Week 27 Transfer Week. New companion is Elder Butnon :)

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This week was so awesome. Sorry I don't have a ton of time to write. We are preparing to head to Bangkok for transfers. Elder Freeze is moving to Ubon. And we are going to go to the dinosaur museum. And my new companion will be Elder Butnon!!!!!!!!!! The Thai elder from my last area. I am so excited. This transfer has gone by so fast! This week was way fun. I got to go on switch offs with Elder Taylor. He is so awesome! I learned so much. This week we gave two baptismal dates so that was exciting! :) We also learned how to make masaman curry soup from a member :) I love this work and I love my Savior! 

Elder Shill

 ** We were able to facetime with Collin for about an hour!  It is SO great to be able to see him and talk with him.  He is doing great and loves being a missionary.  He is having meaningful experiences with the people he is serving and teaching.  It's wonderful to see how the Lord works in helping his missionaries.

Week 26 Face Time!!

Week 25 Switch Off with Elder Hafen

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This week has been fun. Got to eat some fun stuff, meet some fun people, and learn lots of new principles. This week we got to do switch offs with the zone leaders. So I got to be companions with Elder Hafen! He is so awesome. He is such a fantastic missionary. On Thursday. Elder Freeze got sick with a stomach bug. So we went to a hospital close to our house. We thought we were just going to be there to get some pills and go back. They kept us there all day, slept there over night, and couldn't leave until 3:00pm the next day. The wanted to make sure it was appendicitis. And then the next day we were like. We are okay. We want to go now. But then we had this terrible time paying the hospital. We had to have the office senior couple pay them because the insurance didn't work. But.. We were able talk to one of the employees there about families and now we are teaching him. LETS GO!!!! We are going to eat lunch with him today. This week we went to visit a less active member and her family. Then it started raining really hard and we had to bike back in the rain. which was actually really fun. We also went to go visit another member who hasn't been to church in a while because he is sick. Earlier in the week the branch president asked me to talk about missionary work and working through the members. So that was awesome. The whole theme for that week was missionary work. So we should start being able to work more with the members. We are going to start using a group chat with our branch. The people we are teaching are slowly progressing. But we definitely see how important the members are in this work. I love you all, I love my Savior, I love the Thai People... and Thailand. :) thanks for all your support and prayers.

Elder Shill

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Week 23, 24

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Sorry that I didn't email last week. Last week for Pday we went to the boarder of Laos. (the s is silent)We saw this giant Buddhist temple. It is a tourist spot but you have to be careful because you do have a bunch of people worshiping all the statues. We bought some cool Thai and Laos fabric that we will get made into neck ties. One of our new investigators sews stuff. We told her that there will be missionaries in Kalasin always. She said she would learn how to make neck ties. :) we gave her some fabric to practice with today and a sample tie. The past two weeks have been great. We had zone conference last Thursday which was awesome!! Our zone leaders are so awesome. Elder Hafen and Elder Sudekum. They gave some awesome training for us. Some things were changed during this last zone conference.

So Thailand has this problem where over 90% of the people that are baptized fall away, become monks, or just don't go to church any more. People in the mission used to just go around with cards ask if people knew who Jesus Christ was and baptizing them 2 weeks later. They had tons of baptisms. but all those people are inactive. So we are stopping with the inviting cards. and are actually moving further away from inviting. We are going to focus 100% on referrals, working with members, LAs, and the people we are teaching. If we have spare time we will go inviting. And we are really going to make  sure that we use enough time to help people be ready for baptism. There is a new rule that we are not allowed to baptize someone if they don't have a friend in the church.

Speaking of baptism... WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!!  Sister ทองสุข got baptized. She has such a great testimony and the members love her. We were fasting so we didn't eat with the members at the church. (the members eat lunch at the church every Sunday at every church in Thailand) So we got a call from her and she said that it was her birthday with God and that we had to eat dinner with her and she forbade us from turning down the offer. :) it was yummy. So eating is really important in Thailand. a phrase we say that is expected, kind of like "how are you" is "have you eaten rice yet". So we like to eat "rice" with the people we teach. Which just means to eat food. 

Speaking of food... Thai food is the best. the fruit is so good. We are just entering the season for a couple fruits including Mango!! This one really tasty dish is called waterfall. which is normally pork. But yesterday we had red ant egg waterfall which was really good! Earlier in the week we saw some apricots and bought them. then we ate them they were really good. Like mango, then we realized its seed was more like a mango. Then we realized they were just a small type of mango. So that was cool. Well. That,s about it. Thanks for all your support. I love you all.

Elder Shill

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