6 more weeks in Sakon Nakon

Hello Family

Hows everybody doing? Sounds like it was a fun week in Laguna. That's funny that you ran into the Beckwiths and the Ponds there. How are they doing?

Well this last week has been interesting. We have had to prepare for the upcoming moves meeting that will be tomorrow. That reminds me sorry for the late email this week. They changed Preparation day this week and didn't tell us until last Thursday so I couldn't give you the heads up before. Anyway, to let you in I'm not moving this moves which is a little surprising to me because that will make it 5 moves here. Which is really unusual for missionaries. So I'm guessing that something might be going down here in the next few weeks that President Smith and the Lord want me to do.

This last week we have been trying to take members with us a lot more to help us teach. I think it helps a lot in more than a few ways. It was really cool as members came with us, they became more and more excited to be able to share the gospel as well as were happy to correct our language and miscommunication which happens from time to time because we don't think like Thai people think. It also helps with our investigators to give them a friend. This week we didn't get anybody to go to church but, we have a few investigators that say they will go next week.

This last week Elder Peacock and I had a time to look back at our goals that we set 6 weeks ago. I always love looking back because it give you a chance to see how far you really have come. In the process of going it sometimes feels that you're not getting anywhere but when you get the chance to look back you see that you have got half way up the mountain that we are climbing. It's funny, sometimes we set goals too high and can't really reach it. For example we had a goal that we would have 20 investigators going to church steadily. We only had 4 for the whole moves. But there are other goals that at first might seem too high like our goal to teach 50 new investigators. We achieved that goal yesterday and we still have until Sunday to go so we could find more. 2 months ago if we would have set a goal to find that many new investigators I would have laughed. It's amazing what can be done in the strength of the lord.

Sorry for the short unorganized letter this week. My mind is thinking on how we are going to get to moves meeting tomorrow. The meeting is tomorrow morning. and it will take at least 12 hours to get there from here. Plus we get to teach English tonight until 8. Its a problem that is getting our Zone leaders thinking as well. We'll figure it out.


So I finally remembered to take my camera with me this week and was able to get some pictures of the rice fields that are everywhere. In the last few weeks every one here in Sakon, whether they are a construction worker or a teacher or a doctor, they all have fields somewhere here in the Issan. This is what they look like after planting the rice. There is also another picture of a little guy that we met who we think is in fashion with his mohawk hair cut. The last one is a fun one. We were biking a few kilos outside of the city and saw this statue that we liked as well as other and thought it would be fun to take a picture.

OK I love you I'll see you all next week.



Elder Brandon John Holt