I learned how to use time a bit better for emailing this time so I should be able to get a better email out! Sorry the last one was kind of lame. So lets see...Last Thursday there was a training meeting for all the missionaries in leadership positions up in Chiang Mai. That doesn't include me, but it includes Sister Mack, Sister Stewart who both train, and elder Hunsaker who is a district leader and my trainer! So I got to tag along with the three of them up to Chian Mai! It's a 6 hour bus ride to get there. Not the funnest. The way there we just talked so it wasn't bad. I did studies with Elder Winsor (he was in the group ahead of me) while they had their training. We studied and then went and tried to contact for an hour. Not my most favorite thing but it wasn't bad and I'm glad we tried to do something good. Then we all went to dinner at The Dukes. Which is like an Applebees haha. But better! They just sell farang (foreigner) food. So I got a little taste of America with my giant burger, fries, and a big brownie! Then we rode another bus home. (we spent the first night in Chiang Mai) and it was a later one. We got back to Pilok at like 11:00. I couldn't sleep at all and it was kind of miserable.
Other fun parts of the week were our FHE activity, which ended up being water pong (Thais don't know any different), another activity where we played a game like signs but with fruit names in Thai. I didn't know hardly any of them. I was blueberry, which is blooberyyy. haha so that wasn't too hard. We taught some lessons and did some stuff with the members. Saturday was good. We had a fun sports day in the morning, then studies, and an intense day of teaching. We taught three lessons and then at the river found 'Y' so we talked to him a little bit too. We taught 'I' the entire restoration lesson. It was pretty focused but he took it well! His baptism date is on Saturday so we're trying to teach everything fast. We're doing all the commandments today. Hopefully none of them are a problem! I'm not super worried, he's awesome. Then at night we had a rough hour or so of contacting. At least it was for me. Most people in Thailand are nice, but not everyone. Sunday was really good though. We walked in and there were like 10 white girls all sitting there, which was a surprise haha. They all teach English in a town nearby and will be here until December so that's cool. But we had a few investigators come to church! This one girl walked into the church saturday and was interested, not particularly for a spiritual reason but we taught her! In English too! She speaks pretty much perfect English. That was actually kinda weird. Then we hung around to teach 'I' again, this time we did the whole Plan of Salvation and Gospel of Jesus Christ in one! So much in one lesson! But he seemed good! One thing that really helps is having a member there to help. We had a member at every lesson this week I think. Oh and we taught another lesson! We had a member bring his little sister to church! He's getting ready to receive the Melchizedek priesthood. His sister isn't a member though so we taught her and it was an awesome lesson! Their aunt teaches Thai at BYU and she was there too! We were teaching her and I got the impression that we should talk about baptism, I whispered to Elder Hunsaker and he was on the exact same page. She accepted a baptism date! Now we have 3 people with baptism dates! It's so cool to see how missionary work works!
Some days we contact for the whole two hours that President Senior asked for and don't find a whole lot. But then one day we got back to the church and my bike was totally flat. On the way walking home we met someone who wanted to learn! We haven't gotten a chance to teach her yet but I'm excited for it! The best contacting ever was yesterday night. We went to this river here where people run and whatever and we drew the whole plan of Salvation out in chalk on the wall. We wrote questions like "Did we have life before this?" at each step. We ended up with 41 people answering! And some really good people who want to learn!
Life here is pretty good. We eat out almost everyday. We have Sunday dinner and breakfast, the members all eat lunch together, and for the most part the rest is eating out. We get really good Thai food for like 30 Baht. Which is a dollar. A bottle of water at 7/11 is like 50 cents. Supposedly you run out of the money they give you pretty often towards the end of the month, but then I'll just withdraw some from my debit card. I'll try to not draw out too much! But could you make sure that it has enough all the time? I don't think it'll ever be a problem. One thing I need is mudflaps for my bike. When it rains, which it does a lot, sometimes dirt gets flipped up and I have a couple shirts with little brown spots that don't wash out. The store we got my bike at didn't have them. Any tips on getting that out? We have a washer in our house and just hang dry everything. I'm pretty good at making PBandJ and ramen noodles. I made scrambled eggs once! We have a toaster a rice cooker, and a sandwhich maker too. I'll get more creative as time goes on.
That's fun you got to go to Eklutna! You should've jumped off the dam! We climbed up on the wall and ran and jumped into the side that is opposite the lake. It's so fun!
That's about all I have for this week! I'm not good at pictues yet. There's nothing too exotic here but maybe my next transfer will have elephants and stuff!
I love you all and miss you tons! Thanks for the support everyone gives me!
-Love Elder Josh Keller
 |
| The Plan of Salvation |
No comments:
Post a Comment