This week was all over the place. Not just a figure of speech, we went to Roi-Et again. I also had 3 different companions this week (4 if you count พระวิญญาณบริสุทธิ์). And I met my nemesis, the toilet lizard.
NAH FAM, WE AIN'T ABOUT THAT
We met a ton of new friends this week, but I'm going to focus on อ๊อบ, because he is easily the most interesting. One day, as we were biking to meet one of our investigators, this crazy drunk guy called us over. In Thailand, people kinda just get drunk whenever. Gives us some pretty funny experiences. But he told us that he's Muslim and he wants to quit smoking and drinking and be a better person, so he invited us to come back and teach! We also met this family who had a huge pile of dirt in front of their house and we helped shovel it in! Apparently it's protection against flooding. But they were so hard to understand. Elder Thorn leaned over to me and said, "I think he's speaking straight up Lao!" But yeah we may come back and teach the mom because she's way nice!
SWITCH IT OFF, SWITCH IT OFF
We are coming close to the end of my first transfer, and we had yet to do any switch offs within our district. So we fit some in haha. The first one was with Elder Dollery. This is his last transfer before he heads home to Australia, so his Thai is already so freaking good. We went and taught ก๊อบ, the crazy drunk guy. He was still drunk as ever and holding a cigarette and we told him that if he held it, we wouldn't teach him. At the end of the lesson he threw his lighter on the ground and Elder Dollery stomped on his cigarette. He said he likes to hold cigarettes because it makes him feel cool. So we broke off a twig from a tree and told him to hold that instead. He said, " this is way cooler!!" Love him haha. While we went to meet someone else, we took a quick bathroom break and met toilet lizard, which was pretty much the scariest thing ever. Elder Dollery scared it and it swam back in and we never saw it again. We headed back home and Elder Dollery's tire exploded. As we were walking back, his front tire off and hanging on my handlebars, a nice family picked us up and took us to a bike shop which was co owned by a member! We ended the night sharing some groovy tunes on our guitars. Switch off number 2 was with Elder Foushee. He was in the MTC for a little with me so we're both pretty fresh out here. But every lesson, I was so freaking blessed. We were totally understanding questions and answering them. Thai is way hard, but sometimes it's not. Understand? Me neither. But we totally got across everything we needed to. Heck, I even made two members laugh at the end of the night. Whether that was because my jokes were funny, or I just suck at Thai is yet to be determined. At lunch, we met someone at the restaurant who told us that he was a christian, so we gave him a Book of Mormon and got his Facebook, so stay tuned. We had a cleaning party at the church and we all ate pizza at the end. Elder Thorn and Elder Dollery sneakily saved some pizza for the missionaries because they had to leave early, so dinner on Sunday was pretty good. Did I eat 8 slices of pizza, you ask? I really can't say, but yes.
MIRACLES? YES, PLEASE
We've been teaching มุ๋, the guitar guy that we just found out today we've been spelling his name wrong this whole time, and he is so on board and ready and excited to be a part of the church! We've been teaching him the commandments and he just loves it all! Yesterday, we taught him about tithing. As we explained how to do it, he took a tithing slip and said, "I'll fill it out right now!" I love the enthusiasm, but he's not quite a member yet haha. เงี่ยม wanted to come to church really bad, and we got her a ride! So นุ๋ wasnt the only investigator that came to church! In the second hour class, someone asked a question and นุ๋ got up and answered. I was thinking, "heck yeah that's my boy right there!" Then another question was asked, and right in front of us, it's เงี่ยม answering!! Heck yes!! Elder Thorn and I did a secret fist bump under the chairs. We had an area 70 come, so we had an extra hour and a half of church haha. Luckily both of our investigators loved the extra church! I'm so excited for both of them!
THE PARABLE OF THE SHOWER
Thailand isn't quite like home in Utah. Let me give you an example, our bathrooms are just one room with everything in it. Meaning that you shower just about a foot away from where you do your business. And the way you control the heat of the water is from a box right next to the showerhead. The interesting thing about our shower is that the water on the outside part of the showerhead is always cold, while the hot water that we came for is on the inside part. You really need to commit yourself and go all in to get through the cold water and into the hot water. I'd like to liken this to life. Sometimes, we ask for hot water and it doesn't come right away. We do everything we're supposed to, we feel it with our foot every few seconds, we even just sit there and wait and hope for the hot water to finally come on out. If we do that, we'll never feel the hot water and we'll never get that joy. Sometimes, life gives us Thai showers. And if we sit there and wait for the water to get any better, it's not gonna happen. We need to push ourselves and go through the wall of cold water to get to the hot water sometimes. In my mission so far, I've ran into cold water plenty of times (but I haven't been swimming, don't worry), and I've learned that if I push through the cold water, the warm water will be there! Trust me, ok? Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
LAST THINGS LAST
-2!
-We have these Oreos covered in Cadbury chocolate and it's even better than it sounds.
-I've been playing a lot of guitar in my downtime, and my guitar callouses are back! If any of you would send me some guitar chords or tabs or whatever, I'd be very grateful.
-At sports night, I spiked a volleyball into someone's face Scott Sterling style. He was ok.
-Thai coconut ice cream is so so good. And sticky rice at the bottom of the bowl will take you to flavor nirvana.
-I ate at McDonald's last week. Ketchup is not the same over here, not even Mickey D's is safe.
-Thanks for reading this far, or at least skipping to the last paragraph. No matter where you're at right now, I love you! ✌😁
เอ็ลเดอร์ จิ้งจก (Elder Lizard)
Elder Barrett
1. Toilet Lizard. What a menace.
2. Right after Elder Dollery's tire exploded. :)
3. We made a Tree of life out of just chairs and a spotlight. It came out about as well as it could've haha.
4. Switchoff pt. 2
5. Party Rockers
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