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