Thailand and Back

This week went by fast. Early in the week we got to go out to one of our investigators houses for lunch. His name is Ton(I don't know if you recognize that name from before when I was here). He is still doing super well.  He and his wife and kids come to church every Sunday and they are reading their scriptures and praying daily. They are basically just waiting until we have the church so they can learn the rest of the lessons and be baptized. It was really fun going over to their house. We basically got to meet the whole family from Ton's siblings to his parents. While we were there, we were served some great Lao food as well.

That same day, at night, we were able to meet with the Branch Mission Leader at one of the senior couple’s houses. We talked about the needs of the branches. It was really good and we made some good plans on how to move forward. 

A big chunk of our week was taken up in Thailand. We had to leave Laos for a little bit so we could come back in on our working visas. While in Thailand, we got to do some exchanges and had a good few days. 

We decided to bike all the way to NongKhai when we went over. It was only a little over 20 kilometers but while carrying our packs with our stuff for a multiple day stay in Thailand it was tiring. When we came back a few days later we also ended up biking that. So I think I have biked over the Thai-Lao friendship bridge 10+ times now. 

Right now Elder Ellis (former companion), is one of my Zone Leaders. So, while we were in Udorn, we stayed a night at their house. It was really nice to catch up with him and talk about Samutprakaan. He is doing good. He finishes his mission in another month and a half (the same time as Elder Smith-Driggs) 

One of the highlights for me was while we were switching off in Nongkhai I was with Elder Bouwmeester for the day and we had an appointment fall through in the middle of the day and wondered where we should go. I, having worked in Nongkhai before, knew some people and I said we should go visit this guy named Fon (see week 54) It was great; we were able to teach him at his house that day and have the Nongkhai Elders pick him up as a new investigator. Also, a fun part of that exchange was contacting at this hot air balloon festival. 

Whenever I am in Nongkhai or Udorn, I feel like I am in a former area, because from serving in Laos and Khonkaen for the last 8 months I have always been moving through these two areas to go places. So, because of that, I know the cities pretty well and I know a good chunk of the members there. So, by now they both just feel like old areas.  

A cool miracle happened while we were coming into Laos. We were at the desk to get our new Lao visas. These visas are specific for our volunteer work here in Lao and are called an E-B2 Visa so we gave our passports over with all the paper work so they could put these visas in and when they gave them back I looked at it and the Visa type was a LA-B2 at first I thought nothing of it and was about to cross over out of the security zone. But then the spirit prompted me to go back to the desk and tell them the visa was wrong so I went back and told the guy that he had put in the wrong type of visa. He looked at it then after a few minutes gave us back our passports with the correct E-B2 visa instead of the LA-B2. It is a real miracle because if we went in on that visa it would have caused a lot of problems and we would not be able to teach English here. It would have also delayed us a lot on receiving our E-B2 visa's because they would have had to re apply for them and start another 2 month ordeal. So I am so grateful that we have the spirit, that can give us little bits of guidance throughout the day. 

Yesterday was a good day at church. We had the most people show up out of all the times since we have come back.

So this week we are going to start with our English classes. It will be nice and give us something to do, but I will miss going to visit members all day. We should only have about three classes for now which will still leave the majority of our time visiting members.

Well I think that is all for today. This week was really great!

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้ พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน
เอ็ลเดอร์ ชีนีย์

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