Oct. 4, 2010

Hello everyone!!! I hope everyone is doing well. :) Life here in the mission is AWESOME!!! Things are really picking up here, just like I knew they would. We're having THREE baptisms this month, the 16th (San), the 23rd (Pupe/Napa) and the 30th (Joe). So Jared and Daniel, I'm not kidding, if you want that white tie to be in my pictures, and I do, then you'd better send pretty quickly!

The week went really well, and you'll never guess, but we've started teaching another Buddhist! it's crazy! Everyone in the ward leadership just starts laughing whenever we tell them. But it's good. I believe that the Lord prepared us to know how to teach them by first giving us Napa, and then San, because we learned a lot about how to teach someone who has no knowledge of Jesus Christ. So now we're teaching a Vietnamese woman named Hieu (pronounced Hue). She came to the US when she was five, and speaks better english than most americans. We taught her about prophets the first time, because of General Conference, and we showed her where to go to watch it online. She was very excited, and we showed her where to watch old sessions of conference, and she saved the website, and then started the first session of the April Conference before we even left. We meet with her again tomorrow, and I hope she had a chance to watch some of conference this weekend, because it was AMAZING!!!

We taught Napa and San agian together. And it went about like last time. We taught about the principles of the gospel: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost, and Enduring the the End. We would teach for a few moments, then check for understanding, and have Napa translate, as needed. It was a good review for Napa, and we noticed agian that she would speak in Thai for sooo much longer than we spoke in English -- answering San's questions without even stopping to ask us what the answers were. We went over the baptismal interview questions as well, for both of them, and they are both excited. Napa was still not committing to a date, but said that she would tell us Friday, which she did, and she's getting baptized on the 23rd! Finally! The best part is that her husband, who has not been active for years, and who, until recently has been disruptive in the lessons, has made a total 180 change. He's met with the Bishop and is doing what the Bishop asked so that he can be ordained to a Priest so that he can baptize Napa. He even asked us yesterday where he needs to go get Baptismal Pants and a white tie so he can baptize Napa. And he's started memorizing the prayer he needs to say. It's amazing to watch the change in this family!

In fact, they invited us over for the Sunday Sessions of conference. So we showed up bright and early to make breakfast. I made belgium waffles and egg hash (thanks mom, it was a total hit!) and they made us lunch (thai style fried pork and rice). Being there for their first conference was incredible. As talks came on that applied to one or the other or both of them, they would call each other's attention to it. Bro McArthur especially liked the talk on the Holy Ghost and Napa really liked the talk about Prayer. It went so good and I was so happy to be there. It was a great experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Speaking of conference, I wanted to tell you that my favorite talk was Elder Holland's on gratitude, and if I could, I would plagarize his words here, and say the same thing to all of you who have helped me get here. You really are the best people in my life, and I know that I couldn't be here with all of your love, support, and prayers. Not to mention all the headaches each of you had over me before during and after I decided to serve a mission, and even up till I got my call. You really have helped me be here, I know it's all because of you. So thank you. All of you. But especially Mom and Dad. I love you guys.

Love, Sister Reid

PS. I found "14 Fundamentals of following a prophet" which was quoted twice in conference. You can find it here: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=browse&speaker=Benson%2C+Ezra+Taft&topic=prophet&type=&year=&x=9&y=7 and in case you need to hear it agian, to think of me saying it, here's Elder Holland's Talk: http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1298,00.html