"You were supposed to destroy the sick, not join them!!!"

เฮลโล Hello!

Super fun week! Lots and lots of service, screaming at random traffic, saying no to the strongest temptation of my mission, and, of course, pineapple whips. Lots and lots of pineapple whips.

OH MAN THIS IS SICK

So, remember a few weeks ago when I moved some daisies for a member? Funny thing, that family just tested positive for Corona. And since it was less than 14 days ago (13 days ago, to be exact), we have to self quarantine today to get that 2 week mark, despite showing no symptoms whatsoever. But I wish not to murmur, so I'll just say this whole situation is sick.

WHATS UP SERVICE? IT'S ME, YA BOY.

We had a lot of service this week. We helped one family build a treehouse in their backyard. It's a big one, too. I actually hope that we can see it once its finished.

We also did 15 hours of roofing with Chris, the guy who randomly stopped on the street to ask if we could help him out with that. 15 hours... over two days haha. He offered us $800 dollars for our work. As much as it hurt to do, we obviously had to decline it. But he was insistent, so he offered us his Xbox and tv instead. We hesitated a little more before declining that one haha. We came to an agreement that he'd buy us groceries from Costco whenever we needed them. So we'll try not to go too crazy with this haha.

And finally, we had another car wash! Elder Stradling and I volunteered for sign duty and spent the first hour flailing around and screaming at cars. And the car wash was at its busiest when we were the sign boys. Coincidence? I think NOT!! Anyways, once we actually got washing these things, one car had these 3 Muslim dudes from Somalia. One of them, AK, talked to us while we washed and was super grateful for everything we did for the community. How else did he show his gratitude? By coming back with a large pineapple for every missionary there. The goat, ladies and gentlemen.

ความคิดทางวิญญาณ (Spiritual Thought)

I just wanna talk for a second about prayer. In Thailand, it was the first thing we would teach people. We got to teach someone with a Buddhist background this week, so we got to share that lesson again! But why would we teach prayer first? Is there even a reason or is it just the easiest? First of all, it IS super easy to pray. Secondly, prayer is one of the most powerful ways we can connect with our Heavenly Father. It helps us avoid falling into temptation, it helps us feel the spirit more often, it gives us relief from our stresses and trials, and overall we feel happier when we have constant contact with our Heavenly Father. Last weeks Come Follow Me talked a lot about prayer, repentance, faith, and wayyy more. And it did it so much better than I ever could. So if you're a little behind in your scripture study, get back on that horse and ride it into the sunset. That's a challenge.

LAST THINGS LAST

- Pineapple Whip Counter: 9

- Rooftop Hot Tub new band name, I call it!

- We're gonna be giving out a 摩尔门经 really soon to one of our new friends (hey Dad, how's your Chinese doing?).

- I'm good at spikeball, but Elder Stradling is far greater. But he did blow a 3-1 series lead...

- Take a look in the mirror or turn of your phone and just keep staring at the empty screen. Take a look, pal. What do you see? You are a magical kingdom. You are a dancer. You are that sound. You have a very sweet spirit? And I love you. Good work.

เอ็ลเดอร์เป็นอะไร เป็นผู้รับใช้ของพระเจ้าไง ไม่ใช่เอ็ลเดอร์เป็นโคโรนาหรือเปล่า (What is an elder? Be a servant of God Isn't the Elder Corona?)

Elder Barrett

- Jesus loves you. Love, the Thai Elders.

- Sharing the smallest park bench in the world.

- Roofing boys.

- The Magic Treehouse

- VIDEO: Selling the car wash to death.

No POWs in the Water War

ฮลโล Hello!

This week was awesome, y'all. So many miracles, so many fun experiences, so many new people met, we are living the life out here.

ปาฏิหาริย์ (Miracle)

So many miracles this week. I'll just take 'em one at a time, I guess!

CHRIS

So here's what's going on. We're at the Claire's house digging up daisies and planting them in another part of the yard. We're at one spot right next to the road, picking daisies (Like MEN) when a man walks by, turns around and walks back to us and says, "Do you two know anyone who needs work?" Uh, yeah we do—US!! Turns out his sister is a member of the church and goes to church in Seattle (even though she lives in British Columbia, but that's whatever). So maybe well get to talk to him about Jesus a little bit?

LOIS

Lois is the sweetest old woman in the world. She lives across the street from one of the ward members we've done a lot of service for, and we offered to help her out too. We've been over to her house twice, weeding flowerbeds, organizing her garage, or even staining her porch. After we do work, she let's us sit on her porch in the shade and brings us cookies and lemonade. It is the best. She even comes out to talk to us and were already like best friends. And what's even better, she loves Jesus! She's told her member neighbors that she isnt interested in joining our church, but shes more than happy to talk to us about jesus. We even snuck in a lesson about the Plan of Salvation last time. We'll see how things go with her!

SCOTT

On Sunday, we went to try to find a self referral we got during the week. We didn't find her, but we met some interesting characters at a bus stop, sitting shirtless and guzzling whiskey. One of them was totally crazy and very loud and in your face, David. I distracted him while Elder Stradling got to know Scott, who was calmer, had a black eye, and 3 bullet wounds in his stomach. Dude has been through it. He also told us if anyone ever messed with us, he'd kill them. Nice. Turns out that Scott was baptized a while ago, but since fell away and thinks that now he's gone apostate and is irredeemable. But we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would read it in jail, so that's cool?

SUDS SOLDIERS

We had a free car wash at the church on Saturday. We washed around 60 cars in total. We were very busy. Turns out when something is free, people will flock to it no matter how mediocre it is haha. But when you have a bunch of 18-21 year olds spend 4 hours with constant access to water, things will get a little crazy. Some missionaries were more happy about it than others... but it was still super fun. Elder Stradling got the most wet so I guess he lost? But I did get nailed in the face with a sponge so that didnt help my case haha. Ramon came by with Brother King and he watched the war go down. One of the STLs got super mad at us for getting everyone wet, but later Ramon texted us and said that he loved seeing us at the car wash and he could see the holy spirit in all of us. Moral of the story? Sometimes it's good to have some fun! If people saw missionaries doing more normal human things, maybe there would be less people scared of us haha. So whatever you're doing, have fun with it and don't take yourself too seriously. Just seriously enough ;)

LAST THINGS LAST

- Taco Bell Pineapple Whip. Drink it.

- I'm one of the mission's spikeball elite. Maybe.

- I'm getting back into that exercise daily grind. I'll have a 6 pack by the time I leave Benson Hill, believe that.

- Who's the greatest? You're the greatest! I love you!

เอ็ลเดอร์ สะอาด (Elder Clean)

Elder Barrett

Turtle Yoga and Crying Tigers

เฮลโล Hello!

Well it looks like were back. Ain't that exciting? This week felt much faster than the last one. Which is weird, because we had much less to do... but hey I'm not one to complain. Much.

LUMBERJACKS 

Most of the service we got done this week was in Sister Elswiler's yard. For me that mostly included sawing off and collecting tree limbs. We did a total of 8 hours between 2 days over there. We got to carry branches and chuck them into backyards. Good times.

HELLO--NOT INTERESTED--THATS COOL

We got to actually get out of the house and go to Seward Park in Seattle to try and do some finding. We brought some signs and ours said, "Where are your ancestors from?" No one really wanted to talk to us at all, although one kid asked if we were police officers so that was a thing. Everyone was kinda forc--I MEAN ENCOURAGED to keep moving along the path and not stop to let things get crowded and kill everyone with a deadly virus. Cuz that's no good. The park is a tiny peninsula in Lake Washington, so everywhere you looked it was gorgeous. We even walked through a forest in the middle of the park, and it might have been even prettier. But in the lake, there were even some turtles just chilling on some logs!! But there was one turtle that was clearly cooler than the rest of his friends, because he was doing some sweet yoga. Not sure what pose, I'm not really a yogaman, but it was impressive.

WIFEY MATERIAL

Sometimes, it can be hard to find things to do. And with rising cases of corona, it may be a while before our restrictions are lifted a bit more. But I like to get things done, so Elder Stradling and I organized a bunch of qualities that would make the best wife and wrote them down. It's very scientific and is probably the end all be all list. So if you're having some struggles in your dating life, I have the answers.

อาหารไทยอร่อย (Delicious Thai Food)

Remember Sister Elswiler, who I mentioned earlier? She hooked us up big time with some thai food for our saturday night dinner. We got papaya salad, crying tiger, chicken satay, and sticky rice. Crying tiger is really just my favorite thai food, น้ำตกหมู, but with a weird name to be more exotic sounding? I mean waterfall pork already sounds fine, but maybe that's why I dont own a restaurant so I'll just stay in my lane. It was so good yall. It wasnt quite the same, but it was the closest I've had since I got back. It was a great feeling. We blasted some Thai music and just kinda went off. It was the best.

LAST THINGS LAST

- we pruned a giant bush that I named Iggy Azalea.

- we took a 2 hour walk on friday.

- this guy speeds up to drive-thru prayers says to pray for Elisa and her dad and then in the middle of the prayer he cuts it off and says, "get justice tonight in the father's name amen" and speeds off saying "justice for dad!" I'm terrified. 

- I played the best game of spikeball in my life on monday.

- I learned how to play poker! And I wasnt the first one to lose!

- I love you like Kanye loves Kanye.

เอ็ลเดอร์กินข้าว (Elder ate.)

Elder Barrett

Hello, Seattle

เฮลโล Hello!

Hi everyone, did you miss me? No? That's too bad because I'm back! For those of you who dont know, I got reassigned to serve in the Washington, Seattle Mission. I'm serving in the Benton Hill Ward in Renton and my companion is Elder Stradling, who was also in the Thailand Bangkok Mission! So that's cool stuff for sure.

WORK! WORK!

Washington State is still under some pretty heavy lockdown. It's illegal now to go to a public place without a mask, to give you a bit of an idea. So missionary work is pretty limited. We've been able to get out to serve some members in the ward, who are all the nicest and coolest people ever. They're all so great. I've gotten to do a lot of different jobs like weeding, mowing, flooring, digging, window washing, concrete moving just to name a few haha. It's been a ton of fun. I just hope the rain stays away so we can keep going outside.

The members feed us really well over here, so how are we keeping ourselves from getting fat? Good question, we would love to hear some suggestions if you have any. We've been able to get out to go on some quick runs (Elder Stradling prefers short fast paced runs to longer more relaxed ones haha) and even play spike ball and frisbee. But I'm still probably gonna be fat once its all said and done haha.

SOME REALLY COOL THINGS ARE HAPPENING 

So we've met some really cool members and been able to help a lot of them out. Like weeding a family's whole yard, or helping someone make a barn in their backyard into a legitimate house, but on Saturday, someone we hadn't met told us we need to call him. So we did and it turns out he has a friend who told him that he wants to join our church. So he brought his friend, Ramone, to our Drive-Thru prayers and we got to meet him and hear his story. Hes had a lot of tough experiences but recently hes seen how crazy the world is and he realized that when he dies, he doesnt want to be without God. He is so cool, you guys. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and explained it to him. He already had some super cool insight about ancient American history and stories about a figure really similar to Jesus Christ. And hes really excited to start reading. I cant wait to see where it takes him.

OCEAN'S ๑๑

Elder Stradling and I have been put in charge of finding all of the Thai people in the mission that we possibly can, and we found the motherlode. There's a Thai Hope Christian Church in Seattle, and were working on getting to meet them. We watched a service they had over zoom yesterday, and were very excited to try to infiltrate and convert these people haha. More to come.

LAST THINGS LAST

- its quarantine still so not a whole lot is going on, but were trying.

- had some great burgers on the 4th with a member family. We got to talk about Southeast Asia, fireworks, Indonesian hymns, and, of course, America.

- I won a round of hearts, you guys. Bless up.

- we had a zoom call with some members and the phone died right in the middle of a spiritual and personal story. Oops.

- I need a new facemask. Badly.

- hey you! Yes, you! I love you. You're great. Have a good one.

เอ็ลเดอร์ คนธรรมดา (Ordinary Elder)

Elder Barrett