Great Minds Battling it Out, and I Have a Front Row Seat

สวัสดีครับ! Sawatdee kap!

Another great week at the MTC that totally flew by! I'm starting to really build a relationship with my savior and the Book of Mormon. Way more than I have before.

NEW ARRIVALS

More missionaries! We got a ton of new missionaries in our branch, so now our floor isn't so empty haha. We have an English district and missionaries heading to Finland and Denmark! It's not Thailand, but those are some pretty awesome missions. I also got to host foreign and early arrival missionaries on Wendesday! I got to help Elder Baker from Jamaica. We got to go to the student health center and get him a chest x-ray, so I got a free field trip haha. Sister Lewis from Aspen Grove just got up here too! It's a grovie takeover.

POOSONGJAIS

We got to teach a new investigator this week! We taught Brother Doe (Brother McRae's Thai-dentical twin). He was christian already so he knew more about the gospel to start with than Brother Game. We got him to commit to go to church! We also taught Brother Game about eternal life. At the TRC's we taught the same members, but this time I understood so much better! We talked about the Book of Mormon and shared what it meant to us. This was a much better TRC than last week.

PASAA THAI

We've been learning a lot more Thai, and we're shooting to learn 20 words a day still. It's super difficult to get to, so I haven't quite gotten there yet haha. But It's been super fun to learn about and I've really been enjoying our language classes. In sacrament meeting, I bore my testimony in Thai and the Holy Ghost totally made words come out of my mouth before I could even think of them. It was so cool! The gift of tongues is so real.

BALL WITH MY BROS

At gym time, we've been organizing a really awesome 3 on 3 thing. I'm still on fire, and my teams have been winning a ton. We keep on balling and I'm making sure not to get injured haha. Elder Thaxton had a really bad ankle sprain during volleyball yesterday, so he's been out since then. Because of his injury, I got to give my first blessing! It was awesome, but I was so nervous haha. I'm sure my shaky hands didn't help his experience. But basketball in the MTC is the best and that's all I have to say about it.

NAO MAAK!

Holy cow it got so cold out of nowhere. Someone must not be paying their tithing. It's been so cold that it hurts to go outside at times haha. We got some snow for a day, and there are some missionaries in our branch that have never seen snow before. They were much happier about it than I was haha. There were lots of snowballs thrown and tiny snowmen popping up everywhere haha.

PRAKANPIMORMON

I've been reading a lot in the book of Mormon this week. And even watching the new episodes of the Book of Mormon videos (Nephi's wife kissing him was definitely the biggest shock of the MTC so far haha). I finally got to 3 Nephi 11, when Jesus visited the Nephites. It's the first time I've ever been so pumped to read. Kinda a cool story, All that day, my hands were freezing cold. Nothing I did helped the situation. We got to personal study time, and the second I started reading, I felt this warmth all throughout me. Yes, even my hands haha. Not sure if it was the spirit of a coincidence, but I like to believe it was the spirit and it was great.

DEBATES OF THE CENTURY

Elder Thaxton and Maetani have been getting into a lot of debates, and I honestly don't know if I've ever been this entertained in my entire life. Elder Yang and I get to be audience members/occasional participants haha. Some of the topics of debate have been: Is there a difference between a minivan and an SUV, do we need toes, is it inhumane to kill in war, would sports be better if the participants were robots, and a few more that I'm not sure I want to mention on my group email haha. Elder Thaxton is almost always right, or at least rational, and Elder Maetani likes to say crazy things and is too stubborn to change his mind. It's so funny. It's amazing. We're selling tickets to this week's debates, so if you are interested, email me.

LAST THINGS LAST

-Shoutout to BYU for beating Utah State this last week! Proud of the boys in blue.

-For Halloween I dressed as a Canadian, which basically means I dressed how I would any day haha.

-We actually had Thai food this week! It wasn't amazing, but it was better than nothing, right?

-Kolua Pork too!! Tasted like home, even though it wasn't quite as good (Kinda noticing a pattern here).

-Elder Maetani burnt some popcorn in T2 during study time, and we had so many people come downstairs and go "ok who burnt popcorn in here?"

-Love ya heaps, y'all.

Elder Barrett

1. The Book of Mormon in Thai (yeah, I know)

2. Grovies on Halloween, eh?

3. Kalua Pork. We have been blessed.