on translating and wasn’t able to pay as close of attention. We also got to see the new video “Because He Lives” which is way awesome. I'm pretty sure it comes out on the 28th of March in celebration for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So when we get home, I take the vials and the oil into the bathroom to start filling them up and my hands are all oily from holding the vials and stuff and pouring them out as I lift the other vial up off the ground about 4 inches, it slips out of my hand and just shatters all over the floor! I'm like; you've got to be kidding me, its 9:30 PM, so we just booked it out of the house to the store which we thought closed at 9 or maybe 10; luckily it was open. We bought more and got it all done, but what a headache ha-ha! But, our investigators really enjoyed it! It was so special to see one of our RC's that I was able to teach in Sisaket receive the Melchizedek Priesthood!

Zone Conference ended up working out well and so did the food for both meals. For lunch we had this Italian Restaurant cater for us and that worked out too. It was awesome though we had a special devotional on Sunday night and we got to watch “Meet the Mormons”! Now I can check that one off the, to watch list when I get home ha-ha. It was really good and I enjoyed it. I really did loved Zone Conference and the message we received. We talked about the picture of Jesus Christ wearing the red robe and President Senior said; he felt that this is the way to go in getting people familiar with Jesus Christ. So there is the purpose and drive for us as missionaries. If there was any confusion there shouldn't be now. It is that we need to help people know who Jesus Christ is and about the Atonement that He performed for us. Recently most people in the mission have been confused and not sure what direction to go. 

As far as our investigators are going we have two awesome ones. Both are preparing to be baptized on the 29th. We have Ba; who is a 39 year old woman with a husband and a 6 year old daughter. She is so awesome and has received an answer that this is the true church. When Bro. Siridad; the 2nd counselor in the District Presidency, bore his testimony about when he was able to be eternally married for his own mother and father and what an incredible experience it was.

Our other investigator is นา. She is doing very well and we were able to have a Family Home Evening with her husband and 7 year old daughter last night it was incredible and such a wonderful spirit. He sat through the whole FHE and was engaged asking questions and wanting to know more. We gave him a BoM after teaching the Restoration and encouraged him to read it; then to ask his Father in Heaven. And he said he'd do it! We are so blessed in having an opportunity help these people I love it.

Elder Keller is such an awesome companion and we are having a great time serving the Lord together. I'm honestly probably forgetting something, but I can't remember right now. Things are going good! Ha-ha love you all!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

Missionary Leadership Council

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 92

Week Fourteen in Roi Et

Monday, March 16, 2015

Hey, how's it going?

This was a pretty good last week! Tuesday night we headed down to Bangkok for Missionary Leadership Council where all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders come together and meet with President Senior. It was pretty good and he gave our mission more directions in working with families and it was a good motivation and energy booster for all of us. The food was amazing as usual. They had a pancake breakfast for us with Buttermilk syrup and fruit which was way good. For lunch, Sister Senior made us homemade tacos with chips and salsa wow it was incredible. I haven't had anything like that in such a long time. It reminded me of having tacos with Grandma Berlin. We made it home at 2 in the morning and were able to get a little bit of sleep in our own beds.

This week has been a little rough, but I've been able to keep fighting through it. I've been sick since last Monday and now I've lost my voice, so inviting has been a little hard, but I've managed to squeak a few words out and find some people. We have two really awesome investigators right now and they are both going to be baptized on the 29^th; Bay and Na. Bay was going to get baptized this week, but she ended up having to go to Bangkok for work and since this coming Sunday is District Conference we won't be having a baptismal service. Also, we have Na; who has been to church 3 times and accepted a date yesterday for the 29^th. What makes them awesome is that they are both families! They are both Mom's and have about a 6 year old daughter and they already invited us to begin teaching their husbands! It's way awesome. We also received a referral this week and she is a single Mom; named Juk and her husband has just recently passed away and she has two sons 14 and 12 years old. She invited us over to her house to begin teaching her family I'm so excited to be working with these families. Anyways, the families are coming in!

Zone Conference should be great this week. I am super excited for it and we've have everything mostly planned, booked, and ready to go! On Thursday we spent most of our day arranging meals, etc.  for Zone Conference and finding 17 hotel rooms for all the missionaries to stay in and all the good stuff!

Friday I did a switch off with Elder Davis who is Elder Mitchell’s MTC companion so that was a fun day.

Sunday the only person we had at church was Na, but she was awesome. We had 101 people at church this week which was kind of low, but what can you do! District Conference is here next week so that should be fun and exciting! 

Sorry not too much for you this week!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

Reunited with Elder Keller and a Baptism!!!

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 91

Week Thirteen in Roi Et

Monday, March 09, 2015

Hey Everyone!

This was an awesome and wild week! So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was just getting prepared to head off to Bangkok and all that good stuff! Nothing to special happened we taught and met with Sister Ern a few times, but now she is off in China again! I'm so glad that I was able to stay here in Roi Et.

 

Check out who I found on the end of the second row at transfer meeting on the Thailand Mission Facebook page!

Well, I'm sure you are all wondering who my new companion is and all that stuff, but guess what you already know him! I'm way excited for this new transfer. It is so awesome to be reunited as companions with Elder Keller again and we were MTC companions! He is way awesome and we are getting along great already seeing miracles beginning to happen! 

 

A selfie of me and Elder Keller who was my companion in the MTC...reunited as companions in Roi Et.

We had Sister Ay get baptized yesterday which was awesome and our zone saw 5 baptisms; it is so great!

We are going to start focusing here on making miracles happens instead of waiting for them to happen. Yesterday we started making a list of members who need to renew temple recommends or members who are strong and active who have never been to the temple. We also are getting prospective Melchizedek Priesthood holders ready for the up and coming district conference.  We met with the Branch President and figured out his schedule and are going to call all these people and set up interviews. We have 37 people that should have temple recommends just here in Roi Et and we need 1000. We are at 811 so if we can add that many from each branch we will have way more than 1000.

We had a new investigator at church yesterday named; Bay she is way awesome and accepted a date for baptism this next Sunday she is so ready! At church we had 119 people; 23 RC; and 3 investigators in our companionship! It wasn't a bad day at all! Our district had 3 baptisms, so the work is picking up here in Roi Et!

Sorry this week my letter is kind of short because of traveling! This week we will be headed down to Bangkok again for a Missionary Leadership Council and get some training. That should be way awesome and I am super excited! Things are going good though! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins

P.S. I finally got my new suit…check out the silk elephant lining. What do you think of it?

Last week before transfers; Madness!

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 90

Week Twelve in Roi Et

Monday, March 02, 2015

Hey everyone!

This was a pretty fast week for sure! I can't believe how quickly it passed by! Anyways, I'll start off talking about Ern!

On Monday we had an appointment with her at 10 and we called her and she said that she couldn’t come and can’t come and can we meet later today at 5 p.m. Five o’clock rolls around and she doesn't come or answer her phone. We are like really, are you doing this again? Tuesday we are tried to get a hold of her all day and he phone just said; line busy so we can't talk to her. Wednesday we finally get a hold of her and set up an appointment which she doesn't show up again. We are just like well; there goes our hopes for a baptism this week! We called her one more time on Thursday and set up an appointment for 12.  Twelve o clock rolls around and sure enough she isn't there so we call her a few times; no answer... We are just like okay, again, really? 12:25 comes around and sure enough she finally showed up, I was so pumped! We finished teaching her everything she needed to know and we asked her if she would like to be baptized on Saturday and she just was like, yeah! We were so excited! We did her interview right after and she passed that! We had to have her baptism on Saturday so she could receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday before she leaves for her studies in China next Thursday! The baptism went great and she was able to get baptized on Saturday and get confirmed; it was such a miracle and we couldn't have done it without our Heavenly Father helping us. It was an awesome way to get a baptism the last week of the transfers.

The update on Wirat is we met with him a few times, but he is still being the same way! He did say he's willing to let us meet his family as long as it is convenient, so now we’re are going to try and meet them this week before transfers! We just need to meet his family and show him that if he is baptized it won't cause his family to break up! 

Church was good though this week we had 105 people which was low, but we had 28 RC which was good. We also had 4 investigators which was cool because we had only one that we have been teaching who is way awesome and will get baptized this coming Sunday. We also had two new people named Bird and Booy who we found and got them both to church.  We also had a members younger sister, named Pumpim. She also has a date for next week, but she is only 14 so her father will have to give her permission which might be hard because her father doesn't really like the church very much, but we will just go over and meet with him and try and talk to him about it! So pray for her father to open up his heart! 

  

Harvesting Watermelons...

Looks like he is still playing with animals :)

Yesterday after church we went and visited a family the lives an 1 1/2 hours away by car; it was so far! They are half active which means the Mom and Daughter come to church, but the husband doesn't. It's cool because they are watermelon farmers so we got to harvest watermelons to take home with us; it was so awesome! Ha-ha.  That’s really all the awesome things that happened this week! Transfers is on Thursday so I may be moving or staying I have no idea! 

Love you all have a great week! :)

Love,

Elder Landon J Watkins