Week 16 Chiang Mai

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was a great week with a few miracles! It was a great booster for me. Things are going well her in Chaing Mai. I will start off with a lesson that we had with one of our investigators. This girl has met with us a few times already and she was telling us how she hasnt really been praying. We tried to really explain how prayer is the way to get answers to anything and to really communicate with our Father in heaven. We had a member in that lesson and what he told this girl was something I really liked. This member told this girl to pray but not only to talk the whole time but to wait and listen. You can talk the whole time thats fine and then get up and go on. What he said made me really ponder about prayer. What he said was that when you are done talking to your Heavenly Father, keep your eyes closed and wait for Heavenly Fathers response to your prayer. He said sometimes when you get done you will miss out on what is trying to be related to you. As soon as you open your eyes you could miss out on a special answer. Imagine Heavenly Father reaching out to you with an answer right as you open your eyes. I hope that made sense. It really made me think how I will pray from here on out. 

Another miracle this week was a girl from English. This last Tuesday she comes up to me after we gave our spiritual thought and asked how or what do I have to do to go to church? I said just come at 9 or 1. She said okay, I will come at 1. I said I would call her Saturday and just remind her. Well she came and she said that she felt the spirit so strong. That isnt the miracle though. About 2-3 months ago a spiritual thought was given about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chasity. At the beginning of all of our English classes we teach everyone who to pray and we pray. She was telling us how since that day she has been praying with her friend to know the truth. She has been praying for the last 2-3 months on her own. Her friend is not a member either. She even skipped her class at school just to come. She only had time for Sacrament. She asked what I have to do. We said you have to get baptized. We will be teaching this girl from here on out. The Lord is truly preparing many of God"s children everyday! 

About two Tuesdays ago a lady and her boyfriend came to English. This lady was contacted by my companion and called us about 2 Tuesdays ago. She came to English and I gave a spiritual thought about baptism and how everyone needs it. She said in the middle of my thought," Yeah Ive been baptized". It was interesting. After it was all over she came up to me and said this is my boyfriend, will you teach him? I asked the man, How would you feel if we taught you? Would you feel weird? The man said, No. Okay lets teach you. So we taught him about Temples and baptism in the first lesson. He accepted a date and we have been meeting with this man on a constant basis. This man is very willing to follow the example of Jesus Christ. This man will get married to his girlfriend in a while, I dont know when. The thing is in the first lesson we asked if he wanted a eternal family. He said yes I do. I said baptism will help. This man was baptized just yesterday. You should have seen the smile on his face when he came up out of the water! JOY! He will be able to go to the temple in just a short while and get married to a lovely wife. This man has made the single most important decision in his life, which will bless him for the rest of his life. 

The other miracle was that we met with a girl who we met just "randomly" from another member. She has come to church before. We asked if we could teach her and she said yes. When we explained baptism to her and asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the authority of God, she said yes I am ready! Boom! Yes right then and there she made the decision. At that moment she may not fully understand what she just said what she would do but in time she will! We had great success this week and I am proud. I know that none of this is possible without the Lords hand in the work. I can't do this alone or just with a few other missionaries. We need Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Spirit to bear testimony! She was baptized yesterday as well!

I do want to say one other thing before I go. In the scriptures how long does it take to build a kingdom? Day, months or years? Rome wasnt built in a day, right? No it wasn't. It took a long time, much patience and many hands. Now what about God's kingdom? With the help of 84,000 missionaries we can build it faster and stronger! Imagine 84,000 missionaries in ONE country! How would the work go? I bet it would go fast and much work would get done. Am I right? I dont know. In my mission I think we have about 150+ missionaries. I really wish we could double that number! We need all the help that we can get. It is not a easy work. First you need to clean up and make a strong foundation. I was privileged to work at a store in down town Burley. You might know what I am talking about. It was a place that needed a lot of work. It took a few weeks to get things cleaned up and looking good. It took a long time, many hours and few hands. I learned many lessons from that experience. As soon as we were done the next step is the design. What are you going to execute or how are you going to do things. I know my great designers out there that can do great things, but just start with the basics and then go from there. Don't rush or things could get sloppy and fail and your might have to restart. That is not the same with missionary work. When missionaries get a task it gets done the right way and in the right time. We are on the Lords schedule so we must keep pace to build the kingdom His way and on His time. I know that all hands are needed to build. If you don't know whether to serve a mission or not pray about it. If you are young or old, pray about it. Moses was pretty old and I'm sure he still did work even when he was old. 

Have a great week. 

Love Elder Hinckley

I rode another elephant today!! Ha!