An interesting week

 

Hey Mom and Dad!

  

That is one thing that I have been working on now is just being bold but also not being overbearing.  President Smith and Elder Gong said something really cool today in Zone Conference.  They said that the difference between the two is that being bold is having the spirit with you and being over bearing is leaning to our own understanding and not really focusing on the spirit so if it feels right refer him the Missionaries.  Tell Tyler and Creed that I said hi and that i am doing well and tell the members of the ward the same thing that ask about me.  Well this moves has been interesting.  I thought I would be leaving Buriram on that Wednesday or Thursday and it turns out I got a call from the Ap’s Monday night saying that I needed to get out of Buriram by 8:00 the next morning hahah I didn’t start packing until that night because we had stuff to do and then we had to go and teach.  It was a very interesting two days after that.  I had no idea how crazy it was until I got here.  Over half of my zone are not in their areas.  I have not even seen my area.  It is a place called Saphan Mai.  The water  is up to peoples chests and it is dangerous to go in the water.   After I got here I learned that my comp wasn’t even in Bangkok yet hahaha that was actually really funny when I learned that so I was staying with 2 other elders for 2 days and they were not able to work because we had to buy food storage and the traffic is terrible now because a lot of the roads are closed.  After that I got a call from the Ap’s that said that I was going to be meeting my comp at the bus station that next morning.  I finally got to meet him and now we only have about 4 weeks in the transfer and we can’t work in our area.  It sounds stressful and it is a little bit but it has actually been a really fun adventure hahaha.  I might move back out of Bangkok again until the flood waters are gone and people said that it could be 2 weeks to a month before the waters are gone.  This has not happened for over 60 years.  And that one was not as bad as this.  I had no idea how bad it was until I got here.  In the Esan we had no idea what was going on until this all happened and now I know.  The good news is that the Lord is preparing the hearts and the minds of the people to receive the Gospel.

We actually had a person really come up to us and very meanly say "thank the Lord" .  She I’m sure was Buddhist and I judged her for a small moment.  I thought for a second and then I felt a feeling of guilt.  I don’t know what she has experienced or what the flood has done to her house and then I saw her as a daughter of God.  It was a really small but a very cool experience.  So I will tell you a little bit about the house that I am in right now.  Well there are 8 elders in the house right now.  The other companionships are able to go back to their areas but we are the only ones that are not able to go back.  So we work in a place called Bangnaa.  It is hard because we don’t know where to go to invite because that house is actually in the sisters area and same with the area around the church.  But we do the best that we can and we plan for our investigators.

Sorry I am almost out of time now but I just wanted to share a really cool experience before I stopped.  So Elder Gong is a member of the 70.  He has a mission tour and the question was asked how can we have to the same desire as the 3 Nephites.  He answered and  said that we need love for the people that we serve and that desire will come over time.  As we read the scriptures and study about Christ and really be like Him.  It was amazing to hear that for me.  I just felt the spirit tell me what I need to start doing more.  It felt really reassuring when he said that and I felt very strong after that.

I love you all so much Thank you Mom and Dad for everything that you do for me.  Thank you everyone for your prayers.  I love you so much and I know that everything is true.

Elder Bryce

PS I have been having some leg problems and I will keep you updated on that.  And I will keep you updated on everything else.  I love you so much and please pray for the Thai people right now.  They need it.

Bryce is moving to Bangkok

Hey Momma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it sounds like everything is going very well back at home. But here we started singing Christmas songs when October started. People kind of acknowledge Halloween here but it really isn’t that big or anything so for me it was just a kind of normal day for us hahaha and very boring.  Although we did dress up in our house that day and took some pictures because we had 4 elders there.  But here people really don’t go out and trick-or-treat.  They might do it more in Bangkok but they really don’t do it here.  Really the only thing that is really exciting is the rice harvest right now.  I will actually be helping on Wednesday with one of our investigators.  I have heard that they have Christmas here but its not very big.  It is big with the members but that is about it.  I am going to be serving in Bangkok so I actually might get Thanksgiving dinner because most of the Missionaries there go to the international branch and they eat with families there.  By the way I am going to be moving to Bangkok.  I am going to miss Buriram a lot!  There are so many people here that I love and that I want to still help and see them baptized but I know that the Lord has work for me to do somewhere else.  These last couple of weeks were just really awesome!  Having 4 elders here was really awesome and really helped with the work here.  We have so many investigators that are really willing to follow Jesus Christ.  I love them all.  Some of them are more different than others but they all mean so much to me.  They are really my best friends.  I am really going to miss my comp after this transfer too.  It has been so much being with a Thai elder.  I have learned so much from him and him and I are now just best friends.  I actually did show a picture of Ciara to him and he wants to marry her.  hahahaha He said that he would go to America to marry her if he has too.  hahaha we just laughed after that.  My new comps name is Elder Lesuir or something like that.

Ok experiences for the week.  We had a really good lesson with the Filipino family that we have been teaching.  They have so much faith and really want to be baptized and they understand everything and how important it all is.  Yesterday was probably the coolest lesson I have had since I have been here.  Yesterday we just asked a couple of questions to see if there was anything that they still didn’t understand or didn’t know.  While we were asking we started teaching about baptism and the mom asked who can baptize.  We explained the Priesthood to them and then we started talking just about parts of the  church and how it works.  Her daughter usually never talks in lessons and we were really concerned with her for a while because we would ask her questions but she would never respond and she would never participate in lesson.  We found out how she was feeling the other day.  She is so excited about it all.  She was asking about how soon she can be baptized and then she asked about being a missionary.  She actually added Ciara as a friend on facebook so tell cc to accept her and to start talking to her because she wants to practice English.  Teaching this family has been a very special experience in my life.  This family has been willing to give up things just to follow Christ and his true church.  In another lesson with them they had a friend who is catholic and the lesson before he had some problems with the 10 commandments and that we should only pray to God and not to saints.  The next lesson he said that he prayed about it and that it felt right that he needed to stop praying to saints.  We invited him to go to church but he said that he would be fired from his teaching job if he didn’t go to the catholic mass.  He then said that he is going to pray to heavenly Father to find another job so that he can join this church.  These people are so amazing mom.  I cannot thank my Heavenly Father enough for the opportunity to share his message with them and also to learn from them.  I want to see them in white so badly.

I think these last couple of weeks I have really started to uncover things that I would have never thought of before and I don’t want this to ever end.  Noticing the changes that this gospel brings in the lives of others is something that cannot ever be fully comprehended.  There is nothing else in the world that can do the same thing.  I love you all so much.  Thank you for all that you are doing and all that you have done for me in this life to help me grow and be the person that I am today.  I love you all for everything that you do.

-Elder Bryce