Mormons Can Be Buddhist, Too.

 เฮลโล Hello!

Welcome back to a week in the life of Elder Calvin "The Grizzly" Bear. It's getting cold in Seattle, y'all. And for some reason, there's a sign in our apartment that says not to turn the thermostat past 50°. I'm not sure if it's just a prank or if I'm gonna bankrupt the church from an outrageous heating bill. For now, I'll just wear some sweatshirts and wrap in a few blankets while I finish my personal study.

WHAT COULD BE BETTER THAN A THAI LESSON???

I know! TWO Thai lessons! Y'know how I've been teaching some english classes to Thai people in the Seattle area? Well, you'll never believe it, but we actually had two students who wanted to learn about the church! Our first lesson (which took place in a treehouse out of necessity and level of coolness), one of our students, who is one that we thought wouldn't be interested at all, asked us what's different between our church and other christian churches. What a question!! We got into the Restoration lesson and it was all in Thai! My companion was struggling to find his footing, since we havent really taught in Thai for months, but here's a miracle: I had like zero rust. It was amazing! My words were just flowing and the spirit was there and it was an amazing lesson. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to talk about it much further after we finished the Restoration. But I was just having an amazing conversation about the similarities between our religion and buddhism. It was super cool! Next time we'll talk more. I'm so excited. But we taught another lesson the next day. This one friend we had already taught to pray and she is interested in christianity. This time, we offered to take her on a church tour and she MET US AT THE TEMPLE!!! We got to take her on a tour of the temple grounds and share the Restoration again!!! It was amazing. She accepted a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet (which had Elder Stradling's notes all over it, but we promised to get her a fresh copy haha) and she is so amazing!!!!

I'm very lucky to have been blessed with the ability to learn languages. The gift of tongues is super real, y'all. This week, I had conversations about things I had never talked about totally in Thai. I was able to contribute and understand what they were saying! I talked about preparing someone for a driver's test, hiking a mountain, meditation, and made a few jokes about how missionaries aren't very rich. Even outside of Thailand, I'm getting to use Thai a little bit almost every day. That's such a big deal for me and I'm so grateful.

KNOCK KNOCK

Who's there? The missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. What? Isn't it Rona season? Nah, fam. It's time for you to hear about the Book of Mormon!!! We are actually allowed to knock doors now! I was a little hesitant, I'll admit. But we had a really good experience going out one day to find some people. We found one lady who is more than happy to let us come back one day and also a family where the mom told the kids to tell us that they don't speak english haha. It's interesting, but at least I can actually feel a little bit more like a missionary now.

YOU ARE RIGHT WHERE YOU SHOULD BE

This week, at Zone Conference, it hit me that even though in the end I want to make it back to Thailand to finish out my mission, I need to be happy about where I am, what I'm doing, and what experiences I will have here! I wrote: I"'ve gotten into the habit of looking forward to the next step in my life without taking time to be happy about where I am. I need to work on being happy to be here and to be doing what I'm doing. There is nothing else in the world that I should be doing right now." Still working on it, but I'm totally happy to be here, chilling out and sharing the gospel!

LAST THINGS LAST

- how to rob a bank with your friends: step 1, buy matching hats.

- Thai is very feminine sounding compared to Lao. A man with a very large beard told me that, and he looks like he has authority on that subject.

- happy Halloween, y'all! Halloween is scary, but do you know what's scarier? That's right, that one phantom stair at the top of the staircase.

- I love you! Take it from me, I'm an expert on all things me. And me love you.

เอ็ลเดอร์ศาสนาพุทธ (Elder Buddhism)

Elder Barrett