James the Liberian Man.

When I first posted on my blog I promised to share my spiritual experiences as well as my crazy adventures. That's why I'm posting this blog.

I was supposed to go to Koh Sumet, a tropical island paradise, with a friend this weekend. Everything seemed to go wrong though and we were never able to leave. Instead, on Saturday, we went to this huge outdoor street market with almost anything you could ever want. I was in heaven!

Saturday night I went to go hang out with some friends from the ward in downtown Bangkok (about 45 min from where we live.) I hopped in a taxi and hoped I would be able to find them when I got there since I had no idea what they were talking about when they explained where we should meet. I arrived before them so I just started walking around by myself looking at all the little street booths; there was lots of foot traffic and tourists around so I wasn't too worried about it. After a few minutes though I noticed I was being followed. The culprit? A black guy who had said hi to me when I first started walking down the street. I noticed when he said hi that he had turned around and started walking the direction I was walking. He passed me up but never strayed too far in front of me. When I turned around so did he, and when I turned around again, so did he. I was getting slightly worried so I stopped in front of the tourist police booth and waited for my friends. It was then that the man approached me.

His name was James, a twenty-seven year old man visiting Thailand from Liberia. We stood there talking until my friends arrived and a flood of relief washed over me. In all honestly he seemed harmless enough but I would much rather error on the side of caution. When I introduced him to my friends Brigham invited him to come and hang out with us for the night. I didn't see any harm in that as long as we were in a group. We went to this super nice lounge were Brigham could get us in for free because he's a model (don't tell him I told you, he prefers to tell people he's a "marketer"). As we were sitting there talking, sipping our non-alcoholic drinks, I explained to James how we all knew each other because we attended the same church. Then I told him he could come to church with us today if he wanted. He did.

So, today James came to church. Man did it take me back to my mission and having an investigator at church; praying that they won't mind the fact that they have no idea what the members are talking about 80% of the time. Especially when it's someone who's had no preparation, no missionary discussions, hasn't even heard of the "Mormons" until the night before. Yeah, maybe I should have prepared him for that.

I really enjoyed going to the gospel principles class for investigators. Today the lesson was on the gospel of Jesus Christ: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End. It took me back to the basics and reminded me how simple the gospel is.

During class, reading the scriptures--especially the Book of Mormon--was brought up. I asked the teacher/missionary to explain to James what the Book of Mormon was so that James would have a better idea what we were talking about. Then my friend Diana pulls one out of her bag and gives it to him. "I always keep an extra one with me" she explains. How awesome is that? What a great example. I felt bad because I don't even have a hard copy of my scriptures here, all I have is my nook. We marked the introduction for him and a few other scriptures and invited him to read it. I hope he does.

All in all I think James enjoyed church. Hopefully I can get him to come again sometime. I think he is traveling around this week but he's staying in Bangkok/Thailand for 2 months so hopefully he'll be around sometime. I'm sure we'll at least hang out again. Anyway, it was just a cool experience. I don't know if anything will ever come of it but maybe a seed was planted...a seed that might not have been planted if I had been able to go to the island this weekend. That almost makes me feel better about not going...almost.

Anyway, this upcoming week should be an adventure. Tomorrow I am taking some corporate customers from the states up to the factory about 2 hrs from here. I haven't made it up there yet so I'm excited to see it. We also have a big food fair this week here in Bangkok so that should be a fun change of pace.

I hope all is going well back home. Ya'll should feel free to drop me an e-mail anytime :)

P.S. I have a couple of pictures from last night but I'll have to post them later. I'm out of time for now.