Hello everyone. This last week has been good and full of change. I got transferred to Buriram which is a province on the border of Cambodia. It's a big soccer place because they have the best soccer team in Thailand here. I also had to buy a bike because it's a biking area. I just love biking haha. But it's pretty cool and the weather is cold right now it's all the way down to 80 degrees. All the people here have on coats haha. They speak really unclear here and it's a different dialect so it's really cool. They're more friendly than the Bangkok people. My companion is Elder Manwaring and he also is a transfer ahead of me so we're both really young still haha. It's a two Elder area so it's just us here. He's really cool and he's a white guy from Southern Cali.
So I left my greenie area finally. The members in Rangsit sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again and said they'll miss me, so I'm glad they liked me. Brother Tea left his work to give me one of his omelettes which are so good. But yeah last Thursday I left Bangkok on a bus to Buriram which took 7 hours and made a couple of stops in the middle of no where. The food here is so much more spicy. Our days here are really cool. We actually meet at member's or investigator's houses here instead of the church. We visit a lot of Less Active member houses because Buriram is a ward but only 30 something people go every week. It's really funny. Church starts at 9, and it was 9:08 and there was one person there. Apparently everyone thinks church starts at 9:10 here because everyone just showed up at that time and church started at 9:10. I asked my companion if it was normal and he said yeah so it's gonna be a fun couple of transfers here haha. We're trying to get more priesthood members back to church so there's actually enough people to have a Bishopric and also so we can split the stake and bring the temple to THAILAND! But yeah the members here are so cool and actually make jokes and I sometimes understand them. We were teaching this former investigator and if you don't say his entire full name with his title he'll correct you even during the prayer. I can never tell if he's serious or not. But yeah. That's Buriram.
So this week during my studies, I was studying in Alma 42 about mercy and justice and it's really interesting. Adam and Eve broke the commandments of God so that we can exist and have a body and experience mortality but because of that we need someone to save us because we all sin and are unclean. We can't return to live with God again if we have sin, so He loves us and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to suffer and die for the sins of all mankind and make it possible for us to return to live with Him again. In the chapter it says if there was no law against sin, people wouldn't be afraid to sin. But there is a law against sin and there is a punishment but God is also merciful, so through Jesus Christ we can be saved and clean from sin through the Atonement. We can use the Atonement everyday in our lives. It doesn't cost anything for us. We just have to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness and God is merciful and will forgive us of our sin if we do it with sincerity. He will not remember it. People here don't know this. They don't know they can be clean from sin. They don't have a knowledge that Jesus Christ atoned for their sins and you can use it everyday. You don't have to have these feelings of guilt and shame. Repentance brings people happiness and changes their lives. No one can ever fully understand the Atonement. In Alma 36, Alma was talking about his conversion story and he was talking about how he remembered all the bad things he did and was tormented by them but in verses 18-21 it says:
18 Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.
19 And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.
20 And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!
21 Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.
My faith in Jesus Christ grows each time I use the Atonement. Everyone sins every day. No one is perfect. Use this gift that Heavenly Father has given us and feel the joy that comes through the Atonement. I love everyone and miss you all!!!
Pics:My bike is the red one it's American It's probably fake haha and the other picture explains Buriram.
Elder Decker
เอ็ลเดอร์ เดคเคอร์
Thailand Bangkok Mission
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