Week 57: I'm in a New Area!

Hello family and friends! Looks like it was time for me to leave Surin. Brother Gaan was baptized on the night I left and it was great. The gospel will be a blessing in his life. I felt like I learned valuable things from that area and I'm grateful that I was able to serve there for the amount of time that I did. Even though I had to say goodbye to a lot of people I got to know pretty well, I'm now on to the next "adventure" of my mission and I'm serving in my FIRST Bangkok area! The area is called Bangapi. Wow! I feel like I'm almost in a completely new mission since this area is soooo different than my past three areas. It's more developed here and a lot more busier. We live in a town house type of thing and there's a big shopping market by our house. The church is also pretty close by which is nice.

I'm also training for the first time and my companion, Elder Esher, is way awesome! He's from Lehi, Utah and he's just ready to work and serve the Lord. The language has been a struggle for him but he's been working hard with it.He wants to be able to get to know the members, but it's hard because of the language barrier. I remember how frustrating it was when I was a greenie with not being able to understand much, but I know he'll get the hang of it over time. 

As for the work, it's been kind of difficult getting things rolling since my companion and I are both new to Bangapi. We've met some of the members already so that's been nice but for investigators, we've been trying to find some new people to teach. We actually had a really cool miracle that happened last night. A new investigator that we met with while inviting came to the church and he seemed pretty interested. His name is Brother Puum. I still don't know him really well, but he agreed on a baptismal date and Elder Escher and I are going to meet with him again on Tuesday. I know that Brother Puum has been prepared by the Lord to receive the gospel and I'm looking forward to seeing him change through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Whitewashing into a new area can be hard, but who said everything on a mission would be easy, right? In 2 Nephi 22:2 it reads "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation." I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much. The Book of Mormon is true and the church has been restored. When you don't know what to do, just trust Him and look forward to the future with faith. Have a great week everyone!

Elder Rawlinson

I'm having issues with getting my pics to show up so these are from Elder Escher. The first one is of the small street our house is on and the second one is from on top of a bridge looking over a busy street in Bangapi