Great opportunity for service, but the pictures break my heart.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
November 21st Letter
Hello family.
Well this week was not as interesting as last week. I just spent my whole in the Elder’s house next to the mission office. We went on splits with them so we were able to do missionary work, and that was fun. I went 5 days in a row without teaching a lesson so it was a nice break to go out and talk about the gospel again. It seems weird but when you aren't teaching (even though you may be very busy doing service) you still feel very lazy.
I guess I will tell you a little about the service I did two days ago. This time I got to get up close and personal with the flood. We took a bunch food kits and packed them on boats and then went around on the boats handing them out to the people who are stuck in their houses. It was pretty different riding boats down the road where you usually ride cars. I got to see a lot of different people that where experience extreme hardships. I think the service will be a good thing because where we did that is my area right now. So, when we can go back out and find these people after the waters go down, I think they will be really interested in the gospel after they saw the service that we did. I can't wait to see the results of that.
This last Sunday we went to church in my area, It is called Bang Bua Thong(in case you can't remember). Anyway, there were only 14 people at church, 5 investigators, 2 missionaries, the branch president and about 8 kids. Elder Shipley lost his voice so I got to say both the prayers on the bread and water. We didn't have any speakers or anything, it was everyone’s very favorite kind of sacrament meeting – one that is only 20 minutes long, jealous? While we were in our area for the last two days we went and looked at our apartment to see if it was flooded. It turns out our apartment is like an island. Everywhere is flooded except for within 100 meters of our house. So we decided to go and move back in today, I'm pretty excited. I will be right in the middle of the flood, but still dry. It will be way easier to go out and serve people too because they will be closer. So I told you that I was going to tell you want I needed in my package today but it turns out that the things I need, I kind of need them today – like gym clothes and what not, you know, things I can go out and work in. I don't really think I need you to send me anything, but I think I will take that money out of the account. Don't be surprised if I do that, but don't worry I will be frugal.
Dad I want you to ask Brady if he knows an Elder Adam Bradshaw. He either served a mission in 2006 or finished in 2006, but I think it was around the same time period as Brady. Anyway, this guy is now living in Thailand teaching English. (he is the guy that planned that service activity in the boats), and we had some time to talk to him. It turns out that he is inactive, more than that he says he doesn't really believe anymore. He is a really nice guy, I just can't figure out how this happened, he was only a missionary 5 years ago. Anyway I was just wondering if Brady knew him?
As for the questions about the zone. The only person in my zone I think you guys will remember is elder Lesueur. And it is a lot of fun having him around, but he is trunky so it makes me kind of trunky. Anyway right now our zone is the 2nd largest, we have a lot of people in our zone. The only problem is right now most of them are working in other people’s areas or zones. But I think everyone will be back to their own area and what not within the next week or so. That will be good.
This Thanksgiving we will be spending it with the Gibbons family. Elder Shipley and I and 12 other missionaries, I'm pretty excited. Elder Shipley and I want to get them to do a turkey bowl, but we are not sure we can get that passed off by President Smith, but it will be worth a shot. I 'm sure he will just laugh at us. I hope they have real turkey. I really want a good thanksgiving dinner.
Anyway, I can't really tell if this is a short letter or a long one but I think this is all I have. I love you guys. Thanks for your letters. I have lots of pictures but I'm not sure if I can send them this week, if not hopefully next.
Movies: Home Alone and I don't know maybe The 6th Sense. I have no Idea what the theme is.
Well this week was not as interesting as last week. I just spent my whole in the Elder’s house next to the mission office. We went on splits with them so we were able to do missionary work, and that was fun. I went 5 days in a row without teaching a lesson so it was a nice break to go out and talk about the gospel again. It seems weird but when you aren't teaching (even though you may be very busy doing service) you still feel very lazy.
I guess I will tell you a little about the service I did two days ago. This time I got to get up close and personal with the flood. We took a bunch food kits and packed them on boats and then went around on the boats handing them out to the people who are stuck in their houses. It was pretty different riding boats down the road where you usually ride cars. I got to see a lot of different people that where experience extreme hardships. I think the service will be a good thing because where we did that is my area right now. So, when we can go back out and find these people after the waters go down, I think they will be really interested in the gospel after they saw the service that we did. I can't wait to see the results of that.
This last Sunday we went to church in my area, It is called Bang Bua Thong(in case you can't remember). Anyway, there were only 14 people at church, 5 investigators, 2 missionaries, the branch president and about 8 kids. Elder Shipley lost his voice so I got to say both the prayers on the bread and water. We didn't have any speakers or anything, it was everyone’s very favorite kind of sacrament meeting – one that is only 20 minutes long, jealous? While we were in our area for the last two days we went and looked at our apartment to see if it was flooded. It turns out our apartment is like an island. Everywhere is flooded except for within 100 meters of our house. So we decided to go and move back in today, I'm pretty excited. I will be right in the middle of the flood, but still dry. It will be way easier to go out and serve people too because they will be closer. So I told you that I was going to tell you want I needed in my package today but it turns out that the things I need, I kind of need them today – like gym clothes and what not, you know, things I can go out and work in. I don't really think I need you to send me anything, but I think I will take that money out of the account. Don't be surprised if I do that, but don't worry I will be frugal.
Dad I want you to ask Brady if he knows an Elder Adam Bradshaw. He either served a mission in 2006 or finished in 2006, but I think it was around the same time period as Brady. Anyway, this guy is now living in Thailand teaching English. (he is the guy that planned that service activity in the boats), and we had some time to talk to him. It turns out that he is inactive, more than that he says he doesn't really believe anymore. He is a really nice guy, I just can't figure out how this happened, he was only a missionary 5 years ago. Anyway I was just wondering if Brady knew him?
As for the questions about the zone. The only person in my zone I think you guys will remember is elder Lesueur. And it is a lot of fun having him around, but he is trunky so it makes me kind of trunky. Anyway right now our zone is the 2nd largest, we have a lot of people in our zone. The only problem is right now most of them are working in other people’s areas or zones. But I think everyone will be back to their own area and what not within the next week or so. That will be good.
This Thanksgiving we will be spending it with the Gibbons family. Elder Shipley and I and 12 other missionaries, I'm pretty excited. Elder Shipley and I want to get them to do a turkey bowl, but we are not sure we can get that passed off by President Smith, but it will be worth a shot. I 'm sure he will just laugh at us. I hope they have real turkey. I really want a good thanksgiving dinner.
Anyway, I can't really tell if this is a short letter or a long one but I think this is all I have. I love you guys. Thanks for your letters. I have lots of pictures but I'm not sure if I can send them this week, if not hopefully next.
Movies: Home Alone and I don't know maybe The 6th Sense. I have no Idea what the theme is.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
November 15th Letter
What is up?
Wow, today the keyboard that I am using is really bad. The space bar and the “A” key don’t work very well. If it is a really bad email I am sorry. This week has been really interesting, I was sent up to Lampang on Monday. I got up there at about 4am on Tuesday, and nobody was waiting. I had to borrower some random person’s cell phone to call Elder Shipley. Apparently, they went to the wrong place to get me. It was an interest start to an interesting week. We pretty much did nothing but inviting for all week, but that is ok because I spent the week with a greenie so I got to teach him a lot of stuff which was fun. We also had "Loy Gratong" which is a big Thai holiday. That was way fun in the north. Anyway, I stayed in Lampang until Saturday then we came back down to Bangkok because on Monday we had a Zone Conference with Elder Gong, we don’t travel on Sunday. Yes, I'm still a Zone Leader with Elder Shipley. It is kind of weird because we don't have an area and our zone members are spread out all over Bangkok. Everybody just switches off with the people they are staying with so they can get the area down. Pretty much our zone has the worst key indicators in the world, but that is ok because we are still doing a lot of service, which is just a different kind of key indicator. Yesterday I filled up bags of clean water at a water cleaning facility so that people in the floods would have something to drink.
Right now Elder Shipley and I are sleeping in a church because there is no room in any of the houses which is kind of fun, but really hard to shower. We just fill up buckets of water and dump them on ourselves – iffy huh? Today we had a zone sports day to try and lift everyone’s morale (everybody is feeling really down because nobody is teaching and so everybody is either doing service or knocking doors which is hard); however, it should get better. Everyone got rejuvenated. After today, Elder Shipley and I have no idea where we are going. Our area is still under water so they won't send us there, we might be going back to Lampang, but they don't know yet, probably just another night in the church.
As for Elder Shipley and I, we get along great. It was really cool not having to do the whole get to know you again. It was like just being sent to be companions with a really good friend. It is going really great even though it is kind of chaotic.
President Smith gave me a good compliment yesterday in our interview. He said he was glad that he has somebody experienced like me in this zone. At least he considers me experienced these days, I think that is improvement!
Anyway other than that news I don't really have a whole lot to say. It was a good Zone Conference. It was a good week, yep all in all it was good.
I hate how short my letters are getting but I have been typing really slowly because of the bad key board. I think this is all you guys are going to get this week. It sounds like you have had a good week.
I will think if I need anything and tell you next week. By the way the popcorn from popcornopolis didn’t travel well and was pretty bad, I couldn't really eat it at all; however, it was a good thought.
Movies – maybe The Village, and something else like Phantom of the Opera, I can't tell. Sorry, I know this is supposed to be an easy week, but I feel really unsure about both of those.
Tell Maren and Jessie I'm sorry but I don't have time to write this week.
I love you guys.
Wow, today the keyboard that I am using is really bad. The space bar and the “A” key don’t work very well. If it is a really bad email I am sorry. This week has been really interesting, I was sent up to Lampang on Monday. I got up there at about 4am on Tuesday, and nobody was waiting. I had to borrower some random person’s cell phone to call Elder Shipley. Apparently, they went to the wrong place to get me. It was an interest start to an interesting week. We pretty much did nothing but inviting for all week, but that is ok because I spent the week with a greenie so I got to teach him a lot of stuff which was fun. We also had "Loy Gratong" which is a big Thai holiday. That was way fun in the north. Anyway, I stayed in Lampang until Saturday then we came back down to Bangkok because on Monday we had a Zone Conference with Elder Gong, we don’t travel on Sunday. Yes, I'm still a Zone Leader with Elder Shipley. It is kind of weird because we don't have an area and our zone members are spread out all over Bangkok. Everybody just switches off with the people they are staying with so they can get the area down. Pretty much our zone has the worst key indicators in the world, but that is ok because we are still doing a lot of service, which is just a different kind of key indicator. Yesterday I filled up bags of clean water at a water cleaning facility so that people in the floods would have something to drink.
Right now Elder Shipley and I are sleeping in a church because there is no room in any of the houses which is kind of fun, but really hard to shower. We just fill up buckets of water and dump them on ourselves – iffy huh? Today we had a zone sports day to try and lift everyone’s morale (everybody is feeling really down because nobody is teaching and so everybody is either doing service or knocking doors which is hard); however, it should get better. Everyone got rejuvenated. After today, Elder Shipley and I have no idea where we are going. Our area is still under water so they won't send us there, we might be going back to Lampang, but they don't know yet, probably just another night in the church.
As for Elder Shipley and I, we get along great. It was really cool not having to do the whole get to know you again. It was like just being sent to be companions with a really good friend. It is going really great even though it is kind of chaotic.
President Smith gave me a good compliment yesterday in our interview. He said he was glad that he has somebody experienced like me in this zone. At least he considers me experienced these days, I think that is improvement!
Anyway other than that news I don't really have a whole lot to say. It was a good Zone Conference. It was a good week, yep all in all it was good.
I hate how short my letters are getting but I have been typing really slowly because of the bad key board. I think this is all you guys are going to get this week. It sounds like you have had a good week.
I will think if I need anything and tell you next week. By the way the popcorn from popcornopolis didn’t travel well and was pretty bad, I couldn't really eat it at all; however, it was a good thought.
Movies – maybe The Village, and something else like Phantom of the Opera, I can't tell. Sorry, I know this is supposed to be an easy week, but I feel really unsure about both of those.
Tell Maren and Jessie I'm sorry but I don't have time to write this week.
I love you guys.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
November 7th Letter
Ok, Dear mom and dad,
So this is going to be a short letter for sure because I might have to go soon. Turns out that I am moving today, and my new companion will be Elder Shipley. You probably remember that I was with him a lot in Thonburi because Elder King went home early. Yeah we are now going to be companions in a place called Bang Bua Thong. It should be pretty sweet. The only problem is that Bang Bua Thong is one of the areas that is currently evacuated because of the flood. So I will be going and spending a week or two up in Lampang first. That is up in the northern part of Thailand. I doubt I will be there that long before I come back to Bang Bua Thong. That area is right above Bangkok, and it touches Thonburi. That will be a fun area I think; however, I think i will probably be a pretty slow start because there hasn't been anyone working in that zone now for 3-4 weeks. It will be like opening a new zone. I'm kind of excited even though I didn't really want to go.
As for this week I really don't have a lot to talk about because we didn't do a whole lot. We just taught the people we have and tried to find a couple of new investigators. We kind of had something cool happen though. We have been teaching these two Old missionaries from a different christian sect, and we got them to attend church this past Sunday. It was there first time not going to their church in forever. I think that they are dissatisfied with somethings that are going on in their church so they are more and more open to our church every day. Also this week, Eaw was confirmed. She gets along great with the members. She already has a part in the christmas program that will be going on here. I think the ward is doing a great job with fellowshipping the investigators here. It has changed so much since when I first came. The ward really likes the missionaries now.
As for the other two elders in those pictures they are the two other elders in srinakarin. They are Elder Hess and Elder Patterson. Elder Hess is from Tremonton, Utah and Elder Patterson is from Arizona somewhere small. We didn't do a whole ton of service this week but we did spend a whole day helping with those 10000 blankets. We had to unpack them, put church fliers with them, pack them back up, and then load on to trucks and stuff. That was cool and fun. There was a KSL news reporter that came to do a report on it she was taking some video. Maybe if you look hard enough you might see a video of us doing the blankets on KSL.
Anyway I'm sorry this one is short but I have some packing to do, I need to leave in about 2 hours. I love you guys. Have a good week. Dad, I hope you your back gets feeling better. And mom, I hope you aren't too sore from doing the table. If it is any consolation I got pretty sore from doing those sand bags so I know how you feel.
Talk to you next week
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