Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

We have been busy, we have to be and we love it! Our Mission President asked us to have a Missionary Fireside with the members in the Bangkok Stake. We have the opportunity to work with each Mission Ward Leader and the full time missionaries assigned to that area and talk to them about our experiences. Last Sunday, we went to the Srinakkarin Ward. There are many wards and branches for us to visit. Our goal is to motivate members to refer more people to be taught by the missionaries. We feel that because of our conversion and our Thai background, this could really help them overcome any fears that they may have. We love sharing with them our experiences of being members and spiritual messages about our purpose here on Earth. That seems to always captivate the member’s as their previous religion was usually Buddhism. We also want them to get excited about serving as missionaries themselves here in Thailand.

Elder Seangsuwan has also been very busy as the Mission President's Clerk/Executive Secretary. There are many assignments that we have to follow and things that just need to get done each week. Getting to know the Mission Presidency has been wonderful. President Nurak and President Chote are our Mission President's counselors. They are both great men have a strong conviction and desire to serve the people of Thailand. It excites us that we are able to work with them and help the five other District Presidents in each area.

As far as proselyting goes, we try and do this as much as we can as this is our favorite thing to do. We have a meeting with the missionaries on Tuesday where we get to work and go out with them to teach a few families and another investigator. We try and go out each evening and walk around tracting in the evening and meet people to teach. There is a couple who came to work with Uncle Somyot (Mani’s cousin) and we think that we will have the opportunity to take them to church someday.

We still have the assignment of visiting the Ayutthaya Branch. It is about an hour drive from Bangkok. We attend church meetings there and continue to visit less active families. This is where we left off from our first mission. President Smith asked if we could visit this branch twice a week and we love to do so. Last two week, the branch president's son and daughter in law were baptized. This was such a spiritual experience and I know they will be strong members and work hard to serve the Church. It makes us happy when we see each member do their best in serving each other here and helping them give each other support. We know in Thailand it can be hard to be a member of the Church, but with the support of each other, we are happy and it shows!

Elder Seasngsuwan was also given a new assignment as High Coucilman for Pakkret District last week. This assignment will require him to be a speaker in five branches. President Chaimongkol is the district president. He was the one who had stayed with us in Bountiful, Utah when he came to visit Utah with is wife. He says hi and hopes that you come to visit soon with the family.

This is such a wonderful time of the year. Not only do we think more of the Savior, His Birth and His Sacrifice, but we also come closer together to remember the true meaning of Christmas and have good times together. We hope that you have all had such a wonderful Christmas! We were able to have a Christmas dinner. We had a great American dinner at our mission home. It was a good change since we get to eat Thai food all day long! We are really trying to walk more and ensure we keep the weight down. But what can you do?

We miss all of you and love all of you. We love our Ward back home very much! We thank all those who donate eyeglasses for people in Thailand as this has made a bigger impact in peoples’ lives than we had initially thought. We will look for more things we can have you do back home to help and maybe have Anna or Osmond bring them or ship them here. They love to have them and want to thank all that had donated and helped out!

Spiritual thought we would love to leave with you is in Alma 29:9.

9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

Love,

Elder and Sister Seangsuwan

Second Go Around...

We arrived to Thailand safely and are ready to do the Lord’s work. The first thing we were able to do was show the people in the mission office all the eyeglasses that had been donated by our Ward/Stake and friends back home. They were thrilled that the members had been so kind in doing that for the Thai people. Later, I brought many of them to the members of the first branch we visited and asked if anyone needed any. I couldn’t believe how many people were in need for eyeglasses! They were so grateful and said that many people in the Branch did not have enough money to get a pair or replace their broken glasses and that this was indeed a blessing for them. They were shocked to know how many glasses had been donated. I told them how wonderful the members were in helping me with this little project and I knew they were touched by the Spirit and the love they felt. We have many more to bring to the other Branches we will be visiting on assignment and I know that they will all be put to good use!

I will explain more in detail later, but Elder Seangsuwan was called to serve as the mission clerk and executive secretary to the Mission President. We were also asked to help coordinate the ballroom dance group that will be coming from Provo in April. There is also a Branch that we had served in during our first mission in Ayutthaya that needed a lot of help and we were asked to attend there for the first few Sundays and help them out. It is about an hour drive away from Bangkok. A few things are needed there to help out and train on and we are glad we are able to do it.

I have also completed training to be the coordinator for the Distribution Center for the mission. We will help the members order books, the Ensign, their Garments and other needs they may have. We will make sure they get everything they need. Elder Seangsuwan and I will also be traveling to each Branch in the mission and train all the leaders on how to start their family history. We need to reach out to every zone and make sure that all current records are accurate by January 15.

A lot to do!! Though we have been called to serve in various capacities, we are still able to proselyte and teach the gospel. We will be going out with the Assistants many times and visit members and other missionaries as well as help teach and share our experience.

Even though we were serving less than two years ago, there is still so much to learn. The learning process is always fun, but we want to keep busy. We have been made aware of small problems that need to be resolved in each of the Branches from managing budgets for the distribution center, understanding the gospel, learning the Church software and church history and helping members stay active.

Today we made an appointment with an investigator. We will be visiting them later with the Assistants. We hope to teach their family more. We had met them before we returned home from our last mission. The last two weeks, we have also been helping other missionaries in other areas.

We know that it always helps them to see another Thai couple in the Gospel and we enjoy sharing with them our experience and the happiness that we have in our lives knowing and living the Truth.

Last night, we visited a Stake President at his home. We talked about solidifying the English classes for the Thai people and how the missionaries can help teach them at Church. This has been a very effective tool for potential investigators to come to the Church, see who we are, what we are doing and also see how we operate.

We want to tell the members in the Ward hello and thank you so much for your love and support!

We will keep you updated as much as possible and tell you about the wonderful experiences we are having with serving the Lord and sharing the Gospel. I would like to get a few email addresses, but if anyone has time, we would love to hear from you all. Our email address is utahismystate2010@gmail.com.

Osmond will also be keeping a blog of pictures and any other updates we give him. We love you all and we are so grateful for the service you provided for us and for helping with the eye glasses. The Spirit is strong here and we are excited to once again serve the Thai people. We hope you all have Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder and Sister Seangsuwan

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The past few weeks we have been working with less active families and talking to as many relatives as possible. It has been good and we will pray for the best. Our first couple's mission will be coming to an end soon. We hope to continue to serve as when we go home. We are coming home July 15, 2009 arriving in the Salt Lake International Airport at 9:15 PM. We will be speaking in two weeks. Stay posted for directions to the church!

We love you and we will see you soon!

Love,

Elder and Sister Seangsuwan

June 16, 2009

Dear Families and Friends!

Time has definitely gone fast for us! We have not had internet access for over 3 months now! Sorry for the delay in updating our blog, but rest assured, we have been working hard and have many great spiritual experiences. We were in Buriram for 7 months and we loved it every minute of it. We have now been transferred to our last area, Bangkok, where we can now talk to may friends and relatives about the gospel as well.

But before we get into that, we would like to share a few experiences and blessings we received while serving in the Buriram Branch. During our time there, Sister Seangsuwan and I had the opportunity to teach many people. We were able to see three people walk into the waters of baptism and become members of the Church.

One of the new members was Brother Pituput. He was a 22 years old young man and loved to read the Bible. He had been reading since he was 16 years old. We met him in the streets one day when we were handing out pamphlets and inviting people to come learn English during our service on Wednesdays. He also had a girlfriend name Sister Pranom.

Sister Pranom was 19 years old. She came up to Sister Seangsuwan and asked her about the gospel. After a few messages about our Savior and the Plan of Salvation, she asked us she and her boyfriend could come to church. We advised her where the meetings took place and also made an appointment to visit with them the following week. After our first visit, they were interested in hearing more about the Plan of Salvation and other lessons that we had. After teaching them for 3 months and bringing them to Church, they asked if they could be baptized. After much praying and assistance from the Branch Members, Brother Pituput and Sister Pranom were baptized on March 22, 2009. It was such a wonderful blessing for us and a great feeling.

Another great experience we had was actually on our Preparation Day. Sister Seangsuwaan and I needed to go to the hair salon to get a haircut. After we did that, we decided to walk around towards the shops to look around. Sister Seangsuwan loves to shop! As we were walking out of the hair salon, we noticed a nice lady and her little son walking in to get a haircut as well. He was so cute! We smiled at them and walked out to look at the store nearby. As we left, we walked out again and saw the same person and her son. This time, she smiled at us both and said to us, “May the Lord bless you both.” Sister Seangsuwan stopped and looked at me in amazement. She must be Christian we thought. As we continued on, Sister Seangsuwan said to me that she had a very strong feeling that we need to go back and talk to her. We looked back, but didn’t see her. We went back and asked a person in the hair salon if they had seen a lady. They said they had and told us that she lived just around the corner. He asked why and we started to talk to him about the Gospel. After we noticed he had no interest in hearing more, we decided to go and find her. We went to her home and she wasn’t there. I told Sister Seangsuwan that we would come back another day, but she insisted that we stay and look for her. As we went back around the corner, we noticed her son standing in front of a nother shop. We went over to him and looked for his mom. Sister Seangsuwan had a strong feeling that the this lady may have been someone the Lord had prepared to hear the Gospel and she wasn’t’ going to give up. We found her and asked her if we could share a message with her and her family. She agreed and invited us over to her home.

When we arrived at her place, we found out that she had been a Protestant for over 10 years. We asked her if she had ever seen two young missionaries in white shirts and ties, and she said that she had. We told her that we were like them and that we taught others about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her name was Sister Siri-aksorn. She had two children, 4 and 2 years old. Her husband has been teacher at the Technical College for many years. We talked to her more about the gospel and about families in the Plan of Salvation. As we bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and the importance of living prophets, she gained more interest. We told her that we had a living Prophet today that leads and guides us. She asked many questions about that. We also bore testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and what role the Holy Ghost plays in our lives. A lot of what we taught her was new to her even though she had been a Protestant for 10 years. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and highlighted some scriptures to read and asked if we could come back. She said okay and we made an appointment for the next day. We were able to visit and teach her and her family twice a week. She seem so exited and so faithful to search and study the scriptures on her own. We learned soon that she loved to read from the Book of Mormon. After several months of teaching her and her family, she agreed to be baptized. She had received a witness and gained a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel. She was truly prepared for us to teach her. On May 24, 2009 Sister Siri-aksorn was baptized. We moved to Bangkok on May 26.

We have been given permission to visit all the wards and branches in Bangkok and Nonthaburi. Our plans is to visit people, friends and family to teach them the gospel before we go home on July 15th. Wherever those family and friends would be, our goal would be to would bring them to Church and ask the young missionaries to follow up with them when we have to go home. We have been visiting four families so far, and also our own families here in Bangkok. We hope and pray that we can bring our own families to the truthfulness of the Gospel.

Bangkok is the city of traffic. It can take us a few hours to visit one family and all day to work with them. But we know how important it is to have them to listen to the Plan of Salvation. We have also been able to gather up more information for our family history work. Our goals are to visit 10 families in the last 45 days.

Brothers and Sisters, we love this work so much and have had such a great time sharing the Gospel and being an instrument in the Lord’s hands. We have see miracles and received so many blessings. Our testimonies have grown as well as our desire to continue serving.
It is so wonderful to serve our mission in Thailand where we know the language and culture well. We will see you soon. If we have time, we will try and post one last message and tell you of the great things the Lord is doing here in Thailand.

Love you all!

Elder and Sister Seangsuwan
Thailand Bangkok Mission

Happy New Year Brothers and Sisters!

It is the New Year now, 2009 and our goals are the same with the whole church:

To Teach the Gospel to the World

Strengthen the Membership of the Church wherever they may be

To Move Forward the Work of Salvation for the Dead

We have nine people we are currently teaching the plan of salvation. Our golden contacts are: Brother Tick, 27 years old, and his girlfriend, sister Orm. She is about 25 years old. We met her first at the market and asked her to come to church with us. She came and brought brother Tick with her. We have been teaching this couple for three weeks now and have been inviting them to attend Sunday meetings with us. So far, they have accepted our invitations. Brother Tick has set his date to be baptized on the first of March and sister Orm would be after him a couple weeks thereafter.

We also met sister Nong, 32 years old. When we met her, we found out that she has been seeking for the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ for a year and has gone to meetings with other Christian churches. Since we have been able to teach her about the Plan of Salvation, she felt it would be good for her to join us each Sunday and come to Church with us. She came last Sunday and she told us that she loved it. She also asked us what she needed to do to become a member of the Church. We will continue to teach her the missionary's lessons. Her plan is to be baptized in the middle of March.

We also have visited three less active member families. One of them is Brother Pai, whom is a returned missionary, and his non-member wife. We will continue to visit him and we will teach his wife. Brother Jeap is a member and his wife is not as well. Sister Seangsuwan and I have been visiting these families twice a month and will teach his wife as well as brother Bob. He asked us to help him remember.

We are in Buriram right now and it is quite a distance away from another branches that we visit. We have to travel 4 hours for the Leadership meeting. We also take 5 hours trip to Khonkan for our Missionary Zone Meetings. It seems to us that we have to take more trips to the conference for members and as well as missionary meetings. We have learned a lot about being great missionary. Our testimonies have been strengthened. Sister Seangsuwan tells me each day how much she loves the people and the service. We love this work and will continue to love it. We have talked to our mission President that we would apply for another mission and return back to Thailand in the future. We will see how that goes.

Sister Seangsuwan has another calling as the Assistant to the Family History Center Director. She will be helping members for the whole district with their geneology. It is new experience for her. She has been trained from the two Senior Sister Missionaries for this special calling. She seems to love it.

We been praying to find new people who been looking for the truthfulness of the gospel and we have been blessed to have found several families so far. It is truly a blessing to actively take part in the missions of the Church and we encourage everyone to take part in these blessings.

Have a Happy New Year and we love you all!

Love,

Sister and Elder Seangsuwan

Happy Holidays!

Time seems to pass by faster and faster. We have been in the Buriram Branch for over a month now. We have been very busy visiting all the member families from the branch. We are so blessed to have wonderful counselors. We have been doing very well in this branch. They have helped us with our transportation needs to members that live further away. Some members live far away, over 75 miles! Some drives take up to three hours to get there. They have helped us visit less active members and have also helped introduced us to new families whom they knew teach the gospel. Several less active member have returned back to church. We also spend time serving in the community and with the members. We have been helping two family members w/other missionaries and some other members clean their yards and cut down bananas from their trees. It was so fun! We love doing these type of service and activities.

At this time, we do not have a car, but we have enjoyed walking every day. Exercise is important to us.

Buriram is smaller than the Udon district, but we love working here just as much. We also travel to leadership training and meetings in other nearby cities and towns.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Sister Seangsuwan prepared for our member families a feast to remember. They had never had an “American” Thanksgiving meal before or learn how to cook those types of foods before. Sister Seangsuwan showed them how to cook different recipes. She got all the recipes from her son, Osmond. Instead of Turkey, we had chicken. We made stuffing, some desserts and other easy to cook meals for Thanksgiving. It was quite interesting and amusing. The members said that American food was not spicy enough for them like Thai food. They asked for chili to add on the meal. You know we always need a little spice in our lives!

We love the members here and enjoy working in Buriram very much. We live a little distance away from church, about 2 miles. We love to walk there in the morning on Sunday and make sure to get there before church starts at 9 a.m. However, we do expect to get a car by the end of this month.

Sister Seangsuwan enjoys teaching class in the Relief Society meetings when asked and they love hearing her testimony.

We both love and enjoy teaching new families and bare our testimony to them. Its gets easier and easier and our testimonies grow stronger and stronger. Our goal here is to see more members come to church and that they may be able to have their own meeting house like in Udorn. Currently, all of the branches in this district have rent the spaces from offices for the church meetings.

In the month of November they have several festivals for the people in the town. They enjoy and celebrate their culture holidays.

During this time of year, it has been nice thinking of our families and friends. We hope all is well and that everyone is feeling peace and love.

In a Christmas Devotional, President Hinckely said,

“Christmas is more than trees and twinkling lights, more than toys and gifts and baubles of a hundred varieties. It is love. It is the love of the Son of God for all mankind. It reaches out beyond our power to comprehend. It is magnificent and beautiful.

It is peace. It is the peace which comforts, which sustains, which blesses all who accept it.

It is faith. It is faith in God and His Eternal Son. It is faith in His wondrous ways and message. It is faith in Him as our Redeemer and our Lord.”

May we always remember Him and share this message with all!

We love you all!

Happy Holidays,
Elder and Sister Seangsuwan

November 5, 2008

Sorry we haven’t updated our blog until now. We have moved into an area where our internet isn’t readily available as our last area. Our mission President advised on 10/13 that our new assignment would be in Burirum which is in the Ubon District. I was called to be the Branch President where Sister Seangsuwan and I could help the members increase activity. The area is about an 8 hour trip by bus from out last area. The next Sunday we spoke in both of our branches. The members were surprised and did not want us to move away. We have been in Udon for 9 months and really enjoy working there with members. We became part of their families.

On that Sunday, two were baptized and one of them was sister Panwara Pongsri. She is 21 years old. We were privileged to teach and be a part of her baptism. She is a niece of our old friend who was a member in Thonburi. We have now been in Burirum since October 24. We were welcomed into the branch last Sunday. I was then called as the Burirum Branch Prsident. There are about 125 members but only 35-40 members came to Church on Sunday. We know that one of our main jobs is to visit the less active members an also searching for new investigators to teach. Burirum is smaller than Udon. There are 4 young missionaries. No sisters missionary and we are happy to be working with them. We will continue to enjoy the work of the Lord in the new area.

A little bit about home. Our second son was married while we are here in Thailand. Armstrong was blessed to take a beautiful daughter of God into the Hawaiian Temple and be sealed for all time and eternity. Though we missed such a wonderful and special occasion, we are blessed to know that they made the right decision. Arm's wedding in Hawaii temple was on October 11th and they later held a reception in Salt Lake City on the 25th. Our Anniversary was on October 28th but we spent time in Buriram working. We have yet to have a formal cerebration for us. We are so excited for them and cannot wait to see their beautiful family grow. We had many family and close member friends that supported them at their reception in our absence and we are grateful for them.

One other interesting story that I would like to share was during a street meeting that we held at the park in Udon the last week before moved. We met a good family who is Christian. The husband first came to listen to our message. He kept asking questions about our message. He told us that he had never heard of Joseph Smith and that his family could be together for eternity. We talked about our temple work and we talked about the Book of Mormon. He told us that he read the Bible often, but would be interested in getting a copy of the Book of Mormon. On the Wednesday before our transfer he came with his family to our church building where we could meet and give him a copy of the Book of Mormon. We invited him to meet with the other missionaries since we would be leaving the area and they agreed. We hope that they continue to learn and prepare themselves to feel of the Spirit and know of the truthfulness of our message and the Gospel. We will continue to pray for them.

Continue to keep us in your prayers. We hope all is well and that you are getting ready for the Holidays where families are together and people are happy! We will continue to work hard! We love you!

Elder and Sister Seangsuwan