This week has been real great. I'm just living the life over here in Thailand, preaching the gospel by day and sleeping by night. It's pretty grand.
Funny story: Yesterday we are in the Branch Council meeting. It has been going for a while and everyone is about ready to be done. And then one of the counselors grabs his briefcase (atache? satchel? #subtlepsychquote #evensubtleralliteration) and pulls out these toy snakes. And then he starts playing with him! He was putting them in his sleeve and stuff. Super funny. It was so random though, all of us elders lost it. His name is B. Chanchai and he is so quirky it is hilarious. I just love watching him talk, he has the funniest mannerisms and does the funniest gestures with his hands. Its awesome.
On Tuesday was E. Grover's birthday. He is now 21. Wow. So we all celebrated with a TimTam Slam. Explanation: TimTam's are these weird cookie things that you can slurp milk through if you bite a 2 corners off (I really want to meet the person that came up with this). But a slam consists of a bunch of people with various milk containers slurping milk through little cookie things (See pictures). It is pretty weird. The actual slurping of milk doesn't work all that well (or I'm just an amateur) but eating the cookies after they are interlaced with milk is sublime. Apparently everyone in the mission is familiar with this bizarre practice...go figure.
The following story is not for children: E. Warren and I were eating Isaan food with some members at this street restaurant one night. It was super tasty. I was loving it. After I was sufficiently stuffed I glanced down at my plate that was covered in some of the broth/sauce/juice/spices from the food. To my surprise and horror, one of the spices got up and walked off my plate. What the! I looked closer and realized it was a bug...#awhnuts. I tried my best to not think about how many of those other spices on my plate were really something else and decided to not examine my food too closely from now on.
This morning, E. Warren and I went to get our haircut. It was an adventure. After 30 minutes of searching we found a place that was open and that knew how to cut men's hair. That's when disaster struck. I don't know about the rest of the world but I always stressed about getting my haircut in America. What do I want? What were those numbers they told me to remember last time? Well turns out I'm even worse at communicating what I want them to do when I have to do it in Thai (they didn't teach me this kind of vocabulary in the MTC!). So after 10 seconds of struggling to get my idea across I gave up and said one number pointing to the back of my head and a bigger number pointing to the top. The result: yikes. To put it simply, people may think I'm a marine instead of a missionary. I guess they both save people, so they will still understand the basics of what I do on a day to day basis.
This morning I was reading in the conference issue of the Liahona (yeah, we call em Liahona's on this side of the world). I read Elder Holland's talk "The Laborers in the Vineyard" and it was awesome. While reading it I thought of Alma 34:32 and thinking about how our purpose in this life is to work in the Lord's vineyard. It doesn't matter what we did with the rest of our day, if we come unto the Lord and work in his vineyard we will receive the same wage, eternal life. The Atonement is supreme! I don't have anything else to say...except that Elder Holland has the most epic closing sentences ever. Suggestion: Read the talk, he says it better than me.
Well...That's all folks!
Much Love,
Elder M. Riley Creer
P.S. Sorry I'm slacking on the letter writing. I'll repent and improve. Don't fret.
hashtags:
This week I answered the phone and the member had to ask which elder it was...#holleratthegiftoftongues
Went inviting. Couldn't find the area where we intended to go. Instead found a neighborhood with 95 houses full of families. #Minimiracle
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