August 25, 2013

Hey guys! Wow, what a week! It sounds like it was quite a week back at home too!! Way to tear it up Jess! So proud of you bro! I want to see that hit that everyone's talking about!! Keep it up man! 

This week was pretty great! We had another Typhoon, met an awesome new family, and set a baptismal date for this next week with one of our recent convert's mom! Super stoked for her!! 

On Tuesday, we spent most of the day contacting! We had some English Proselyting and then a couple lessons and that was pretty much it! We did get a chance to visit a member for dinner... man, I tell you guys! Daya's members don't ever stop feeding us!! Out of the 7 days of the week, at least 5 of them have people feeding us at least one meal!! It's crazy!! On Wednesday, we went to one of our Recent Convert's house... for lunch. While there, I ate some pretty crazy stuff! The pig liver was pretty good, the duck stomach was a little funky... but it was the chicken foot that really got me. I've been avoiding that stupid foot since the day I got here! I'm being totally serious when I tell you that they just gave me a chicken foot!! It still has all the skin and talons and tendons and veins on it!! You just stick it in your mouth and suck on it for a while... but no one bothered to tell me that. I tore that thing apart! I was chewing, tearing, ripping and scraping until that thing was spotless! It left me wanting to puke, I'll be dead honest, but I had to be polite! haha, I'll send some pictures...

Wednesday, along with the funky food, also brought the Typhoon... English didn't have many students, so we just kinda chilled and talked with the students that did come. The Typhoon wasn't as bad as last time, but it did rain a LOT. We were riding our bikes through big puddles that went almost up to our knees, splashing down the road and preachin' the Gospel of Eternal Life! That's where it's all at folks! We had a chance to go out with Elder Limpanasraphong (say that 10 times fast) who I went to High School with! So much fun! He's such a stud!!! 

Friday through Sunday continued to kinda drizzle a little bit, but the Typhoon had totally passed. We had some truly great lessons with our investigators, and we're so excited for this wonderful mom to be baptized in this coming week! She just needs to tell her husband about her desire to be baptized and then she can take that step! We're praying hard that her husband will let her do that! On Saturday, the sisters in our District had a baptism and I got to do a pretty fun number on the Guitar for it. "He Sent His Son." Such an incredible song! It was so much fun to do that little number, and the lyrics of that song are just inspiring! 

Well, for the spiritual message of the week, I'd like to share a story. One night, about 2000 years ago, a small group of about 13 people gathered together and made history. At this little gathering, Jesus Christ administered, and taught of, the Sacrament to His 12 Apostles. During this time, Jesus told the Disciples of His betrayal and that one of them would be the one to Betray Him. The Disciples, probably shocked and appalled that one of them would do that, began to anxiously ask him: "Lord, is it I?" What incredible examples of love and meekness. They very well could have begun to blame each other and think evil thoughts in their hearts, but instead, they looked at themselves first. They wanted to make sure that they were clean first before turning to blame a brother. We can learn a lot from this small story, and also from the principle which Christ taught just a short time before this small gathering ocurred. Christ talks of us trying to take the mote out of our brother's eye when a beam is in our own! Let's first clean the inner vessel. This is my invitation to all who read this blog this week. Judge yourselves, and judge well, before you move on to help other people. 

I love ya guys! JIAYOU!!!

Elder Noll