04/19/2015

Hello!

The first half of the week was the actual water festival, which was insane!!! We had tons of fun and I got sunburned even though I put on plenty of sunscreen. Just imagine a street right next to a canal. There are pickup trucks filled with people and buckets of water lined up like it's the log ride at disney land, moving slowly, stopping every few seconds. Every 20 yards is a family who has hooked up a fire hose to the canal and is spraying nasty water at people. There's drunk people everywhere and sketchy people dancing. People run up to you and put wet clay on your face and yell "tank yu". Then we speak thai and they all freak out. They really liked us because foreigners never play at this place. So we just walked up and down the street with our water guns spraying people and getting sprayed and them putting clay on our faces and throwing baby powder everywhere. It's a massive mess but it's soooo fun! 

On the working days when we're wearing our normal missionary outfit, we still get attacked by everyone.

I'm sure many of you have seen our mission's transfer meeting videos, and know that they're pretty fun. This transfer, because it being right at the end of a massive holiday, (comparable to the day after Christmas, New Years day, and all of the other holidays put together) traveling is especially dangerous. To avoid any incidents, only those who moved were allowed to go to transfers meeting. But, because I served in the office and have a drivers license, I was asked to drive the new missionaries to the meeting. So Elder Weaver and I got to go!! 

And on Friday I woke up swimming! Or at least it felt like it. My ear was full of something.... A doctors visit later and almost passing out while they tried to remove something from my ear, the problem was not solved. But they gave me some drops and meds that should help. They did. I can hear again! It probably came from getting nasty canal water sprayed at my face at high pressure.... haha

Right now we're working with really only one investigator. He's retired and lives alone. He really loves to learn the gospel. He came to general conference with a notebook to take notes. Then he watched the remaining sessions at home by himself. He's watched all of the mormon messages and bible videos. Basically like the first investigator who has actually managed to use the church's websites.

He's progressing slowly and has millions of concerns, but the branch is really reaching out to him, even discussing and planning for him because they see a really solid member in him. We see it too.

Recently I feel like I've been learning about hope.

What does one do when their work has no pay? What if you went to work but at the end of the day it was up to someone else if you got paid or not?

That is missionary work for you. We work from 8:00 am to 9:30 pm six days a week, and the seventh day is just a normal 6 hour work day. Our "free time" is eaten up by mundane tasks like shopping and haircuts. So we get about 3 hours a week of free time. The rest is work. And it is up to others to decide if our work has any effect. It isn't up to us.

Sometimes it could be frustrating that we don't actually do the work, or we can't choose if this person gets baptized or not. But this feeling is actually quite relieving. We don't have to worry, or stress, or much. It's all in the Lord's hands. All we have to do is strive to know what He needs us to do. And it happens!

It's not stress free, but it's worry free. This is where hope comes in. When we go out and invite, and work with members, and try to set up lessons, and nobody goes, or learns, or anything. We just have to hope. It is through hope that we endure hundreds of rejections just to get one "yes, I would like to go." It is through hope that we teach someone who doesn't seem like they'd progress, or has too many concerns.

Like I talked about in my last email. Satan is working hard right now in Thailand. And he doesn't sleep. Maybe that's why our schedule is like two full time jobs. Because God sees a lot in Thailand. He decided to build His House here! And maybe even though everyone seems to reject us, or is too busy, or won't even listen to us, God has something in mind. He's hoping for a better world, so we will too.

Love you all!!

Here's some pictures!

All of these pictures were stolen from Elder weaver, he has a fantastic waterproof camera!!! lucky...