Mon Oct. 25th 2010

There has been a lot of flooding in Thailand in Oct. Here are a couple of pictures. President Smith is standing in what was a field.








This week has been crazy busy and the craziness is only getting crazier. I really feel that my life as a zone leader has actually started. Before the change to merge zones together, zones were too small and the role of the zone leader didn't really exist. Now with the combined zone, suddenly zone leader are no longer just some sort of glorified district leader. I've come to discover that the role of a zone leader is very similar to the role of a trainer, except for the fact that I live in different cities than my district leaders, work in different areas, and never see them.

I finally had a chance to meet a couple of our investigators in this area. There is a sweet family whose names are Jeep, Bee, and Boom. Jeep is the father, Bee is his wife, and Boom is their little son. They are both teachers at a local college and have been learning with the missionaries for over a month now. I have seen them once and we taught about praying as a family. As I have been teaching families for awhile now, I have really found that the commitment to pray as a family is so very important. I think it is overlooked by a lot of people, but I think it helps so much because it involves a principle of accountability. One thing I have learned on my mission is: if something is not working the way it should, it is most likely a problem of accountability. I'll explain. When we have fathers and mothers take the responsibility to teach and pray with their kids, it makes the parents study and do the things they are teaching their kids. It makes them the teacher, not the learner. Also it makes them accountable to their kids for the things that they are teaching them.

I met another investigator named Oobah. She is female in her mid-twenties who was referred to us by a member. She has been learning for about a month and has had an interesting learning experience. She has lots of friends who are members of many different sects of Christianity, so she has been "shopping around" for awhile now. Fortunately for us, she had the chance to talk to Elder Perkins, of the Seventy, for about half an hour last week. She has almost stopped learning several times but I really feel that she is almost converted. Right now we are really trying to help her build a relationship with God. She believes in God. She thinks that God can help her, but without a clear belief of who God is and how He relates to us it is almost impossible to get an answer. God is not running or hiding from us. Contacting God is not a difficult search that we have to read many books or study with many teachers to accomplish, but contacting God simply is humbling ourselves to the point that we actually believe that it is easy enough as to ask and receive. Sometimes this humbling process takes a long journey, but it most certainly does not have to be long or hard at all.

I also met a cute little family. The fathers name is Bradit and the moms name is Noy. They have 4 kids. Three adolescent girls, and a baby boy. Also their grandma lives at the house too. The grandma is absolutely hilarious. She is really old and has a hard time hearing so oft times she will say things that are absolutely off topic. She always tells us that we are really good people and that she likes us, which is actually really interesting for the older generation. Typically the very old generation is more shut to ideas of Christianity or ideas of listening to foreigners, but she is convinced that we are holy men that can help her family. Bradit was actually taught by the elders about two years ago. He finished the Book of Mormon but never really attended church. Things just never really worked out. I'm excited for them and feel that there is a lot of potential in that family. Noy really opened up last lesson. I feel that she has been really left out of the whole thing for too long and now she feels included.

Kohn Kaen is very busy. The next two weeks are going to be hectic. This week I will only be in Kohn Kaen for 2 days. I will be spending most of my week training or getting trained. President Smith is coming up for a couple of days to do another training. That should be good.


Elder Brown