Hey, only a week until Mom's day

Hey สวัสดีครับ family

Hows life going? This week I'm still alive and kicking!!! Anyways this last was a lot of meetings. Well really there were only two, a fireside and a meeting, but it did seem like I was out of my area a lot this week.

Anyway, first off, last Wednesday we had the Church History meeting for the missionaries. What it was, was that two representatives from the Church History department, sorry I can't remember their names, and Elder Pratt. One of the members of the Seventies for the Asia South area, were touring all through Asia, because it has never been done before. The purpose was to gather information to write a history about the church. So as they went they also wanted to help the missionaries by giving them better understanding of church history and it was all uncut, for whatever that means. Well there were a lot of cool things asked, like what is the Church's take on the Mountain Meadow Massacre. The assistant to the church historian, who has written two books on it, said that he thinks its the worst thing that happened in church history, by far. That's why he did so much research on it. He added that in. He thinks the main cause of it was, members being inpatient and not following council. In the end it ended up being a mistake covering up a mistake covering up a mistake, until it lead to the massacre.

I personally asked about some anti-mormon material that I had received in my firty (first?,mom) area about the Book of Mormon. I asked about the how many changes the Book of Mormon had, why it was changed and what did the changes do to the Book of Mormon. My answer was that there were changes in printing the first addition for short, mostly grammar changes, but there is a book put out by BYU that has every change in it. He said he didn't recommend me to look it up unless I like looking at English stuff because it was boring for him to look at it. Maybe I'll look it up for fun

They followed talking about what we should do if we find anti-mormon, The historian just advised remember what they said and the answer will come up later. For example, he said that in the past those who were against the church tried to prove the Book of Mormon wrong based off the sword of Laban being built out of steel in the bronze era where there was no steal forging. Well after 10 years they found a sword in Jerusalem that was made at the same time period that was made out of steel. He said this happens all the time. I also learned a interesting fact. The church has the worlds largest archive of Anti-mormon material in the world. That's because of a commandment in D&C that they are to keep everything against them for a record.

After Elder Christensen and I took a trip to the hospital. Not about me or him really. But Elder Christensen had to get a check up from a trip about 3 months ago. We went to one of the worlds best hospitals, it felt more like a hotel really. We walked in to the bottom floors and there was a complete food court with McDonald's and Subway. I could get sick there and wouldn't mind. Anyways it gave me a thought that maybe if I decided to learn further then being a firefighter then maybe I will look for a internship here in Thailand. It would give me another reason to come back.

Last is we had a leadership training meeting that I had to go to. Its all about the Simplified curriculum that is supposed to start this month in the MTC. I'm kind of sad that I won't be here for the next year. Because I was here when we started learning all this stuff last June and after a year the mission has turned upside down from what it use to be. I can only imagine what the missionaries will do to it next year.
I'll see you next week on skype and maybe explain the snake pictures.555

Love you

Elder Brandon John Holt