taryn 6.28.10

Hello!
What a good week. THings are starting to really pick up in these parts of Thailand. We are getting new investigators right and left. It is fun seeing the numbers go from absolutely nothing to now growing higher and higher. We worked hard this week and taught many lessons, found many potentials, and also got 15 new investigators! ha the goal of the mission is for everyone to get 2 per week.. now our goal is to keep them progressing and coming closer to the Lord, our purpose as a missionary. what a great purpose. we dont have any with baptismal dates yet, but that will hopefully come this week as we teach our progressors. this week ive been getting a little startled, realizing how short my time is getting. so crazy. my goal is to keep pushing myself and this area to the max until i get on the train to go down to bangkok for the last time.
We are teaching a few families, which is the emphasis of the mission right now. they have figured out that the chances are much more likely for them to fall if they enter the church alone, and thailand doesnt need any more less actives, we already are overflowing with them. This past week they actually came out and said that if you are teaching and people single-y they have to come to church and get progressing quickly or they have to be dropped. it is neat teaching families that will hopefully sometime soon be an eternal family!
one of the daughters who is in her upper 20's was telling us how she was having a lot of problems in her life and asked for me to give her a special christian blessing. many think that we are nuns here. i explained about priesthood blessings, the elder will give her one soon, and then i said the closing prayer, in it asking Heavenly Father to help her.
one family we are teaching are from the hill tribes (we are actually teaching quite a few people from tribes) The family speaks lahu (a tribal language), most can speak a little thai, and the dad speaks english and lahu, not much thai. one daughter can read thai, so we have a lot of crazy cross-translating from many different languages. its an adventure! we are schedule to see them tonight, i hope and pray that we can keep them progressing and enter the waters of baptism soon!
we are teaching a few Burmese people, but the majority of them speak tribal languages as well and speak a little thai, and one girl we are teaching speaks english amazingly- she is studying here to get her masters and then will go back to burma. we are excited because we need some good english speakers in burma because there isnt very much burmese church material yet. man, it is hard teaching in english though! everything comes to me in thai first and then i have to translate it to English. sometimes i sound so silly because i end up translating directly from thai grammar and it doesnt make sense in English.
We rode our bikes to the house of a family far out of the city, i felt like i was back in Udon again. chickens running around, boys out in the weeds playing a game they love to play here that is like volleyball, but instead you cant use your hands! they do a one tosses is and another does a crazy kicking thing to serve it. they use all parts of their body but arms. the houses out there little wooden and metal shacks. what a fun place to live. it was beautiful, even more than udon because it was more green and here there are small mountains surrounding.
On friday night we had some appointments and back-up plans cancel so we went out to contact a potential. when we went to her house her husband and mom were there, they were really rude and first told us they didnt know where she was, and then saying she moved. then we asked about the neighbor and they said she moved too. its never fun to get turned down like that, im glad that i am serving in thailand where it is rare for a thai person to be rude (i feel bad for jordan and morgan! i know what it is like in europe and i wasnt even a missionary there!) it was almost time to go home, but not quite yet. we could have easily gone home, but decided to go back into the neighborhood and invite for minute. we didnt find anything, but then on our way out in a dark allley there was one young girl walking home that my comp passed, i almost did but then got the prompting to stop. we ended up inviting her to church and to english class, the usual. crazy thing is she showed up yesterday! she was soaking it all in, wanting to know which books she needed to study. we ended up going to her house yesterday evening and taught her and her mom. she said that she had been talking to her mom earlier that week and decided she wanted to go to a christian church that sunday. she got a little teary and said how God truly sent us. im excited for this family!
random, but we have 2 books of mormon in our house in other languages, one in chinese and the other dutch!! every time i see it i think of jord. crazy language.
well its that time again. i love you so so much! you are all so amazing. i have the best family ever. seriously. i am grateful for this time that i get to serve the Lord and his people, and i am grateful that i still have the months that i do to help others and also better myself a little more before i get forced back into the world again.
i miss you
love
sister young