hello family!
This week has been nuts...but totally AWESOME!
Before I get into the good stuff I have one last humorous experience from
the MTC. It involves E. Gibbons. He was trying to switch his empty plate with
E. Harley's full plate while E. Harley was blessing his food. The switch went
off without a hitch and E. Gibbons thought he was in the clear but then disaster struck. He put his arm down next to his tray to block E. Harley's view of the stolen goods and in doing so he bumped his plate which started this ridiculous chain reaction (plate-->salad bowl-->water glass-->apple juice glass) resulting in his 95% full apple juice glass spilling towards him. The apple juice tidal waved over the lip of his tray soaking his lap. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt and some of the juice even went up his sleeve. It was priceless. Right after it happened he switched plates back with E. Harley, I guess he decided it wasn't going to have the same comedic affect if he kept the plate. So from E. Harley's perspective he had a plate of food, he blessed his food, opened his eyes, still had a plate of food and E. Gibbons was dripping in apple juice. So funny. And to make it worse, we were about to host new missionaries and your pants are supposed to match your suit coat. So after he changed pants, E. Gibbons was tripping that he was going to get busted for having unmatched pants.
Ok enough of that amateur MTC stuff. Monday: We left the MTC at 4:30 PM.
Flew from SLC to LAX. Waited in LAX for a couple hours then flew to Hong Kong (14 hours). Wednesday(Tuesday somehow disappeared): arrived in Hong Kong, chilled for a couple hours and then flew to Bangkok. we did some boring paper work stuff, got our blood drawn at a sketchy medical clinic, ate dinner then slept at the mission home. Thursday: we went to the moves meeting. My companion is named Elder Pipat (he's native (yes!)).
Because of Song Kran (giant water fight that is somehow a national holiday) all the buses were filled so we chilled until 8 then went to the bus station and chilled some more (until 10).
Because of the holiday everyone was traveling to see family so the station was
nuts, that's why we had to show up 2 hours early. So we get on the bus at 10
and drive all night to khon kaen (my area). Having two 14 hour journeys within 2 days of each other is horrible (not recommended). Friday: So we got to Khon Kaen and went to our house (it rocks!). Then we did some inviting and stuff and some studying. Saturday: SONG KRAN! the best thing ever. It is the Thai new year or in other words a 3 day water fight. Because everybody is in the streets playing missionary work is pretty impossible, so the mission president lets us play too! We (E. Pipat, E. Leyva, E. Grover, and I) met some members and bought some cheap squirt guns and then cruised the downtown area where all the madness was. It is like new year in Vegas, they closed down some streets and set up huge stages (one every couple hundred feet) and put barrels of water in between the stages. People go nuts! You are hearing like 7 songs at once constantly getting wet or powdered, it is mayhem. So to explain the powdering: I don't know why, but people get baby powder and water in their hands and come up and rub it on your cheeks. And since E. Leyva, Grover and I are farangs (white people) they all wanted to get our faces. It was nuts. So we left the madness at 5 and went back to our casa (curfew is pushed up to 6 for song kran, apparently it gets very sketchy at night).
Sunday: went to church, had to bear my testimony (yikes), had to read in the gospel essentials class (double yikes). After church the members fed us and had a fireside. Then we tried to go inviting. Because it was still Song Kran (Fri,Sat,Sun) it was sort of useless. Everyone was on the street partying. You'd see pick up trucks with beds full of people with a barrel of water and bowls splashing pedestrians. Because I'm a farang they would drench me and not even touch E. Pipat. We saw some teenagers try to do a wheelie on their scooter...bad news bears. They tipped backwards and crashed, both of them went rolling. They were ok though. Who tries a wheelie with someone on the back? Crazy kids. But since inviting was useless we went to visit a member's husband in the hospital. So different than american hospitals. No desk to check in at, no visitor's pass required, it was all access! We just walked in, wondered the halls until we found the right place and talked to the member a bit. The room was full of hospital beds and sick people. Some looked like they might die at any minute. I have never seen such sadness in one room. Be grateful to have good health and live in America where our impoverished are upper middle class in Thailand.
So about being able to speak Thai...definitely can't. I don't understand
anything that is being said to me. Some people will try to speak english to me
which is even worse because they're accents are so bad I think they are speaking Thai. In the end we both become confused. Having a Thai companion is sweet though, he showed me how to make Thai food already. Communication is hard but I already feel like I'm improving (just a tad). All in all, Thailand is sweet, hot but sweet. I love it. The food is great, nothing too crazy yet. E. Pipat is super sweet, I am the first farang he has trained so this is new to him too.
I love you guys!
With Swag,
Elder Matthew Riley Creer
The Only
Hashtags:
#Greenerthanakiwi
#FavoriteThaiPhrase: ไม่เข้าใจ (means "I don't understand")
#MightJustStayHere
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