02/21/11

Oh mom! I just love ya so much! So I have felt that way lately... I was in church just yesterday and I thought to myself, "why am I so darn happy?" It's almost as if nothing is hard right now. I got worried and even a bit scared. I thought to myself that there's probably no warning sign more significant than this one to a person who's "on top of the world" and has realized it. If one doesn't work even harder once they've come to this realization of just how blessed they are; then they will inevitably fall, be confused or angry and think to themselves, "why me?" "Remember, Remember" are the words of so many prophets. They aren't just asking us to remember, they're begging, they're pleading...please please just remember the Lord, acknowledge your blessings and never quit working, never get comfortable. That was perfect. Thank you mom. I agree that the principal of sacrifice is slipping away. Not with us! I hope we will continue to sacrifice all we need to to propel this work forward in whatever ways we can.

I'm glad all is well there. You're lucky you got to see Hannah Ames and her mother. She's  pretty special. 

I love it here. We are teaching a lot of people. The family that just came from Thailand is one of the main families. They are tough because they have a lot of relatives pulling them away from the church. They are the ones that also sponsored them to come over to the states so it's making it real tough on the family who wants to begin believing in God. The daughter expressed to a member who gives them rides a lot of places that she wanted to be baptized so we went over the next day and got a permission slip signed by her parents because she's not 18. It was intense.. They're supportive they just want her to know how significant the decision is. They even said afterward that if they see it as something good then they too will be baptized. The whole family is so neat but Mai Houa, the daughter, is just so in tuned. So we're saying our prayers and trying hard to be obedient to secure all the blessings we can. Only the daughter has been coming to church. The rest of the family gets a call from the old culture relatives every Sabbath to go do something so we set up a breakfast at Dib Lis' house and I made french toast, pancakes and such. They had never eaten these things before. We did it so they could be over there just before church so if anyone were to call them then they weren't home:) Well they didn't end up coming to church but they enjoyed the food and we were able to share some ideas from the Book of Mormon, we're going to keep trying whatever it's going to take. Sister Lor and Sister Lis are the best member missionaries. They are involved in almost everything we do. They care about the work so much. It's neat. I'm learning so much Hmong right now. It's kinda hard, at times I feel like I'm going backward because it's like a tornado of confusion in my head ha. It's great though. We have the best ward mission leader as well. I'm not kidding. He helps us out so much and it makes it so much nicer to have a solid connection between us and the ward so we can get help from them. Life is too good right now and I'm grateful.
Please hug and kiss everyone for me and know that I love you all so so so much.  Love ya mom. Tell my dad that he means more to me then I could ever explain. Same goes for the rest of the family. Thanks for being great.
Love Elder Paramore
PS Tell Landon that he's in my prayers and that I think of him often. I love him and I hope he knows that.