July 20th Letter

Alright so you are probably wondering why you didn't get an email yesterday. If you are, it is because the president changed our P-day this week due to the moves; however, the lonely pair of elders up here in Nong Khai are not moving, so it doesn't affect us much. But something cool is happening this next week. We are getting a senior couple up here. This will be sweet because they will be able to help out with the Branch, that way my companion and I can do more missionary work and less branch work (in case you have forgotten he is the second counselor in the branch). Our Branch President is currently living in Provo; therefore, my companion has a lot to do – which reminds me, I never told you about our Branch President. He is a United States citizen. He owns a house and a restaurant in Provo. It is called the "Thai (something) garden" you should check it out. If you saw him you could tell him that your son is a missionary in his branch. That is cool about Brady's friend. I'll bet his picture is the first one on our wall. It is really cool that he opened this area. It is special up here, but everybody’s first area is their favorite, so I'm a little bias. I will send some pictures maybe next week. I have a few from my First 2 baptisms!!! YEAH! IT is a couple too which means family, and that’s our goal, Families! But I'm way excited about it. They both had a great experience on Sunday.

Anywho, Back to the email, I will start with that question about the money. I didn't forget i just had a few dollars left over from when I came so I used that to buy a few things, I'm sure I will take some out in not too long. We are supposed to always have a little bit of extra money at home in a safe place incase of emergencies so we can get down to the mission home if we need to. I won't have a problem getting it out; I just need to find some time to go get it. And then mom asked a question about the alligator farmer. He takes the blood from them and sells it for medical research. He is making very good money.

This week has been pretty weird. It was a low week for us with pretty much everything. We didn't have a bunch of lessons and we didn't have a whole ton of people interested in us either. But it is ok, we still had fun trying. Plus we had some really really weird lessons. Our first one was with a guy his name is อาดีสัก (Aadiisak). He is a guy that works in Laos but lives here in Nong Khai (there are lots of these). We sat down to teach him and he got out all his picture books, and started to tell us his life story. He told us about his vacations and then about his work. It was weird. Anyway, we went on to teach about prayer and how it helps us through our difficulties, and he was like "I have a million baht debt, can it help with that?" And we were like "Sure! But you have to work for it too." He then took us to his back yard and showed us these bags (like 20 sand bags) but instead of sand they were filled with gold. (I thought to myself, NO wonder you are in debt.) Anywho we sat back down and tried to teach some more and he brought out a whiskey bottle. We were both like "No! We don't drink" But he kept saying "Bee" We couldn't understand because we thought he was speaking Thai, turned out he was speaking English. The Whiskey bottle was filled with honey. He gave it too us as a gift, for coming and teaching him. He was weird!

And the next cool story from this week is about a guy named สุพกีด (Suphakiid). We went and taught him and his family, and started with a prayer. We are the first missionaries who have taught him and this was our first lesson. Anyway, after the prayer he started to tell us about his beliefs. He talked for like 15 minutes and then started drawing us a picture. He said that he has studied a lot of religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, etc. Anywho, he drew us a picture of what he thought life was all about. We looked at it, and it was almost identical to the plan of salvation. He had different names for everything, and some of the ideas where a little skewed, but he practically drew us the plan of salvation. So we just decided to show him our little card of the plan of salvation. He took one look at it and was like, "This is Correct!" It was amazing. He looked at our card and described what happened at each place. He was flabbergasted that anyone else knows the plan. He took pictures of us because he thought it was so amazing that we knew that Plan of Salvation. It was so funny. We told him that we had been taught this our whole lives and this is what our church is all about. I think he is going to be great.

That is really all that happened this week. It went fast here like I’m sure it did at home. I can't believe I have already been here for 1 move. (6 weeks for those who don't know) I'm sure the next six weeks will go just as fast as the last. (and after that it is 6 months, 1/4 of the mission, This is going to go too fast. Every day has to count!) I'm glad everything is going great at home. Tell Judd happy birthday for me and tell Maren also. And everyone have a happy 24th also. We have a cool holiday happening up here on the 26th. IT is the candle festival where everybody lights candles and sends them down the river. It should be way sweet. Too bad i will be inside sound asleep by the time that happens.

Anywho i love you all. I'll talk to you next week.