Tuesday, May 28, 2013

This Sunday We Had Thirty Or More Burmease People At Church

Hello everyone,
 
This week has been a great one as usual. I hope your Memorial day was great! Ours was pretty great! Brother Warren came down so we went to the park with him. He brought some Southern Carolina Barbecue that was very yummy! We played football, baseball and volleyball and just enjoyed ourselves. He also brought a guitar so I got to play it for a while. All 7 of the Elders In Lumberton were there so it was very fun.
 
We had a lot of fun this week teaching the Burmese. We found 5 New investigators that are all from the family that moved from Washington. They are really awesome! They all came to church as well and really enjoyed it! This Sunday we probably had 30 or more Burmese people at church.
 
Teaching the new family has been challenging because they don't speak very good English and it is extremely hard to find a translator during the time of day that we teach them. They were referred to us by another family that we teach. We are teaching really simply and are trying to use a lot of visuals. They really enjoy the lessons and told us that they want us to come every day to teach them! We are really excited and hopefully they will continue to progress toward baptism. When we teach English, we usually just do it from the Book of Mormon. We have them read a verse and then we explain what the words mean. We also have some dictionaries in Karenni that we use. All of the Burmese people work at a Chicken processing plant, where they work really long hours and are worked pretty hard. Usually by the time they get home they are really exhausted. They are really thankful for the employment though.
 
You asked if I was able to pray in Karenni. I have a pretty funny story about that. I know Ive told you a few stories about my sleep talking and sleep walking. Elder Knight has now experienced it as well. He said around 1:00 a.m. I got up and just stood still for about 5 minutes. He then said that I got on my knees and prayed. Once I finished praying I sat up on the bed and started speaking in Karenni. He said that I was saying the days of the week in Karenni. I am still learning to speak, but I know how to pray and also how to say a few phrases that are important while teaching. I'm still hoping I can learn more before I leave here.
 
We had an awesome miracle this week. It is about our investigator Aye Meh who is preparing for baptism on the 15 of June. She understands very little to no English. Last week we went over the baptismal interview questions with her. We reviewed all of the commandments that it asks about (law of chastity, word of wisdom, Sabbath day observance, and tithing). She seemed to understand everything fairly well. She seemed to have a desire to receive blessings that comes from keeping the commandments. On Sunday, she came up to us with a tithing envelope and said that she wanted to pay her tithing. She did not want to wait until after she was baptized in order to follow Gods commandments. She is a good example to me in showing faith.

Congrats on all of the good things going on back home!! I am always really excited to hear what is happening with y'all. I cant believe everybody is getting so old... Josh is driving and Bri is graduating??? It is really crazy how fast time is passing. I hope y'all had a great holiday and I bet you are looking forward to summer. Have a great week!

Love Elder Mortensen


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