June 05, 2008
Subject: Cov dej uas kho mob Salutations of the cheeriest sort!
John Thao has been baptized by water, and awaits this Sunday, when he will be baptized by fire and the spirit. Wahoo! It was a very spiritual experience. I felt like my liver was glowing and it was going to pop. When he came up out of the water, I had to stop myself from applauding and whooping. John was really psyched. He punched the air, then splashed all the little kids that ran up and crowded around the font. His family didn't make it, but we had a big, less active family come to church for the first time in 3 years, and they stayed for the baptism. Our whole zone is pretty stoked, as this is the only baptism so far this transfer. Once his brothers start coming to church, they will be ready for baptism too.
Last transfer, one of the investigators I found and taught back in Eastside St. Paul got baptized, and this transfer, the first person I ever invited to be baptized back in Frogtown finally got parental permission. I can't explain how good that feels.
Shoua, a 13-year-old girl from Thailand, wants to join our church, but her mom wants her to go to a different church. Both she and her mom have been investigating our church for quite some time, but her mom does not understand authority or the restoration. She wants to go to the same church as a bunch of her relatives even though it is mostly conducted in English. She has a couple relatives in our branch, but I guess that's not good enough. We hope Shoua can eventually get permission to join our church. In the meantime we periodically go over to help her with homework. She hardly speaks any English at all, so homework is tough. She also never learned the basics because she didn't really get much schooling in Thailand. ('Shoua' is the Americanized spelling of two different names. 'Suav' is a boy's name, and 'Sua' is a girl's name.)
We had a terrific lesson with Molly, Mai Yer, Bee, and Jamie. We did an object lesson on the atonement, since they didn't understand it at all before. I think they really started to get it. We did the same thing I did for gospel principles class in St. Paul: Made someone hold a stack of books that kept getting taller as we named more little sins until it became to heavy to bear, then someone representing Christ came and took away the books. We then asked the person representing Christ to imagine a stack twice as tall. Then 10 times. 250. 10 billion. It really helped them appreciate the gravity and magnitude of the atonement, and get an idea for how much love Jesus has for each of them.
I am writing on Thursday because they have move our preperation day this week to accomidate a mission-wide event on Saturday. There is to be an all-mission tractathon on Saturday preceded by a fast on Friday.
On Monday we got a referral for a family that has met missionaries before and wanted to learn. The Mika Elders taught them about the restoration, but the mother's English is only so-so, and the father doesn't understand at all. We talked with them at the doorstep, but couldn't go in because the father wasn't home. As we were leaving, we checked our planners to see what we had planned next, and it was a family of former investigators. We looked at the address, then double checked---it was the same family! Neat.
I love you all, and wish you well!
-Elder Moua Ying
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