Week 21- Bangkhen, Thailand (July 20, 2014)

A continuation of last week, with my wife's side of the family, elder Matt Boonmee's aunts and cousins visited him at the Bangkhen ward house. The uncle tried very hard to invite elder Matt Boonmee and his companion to lunch. However, the elders had already had plans for the P-Day.

During the week, his aunts tried to call and schedule the next P-Day where they can take him and his companion to visit Ayuthaya (an ancient capitol of Siam), about 60 miles north of Bangkhen. Elder Matt Boonmee tried to talk to them about attending church with him. Below is the response he relayed to us.

"..Yeah I tried getting them to come to church, but they just laughed and said every church is good. They aren't interested. I think they may have already met with Elders before, but I will keep trying."  

"So this week we had a baptism. Her name is นิด (Nid). She is a cute old lady. At first, she could not remember anything to save her life, but we kept teaching her. We later found that we couldn't baptize her. One of the APs had helped me teach her once, and just said she probably has memory problem and that it would be improper to continue due to

accountability issue. We just decided to stop teaching her. However, one day, she showed up to the church for an appointment we had made a week ago. She had remembered everything. So we called the AP back and asked to talk to her one more time and he was so amazed that she had remembered everything. So we had her interviewed and she passed. So we had a baptism for her. Surprisingly the Lord prepares ways for His children. 

Currently we have two wards coming to our building, us and Bangkappi. So I was sitting in the lobby waiting with Elder Hill, and one member from Bangkappi gave him two pieces of gum and said, "Give it to your friend as well." After that they asked the commonly asked question, " Are you a khon Thai?" (Are you Thai? For some reason, I guess I don't look like a Khon Thai to Khon Thais. I've been told I look Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. I guess I just look like a stereotypical Asian. No root to one country.)

But anyways, I said No I'm from America, but my parents are Thai. Then she said, I might know your parents so she asked the name of my parents, and I told her. She then got really excited and said, "I served with your dad when he was a missionary!" She said I looked like my dad a lot. But she told me she served in the same district as my dad back in the days. 

Anyways, that's what I've got for this week. Hope all is well. 

Love Elder Boonmee"