Another Baptism!

Elder Landon J Watkins Week 24

Week 15 in Ayutthaya

Monday, November 25, 2013

Hey Everyone,

Another pretty good week down. Last p-day we went to some old Buddhist temples which were super sweet! We were able to speak enough Thai to get us into places for the Thai price. It is more if you are a foreigner, we got in for 10 baht instead of 50, next we had to pay 50 and another one for 10 and the last one we got in for free. It was super sweet and way-cool fun! We went with the two Elders from Lopburi Elder Wilamas who is Thai and Elder Wheeler. Elder Wilamas is funny and really helps me with my Thai. Maybe I'll be lucky to get a Thai comp soon so my Thai will just take off. 

Elder Wilamas, Elder Watkins, and Elder Wheeler at the Buddhist Temples

Tuesday was just the usual district meeting and Swenson’s afterwards. Swenson's was tasty as usual and will you please let Cindy Nielsen know, Mom, that would be great! :) We had English class and our friend from McDonalds finally made it to English and Brother Nong and I convinced her to give us 20% off at McDonalds if we went the next day, so you know where we went to dinner the next day! McDonalds of course and she gave it to us 20% off, it was sweet! 

Wednesday was pretty good we taught Sister Mod and Brother Boon who are preparing to be baptized the 1st of December and they are so ready. Sister Mod is a totally new person now, it is so great. She is super happy, keeping commitments, coming to church, and just showing some much more interest and love for the gospel. Her headaches are going away, it just sweet. She should be baptized this next Sunday, by her husband, David who is coming from England this week. We also taught Tuk and Nuch this week they are doing pretty well and their baptismal date is on the 15th of December. Nuch went to Chang Mai for the weekend and I was smart and cheesed in having her buy me a little souvenir just in case I never get a chance to go up north. So I'm excited to see what she got me! Tuk went to Bang Na which is down by Bangkok for a convention for her work. So they were both gone and not able to come to church, but they say they will start coming this next week. They are good at keeping their word so that will be sweet. 

Thursday we taught Sister Nub on the phone and planned her interview for Friday and finished teaching her what she needed. We also taught our Recent Convert, Sister Baah, she is doing good and we were able to talk about the Holy Ghost with her. 

Friday was pretty wild we went up to Ang Thong so Sister Nub could get interviewed. Elder Wilamas from Lopburi came down to interview her. She passed it and is ready for baptism!!! It was funny, we needed the dates of her parents’ birth and hers and she didn't know any of them. The older Thais really never recorded things like that, it is way sad they didn’t. We came back to Ayutthaya and had to get a members bike fixed and then went and taught a new investigator named Elle. Who we met just a few days ago while "knocking doors", really we just walk up to their gate and yell, Hello in Thai until they walk out. We taught Sister Mod and Boon who we are still preparing them for baptism, it was good. 

Saturday was good we had mutual and then cleaned the church. We practiced some music for our musical numbers. We cleaned the baptismal font Sister Nub and made her baptismal program. Then we had a lesson with our new investigator Kwang the one who works at McDonalds. It went really good and she is super smart. I feel she could get baptized really quick as long as we can get her to church, that is the one concern we have.

Sunday was our Branch Conference. The District Presidency and all of them came to Ayutthaya. So with all them we had 68 people at church! Sister Baah received the Holy Ghost and I was able to stand in the circle. Brother Chinawat gave her the Holy Ghost. He is her home teacher, which was pretty cool. We also had 10 investigators in sacrament, it was so sweet! Mod, Boon, Nub, Taa, and her two kids and four other new investigators showed too so that why it was, way cool. Good turnout. Then after all that we had Nub's baptism which was kind of scary a little. She is 59 years old and not very strong. She was scared so it took two times to get her fully under water, but it was super awesome and another great experience! Brother Nong and Sister Dtuuy sang I Need Thee Every Hour accompanied by Elder Gibbons on the Viola and Me at the piano, it was pretty good. I'm starting to be able to play more hymns on the pian, it is good! We also practiced our music for the Christmas party next month. We went to Sister Baahs for Boo to sign her baptismal papers and on the way back it just started raining super hard and we just got soaked, so then Sister Mod canceled our appointment because of the rain.

It was a good week. We are just having a relaxing p-day this week so nothing special to look forward to for next week except to hear if Sister Mod and Boon get baptized! Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Landon