3rd week in Thailand

Aaron's first email this week got to us at 10pm on Sunday. Thailand is 13 hours ahead of us. He sounded a bit discouraged and there was no real news. Luckily I caught him online and we wrote back and forth for about 30 minutes. He had sent home a bunch of things including his gospel library. He had thought that he was not supposed to take that along. Well, I told him I would send it to him. When asked what they would be doing for their P-day, he responded that they would be celebrating Pioneer Day and that he was bit confused since the pioneers never went to Thailand.... :-)I did remind him then that the Thai members are pioneers in their own way. He did agree. 

Elder Proctor left 12 weeks ago- it seems crazy. As we took a friend to the airport today we saw a family saying good-bye to their son who was flying to the MTC in Preston, England- to prepare him to serve in the German Alpine Mission. To be hones, I did share some tears with the mom since I know her feelings so well. :-) But look at us now, 3 months gone by so fast! 

So here it is......

This past week was pretty rough all of our investigators cancelled on us it was pretty sad.

We went from having an awesome week last week to almost hitting rock bottom, One of our "Investigators" is actually a family.  It is really fun teach them because they have so many questions about the gospel and how it will help them as a family. (If you use the investigator in the blog can you change there names please?) I love our investigators!! We have run into so many Catholics here it is absolutely mind blowing because I am in Thailand and it is 96 percent Buddhist and and we are finding the other four percent!

Inviting is where we go to a public place and invite people to come and learn. We give them a little card that has stuff about the gospel on it and our contact information. So when we are contacting we have a tendency to end up talking to guys that are not looking for the gospel if you know what I mean! They usually call us and are like we want to get to know you better... yeahhh...... (So I find that rather funny......)

I wish it was a ward(I asked him about their ward) because then we might be able to have another stake and then.... a TEMPLE!!! I think.. The branch members like me. They like to call me Elder Harry Potter ( sounds similar to my name in Thai) and Superman because my hair does the weird Clark Kent swirl now !

Yeah weird things I ate this past week .......frog, not just its legs but I ate part of its face, the reason I know that is because I removed a cheek bone from my mouth after eating it ....... not gonna lie it kinda threw me off!

 

Today we were playing a pioneer game where you have to pick up a 10 baht coin, 5 baht coin 1 2 baht coin and 2 one baht coins, did I mention it was in a garbage can full of other coins filled to the brim with ice and water? Guess who was the only one that got it, that’s right this boy!!! Ok I will stop being prideful

The Keyboard I type on has Thai and English letters. However,  the English letters are more prominent. Same layout I think..... I can't remember what an English keyboard looks like any more. 

Yeah, we get a lot of rain. The days it does not rain,  totally messes me up! No malaria pills for me I am in a pretty well developed place. Some times though, when we go visit some of the members, I am  humbled because they have so little and give so much to us missionaries. They absolutely love us missionaries!

I think stateside would be  way hard mission because you do not get a chance to load up on the spirit like I did at the MTC.   Satan has got such a strong hold in Thailand.  I'm sitting in this Internet cafe and kids that are like eight are just cussing up a storm, it so sad. Everyone here is so superstitious. They are so afraid of ghost, but I guess so are people in America.

Yeah this is such a fun mission, so many new foods to try and so many new fruit to try. The spirit here is so dang good it is way crazy! I have to be careful with all of this great food.  I may gain loads of weight ..... I guess I have to bike a lot then! My bike is the best it is so light and durable it is the best! You can buy food here for so cheap it is awesome for 40 baht I can buy a meal that will fill you up 40 baht is about a dollar and 20 cents I think because 30 baht is equal to a dollar.

 Thank you for putting in this email that the language will come because some days I feel so frustrated because I can't say what I want to so I don't say anything almost the whole lesson.

Here is part of the first email we got from him- he compares his mission to a Mission Impossible movie....

I like to compare my mission to a Mission Impossible movie. WE are all the Lord's "secret" agents. We received a call from the President of our church to go and save some VIPS  who have been captured by the enemy and don't even know they are in danger. The risks will be high the whole time. There will be casualties some people you save will actually not be ready and will be taken back. It's war and the enemy knows each one of our talents, but we do not know all of the enemies tactics yet. Your mission will be for two years and then after that you are released from duty as a "secret" agent, but you are a agent in the Lord's army. We all our being trained for some time but no matter how long you train you still are not ready for the field. It's a learn on the spot kind of work, the best kind I think!

Elder Proctor