Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Christ Lives.  I know it.  He has shown the way to eternal happiness.  Through His atonement we are cleansed but only when we keep His commandments and are baptized.  Our mistakes and sins can be washed clean.  It is possible.  It is possible through Christ, our Savior.  I love sharing this message with others.  It brings me joy.

Much Love.

Elder M. Riley Creer

the only

Pictures 12.24.13

 For Christmas, President Senior gave us what we all really wanted...fancy buffet at the Grand Hyatt.  Oh baby.  All the missionaries in Bangkok in one place.  Crazy.  I pitied the servers.

Our companionship Christmas photo.  

No those aren't our presents.

 E. Campbell and I.  He's now my zone leader.  Yeah buddy.

After the hotel, we went to the church to decorate 

Christmas cookies!  Delectable.

 Nothing classier than sipping eggnog with gingerbread cookies on Christmas Eve.  Especially when it is President's private stash.  #perksofbeinganassistant

Pimpin Shirt...99 ฿  

Creepy Puppet...200 ฿

Buying yourslf an Indie Christmas...Less than priceless,

 just 299 ฿.  Bargain Baby!!

Pictures 12.21.13

E. Pipat!  I saw my trainer at the stake Christmas party.  

He is getting married!  Wow.

Me and E. Suan.  He is from Burma.  They told me to look for a tall and skinny burmese kid at the airport.  Well, he was certainly skinny.  He slipped by us somehow and we all wandered the airport for a while until we finally met up.

E. Davies and I tapping into our inner wolf.

Sending off the จบers.  

These 4 get to open Kamphaeng Phet.  I'm lowkey jealous.  They will be baptizing in a river!  How epic!  I'm bummed E. Davies and E. Bartling are leaving too, it was so fun living with them in the same house.  TimTam Slams out the wazoo!

Asoke 12.21.13

Hey Family!

This week was nuts!  That new area opened.  E. Davies and E. Bartling were sent there.  They are going to have a blast there.  I have a new companion: E. Harris.  He is from Spanish Fork.  He is ripped and an amazing missionary.

To answer your questions Dad, we are assigned to an area.  It is massive.  I'm still fuzzy on where it ends and the neighboring areas start.  But the average week we have time to work in our area, finding and teaching investigators.  Yes, I wish we had more time.  That is something E. Harris and I are going to try and change, getting out of the office faster and into our area.  And Greg Madsen is in the Bangkok North zone.

So this week was transfers.  Boy am I glad it is over.  Here's the rundown of how it went:

Sunday: E. Fronberg and I went to pick up this new missionary from Burma.  He will be serving in Australia but stopped off in BKK to be set apart by President Senior before heading to the MTC in Provo.  He was hilarious and spoke English like a champ.

Monday: We spent all day in the office planning and preparing for the new missionaries and transfers.

Tuesday: We had a training meeting at 10 AM with the new trainers.  Then we helped President finalize the transfers board.  We also remade the transfers powerpoint which took forever.  Instead of sleeping we went to the airport with President and Sister Senior to greet the new missionaries.  5 sisters and 1 elder.  We took them to their hotel and then hit the hay at about 3 AM.

Wednesday: We woke up at 6:30, as usual, and took the new missionaries to get their blood drawn and photos taken for their work permits.  Then we took them to the office for their orientation stuff.  We finished preparing for transfers and left the office for chaengwattana around 12.  I was driving the van full of new missionaries.  E. Marvel was my navigator.  Well, I made the mistake of following the GPS instead of my natural compass.  We got lost.  Way lost.  An hour and 2 GPS destination points later we made it to the church where transfers was held.  Becuase I got hecka dayz lost, transfers started 40 minutes late (Yikes!).  It was a good meeting though, everyone was pumped for their new areas.  After the meeting, we took the dead missionaries (those who were going home) back for dinner with the Senior's and got all the luggage and stuff together for the Kamphaeng Phet elders.  Eventually we got some sleep.

Thursday: We woke up at 2:00 AM to send the dead missionaries off at the airport.  It's always weird to see them go.  We went home and got a few hours of sleep and a little studying in before heading back to the office.  We pulled up, walked inside and walked right back out to load up the van to take some more missionaries to the airport.  Due to visa problems they couldn't fly out that day and would have to wait a few more days.  So we ate lunch with everyone at the airport and then headed back to the office to make some reports.  That night we took the 4 elders opening Kamphaeng Phet to the bus station to send them off.  Amazingly, I found our way home without a GPS or a guide.  Prayers are answered.

Friday:  We had a normal day.  We studied, weekly planned, hit the office for about an hour, then hit the streets to find some new investigators.  I feel like my street contacting skills have atrophied.  I watched E. Harris get numbers after numbers while I got rejections after rejections.  I guess that's why we are together, so I can relearn how to declare repentance and baptism.

Saturday:  We took the missionaries who previously had visa problems to the airport again at 5 this morning.  This time everything was squared away and they were able to fly out.  E. Harris and I got home, fell onto our beds and were out.  The week of craziness finally caught up to us. 

Nutshell:  This week was nuts.  I went to the airport 5 times.  Straight up nuts.

Now we are looking towards January.  The mission's faith flame is stoked for the new year (holler at that imagery).  I know this gospel will roll forth to fill the ends of the earth.  Mormon 8:22.  How lucky are we to be a part of it.

I love you tons.

Elder M. Riley Creer
the only

Pictures 12.14.13

 The baptism!  Phet is the guy, E. Davies baptized him.  His last name was a mile long.  I couldn't help but chuckle when E. Davies asked him what his name was and he rattled off a 9 syllable tongue twister.  Good luck!  I baptized Fon.  She was so scared of going under multiple times.  Before we went into the font she was asking me to do it right the first time so she would only have to do it once.  It went well, only one dunk was required (is dunk too crass?  only one immersion sounds weird though...just insert whatever word you prefer).

The biggest joke of a Christian church I've ever seen.  

It looks exactly like a Buddhist temple.  

I'm sure they get Buddhist people wandering inside all the time.

We sang some carols and hymns at a nearby hospital.  Super fun.

Us postin' up with Santa Bear!  Holler.

Due to unusual circumstances, we had some extra missionaries spend the night at our house.  Total we had 10.  5 were in our room.  E. Bartling is a Tetris champion and was able to make all the mattresses fit.

 We be suit shoppin'.  He be couch droppin'.

Asoke 12.14.13

Hola!

Phet and Fon were baptized!  Yeah!  They both shared excellent experiences about how reading the Book of Mormon and praying built their faith.  They are stellar.  The day after Fon was baptized she called us and told us she wanted to share the gospel with her family.  Her parents are in France and her brother is a province that doesn't yet have a branch.  We'll have to figure out how to get in touch with them.  It is interesting to see the change that occurs in people as they accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This gospel is true.  It changes people in impossible ways.  How lucky are we to be involved in this?  Way lucky.

Behind Enemy Lines:  Wednesday, 1500 hours.  President Senior was thinking of opening a new area in central Thailand.  We found one province that already has a Melk. Priesthood holder there.  So he sent E. Davies and I on a reconnaissance mission.  We booked a flight leaving the next morning at 0700 hours.  The plane ride was uneventful, the greatest threat being the barely edible food they served us.  We landed in one of Thailand's ancient capitals.  The airport was tiny.  It didn't even have a control tower.  Or walls for that matter, the whole thing was open air.  The best part: next door was the zoo.  As I walked off the plane I spotted zebras.  Then giraffes.  A whole zoo.  This country amazes me.  Back to business.  We met our "associate" who acquired a car for us.  He even slapped on a rental logo sticker to make it look legit (ok... it may have been a perfectly legitimate rental car service).  Nobody would suspect a thing.  We drove the 80 kilos to the selected province to begin the recon.  We found our hotel, parked the car there and went for a stroll to scope the area out.  We quickly found Tesco Lotus.  We bought a half-dozen donuts as we perused the place, you know to keep our cover.  Next we checked out the market.  It was big.  Loaded with potential.  Perfect for Operation: Dan Jones.  Then we started the real work.  Finding a possible headquarters in the city.  We asked around.  The word on the street led us to a supreme spot.  Right on the busiest street in town.  We were taking reconnaissance photos when our contact arrived.  He showed us around the town, giving us a good feel for the place.  We checked out quite a few other possible locations before our contact couldn't take the heat anymore.  We took him back to his car so he could get some R&R.  Desperate to find a possible house, we radioed into the Big Guy for guidance (aka we prayed).  Within an hour we found the perfect place.  Close to the proposed HQ.  Close to Tesco Lotus and KFC.  To finish off the mission we headed to the local park.  It was bustling with activity.  After chatting up some locals and gathering some great intel we decided it was time to call it a night.  Suspicious that someone was tailing us we canceled our hotel reservation and drove to the next province.  Pretty sure we lost em.  We found a hotel there, it was a little bigger  and a little less glamorous than a hole in the wall.  Perfect to hide out until morning when our evac would come for us.  The next day we landed safely back in BKK, mission accomplished.  We'll have to wait and see if president decides to open this new area or not.  Transfers are next week...oh boy.  Stress emergency.  Leggo!

Messiah Monday:  The President and Sister Senior took all the elders that work in the office and the senior couples to see Handel's Messiah performed at a nearby church.  The food was hi-so.  I ordered a chocolate banana frappe.  It was heavenly.  Tasty business.  Then we headed to some Catholic church to watch the performance.  The church was ridiculous.  It looked just like a Buddhist temple except with a cross on top.  Talk about apostate.  The actual performance was pretty sweet.  I may or may not have dozed through portions of it, but I enjoyed it.  They had 5 soloists that would sing some stuff and then a huge choir that would come in on other parts.  On the program they described one of them as a countertenor.  I'd never heard of that so I was interested to hear how he sang.  Well when his part came up he stood, opened his mouth and a female's voice came out!  He sounded just like a woman.  Everyone was doing double takes.  Hilarious.  He sang really well though.  We bounced after the Hallelujah chorus.  Fun night.

I got your Christmas package.  Thanks!  Don't worry I haven't opened the wrapped stuff yet. I'll put it under our festive Christmas tree.

My P-day will be Christmas day here.  What time should I skype?  I will be free all day until about 4 PM Thailand time.  Just let me know.

So... I love you all.  A lot.  You are the best.  For real.

Elder m. riley creer

the only 

Pictures 12.7.13

 The 5 December is the king's birthday, so it also becomes Father's day for all of Thailand.  I saw this bad boy and had to take a picture.  Dad...you should grow a mustache.

After a Swensen's run, we saw these bikes hooked up to the lights on this tree.  By pedaling you turned on the lights!  Wicked.

I call this my Limited-Edition-Christmas-Tree-Lighting-Bike-Pedaling face.  Patent pending.

 The view from their balcony.  Whoa.

 Look at that mess!  OH BABY.

A photo with a world renowned conductor plus 2 free books.  Score!

Asoke 12.7.13

Hello Family

The focus of this week was Missionary Leadership Council.  That consumed all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  It was a great meeting and everyone is killing it.  Because of the progress of the mission, President Senior wanted to treat the missionary leaders to a little treat.  So after the meeting we went ice skating!  It was a blast.  We tried to replicate the Mighty Ducks when they tied the team up and had them skate together.  We tied neckties together and rounded everyone up.  We were hoping to go with the "come together and move forward" object lesson.  Well it turns out neckties are not the best thing to use when roping missionaries together...the makeshift rope broke.  So we switched the application to "breaking the bonds of Satan" and called it good.  After the skating we hit up a Japanese meat buffet.  It was delicious.

Good News:  Two of our investigators passed their baptismal interview.  YES!  They will get baptized on Sunday.  Their names are Phet and Fon (pronounced phone with a wacky tone).  They are supreme.

Tonight is the ward Christmas party.  They decorated the entire church building.  The walls are covered in fabric making it look like ancient Jerusalem.  Pretty fancy stuff.  The service center set up a Christmas display in the office lobby that explains the true meaning of Christmas.  It has a candy bowl so I love it.  Hotels and shopping malls are setting up lights too.  BKK is looking pretty festive these days.

This week we went to eat a Thanksgiving dinner at the Ungrangsee's house.  They are in the international ward but invited all the missionaries in our house to dinner.  They live on the 27th floor of a condo high rise.  Pretty swanky stuff.  The dinner was amazing!  They had pumpkin pies!  It was tasty business.  Bundit, the dad of the family, is the famous conductor.  He showed us his office and gave us each some copies of the books they have written (apparently he has focused most of his time on writing inspirational books as of late).  It was pretty cool to see all his sweet conducting pictures.  He even conducted Mormon Tabernacle Choir once!  That means he has made it big time in my book.  They sent us home with an entire pie!  Yeah buddy.

Lately I have been studying about Desire.  I have come to the conclusion that desire is the difference between success and failure, in the gospel as well as life.  I realized that God's desire is focused.  It is specific.  He wants one thing: for us to have eternal life with Him.  Everything our Heavenly Father does relates back to that root desire.  His desire is so strong that He is willing to do anything to accomplish His goal.  Even send His only Son to redeem us, making God's goal and design possible.  Looking at successful people, they are filled with a similar desire.  Similar in the fact that they are driven by their desire to make sacrifices in order to achieve their vision.  Of course their sacrifice doesn't compare to the sacrifice of God but the idea is the same.  When we desire something to the point where we make sacrifices to get it, then we can be successful.  God grants us our desires, whether they are evil or good is up to us (Alma 29:4).  So I guess what we need to ask ourselves each day is "What do I truly desire?"  and then go out and rely on the Lord in making it happen.  That concludes my inspirational message for the week.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Life is good.  The Book of Mormon changes lives.

Much Love.

elder m. riley creer