Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Khon Kaen 5.14.12

Hey Family!

It was great to be able to see you and talk to you! Our family rocks!

This week has been great. I went on exchanges with E. Leyva on Tuesday. He is awesome. He and I are super similar too. It's weird. He's from Nevada too (Sparks), he does martial arts, he is SCUBA certified, he went skydiving, he loves the show White Collar. We are like identical...except he's much more ripped than I. But it was a good day, he is way funny. We taught some lessons with B. โอ (pronounced O) and then ate KFC with him. Then we did some zone conference preparation business that wasn't too exciting. But it was a fun day.

This week has had a lot of canceled appointments though...it has been kinda rough. A lot of our potential and new investigators dropped themselves too. It was a little discouraging. But then I read in Alma 26:27. Boom, spiritual encouragement. It was great. After one day of a lot of cancellations E. Pipat and I splurged and went to McDonald's for dinner. It was delicious. We met this Italian guy that has been in Thailand for 20 years! Crazy. Then we met this guy from Michigan who has been here for 3 years. His Thai knowledge level: .5. I felt like a champ knowing that I have been here for a month and could already speak better than him #holleratthegiftoftongues.

Thursday we had zone conference...5 hours of it. But it went so fast and was so good. I really enjoyed it. To make things better they gave us ice cream...in a cone. Yeah buddy.

Sunday, E. Pipat was able to see how I feel in almost every lesson. We met this farang (from London) and he invited us in to tell us the story about how he met his Thai wife (apparently he thought it was a good one). He was a really spiritual guy...sorta. He had studied a lot of religions and knew a ton about them but was covered in tattoos and drank and smoked. But he prays all the time, he said he just pours out his heart. It sounds like he has an awesome relationship with God. But his family relationship is in the garbage, he said his mom basically hates him. It was pretty sad. But E. Pipat was trying to share a scripture in english. He was introducing one about how God gives us trials to test our patience and then the farang says, "I don't really understand what your saying..." and looks at me. E. Pipat was in shock. So I translated the broken english to normal english and then read the scripture. It was pretty funny. E. Pipat got to experience the frustration I get all the time when I say something in Thai and the investigator just looks at E. Pipat waiting for clarification. It is super humbling when it happens. But Anthony wants us to come back so he can read the Book of Mormon, I think he just wants to read it so he can compare it other religions though. Hopefully the spirit will touch him though and he'll realize this is different.

That pretty much sums up my week though...

Oh nuts! I forgot about the service project on Saturday (pictures to follow). So we chopped down some trees in front of the church. It was sweet. We used one of those saws that most people only use at boy scout camps or pioneer experiences (yeah they still use those in Thailand). And then we used these machete things that were SICK! They chopped through anything. But my favorite part was the beginning...we're just standing there looking at the tree we're about to cut down and this guy takes off his flip flops, ties a rope around his waist and just starts climbing the tree. He climbed that mess like a monkey! It was crazy. But then someone tied a machete to the other end of the rope and he pulled it up and started lopping off branches left and right! It was awesome. Then he tied some ropes around it so we could guide it when it fell. Then I got to tag team the trunk with a member and the ancient saw. It was pretty epic.

That's all I got. Thailand is awesome. My mission is awesome. The gospel is awesome.

Pound it. Kiss it. Peace it. Slap it.

Elder M. Riley Creer
The Only

hashtags:
#theprideyoufeel when your grandma puts a hashtag in her email to you. #MyGmaIsHip
Feel like I'm living in a McDonald's commercial...#ImLovinIt




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