The Book of Mormon has many uses.

August 1, 2010
Well, It has been an interesting week. I have never invited so much in my entire life. That includes Asoke. We have been having a lot of fun though. We have a big map of our area and we have started throwing a marker at it and then going to wherever the marker hits and inviting all day. Quite an adventure. We haven't had a bunch of success. We were able to sit down and teach a couple lessons but most of those people have already been crossed off. We are just waiting for the families to start pouring in. With all of this inviting, we have got to find someone to teach sooner or later, right? We are still teaching Pon - the lady I told you about last week. We set a baptismal date with her this week. She is really awesome. But then she didn't come to church yesterday because she is having some family problems and didn't feel like it. Oh boy. Can you just throw me off a balcony? We are going to have to work on that one. She is still a pretty brand new investigator so I will forgive her this once. But that was a bummer. I think she will be fine though. We had some promising investigators fall through. We met a lady on Tuesday that let us come in her house and teach her a little lesson and said we could come back on Sunday and teach her and her husband. She is from Myanmar. We were really excited about her but then she called and said that her husband has a problem with Christianity and wouldn't let her see us again. Bummer. But don't think I am discouraged. I am actually not - I feel great. We are just inviting and inviting some more and figure that something will happen soon. It just means that this email might be a little bit boring and a little bit shorter because you can only talk about inviting for so long.
Sister Chambers and Sister Pet are an awful lot of fun. (p.s. Sister Pet is still here.) I just want you understand this little human being. She is hilarious and makes for interesting days. We are considering sabotaging her visa so she has to stay with us. President Smith would be really mad though. We found out that she is only the second Thai ever to serve in New Zealand. The first Thai was the branch mission leader in Din Daeng so I know him too. She is also only the second missionary to go out from her branch. So she is pretty awesome. She makes fun of our Thai all the time so we are excited for when she goes to New Zealand and can't speak English. Sweet justice. I just wish I was there to see it.
As for close encounters of the week, Sister Pet very nearly got eaten by a dog. There aren't a ton of vicious dogs here - we haven't really had any problems. But the other day we were walking down this narrow little street and we had just gotten rejected by four people in a row and then this dog comes out of nowhere and goes for Sister Pet's leg. Thanks, Satan, for kicking us while we were down. Luckily Sister Chambers hit it with her Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has many uses on a mission. The dog didn't get sister Pet but we were all a little freaked out. That same day, we were talking to a guy who said it sounded interesting but he didn't want the BOM because he was lazy. You could tell Sister Chambers was getting really agitated. After we finally gave up on the guy and walked away, she was like - "you guys need to hold me back. I just wanted to smack him with my BOM and ask "Do you love your family or not?" I think that captures the feeling that we feel a lot - we just get a little frustrated when people don't see what is staring them in the face. When people reject us, we like to make up stories about the seeds that we have planted. They usually go something like this: "He just threw it (meaning the pass along card) in the garbage can but his neighbor is going to come and pick it up and look at it and think it is a pretty picture so they will take it home and put it on their mirror and then their daughter will see it and call the phone number and the missionaries will teach her and she won't be interested but they will invite her neighbor who will learn the gospel and get baptized and become an area seventy after being the first stake president of the second stake in Thailand." It keeps us going. One of these days, it will happen, I am sure. I am just waiting for the general conference forty-fifty years down the road when one of the apostles shares his conversion story - he was handed a pass along by Sister Webb and Sister Chambers! And they didn't even know it but he was converted a year later when he found the card sitting on his car seat. Yay!
:-) Love you all! Sara