Riley pictures 11.26.12

 E. Schad rocking the knit sweater vest. He is just too classy.

 This is a soap bottle...that is promising me more happiness and fashion. I love Thailand.

 Feliz navidad! (with translation)

The Christmas decorations are up!

 Our journey to find Laos: P-day. We made a plan to go to the friendship bridge between Laos and Thailand. E. Tzanis and I were going to meet the other elders there after they dropped off their groceries. They decided to stay at home and sleep. So we went anyway. That's the bridge in the distance.

  We're So Far Away...from Laos (Subtle song quote). After a longer than expected bike ride we saw a crazy toll gate with growling guards (exaggeration? Yep.) and decided it wasn't worth it. So we stopped by this sign and captured the moment of our failed journey. Maybe next time we'll actually get on the bridge.

With our P-day coming to an end as the sun dropped below the horizon we decided to go fishing instead. We made a quick stop at a market to acquire a fishing pole, some hooks, and some pork sausage balls and found a nice spot on the river to drop our line. Apparently fish hate the pork sausage creations even more than we do because we didn't catch anything.

Nongkhai 11.26.12

Dear Family,

How is life? Your Boston trip sounds sweet. How is the Spanish branch Jeremy and Katie? I'm sorry you can't go skiing this break Sam, but have fun working! Where are you working these days? Mom and Dad, I love you.  Other Christmas ideas: Mormon Tabernacle choir CDs. Or a thumbdrive/ipod with Motab on it. We can only listen to Motab so don't sneak any Dubstep on there (unless Motab finally released a techno remix).

Surprise of the Week: Sunday. Sacrament meeting starts in 15 minutes. The 2nd counselor comes out to the foyer and asks me for some help. He then asks me to speak in Sacrament meeting. The speakers didn't come. He says 10 minutes...nuts. I say ok and start preparing. Luckily, 2 weeks ago we had to prepare a 2 minute talk for the mission tour. So I just lengthened that bad boy and was golden. Normally when I'm asked to speak I start freaking out. I get cold sweats, hot sweats, my tongues swells up, dizzy spells, and even cardiac arrest (name that movie). But this time I was really calm. Maybe because I'm already a white sheep in a field of black sheep so it doesn't matter what I do I already stick out. I ended up speaking for 15 minutes (reading in Thai eats time up like pacman and those ghosts) which is longer than I have ever spoken in English.

This week we are starting a Spiritual Fast. We are fasting for 40 days from the things that poke at our spirit, from our natural man tendencies that impede the Spirit. It should be great. We read a great talk in district meeting about it, it helped the missionaries who did it keep their eye single to the glory of God and as a result they were able to become true instruments in the hands of God and witness miracles. One thing I'm giving up is beatboxing. It will be tough but I think the Spirit will be able to influence us a little better if there isn't a bumping bass emanating from my mouth as we ride to our next appointment.

My favorite scripture of the week is Jeremiah 29:13. I found it while studying for this Spiritual Fast. It talks about how we find God when we search for Him with all our heart. When we search with all our heart, we are willing to give up good things, things that we love (aka beatboxing), for better things. Yep.

Well Life is still marvelous and I still love you all.

With love the size of a double big mac (yeah they have those here (I don't know how the little thai people can handle it though))

Elder M. Riley Creer
the only

Riley pictures 11.19.12

  A weird tree at a chinese temple...couldn't resist taking a picture. #Flexin.

 A chinese dragon going hard in the paint.

Action shot!

A recent convert's little boys. They are tyrants. But I'm way jealous of their sweet pants.

Nongkhai 11.19.12

Dear Family,

What's up?!

Questions: Sorry I didn't answer your question mom, I just need contacts. I can get solution here. As for turkey, probably not. I don't know if Thai people know what a turkey is...let alone eat them. Maybe we'll splurge and go to pizza company. Pepperoni is close to turkey right? The language is coming ok. I can understand most of what people say, unless they are speaking a lot of Isaan or just straight Lao then I'm done for. People seem to understand me too so that's pretty good. I'm definitely not pro, I still make mistakes when I speak or mess up some words. But for the most part, the language is going pretty well. 

This week was pretty good. We had a mission tour meeting in Udornthani, and then district conference right after. Elder Watson of the Seventy and Asia area presidency came. He is pretty funny. But I learned a lot about how important the Book of Mormon is in missionary work. I haven't been using it to the fullest in my teaching. The Book of Mormon isn't meant to be something we can use to spice up a lesson or as an optional side dish. The Book of Mormon has the fullness of the Restored Gospel, so it needs to be the main course of my teaching. They emphasized a sentence in Preach My Gospel that says the Book of Mormon with the Spirit is our greatest tool in conversion. If we read the Book of Mormon accompanied by the Spirit with Investigators, they will have to fight to stay out of the font. The Book of Mormon is marvelous.

Oh no moment: E. Barfuss got back from the mission tour meeting Saturday night. The investigator we had planned to meet wasn't free. Backup plan: Soapbox. We went to a market not far from our house with the intent of soapboxing. Looking back I realize we didn't think this plan all the way through...yikes. But we get there and scope the place out looking for a good spot to post up and preach the gospel. We couldn't find a good one. We decided we'd bring something along to stand on next time (aka a box) and just talk to the people by the scooter lineup. After talking to this cool cat, I turn around and see a pullcart. My mind instantly flashed back to the picture in PMG of Dan Jones standing on a too-similar-to-be-coincidence-looking cart preaching the gospel. Perfect. This was it. I told E. Barfuss to stand on one side so it didn't move as I stood on the other and valiantly proclaimed salvation. We mounted the cart. It started moving. A thai lady started yelling. Everyone else began staring. I got off. E. Barfuss regained his balance as the cart came to a rest. I handed him the Book of Mormon and told him to go for it. The thai lady is still yelling. He says, "We teach about..." The thai lady is still yelling to get off her cart. So he gets off and we peace out. In the end, we soapboxed 3 words. "We teach about!" Talk about a cliffhanger. I bet there are twenty people who have been wondering what it is that we teach about all weekend. They just have to wait until the next episode.

Well I love you all tons!! Life is good. Thailand is amazing.

Much Love

Elder M. Riley Creer

The Only

#Hashtags:

When your companion is holding a picture of President Faust and asks, "Who is this guy?" #thathurtstheteam

#NextPdayactivity: Make a paper airplane. Fly it to Laos.

Riley Pictures 11.12.12

  Three classy men sitting on a bench. Enough said.

 Some people see an old bed frame that will sit in the corner collecting dust. I see the perfect tie rack with even room for expansion. I see things differently. It's a blessing...and a curse #namethatsleuth

  The house.

The district. Oh by the way, that is Laos in the background. Lowkey awesome.

Nongkhai 11.12.12

Hello Family,

I am now in Nongkhai. I was transferred. From Chiangmai. Aka I fell from heaven. Just kidding, but leaving Chiangmai was pretty rough. Actually both E. Campbell and I were transferred. He was ticked. It is his 4th area in 5 transfers. Wowzers. So I still have not had a companion for more than 1 transfer...I guess I am just too much of a trouble maker or something. But Nongkhai is sweet. It is right on the border of Thai and Laos. Aka I walk outside our door, look left across the river and I see Laos. It's pretty awesome. My new companion is E. Barfuss. He is from Detroit, Michigan. He just finished training. He loves the people here.

Highlight of last week: Monday. P-day. We get a call Sunday night from the Zone Leaders. A member wants to take us out to eat. Yeah buddy. It gets better. She takes us to a hotel...with a buffet...with ice cream. Now we're talking. So all 8 of us missionaries stuffed our faces. It was money. Pause, it gets better. That night the district president wanted to take E. Campbell, me, S. Roper, and S. Stolworthy (the sister mish in our branch) to the Dukes for dinner. The Dukes is mega #tastybusiness. So of course we accepted. It was delicious. Nutshell: We ate 2 awesome meals on Monday and didn't have to pay a cent. Holler at those generous members baby.

After that epic day of eating, we had English Class on Tuesday. It was NUTS. It was showcase week, which means we go hard in the paint with the planning and preparation and play more games than actually learn English. Well we made it Halloween themed and had 4 rooms with different activities that the students rotated between. We had a cookie decorating room (pumpkin style), a scary maze, a story room (Legend of Sleepy Hollow), and a Halloween fruit basket game. We thought we had it all nailed down. Then we saw how many people came. 123. There was 5 seconds of we're-done-for type thinking before the let's-go-hard type thinking set in. We went hard. It was sick. Tons of the new people were interested to learn more about the gospel. It was legendary (as E. Barfuss would say). Then the next day I got transferred. Dang.

About Nongkhai: Our house is sweet. It's a 4 elder house (E. Tzanis and E. Schad are the other two). Our beds are HUGE. We're talking queen size here folks. It is great. The downside is the shower. I feel like I can draw the water from a well faster than the pump shoots it out of the nozzle. Way worse compared to the brand new shower we had for 2 days in Chiangmai (shame it was only 2 days). The branch here is smaller than Chiangmai, about 40 came yesterday. The members are way willing to help us though. After church a member told us she wanted to take us to see her friend. So we grabbed a male member and away we went. We drove through a sketchy Buddhist graveyard, a pygmy village, and a tunnel with HUGE bats. We get to her friends house and teach her about Heavenly Father, prayer and touch on baptism. She accepts a soft baptismal commitment saying she'll get baptized when she knows it's true and then prays to close. Solid. If all the members here are like this sister then Yahtzee!

About E. Barfusss: He is pretty funny. He says the word legendary a lot. He played soccer for BYU Hawaii (sponsored). His Thai is typical of someone on moves 3, but the members rip him apart for it. He'll get it though.

Well life is great. Nongkhai is pretty sublime.

Love you tons!

Elder M. Riley Creer
The Only

#Hashtags:
#Psych! Didn't really see a pygmy village...or a tunnel with large bats.
Problem: too many ties. Solution: make a tie rack...#ghetto style.

Riley Pictures 11.5.12

Oh baby.

 

 This hurts the team. You think if they were gonna engrave it in stone, they'd make sure it was right first.

This is what happens when the zone leaders forget to pay their electric bill. #slumberparty

Chiang Mai 11.5.12

Hello people whom I love...aka My Family

This week was great as usual. We had hecka dayz people come to sacrament meeting yesterday. 90! it was nuts. There was 5 people that we've never seen before that just walked in. It was sweet. The church is certainly true. People are being drawn to the gospel everyday. It was an answer to much fasting and prayers to meet the people the Lord is preparing to receive the gospel.

Sam had a mustache?? Since when? I'm thinking of growing one out here in Thailand, I think it would go well with my fat 70's style ties (Just kidding. But I think I can probably grow a real one now, not just that wimpy pedro-stache I had before). Sam, I'm glad you got some full tilts of your own, we'll be the fly-est kids on the mountain...in another year or two. Katie and Jeremy, good luck with your talks. Pray hard. Then open your mouth. It will be filled. That's what the Lord tells all day long in the scriptures, so it must be true. Dad, the lady whose tree E. Heslop chopped up was still going to church when I left Khonkaen. She was a great member and forgave and forgot I think. 9 aprons mom?! Are you sponsored yet or what? What are you going to do with them? To answer your question Dad, yes we are currently refilling our investigator pool. The english program here is helping a ton! Last class we had 37 new people come. 19 of those people were in our area. 11 of them were interested to learn more about the gospel. #thatswhaticallmoneyinthebank. We were super blessed. But that's what happens when you pray, you receive blessings.

Trials and Tribulations: We all of trials. This life is full of them. Some of them are minor: stubbed toes. Some of them are major: having no hot water. There aren't many things that are like a cold shower in the morning. There is absolutely nothing that comes close to a week and a half of them. It is awful. I've come to dread the morning shower. We hunted down our landlady the other day and she said it will get replaced soon. I don't think she understands the seriousness of this issue...we are freezing every morning. I'm pretty sure E. Campbell is starting to show signs of periodic hypothermia (pretty sure it's a real thing). #blessingindisguise: It only takes me 3 minutes to shower (aka all I can endure), leaving me plenty of time to read inspirational Liahona stories.

Enduring to the end: We were inviting. Trying to find those who God has prepared. When we started we said we'd invite for an hour and a half (until 4). At 3:45 we had not had been able to get into a house yet. We we tired, disappointed. I asked E. Campbell if we should just start our next activity early. He said we should finish the last 15 minutes. So we said a prayer that we'd find someone. We mounted our stallions and rode out of the side street we were in. Across the street was a car wash with no customers. We stopped, invited them, then taught them. Return appointment? You know it. Prayers are answered. The Lord leads us when we ask for it and listen.

Life is good. I am happy.

Elder M. Riley Creer

The Only

#Hashtags:

#Thingsthatdrivemenuts: broken kickstands

When an investigator tells you his church is just like our church, priesthood authority and all. #awwnuts

Package requests: contacts. I tried to buy the stuff they have here in thailand...yeah bad idea. I can't think of anything else...sorry. I'll ponder