Hi Mom!
Wow, it sounds like you had a pretty busy week! It's quite often we're busier than usual during the holiday season, even as a missionary, especially as a missionary, haha. I'm glad I had the opportunity to call you! We'll be able to skype home some time around Christmas, so I'll let you figure out whether you'd like to be called late night or early morning, haha. It's hard to remember to smile with everything happening and going on around you, but I have been doing better at it, especially since that's the least you can do when you don't speak the language and don't know what people are saying or what to say. I'm glad people are enjoying the things I write back home. One thing I love about it is that we can serve and help everyone, not only just the people in the country we're serving. One devotional or message that was shared in the MTC is that when we write home, it's a great opportunity to reach out and touch people who may need it back at home. It was in one of the many meetings/devotionals we had before leaving.
We were able to see the Sunday devotional the Sunday before we left the MTC. It was a neat experience. It was also neat because we also watched it yesterday after church in English. It was pretty crazy because it's been several days of people speaking Thai and I would have basically no idea what they're saying, but having the chance to have that block of time to listen to English made me realize how appreciative I am of being able to understand when people do say things I understand. You could say I had a moment of gratitude for the gift of understanding. Sorry to hear about the computer, it sounds like it's giving you a lot of problems. I hope it all works out in the end. Just remember to treat it nicely and it'll treat you nicely. I say that kind of jokingly, but as I was studying some of the things from seminary, I looked at the story of the creation and one thing that I learned was that everything has a spirit because all things were created spiritually before physically. I'm not sure what to think or make of this, but I'll leave that for you to decipher as you choose.
Hearing about your progressive dinner makes me kind of hungry and miss 'American regular' food. Thailand is a pretty 'foreign' and 'exotic' country. The food is, too. All the food is quite different and it'll take me a while to get used to it and eventually like it. It's also very spicy. I told Anthony that for the first day or two I lived off of goldfish that I brought from America. Other than that, the only foods that haven't been strange (including the airplane food, which I'll expound later) have been french toast we made, watermelon, bananas (but they were the small bananas we ate at the McCuen's once), pineapple and sometimes some of the fried rice is pretty 'normal'. It's actually pretty different from Sawadee, too.
I love Christmas and Christmas songs/carols. I enjoyed hearing one over the phone! Music was one of the best things in the MTC. We had the opportunity to sing Silent Night to all of the district/branch presidents in the MTC. Everyone in our group was pretty much obsessed with Christmas, too, so we sang Christmas songs at every opportunity - in class, and out of class. For a stake Christmas party, all of the missionaries who were there sang Silent Night in English and for our ward Christmas party, we're singing too, but it's in Thai and I still don't know how to read very well - one of the things I miss most about the MTC is the singing (in English).
As for Christmas packages, thank you so, so much for the Christmas package you sent. I look back and can remember how awesome it was to see a big package. A lot of people in my district/Thai group get a lot of packages, but I think my companion and I received the least. Everybody had a lot of packages, and big ones, and it was slightly disheartening to not receive any. It was like Christmas when I handed my package slip to the post office workers and they came back with that box. I bet my eyes widened a bit. It was full of really great stuff which, I'm sad to say that I had to leave most of it at the MTC because of the weight restrictions on our bags. Looking back, I kind of miss food like what was in that package because we really don't have any of it, or anything like it, here in Thailand. Just give it some time and I'm sure I'll love all the food here.
I think that addresses all the comments I had on what you wrote, now for the travel stories. Sorry for writing so much. It's been a really busy week.
So we left the MTC, took a bus, then a train, then a slightly smaller train, then a small-ish plane to LAX where we had a seven hour layover until we boarded a huge plane to HGKG where we waited two hours then boarded a medium-ish sized plan to Bangkok. There we found our bags, met up with our mission president, President Senior, and his wife and APs. We met them, talked a bunch, got a few pictures, then took a van ride to a subway thing. It was a really kind of information jam packed experience. The two APs, Elder Kelly and Elder Kohler, were telling us a lot of stuff and asked for any questions we might have and how we felt, that kind of thing. They said, and President Senior said things like, don't even try to catch up on rest or anything, because it won't work. They said fill every moment with something productive. Also that it doesn't matter how hard you try, you will get sick from the food. Some of us were worried about eating from side vendors because they're kind of super-sketch, but they said that's where we would be eating the majority of the time. What may seem super sketch to us in the states and where we live is common place here in Thailand.
The flight to LAX was only about 1hr 30min. We finished packing, received our travel documents and left the MTC. We were super excited as we finished our preparations and the day to leave the MTC finally arrived. We took some time to say our final goodbyes to the rest of the zone. Pretty much the entire zone was there to see us off. It was quite the send off. We finished passing down all of the items we had over the weekend, too. I gave my Nerf things to Elder Morley, one of the Nong Thai's. We also had to give away most, if not all, of our food to the Thai's before we left. None of us had very much room or weight left to pack food. On the first train ride we were able to talk to a train worker who was a member. We were kind of isolated from the rest of the train, but it was still cool. I think it was just because we were a big group of missionaries and people were kind of 'afraid'. One person was walking towards us, looked up and kind of took a step back and said "Whoa, it's the God squad". That kind of made us all laugh and that person was the first non-MTC person we talked to and the first words of a non-MTC person were funny. The second train ride was in a smaller train and we had to really pack and squeeze in with all of our luggage. On this train, several of us were able to talk to people about the Gospel and get to know them. We then went through the crazy hustle and bustle of an airport and ate Cafe Rio - our first non-MTC food. It was kind of weird to be suddenly in the world of non-MTC again, especially as missionaries. Sometimes, in SLC, random people who were members would come up to us to start talking to us which was kind new and weird. It got even more weird-ish in the LA International Airport. There were a lot of interesting characters there, compared to the people in the MTC. We also saw Kanye West in the LAX airport. He was being followed by a bunch of people with cameras and it was a weird/funny moment we had.
While in the airport and on the plane, we went contacting and talked to people - it was cool. We phoned home, I ate Panda Express for the last time in probably two years, and we eventually started the fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong. The plane was pretty fancy and we slept a lot. We also played a lot of battleship on the touchscreens in the seats. We ate dinner, breakfast, and cups of noodles. It got pretty much completely foreign after that. On that fifteen hour flight, there were a lot of Mandarin-speaking people and it seemed pretty foreign. Then on the flight from Hong Kong to Thailand, it was pretty much entirely foreign. The food we ate was compared to 'scrambled egg jello' and English was now the foreign language from Hong Kong to Bangkok. One funny thing that happened on the plan was that Elder Sagapolu fell asleep and he's a really heavy sleeper. He fell asleep with a set of headphones on so we turned his volume down, selected ACDC Back in Black to play, then turned the volume all the way up. He jumped when the song started and threw off the headphones. It woke him up pretty good.
As soon as we touched down, it was like Thai script everywhere. The Airport was super nice. It is pretty hot and humid, but it hasn't rained yet. President Senior had a photographer and a videographer. After the sub way ride to the church and after contacting some more, we ate our first meal in Thailand. That was when I realized it would take a while to get used to the food. We ate a bunch of stuff whose names I can't remember and can't really pronounce. We then split up and went inviting again. We got kicked out of a place and then returned to the Church where we then went through some other things I can't remember. We got instruction on money and health and some things then took the van to dinner back at President and Sister Senior's where we ate some more rice, I think. By the end of this all we were all very tired and were anxious to get to bed. We had just traveled 30 hours and I don't think we even had a Tuesday. We went to a hotel where we slept. It was pretty high class and comfortable. We ate breakfast there which was pretty good. We had pineapple, watermelon, sausage, eggs, fried rice, and stir-fried noodles. It was good and was a small taste of the adventure to come. It was also an interesting breakfast - noodles and rice.
We traveled to another church building where transfers were held. We first sat in a room and talked to President and Sister Senior again and got a health talk. Apparently, if we get a really bad upset stomach, we're supposed to eat charcoal tablets, I'd never heard of this before. There were also some other health stuff I don't remember. Anyway, we moved into the main room where there was a lot of cheering and we found out our companions and ares. My first area is Bang Naa and my first companion is Elder Davis. He's a pretty cool, super-chill guy. He's really a super amazing missionary and works hard. He's always talking to people and members. he's been out for sixteen months and he definitely knows what he's doing - even thought it's a new area for him, too. After the transfer meeting where we also said good bye to all the leaving missionaries, we went to another meeting and ate hot punch with cold pizza. After this, we hung out at the church and talked to some members where I learned that I couldn't understand anything they said. We took a taxi to our apartment/building/house/place and waited while another group should up. I sat in the front of the taxi and talked to the driver for awhile. I honestly had a really hard time figuring out what he was saying and I didn't know what to do. We got to the apartment, the sisters came, we dropped off my-stuff, and took another taxi to my trainer's old area to get his stuff. My trainer didn't know he was moving until that day so while he packed up his things, I had a nice nap on an empty mattress. We got a ride from some neighbors back to our new place. They were super nice and I still had a hard time understanding them. They bought us some fish from the McDonald's. I think my trainer said Thai people are really nice and will buy you stuff even after you say not to. I later found out that they were actually investigators.
Our current house is really small - only made for two people and we now have four. The full day, we actually spent the entire day looking around for a new, larger apartment that we will hopefully move into today. It's Elder Williams, Elder Suphan, me, and Elder Davis. In our district/area is also a set sisters, Sister Morgan (who was on of our Phiis) and Sister Herman (who's super nice and went to high school with Elder Bunker). The first night, we filled the main room with all of our mattresses and suit cases. Living out of our suitcases, cramped in a little room, and with bugs literally crawling around and in the general dirty state of the room, it's just like camping, but more foreign. I don't mean to complain at all, it's just going to take some time to get used to. The next day, I think it's Friday now, we moved some things around to make the space livable and did a little bit of studies before going out. I took some time to ponder on the recent events and to write in my journal (because I was and am far too tired to write at night) and I figured that sleeping is definitely, probably one of my new favorite things to do because of how tired I am but also because that's what I actually know how to do - at least for now.
The area that we are in is actually entirely new, my trainer says. We have to start from scratch and we don't have anything - not even an actual place to sleep. We were actually pretty lucky that they had four mattresses. We spent the majority of the day looking for a place to live. We street contacted some people and this is when I found out that Sister Herman and Sister Morgan were in our district. We went out looking for something to eat for breakfast/lunch and we went to a little side street vendor. What we would definitely call sketch is pretty commonplace here. We ate stir fried rice with chicken and it was good, but actually quite spicy. Just some random vendor and the food was nearly too spicy, yikes. We toured the church building some which was really close and I rode in a little cage truck taxi for the first time. We contacted at a few places and Elder Williams showed us around because he's not new to the area.
I'm actually out of time, but I have more to say. I kind of forgot to include message, but I'll leave with this. I love it here. I've just recently had the opportunity the past two days to meet some members and people. They're super nice. We went to a stake Christmas activity and even though I have no idea what's going on, I still love it. The members are all nice and this Sunday, we taught our first lesson. Next week, we'll probably have our first baptism. It's super awesome here and maybe next week will be less busy and I can catch up on writing about this week, too.
Elder Sun
P.s. Here are a few pictures from the recent adventures.
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