Happy New Year from THAILAND!
It was so great to be able to skype
home on Christmas! One of the hardest parts for me is not being able to
tell everyone everything about all the experiences I am having in very
much detail. There is just so much to tell! I guess you will all have to
wait for the extended addition of these stories after I get home.
So
after 3 weeks in Thailand I guess you could say I'm pretty much a
native now. Except for the fact that I still can't speak Thai, and am
still very white. Which I am constantly reminded of multiple times a day
at the amount of people that stare as I walk by. So no worries,
everyone, not ever am I going to be mistaken for a khon Thai. But yeah
other than the fact that I am not anywhere close to being khon Thai, I
am pretty much a native. 555 (by the way "555" means HAHA in Thai"). My trainer and I have finally figured out
the area, and found the best places to eat and invite! Which are pretty
much the only places you really need to know where they are, and the
church of course. The members are incredible. The RC's (recent converts) here are so
amazing and we have so much fun! They are all so willing to help us
teach which is a blessing. I love teaching, and as much as it pains me
to say it. I actually have come to really love inviting too. Sister
Alley and I have so much fun just trying to talk to random people in
Thai, and have them laugh at us. A blonde and a redhead! How foreign can
you get?? 555. But anyways. I have figured out how to actually have
conversations with people. I may not really know what they are saying,
but I can at least get by which is saying a lot because the first week I
couldn't even fake it. Which is essentially what you have to do. Fake
it till you make it. You know you were successful when you get through
an entire conversation and the person leaves thinking you speak Thai!
555. That is the best feeling. Another great experience I had this week
was actually at church on Sunday.
I love Sundays because they
are so relaxing. I get to just fake my way through playing piano, and
partake of the Sacrament. Oh and listen to a bunch of talks, and lessons
in Thai that I don't understand. It's pretty chill actually. This
Sunday was especially good though. We had an investigator show up to
church that we had contacted the night before and he was willing to
learn more! We gave him a Book of Mormon after church and explained how
to pray and he said he would start! That is one of my favorite things
about being a missionary. Teaching people how to pray and hearing them,
most of them for the first time, pray out loud. They are the most simple
prayers you have ever heard, with the most simple language, but the
Spirit is felt so strongly in that moment. You can feel of the power
prayer really has. Sometime's I think we take it for granted how
familiar we are with prayer that those powerful feelings get dulled. I
love the reminder I get at just how special an experience it is that we
get to personally have a conversation with our Heavenly Father whenever
we want. So many of my personal spiritual experiences in my life have
come because of prayer, which is what makes teaching others to pray one
of my favorite things. Another amazing experience we had was after
church when we were reviewing the Restoration lesson with one of our
RC's. He was baptized on the Monday before I got here, so around 3 weeks
ago, and we have been working with him ever since. He actually just
received the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday, which was great! Anyways, as
we were reviewing the lesson we got on the topic of the Atonement. I
felt the need to share a few scriptures that I had recently found in my
personal study about the reason the Savior had to die. I shared Heleman
14:15 which says, "For behold, he surely must die that salvation may
come; yea, it behooveth him and becometh expedient that he dieth, to
bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby men may be
brought into the presence of the Lord." and after we spent a few minutes
explaining more about the Atonement, light entered his eyes, and his
countenance changed from confusion to understanding. You could see the
Spirit working in him and testifying of truth. It was incredible. I
followed with D&C 19:16-19 and let him read the Savior's own account
of the Atonement. It was so powerful and the Spirit was so strong. I
take this knowledge I have so much for granted it's crazy. Even the
simplest of truths are unknown by so many people. Especially here in
Thailand. Just the concept that we have a loving Heavenly Father is
foreign. I am so blessed with the opportunity to share these simple
truths every single day with people I meet. I can't say very much in
Thai, but I can say the basics, and honestly that is all these people
can understand right now. Which is a blessing for me because it gives me
an opportunity to participate and feel apart of their conversion
process. It strengthens my testimony to see the power of the Holy Ghost
work in their lives. I could do this work forever. And I will!
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!!
It's already been 2015 here for hours, and you're missing out so hurry and catch up!! ;)
Love you all so much!
~Sister Burbank
