"My first impression of Thailand was, WOW! It was exactly how I pictured it in my head. I really just love all the food that I see everywhere I go. I finally got my bike and it's really nice. One day we were riding to the Mall on the sidewalk all nice and calm, then all of a sudden, all the other Elders just turn onto the street and started to bike as fast as they could in traffic! I'm like, Ahhhhhhh, WHAT?!! I tried to follow them swerving this way and that and cars were honking at me! The Elders got way ahead of me and had to stop to wait for me because I was so far behind. This was my first time riding my bike in Thailand. It was so scary, but I survived! We then went into a store and bought some stuff for an activity we were going to do for contacting. I bought a future board and knew that I would have to ride one handed against traffic on our way back and I was ok with that. What I didn't expect was the biggest rainstorm I'd ever seen. I almost fell into the Klong. It is pitch black and the nastiest water thing ever! It was so crazy, but I was the man and made it home soaking wet. Then we went right back out to head to an appointment at a restaurant. Everything is crazy, crazy, crazy!"
"This week Elder Marshall gave me the responsibility to come up with an activity that would be good for contacting. My idea was to make a big banner and hang it outside our window and also take Elder Johnson's guitar and go sing hymns. When people would ask us about it, we would start to teach them. haha Good idea, right? I sure hope it goes well. Elder Johnson says that we can do anything in this country, so we try anything we can think of to contact. The other day we asked all the members to go contacting with us. It worked out ok until they decided to go to a movie instead and left us. haha It was ok because it was about to rain anyways and everyone leaves when it rains. Everyone just goes inside, so there is no point to stand out in the rain."
"The members are really nice to me and I'm going to ask them to teach me how to make some Thai food. That will make them love me more because I love Thai food. It will also help me with speaking when I constantly have to try to understand what they are saying. The teenage girls always talk really fast around me, so I can never understand them and then everyone laughs. It's ok though, because it makes me feel a part of the ward when that happens. Last Sunday, we had a baptism and I show up near the end of it. I'm reading the program and I noticed that I was saying the closing prayer! Ahhhhh! I was freaking out and asking Elder Johnson all these questions to help me. I said the prayer and everyone said that I did really good for only being out for 2 weeks. There are a lot of new things that I am learning every day and most of the things relate to the language. I really like how nice the people are and how they are all mostly willing to listen to you."
"This week has been tough because of all the contacting that we have to do. We don't really have many investigators yet. We have one that we only taught once and he keeps moving the appointment on us. Hopefully, we will teach him again on Wednesday. We do a lot of contacting on the streets and that is an adventure. We just keep going on from rejection to rejection. It can get frustrating. The other Elders say that contacting like that isn't effective in Thailand, but we do it anyways to be obedient. Other blessings will come from it. I believe that this is true because I always feel better after tracting and it seems to help my language a lot when I brave up and talk to random people. I just say the most ridiculous things and they just stare at me and walk away. haha Oh well! I'll get better at it. I'm also finding new ways to talk to people, so they don't walk away. I say things like, "I'm trying to learn Thai, can I ask you a question?" Then when they stop, I say, "Do you believe in God?" or "Do you know who Jesus Christ is?" It seems to work a little, if only I knew what they said back to me. haha It's kind of fun sometimes when we finally get a lesson in with someone. We place a lot of cards with our numbers on it, but people never call. I also got their number once and called and he said he would meet with us again, so that will be super fun! I was the one who actually called and I maybe understood only a fourth of what he said. haha"
"There was this one time when we met a lady that knew English. She was a KhonThai and was taking English classes at a Christian church. We talked to her about the Book of Mormon and she seemed really interested. She was asking questions and wondering what kind of things we believed in. It was going awesome! Then her teacher showed up. She was a white lady named Cathy and she was not happy to see us talking to her student. She came and sat down and asked us some tough questions to answer. She asked us how we could believe in something that had no physical proof that it was true? Elder Johnson replied and said that we didn't need proof because God told us it is true through revelation. The lady then went on asking more questions that she thought we couldn't understand. We answered all of them with love and she just wanted to Bible bash us. At one point, we said that we can be like God and she said that no one can be like God. Elder Johnson then said, "Where in the Bible does it say that we can't be like God?" She froze and couldn't think of anything to say back to us. She then just said that they needed to go and left. We decided we would call the student and talk to her without her teacher because she was so interested before her teacher came. I hope the teacher doesn't just ruin it for her."
"Well that's what happened this week. I hope next week will be better but things are just getting started. I'll let you know how the activity for finding people goes. Oh and by the way, I had duck tongue the other day and it was delicious! I love you all!
