Happy Birthday America!

Hey all!

Well, first off I need to wish America a happy birthday! That was fun to celebrate here in Thailand. We sang all the "American" hymns in the Hymn book and did a TimTam Slam :) It was way successful. Okay time to jump into the past week.

Monday. Pretty much a normal P-Day around here. Email, grocery shopping for the week, writing letters and the sort. We spent the rest of the evening inviting around a neighborhood. We only got 4 potentials out of it which was a little disappointing. All in all, it was a fun day! I am so thankful that we get a day to slow down a little and "restart" for the next week. Kind of like "defrag"ing the hard drive each week.

Tuesday. That was a very long day! We had Zone Conference. We left the house at around 7:30 in the morning and didn't get back until around 6 in the afternoon. The conference usually only goes from 9 to 1, but we had interviews afterward with President Smith, and I was the last one to go. Overall it was a very awesome conference. We found out what we needed to do to get a temple built here before I and President Smith leave Thailand (since he has been here for a year and they are called for 3 year missions). We need to concentrate a ton on finding families. We should essentially have 75 people with dates (15 families of 5), and then in 2 years, a temple should be announced. We have A LOT of work to do. We also had English class again. That was way fun. It is another time when we can take a little break. But not too much. Some of our best investigators come from the English program. So no lessons and no potentials at all that day.

Wednesday. We taught only 2 lessons that day. And found only 2 potentials. Kind of a slow day around here. We had DDM and since Elder Elwood is District Leader, he gave the lesson. It was way good! We taught 2 investigators whose dates are the closet to coming. They were way awesome lessons. Not much else happened.

Thursday. Another slow day. We taught only one lesson and found only 2 potentials. Not a lot of success. Elder Elwood and I feel it is just a test of our faith by the Lord. We also had long planning in the morning. That took about 3 hours to finish.

Friday. Well, this week has not seen a lot of success. Only 1 lesson, but we did find 6 new potentials which was better than usual. I almost got eaten alive by 5 dogs. That was quite the rush. It started with just one dog rushing me and me trying to scare it away and then 4 other dogs joined to star down. And then the owner came out and yelled them back into the house. All during this time, Elder Elwood is on the phone with an investigator. It was way intense. Something with animals and missionaries just doesn't mix...Don't worry mom, I am okay. No bites :)

Saturday. Ugh. No lessons and only 3 potentials. It was a very hard day. All of out appointments were dropped and Elder Elwood has been a little sick. It has been a little of a downer for us.

Sunday. A very good day if I say. We had a good fast and testimony meeting and we had 4 investigators at sacrament meeting, and 1 come later. It was way good. I asked one of investigators after the 1st hour how he felt and he said he felt way good inside. It was so awesome! So we had 2 lessons that day, and found 3 new potentials. One of the lessons we taught was with a new family. It was way interesting. In their home, there was no "phra" or Buddhist stuff around. It was completely empty of it. So I hope that that is a good sign. Had dinner at a members house and that was way good food!

Well, this week has been hard, but this next week will be better!

Love and miss you all,

Elder Ackerman