The temple is closed so they moved Jake's laundry time on p-days to 7:00 am. We were able to talk to him a little on email real time. His spirits are high and he is having fun. His July 12th group is now the old ones in the zone, since a group just left for Thailand. It was interesting to find out that his zone consisted of Laotian, Vietnamese and Hmong languages also.
"Hello Khrubkhrua! I think that is the way to spell family romanized in Thai? Nothing too exciting happened this week. I've felt bored a lot which stinks because then the time goes by slower, so I try to find ways to keep busy. Don't get me wrong, I'm doing a lot of work and learning and teaching. It's just the same thing every day and nothing new. I am still able to find time during the day to do things that I want to do whether it's for a couple minutes or a half hour."
"The Phii Thais have finally left for Thailand and now I am the Phii Thai and don't feel like a freshman in high school any more. I'm actually sad about them leaving because towards the end, I really got to know them really well. I hit it off with them and they seemed to like me. Maybe that will be a blessing when I'm out in the field. My district is way happy that they are gone. haha I spend most of my time with my district, but I know the other districts and we still talk a lot. There is one kid from Wisconsin who is part Thai as well and we always say, "us Thais need to stick together", and we laugh. At one point he was feeling really down and I went over to talk to him. He said he was going through some tough things that he didn't really want to talk about. I told him that everything was going to be fine and if he needed anything or anyone, that he should come talk to me and I'll be there for him. He said thanks and left. When I saw him again, he gave me a big hug and we talk a lot now as friends. He is a really cool person and likes to play soccer of course. I get along with the zone pretty well. In the zone there are many different languages. There is Laotian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Hmong. The Laotian and Hmong missionaries are way cool. I love them all because I can tell that each of them have a special strength."
"Elder Vance was released and Elder Watkins is the new district leader. Also Elder Beatty and Elder Crump are the new zone leaders. They do great and are very responsible and do what needs to be done and says what needs to be said."
"The language is coming along. It's funny that I've only been here for 3 weeks and I know more Thai than I do from studying 3 years of Spanish. It's probably because I really want to learn the language. We started to try to read Thai. It's so hard! There are all these rules that are so confusing and when we read, I cannot find the tones. However, it's coming along and I can read the words from the Preach My Gospel. I've already read the first two paragraphs, with words but not with tones. It is a big accomplishment. I can't wait until I can just speak the language really well. It's going to be cool to talk Thai. However, the Thai language is really affecting my spelling in English. I looked through my journal and I can see my writing getting worse and worse. Like is wasn't very good to begin with. haha"
"We had some good devotionals. They were spiritual and I liked them. They all seemed to talk about how we are at this moment missionaries of God. Those words really hit me this week. I am a missionary and the Lord trusts me to be His missionary. The investigator thing is going alright. I don't like it too much, but I go in every time and do the best I can. We get through a lot of it without even looking at the script. We are off script and have to do the lesson with only our scriptures and a small dictionary that we try not to use."
"Oh, I get to watch the fireworks tomorrow! I am super excited! My birthday is also on Saturday, so I am super excited for that too! haha Maybe my district will throw me a surprise birthday party. hahaha One night me and all the Elders in my district were talking about Cafe Rio. So one of the Elders told his brother in a letter to bring us some and the other night he did! It was delicious!! His brother snuck it over the fence in the back, shhhhh...hahaha. It was super awesome because I was so hungry for some good food. Ever since the temple closed, there is nothing to look forward to food wise. I crave real food!"
"I miss you so very much. I forgot to bring the letters with me to the laundry room, so I didn't really answer all your questions. I'll send home a letter answering all that I can. I love you!"
Elder Jacob Smith
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| Elder Smith finds Elder Stepan |
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| Proof of "Operation Cafe Rio" |
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| A shout out from Elder Smith |
