Christmas, Baptisms, and the Giggles

Elders Sowards, Gibbons, Smith, Watkins, Winsor
sitting with the entire high school student body 

Joan and I gave our Christmas presentation at three schools this week. Each went well for the most part. The most challenging was in an open covered building. The sunlight was so bright it washed out the screen so our slides could not be seen. They had put up two large plasma displays but one didn’t work and the other was also impacted by the sunlight.  In our presentation, we use pictures to help the students understand Christmas. A picture is worth a 1000 words and we didn’t have time or their interest to say enough to describe our pictures.  We did what we could but felt very defeated. After we were finished, the elders sang The First Noel and spoke a little to the group and made the students laugh--which saved our show! As thank you gifts for coming they gave our group two gift baskets of Veta vitamin fruit drink.

Saturday morning a mother, daughter (age 12) and grandson (age 9) were baptized.  It was very special but we had one unexpected happening. After the two speakers finished, and before the baptisms, an investigator stood up in the back of the room and asked if he could say a prayer for the people being baptized. I was conducting and my initial thought was it couldn’t hurt as long as he didn’t say anything improper in the prayer. He gave a wonderful prayer. 

In Sacrament meeting Sunday we had the three confirmations, a letter from a counsellor in the mission presidency, three speakers, and two musical numbers--which was all too much for one hour. The first musical number "Silent Night" sung by three ladies--one started giggling, and then they all were giggling by the end of the song. The elders sang The First Noel beautifully. All three speakers had to shorten their talks. I felt bad having to ask them to cut their talks short. We sang only one verse of the closing song and was still over time.

McD's in Thai culture

Another highlight of the week--we found a drive-thru McDonald's near Ayutthaya--one of the few DT McD's in Thailand. Yeah! A taste of home.