Best week so far

I found a way to print off talks but it’s the biggest pain. Don’t
worry about sending them every week, but if you get the
conference report and can send it I would love it!

I’m so glad to hear the family is doing great, and that the swine
flu hasn’t killed anyone. People are always walking around with
masks on here too. It’s ridiculous how angry everyone gets about
it. It’s as though, if you won’t get a shot, or wear a mask (as
in your case too) people act as though you had insulted them,
their family, kicked their dog, and scratched their new car. It’s
so humorous at times and I love it.

Persecution is the greatest! It’s probably bad but I get this crazy
rush every time someone (usually white people) yell at me and
tell me to “Go back to where you came from!”   The first thing
that comes to mind is heaven, that’s where I came from, and
then I try to bring them along with me. Oh it’s great!

It’s kinda hard to learn one language when a lot of the time I’m
trying to understand another one. In any given lesson I usually
hear Thai, Laotian, and Eason which is a language mixed with
tons of others and is just crazy. The crazy thing is that a lot of
the time I can understand parts of all of them. There is a good
chance I will be able to understand a couple languages in a
couple more months, crazy crazy!

This past week was the greatest week ever we have had so much
success: members, investigators and comp unity.  We had a
companionship inventory (thanks dad) and we resolved some
stuff and now we're on fire and I love it. A couple days after we
were going to go trackting and we didn’t know where to go.
We knelt down and prayed and then as soon as we stood up and
walked over to the map we instantly knew where we needed
to go. It’s hard to describe, the spirit told me exactly where
to go, down to the street we needed to go on, it was like I saw
the time of day too, it’s like it was a snapshot of us in this road
in the later evening. I know it was the spirits prompting so we
went. We found interested people over and over we usually
don’t get that many people in a week; and all of this because
someone was willing to listen. The experiences I’m having here
are unlike any other, and I wouldn’t trade this time for
anything.

So, last night we went to the church to meet a member, after
talking for a while he came with us to see in investigator. As
we pulled up to his house he jumped up and I instantly knew he
was drunk, but he insisted we come into his house so in we
went. I took off my backpack and sat down. He started talking
about who knows what, his thoughts were jumping
everywhere. We knew we weren’t going to get anywhere
with him so we tried to leave over and over, but he wouldn’t
let us. Finally after telling us about how desperate he was for
money and how he wanted to give our book back (Book of
Mormon) he stopped for just long enough for us to say “we need
to go, thanks” and we broke for the door, he came staggering
after us trying to talk without hitting into things. We left and
went to dinner. After about an hour I realized I didn’t have my
backpack, and that I had over 2,000 bhat of money, a camera,
credit cards, and visa. I was scared out of my mind because he
needed money and his friends too. The member that was with
us went back on his motorcycle, I was thinking through
everything that might have happened. Canceling all my credit
cards, new camera, all the money for the house…gone. As I was
in a state of despair and saying lots of prayers he returned with
the bag. Everything was there I guess it fell under the table and
no one had seen it. Scary! Answered prayer for sure.

Well I’m almost out of time so I’d better finish. It’s starting to
get into the cold season which means not as HOT, people are
starting to wear jackets and stuff and were still sweating like
crazy. It really does feel a lot better though, I love it.

I can’t think of anything else you can send other then peanut
butter, as much as you can ;) jk. Send me whatever; any form
of American food is good.

I love you all and pray for you all of the time, keep it up
Love Tyrel (Elder Parkinson)