Hey everyone!
I just want you to know I love all of you and I'm so grateful for all the thought and prayers; I feel your love and support and if you were here with me.
It's an exciting period of change here in the Thailand Bangkok Mission. President Senior is all settled in and the real work is beginning; he's focusing much more on establishing the church and "retaining the fruits of our labors," as President Hinkley put it. I also got to sing in a barbershop quartet to "Brightly Beams" in Thai, get crazy Baptist ladies to church who thought they we're getting baptized if they came, and have many more experiences that I wish I could talk about. Haha, Sister โอ๋ even asked in English if we had a "big pool" for her baptism. "I like big POOL!" she laughed in her thick accent. OK tangent... "Every religion teaches people to be good," Buddhists say to me every day. Funny thing is, that it's a "FA-C-T!" Great, now from here you can ask, "So why is it important to be good?" Most Buddhist haven't thought of that one, so they talk to you about it or just start saying things that don't make sense, and you know they're not ready. Christians, on the other hand, are a little more difficult... They most often say: "So you believe in Christ? Oh, cool so we're the same." NO! I can't count how many times I've said "ไม่เหมือนกัน!" to this lady... "Not the same!" doesn't seem to stick until they start reading from revealed truth. For example, "Your church have Bible?" she asked us for the 13th time. "Yes, see? We are same." "Sister. Your church have Book of Mormon?" "No." "ไม่เหมือนกัน..." Oh, it's fun here working with Christians here for sure, but Bible bashing isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be. Sister แดง, or "Dang" as in "Dang it, Richey!" is one of those cases. She is divorced, has a child but lives alone. She is very sad. But she has all these crazy ideas about religion and God, and we want to help her find true happiness that comes only through the message of the restored gospel. Our last lesson with her I watched as a member of the District Presidency and a sister from our branch just OWN her in a doctrine battle. Although it looked like we won the battle, everyone lost because the Spirit of the Lord left near the end of the lesson. I'd like to ask all who read this to pray for her to have a positive spiritual experience with reading the Book of Mormon (which she won't read on her own as of yet). I want her to read - and everyone else I know - so that she will feel the love of God through "being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death." (Alma 4:14)
But this week, I wanted to share my feelings about families and the joy that comes from Christ's overcoming death through my letter from my great, new mission president. So on note, here is my letter:
"Dear President...First I want to apologize that this email might be a bit longer than usual. There was a recent event in my life that occurred, so I've started to focus a lot more this week on the importance of families in my own life. "What is it about the family that it so important?" "Why do families love each other?" and many more questions like this have been floating around in my mind because one of my friends' Mom died while we were both serving our missions. It was a tragedy indeed, and he came home from his mission to support his little brother and sister and his dad who have been our ward friends for many years. I'm ok, but it's made me really think and rethink about what's going on in my own family and why I love them. I've come to a few conclusions, but it's still hard to completely grasp or analyze. At church, I watched a baby laugh with his mom while his older sister was smiling on her father's lap. Seeing that, I kind of realized that we all need unconditional love from somebody as soon as we step into this world. "Sometimes it's hard when you feel like sometimes your companion or someone else you love doesn't love you as much as you want them to show you they do at times. I'm sure marriage really teaches you how to overcome that challenge, but a mission sure gives an accurate test run. A moment of tenderness watching the children coupled with the experience of "wadding through much tribulation and anguish of soul" as other missionaries have who have once felt loneliness (Alma 8:14) helped me realize that we really all do need unconditional love and support from something. Some find solace in material things or friends, but I realized that the best (not the "perfect," because we're all not perfect) medium we can find unconditional love is found within a family. We're all brothers and sisters, yes, but families are God's children specifically organized on Earth, which creates a special bond that cannot be calculated or measured like I've been trying to do lately. My friend's mom isn't on this Earth right now, but that doesn’t mean that that unconditional love still exists. I know they love each other very much still, and their family gives me hope that families really are forever and that there's a good reason they are - because the vital love that God intended us to feel in this life can be everlasting.... - Elder Gibbons"
I haven't really been following up on the memorizing, but this week I extent the commitment to everyone who reads this to read the Book of Mormon and think for a few minutes of all the reasons why you can love your family - the sons and daughters of the Being who rules the heavens and the earth who have been selected in the grand councils in heaven to reside with you and affect your life. I would like to thank my family for giving me way more support and care than I ever could measure. To the family who was affected with the death of your beloved mother, there is hope because we can know that God loves us and has the perfect plan for us and that we too may be "filled with great joy." In Christ's name I affirm these things are true. Amen.
Until next time,
Elder Gibbons
I just want you to know I love all of you and I'm so grateful for all the thought and prayers; I feel your love and support and if you were here with me.
It's an exciting period of change here in the Thailand Bangkok Mission. President Senior is all settled in and the real work is beginning; he's focusing much more on establishing the church and "retaining the fruits of our labors," as President Hinkley put it. I also got to sing in a barbershop quartet to "Brightly Beams" in Thai, get crazy Baptist ladies to church who thought they we're getting baptized if they came, and have many more experiences that I wish I could talk about. Haha, Sister โอ๋ even asked in English if we had a "big pool" for her baptism. "I like big POOL!" she laughed in her thick accent. OK tangent... "Every religion teaches people to be good," Buddhists say to me every day. Funny thing is, that it's a "FA-C-T!" Great, now from here you can ask, "So why is it important to be good?" Most Buddhist haven't thought of that one, so they talk to you about it or just start saying things that don't make sense, and you know they're not ready. Christians, on the other hand, are a little more difficult... They most often say: "So you believe in Christ? Oh, cool so we're the same." NO! I can't count how many times I've said "ไม่เหมือนกัน!" to this lady... "Not the same!" doesn't seem to stick until they start reading from revealed truth. For example, "Your church have Bible?" she asked us for the 13th time. "Yes, see? We are same." "Sister. Your church have Book of Mormon?" "No." "ไม่เหมือนกัน..." Oh, it's fun here working with Christians here for sure, but Bible bashing isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be. Sister แดง, or "Dang" as in "Dang it, Richey!" is one of those cases. She is divorced, has a child but lives alone. She is very sad. But she has all these crazy ideas about religion and God, and we want to help her find true happiness that comes only through the message of the restored gospel. Our last lesson with her I watched as a member of the District Presidency and a sister from our branch just OWN her in a doctrine battle. Although it looked like we won the battle, everyone lost because the Spirit of the Lord left near the end of the lesson. I'd like to ask all who read this to pray for her to have a positive spiritual experience with reading the Book of Mormon (which she won't read on her own as of yet). I want her to read - and everyone else I know - so that she will feel the love of God through "being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death." (Alma 4:14)
But this week, I wanted to share my feelings about families and the joy that comes from Christ's overcoming death through my letter from my great, new mission president. So on note, here is my letter:
"Dear President...First I want to apologize that this email might be a bit longer than usual. There was a recent event in my life that occurred, so I've started to focus a lot more this week on the importance of families in my own life. "What is it about the family that it so important?" "Why do families love each other?" and many more questions like this have been floating around in my mind because one of my friends' Mom died while we were both serving our missions. It was a tragedy indeed, and he came home from his mission to support his little brother and sister and his dad who have been our ward friends for many years. I'm ok, but it's made me really think and rethink about what's going on in my own family and why I love them. I've come to a few conclusions, but it's still hard to completely grasp or analyze. At church, I watched a baby laugh with his mom while his older sister was smiling on her father's lap. Seeing that, I kind of realized that we all need unconditional love from somebody as soon as we step into this world. "Sometimes it's hard when you feel like sometimes your companion or someone else you love doesn't love you as much as you want them to show you they do at times. I'm sure marriage really teaches you how to overcome that challenge, but a mission sure gives an accurate test run. A moment of tenderness watching the children coupled with the experience of "wadding through much tribulation and anguish of soul" as other missionaries have who have once felt loneliness (Alma 8:14) helped me realize that we really all do need unconditional love and support from something. Some find solace in material things or friends, but I realized that the best (not the "perfect," because we're all not perfect) medium we can find unconditional love is found within a family. We're all brothers and sisters, yes, but families are God's children specifically organized on Earth, which creates a special bond that cannot be calculated or measured like I've been trying to do lately. My friend's mom isn't on this Earth right now, but that doesn’t mean that that unconditional love still exists. I know they love each other very much still, and their family gives me hope that families really are forever and that there's a good reason they are - because the vital love that God intended us to feel in this life can be everlasting.... - Elder Gibbons"
I haven't really been following up on the memorizing, but this week I extent the commitment to everyone who reads this to read the Book of Mormon and think for a few minutes of all the reasons why you can love your family - the sons and daughters of the Being who rules the heavens and the earth who have been selected in the grand councils in heaven to reside with you and affect your life. I would like to thank my family for giving me way more support and care than I ever could measure. To the family who was affected with the death of your beloved mother, there is hope because we can know that God loves us and has the perfect plan for us and that we too may be "filled with great joy." In Christ's name I affirm these things are true. Amen.
Until next time,
Elder Gibbons
