4/27/15 - "MAYracle"

This week was like a roller coaster, lots of ups and downs! At the beginning of the week it was apparently the hottest it has been in more than 55 years! And to make the situation even better our AC was broken. I literally thought I was going to die! We would come home at night and before planning we would stand (in our dresses) in an ice cold shower and get completely drenched to cool us down! I have never experienced heat like that in my entire life! I think that God realized we were dying so he sent us rain for the whole weekend!

A cool thing that happened this week was that our new investigator is a movie star! We sat down with him and the members with us were all shocked because they have seen him in movies! He has such a great desire to learn and wants to change his life! I am excited to continue to work with him!

On Wednesday we had a MLC meeting to get us all ready for MAY! We have this goal to have every companionship have 4 baptisms in the month of May! It is going to be called "MAYracle"!!!! After that meeting I was so pumped to work 1000% and achieve this goal! We spent the next 2 days delivering this message to all the districts in the zone! (Going to all the districts made me realize how old I am! I was the 2nd or 3rd oldest out of the whole zone ewwww!!!) I was so excited, full of hope and ready to just work harder than I ever have in my whole life!

Then Friday hit and things just started crashing down! At about 5PM we were supposed to have a baptism for Sister lugbla but she ended up calling me and freaking out because her boss wouldn’t let her off work. Then at the same time 15 other people decided to call me with a huge load of problems, all of them wanting us to fix the problems! And to make it better some of the YW were having some problems and pulled us to the side and just bawled their eyes out. That night I just prayed and prayed that I would be able to help his children! I don't know how much helping I did but I tried my best! lugbla didn't get baptized that night and rescheduled it for Saturday. Saturday came around and she came to the church bawling because her parents wouldn't let her get baptized. It was so sad because she has wanted this so much for so long! Satan is just working so hard on her... it breaks my heart. We just have to remember that God has a plan for her and will help her. Keep her in your prayers!

We have this other investigator who is SO amazing! She lives 3 hours away and has major back problems but still comes to church! She wants to get baptized but the only problem is that she is married but not legally. They would get married legally through the government but the problem is that her husband has declared bankruptcy and if they get married through the government she would have to pay all his debts…and they would lose everything. It was so sad talking to them at church yesterday. They were telling me how they have been "married" for 30 years and all they want is to be members of this church! We are currently in the process of figuring something out so they can enter into the covenant with God! Pray for them as well please! We also have this really cute investigator who is 17 and literally learned everything before she started learning with us! She wants to follow God with exactness!

One thing I have really been thinking about this week is EXERCISING faith! For example in our goal to get 4 baptisms per companionship we can have 100% faith that it will happen, but if we just sit there and don't put in any effort and only have faith nothing will come of it! "Faith without works is dead!" Earlier this week Sister Forte and I came up with some goals and thought, "Great, we are going to achieve every one of these goals!" Three days later we looked at them and realized we had not been doing anything special to achieve them. We realized that exercising faith is really putting in all your effort towards the Lord’s will. For us that meant making measurable little goals to achieve our big goals! When we exercise our faith instead of just having faith, God works miracles! I know that this is true because I have seen it in my own life and the lives of the people in the scriptures! We need to go and DO!

For p-day today we are going to go to a zoo! I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for all your love and support! LOVE YOU ALL!!!

-Sister Herrmann

PS We aren't allowed to take taxis anymore so we have to be smart and use #thaicitytransportationlife. It has been super interesting but super FUN! Wow, I am sitting here crying in the internet cafe about Moki and her cancer diagnosis. It is so sad. I really didn’t think she would actually die while I was gone. She is such a part of our family, I can’t imagine life without her.

The official name of Thailand is really long!