Another small miracle

I thought you would all appreciate this sweet letter a man in Shan's ward wrote in response to Breanne's letter today. .....


Sister Roper,

Generally when I receive your letters I just sit and laugh because I can relate to your experiences which remind me of when I served in Thailand a hundred years ago. This week however, your testimony of the Book of Mormon and its importance as a tool in missionary work touched me deeply. I served in Thailand from 1975 to 1977. In 1976 the translation of the Book of Mormon in Thai was finished and went to print. Prior to that, each missionary district had one copy of the Book of Mormon in Thai. It as typed in huge print on manuscript paper (size 11 x 14). It would literally take a wheel barrow to carry the entire Book of Mormon at one time. So, we would take, for example, 1 Nephi Chapter 1 with us and leave it with an investigator and then pick it up a week later and talk to them about what they read and then leave another chapter with them. And so it went. One chapter would be about 30 pages of this huge paper and it was cumbersome and heavy and very difficult to work with. Besides the fact that it was not the entire Book of Mormon. I know that many investigators were put off with this because it lacked any credibility in the form that we had at the time. Then the translation was finished and the Book of Mormon was printed. We had copies of the entire Book of Mormon that we could give to investigators. We could mark scriptures throughout the book and we could open the scriptures and teach from them. The nature of missionary work in Thailand changed exponentially for good. Words cannot express how much I love the Book of Mormon and how appreciative I was and am that I had the opportunity to use it as I taught the gospel in Thailand. I will be forever grateful to Heavenly Father for preparing Sister Silaksana for her chosen calling to translate the Book of Mormon into Thai. I am so grateful for Sister Silaksana specifically, and many others that had a hand in the translation of the Book of Mormon into Thai.
Sister Roper, you ROCK! Thank you for your enthusiasm, your wit, and your love of the Thai people. Most of all thank you for the great love you have for the Savior and for his work on earth which is so clearly evident in each and every letter you write.

Your brother in the gospel.

Jay D Turner
(So that you don't wonder who this strange person writing you is... my family and I live in your sister Shan and Jed's ward in Riverton, UT and met you I believe during your Christmas break from BYU, just after you had received your mission call to serve in Thailand)