1, 2, TREE, FULL and Elder Ellis in Surin Land: "Green Ties and Green Eyes"

Surin Country side

Yeeheee, this week went by too fast. There's truly never enough time in the week to do everything. so much work to be done. so little time. Weeha. 

Sometimes we eat whole watermelons... Apartment study room.

PRAYER

Prayer is powerful. If you feel like you're getting into a routine and that your prayers aren't as genuine anymore pray for specifics. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Literally. Don't just say you're thankful for blessings, list those specifics. Give gratitude for everything. Love this life, love the challenges, love it. We've got one life, why not have a BLESSED time yeah? So second challenge. Be specific in your prayers, it's a game changer. You can never be too specific and our Heavenly Father loves hearing from YOU!

Bus stations... cause we travel by bus everywhere.

So yeah, we teach English. My companion's first language is Laotian. It's a great time. He was teaching about the "th" sound and said "Khon Lao and Khon Thai's have this problem where when they count they say 1 2 tree full, instead of 1 2 3 4." Thought that was absolutely hilarious. Sounds just like pidgin (Hawaii's second language, the order for official languages goes Hawaiian, Pidgin, then English...just saying)

Some free exercising in the park before sports night.

Elder Ellis in Surin Land. The members find it funny that my name sounds like Alice. Henceforth the name. Yeah. but onward to more stories about Surin. It rained. A lot. and by a lot I mean a lot. I think the roads flooded maybe 4 times this past week. The rains came down and the floods went up (on a monday...then again...and again...and again) Goes from 0-flooded way too quick. We can be teaching a lesson in the church and itll be sunny, then next thing we know 1 hour later, its downpouring and flooded. Go figure. Thailand is sweet. I love it. I don't even miss bodysurfing cause biking through the rain is that much fun!

Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon...in Thai.

Isaiah. Smart prophet, absolutely amazing with the metaphors and such. Now translate it into Thai. Yeah double the confusion hahah, good fun. Big words in the scriptures- see D&C 123:5 and let me know how much you understand.

Transfers this week

Getting bike tire fixed in the middle of nowhere...

So the joke here is that me (the greenie/unexperienced missionary) will be the only one out of the 4 elders in Surin to stay. Yeah. You'll hear from me next week. It'll be veryyyy interesting. Cause I'm still a bit lost hahaha. I seriously love this place and love these people in Surin. It's not a big city and it has quite a bit of countryside (see attached picture we bike out here pretty often because a lot of our Less active members and investigators are out in the countryside. It's beautiful) These people have so much love. There's so much we can all learn from the charity and love of the Thai people.

Spiritual Thoughts hmm....

Article of Faith 13-Articles of Faith are basic understandings of what our Church believes in. This one. Wow. Just so much power and strength in it.  

13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Our new inviting cards, they basically teach the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ in a small little pamphlet, Pretty amazing.

I just want to challenge all of you (members, nonmembers, random people that stumble upon this blog) to go and try heed these words. Seek after and try to become more honest, true, chaste, etc. Do it. Your life WILL get better. It's the truth. But hey, don't take my word for it. Try it yourself. This may actually be the reason that I'm so happy pretty much all the time. I love this scripture. Like with all my heart. I seek after these things. I try my best to become and take on these attributes as best as I can each and every day. Give it your all, and just try to be a better person today then you were yesterday and pretty soon the impossible is within reason.

Also I'm teaching the Elders in the house Pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English). In honor of this... Have a good week! And shooooooots!

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

There's no such thing as baby steps & Guess who forgot their river crossing attire?

There's no such thing as baby steps. This is real life. The time to prepare for right now has passed. Steps are steps. And who are we to judge or name someone else's progress because it's different from our own. Just a thought given to me by my companion. There's no way to really teach and help a child learn to walk. You could give them a walker, but that is just a crutch, an aid. The child needs to experiment and learn for themselves and find something that works. If they find out that walking along the side of a couch works, then awesome. Amazing because the child continues to experiment and had found that out for themselves. It seems harsh, maybe a bit heartless that you aren't helping the child. But if you did, would their be any progress in within the child? Probably very little. It's like the same reason butterflies push themselves out of their cocoons, they need to go through that trial and experience that struggle because their wings need whatever that fluid is to be pushed into every part. If you "help" the butterfly and pull it out of the cocoon, really you just inhibited it. Yeah. Not too sure where this thought is going, I think it sounded better in my head. But this is how missionary training has been so far. This is a great exercise in learning to trust in God and in being guided to the Spirit. Nothing AMAZING comes easy.

Okay lets hear some awesome stuff...

Do as the Thais do-aka fit as much stuff into your bag (I fit a 40 pack of ramen, a few bags of oatmeal and milo, and 2 loaves of bread into my bag. It was amazing, and on sale. Or fit as many people as you can on a moped. This weeks record that I saw? 7 people. One moped. Im talking a full family here. No van necessary. No seatbelts either....

So the rain. Hm. Yeah. Yeah. I never remembered to wear any of my stuff. So weehaa who had soaking wet shoes this week? THIS ELDER. I mean its only bad at first. Just dont stop biking in the water or else you fall over and get even more wet....Oh and always buy ponchos that have long sleeves. Ponchos with the sleeves, thats the way to go when you're biking. So yeah. Ponchos are very important, umbrellas stand no chance in Thailand. What else about the rain? Its wet. Its cold, roads flood. And sometimes they flood so that two days later when every things is already "dry" there are still areas flooded. And you still get soaking wet when its sunny. Yup.

LANGUAGE! Surin is weird and on the border with Cambodia. People here speak their own thing. Its not really Essan, not really Thai, not too much Lao, surprisingly quite a bit of Cambodian apparently, and this all means I still don't understand but hey. I focus on the Thai I know and am currently learning and I think it'll work out. I'll be fine, it's just an interesting thought because I ask my companion what a person said and he'll just tell me its not important because its not even Thai. Go figure.

Fish Friday-Every Friday so far, I've bought a fish, and that's my dinner. I love it, and I always forget to take a picture of the fish.....sorry

SHINING MY SHOES-Every time I shine my shoes, they end up getting wrecked. Like biking through flooded streets or like even just giving service and then i step in this quicksand/mud mixture. Maybe its a sign...

Also Asian candy. It is just so amazing. You know the Hi chew candy is legit when it comes in the silver metal wrappers and not the regular white plastic stuff, its the little things that count.

Spiritual thoughts...

D&C 64:31-34

2 Nephi 31:13-21

Like I said, I want you all to go and just try read these scriptures. See what you can get from them. Each person will get something different, and I can guarantee that you will receive some kind of guidance if you seek with sincerity the help from the Lord. 

Take it easy, have a blessed week, here's a picture of something that I ate. Mind over matter.

Aloha,

Elder เอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Shhhh....Just Eat, Practice Precedes Performance

If you know where I got this title from, you're actually awesome because Korean food is awesome. And its a food truck. And its in Provo. Ok, moving on...

So I also forgot to include that elephants walked over me. So scary. So fun. Too bad we forgot to take a picture while it was happening haha oh well

This past Sunday was my companion's birthday. I don't know about you, but he's feeling twenty twooo. And we also visited one of our investigators at work and she gave him the balloon flower. Which he proceeded to attach to his bike and we went inviting with the flower attached. He's legit. Gotta love it. Oh yeah.

So investigators this week. We've got a few rather interesting people. There's a group of investigators really interesting in learning English for free, but then again they live 60 km away...and speak this other language, pasay suay? soy? soi?, not sure how to spell it. But their Thai is rather limited and we had a hard time understanding them, we shall see where that goes.

Hm. Thai volleyball with your feet game. ตะกร้อ. Ta-go (takraw). Google it, its legit, i have no idea how to play it, but im bringing this game and its gonna be huge in Hawaii.

So food this week, its a continuation of interesting things just ordering the same thing as my companion. I have no idea what he orders and he's a Khon Lao. So he doesn't not have a western taste. I haven't eaten American food in quite some time. The most American I get is like toast or some oatmeal in the morning. Everything else is street vendor food. Nothing too exciting, I've begun trying each of those interesting Asian lays flavors. This week was lobster, rather amazing if I do say so myself. And then there are the fruits, oh glorious fruits. I have no idea what their names are, most of them look like lychee, some don't have a seed. Small yellowish/green skin, amazing. So sweet. Then there's the passion fruit. Khon Thais don't seem to have a tolerance for sour things. But I love it, Just eating them like...fruit. I love fruit. Oh and then there was this interesting dish. It was peppers, some fruit, and something else that made it sour. And I think some fish sauce? It was confusing. You eat and chew the fruit piece and your mouth starts to burn and then pucker up. All at the same time. Confusing. I love it

Oh and 7-11 has manapua. or char siu bao. Haven't tried them yet but everyone has said they're pretty good. One day.

Practice Precedes Performance

So I read a talk and this was the title, definitely find this talk if you can! Sorry I can't remember exactly where it is. But just think how true that statement is. Everything we do is practice for the performance. You can't just expect to go out and be perfect right away. It takes practice. It takes time, and most importantly. Patience. Patience is the key, being patient with your progress (Remember focus on the positives and improve those negatives). You can't expect to do everything perfectly. I can't expect to speak Thai at the same level as my companion. He's been in Thailand for almost two years. Iv'e studied Thai for around 3 months. Patience. Patience is always the key.

Ok and a quick scripture

D&C 81:5

"Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees."

Each of us have responsibilities and strengths. And at the same time we also have an abundance of weaknesses. We must go forth with our strengths and strengthen and lift up those in need. I mean, this is pretty straightforward. Press forward in faith, constantly doing good. Do I need to explain more?

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Accidents, Miracles, and Elephants

Elder Ellisʻ name tag

Road in Surin

Yeah I almost got hit by another car. I promise it wasn't my fault. Thai drivers are pretty scary. Its a good thing that the driver was so alert and the car also looked brand new. I guess the driver didn't want an awesome imprint of my body on their hood. Maybe they heard about the last person that hit me with a car.

Oh and then I almost ran into an ELEPHANT. Yeah it was late at night, I was tired, we were rushing to get back home and I wasn't paying attention to a large dark object that was about to cross the street. Swerve....ing out of the path of the elephant. #swerve

So miracles. Huh are miracles dead? NOPE. Miracles are real people. Like this week, Surin is a bit rough, you go out, talk to people, see if theyre interested in learning about Jesus and then they just totally don't show up to appointments. So after a day of all your appointments cancelling, you feel pretty junk. Therefore, what do we do? Pray. Pray. And pray. So hard. So much, on bent knees, so completely humbled. So before I go on, I'll explain how we set these goals to go and try and teach a certain amount of people and go and find so much new people. And we were at the middle of the week. Not close to our goals. Yeah we were a bit sad....

Street contacting at the Open Market

But what do we do? Not give up of course. The next few days we are just working like crazy, going hard. Calling people. I don't even understand these people. Half the time I think theyre speaking like a different language (Side note, a lot of these people I talk with have all these random dialects. Like there's some norther dialect which now explains why every time I talk with these two members I have no idea what they're saying. then there are accents. So much confusion, so much fun. oh yeah.) Yeah so continuing on, we are just fired up. Cause we know that if we give up, we won't be recipients of any divine help. So we fight on. And get 8 new investigators. Our investigators brought friends, and then those friends were super interested, and then we got someone set up for a baptismal date next week #1weekmiracles and then just out of nowhere, all our appointments start working and we have people calling us saying that they need us to come and teach their family, that something just feels right. Then we had a less active member call us and say she wanted to meet with us. Intense stuff. Miracles. Miracles. Miracles.

So on to food, fermented eggs, more things I don't know about, and the way I order food.
So Fermented eggs. They arent my favorite, theyre alright. I also always order the same thing as my companion cause I have no idea what to eat. And he gets all these spicy things. So I eat spicy food now. Yum.

Ok yeah, so short letter ish cause I don't have much time and we rode elephants today yeah. The elephants went in the water, we got a bit wet. It was legit.

Read it, gotta love it, good stuff. Yum. Feast on those awesome words.
Alma 36:35-37

Love you all, have fun in school, study hard! Or work hard if you aren't in school....

Aloha,
Elder แอลลิส
Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Stories from the Streets of Surin (DOGS), President Sxa, and sticking my toes in the waters

So this week huh... pretty eventful if I do say so myself. I'll start off and end on spiritual notes..

Yeah so I got to baptize the older man in the middle dressed in white next to me. His super cool. This was actually the first investigator lesson that I had taught and I had taught him about the Law of Tithing and Fasting + Fast Offerings (All different rules that our church follows, when we follow these rules we get blessings. and who doesn't want to be blessed. hit up lds.org) Yeah so we were like stoking. super excited cause he said he wanted to be baptized. and we had a date for him. and then like he didn't understand what I had taught him....so then maybe my thai isn't that great hahah. But because of his not understanding we had to move his baptismal date back a week :(....okay so we go and check up on him. but he doesn't have a phone. and we saw him at church but he rushed to leave cause he wasn't feeling that great so we didn't set an appointment (note to missionaries. always set an appointment) so yeah. basically he went off the grid for a whole week. that made us really sad...like this guy is amazing and he loved everything that we had shared with him. we would go and check every day but he was never home, we left notes on his door...nothing. rough life huh...yeah. So we prayed super hard to be able to see him and teach him. Fast forward after lots of praying and days passed. Its Saturday morning. We just finished study and took a quick bathroom/water break. We get a call. We answer the phone. IT'S HIM. Super relaxed and totally nonchalant he says "Yeah sorry, I had to go out of town to work, but I understand everything now, can we meet today?" And we had 7 appointments that day but decided hey. If he is ready, why should we stand in his way. So we rush over, review for his baptismal interview, gets interviewed and then he chose me to baptize him! Weehaa. What a rush. What a miracle. The church is true. Gotta love Thai people.

So yeah 7 appointments in one day planned. key word there is planned. We had a huge list of around 180 numbers that we had accumulated, from our own contacting and then left from Elder Sayavong's previous companion. Set aside some time to call all these numbers, called them, made appointments, got 20 people to commit to come to church...and then...Yeah. Rough day. 6 appointments cancel, none of the people committed came to church. But we had the miracle of baptism, and how great is the worth of a SINGLE SOUL in the eye of God.

So FOOD SECTION!

What did I eat this week...To be honest...idk....I don't ask very many question. I just chew and swallow and try not to make a disgusting face no matter what the food tastes like. So what I did know that I ate this week...

DURIAN. This stuff smells horrible, but seriously. the taste is just amazing. I just need to work on getting past the smell...Its nasty. Great tasting, nasty smell. Durian.

Bamboo and fish paste. So every Sunday the branch has a potluck and the food is always rather interesting with lots of vegetables (Hey mom! I'm eating more vegetables than I ever thought I would, aren't you proud?) Yeah so I took a bit of what I think was some sort of fried rice dish, and it had a hidden pepper....and the church was out of fresh drinking water so uh...yeah I just sat there and looked at the food and started to sweat a ton! Then I saw this stringy thing that looked like dough, asked a member, they said something i didn't understand, asked another missionary and he said "bamboo." So I ate it to try get out the spicy heat from the pepper. Then another member points and says that the bamboo is for the fish paste. So I tried the fish paste. Idk how to compare it to anything else Ive eaten. Its like.....idk. Imagine drinking a pasty version of the water at kewalos/point panics. Yeah...very interesting, salty, a bit nasty, but I held my composure, swallowed, and definitely impressed the members. oh yeah.

COAGULATED PIGS BLOOD. Its like jelly. but not really....yeah...pigs blood should not be coagulated. just saying. don't. Blood belongs in the animal and I don't think it should be eaten.

Chicken parts! Yeah chicken feet are good. 

And a whole bunch of other stuff that idk what it is, but the food is spicy and made my mouth burn. sweet yeah? oh and because of poor planning I've been eating mo moon or something. its basically ramen with lime, yeah eaten that stuff for breakfast for the past 8 days cause i forgot to buy more food for the whole time.....yup.

Oh and for those that know president SXA. Yeah I met him, had dinner, he's awesome, Really random, lots of crazy stories from him about all sorts of things. Such an interesting member, but he is so cool.

Teaching English

So every Tuesday we teach English. I feel like I should actually be a student in this class hahah, teaching English to people that only speak Thai. now I understand how my teachers in the MTC felt when they taught the district Thai. Oh my. Yeah. Lots of patience with the blank looks on the students faces. But its fun, and its goes alright. I taught about nouns. Easy stuff. I think. You know, I'm not too sure if they actually understood or if they were just nodding their heads and saying yes...hmm....

DOGS

These animals are not the fluffy dogs in Hawaii. I'm confident they all have rabies. There are a few that live around our house. Its sorta gross. So you would think getting chased by a dog gets old right? NOPE, I STILL FREAK OUT EVERY TIME I SEE A BLACK DOG CHASE ME. Ive also perfected a form of cycling similar to how triathletes enter the transition zone. I build up a lot of speed and lift one leg over on to the other side of the bike away from the dog so the dog has no chance of biting me. Am i being overly cautious, yes, but I don't want to be bitten. Yeah. Chased by dogs almost every day. not a fan. I think they smell fear. Or maybe they notice my lack of a dark tan like a Khon Thai. But I absolutely love Thailand, this is such a great place with such amazing people!

Yeah so in closing. Hm. Last chapter in 4 Nephi. Studied this and just loved it. Go and read it. Its in the Book of Mormon. So yeah, synopsis. The God we have now is the same Heavenly Father, yesterday, today, and forever. If He did miracles back in the old days, then why would He cease to do miracles today. Miracles are real, you just need to open your eyes. Each day we have, each experience we go through there are miracles at play. Miracles don't always mean a huge experience like Moses splitting the Red Sea, sometimes it's the small things like the fact that those drivers were alert enough to step on the breaks and not hit me and my companion. Its the little things in life, don't forget them.

Have a good week!

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

So you know that awkward friend at the party? Thats me in Thailand

Providing 6 hours of service planting rice

That awkward friend that you really love and brought to the party but he had no idea whats going on cause these people although nice aren't really his friends (yet). So like he sits there lost and not sure what to do but has a huge smile on face cause the party is awesome. Yeah that's me not understanding whats going on but loving every second

12:00 am. I'm in a bus going across Bangkok, walk around a sketchy street corner into a hotel. Yup. Thailand.

Next day, wake up, casually here that another bomb has been found in Bangkok....looks like we won't be proselyting in that area today.

Wooow! and then TRANSFERS! Yeah, so my trainer is Elder Sayavong, a Khon Lao that learned how to speak English, Thai, and Japanese all within the last year and a half. Hes a really amazing elder with such a strong testimony and hes willing to really carry the companionship. He has me teach quite a bit and then ends up clarifying what I had said after my 2nd or 3rd attempt at explaining....things will work out. one day I will get the hang of this language

Lets see so I've got a few stories. So we are at the transfer meeting in Bangkok, and I get assigned to an area called Surin which is an 7 hour bus ride away. Pretty intense. So we catch a bus at 8:30 pm and yeah. Chillin on a bus, the even give us food like an airplane but the bus food is way better! Sweet yeah? And then its like 3 am. Still have no idea what I'm doing here in Thailand...really confused, jet lagged cause i have no idea of what time it is but grateful to be safe in Thailand. so in this confusion I somehow got into a tuk tuk at 3:30 am heading back to our house. Which is way sweet cause it has a few rooms with ac. Yeah water isn't the best to drink. but it'll be alright cause we have all our filtered water.

And I saw an elephant crossing the street and a bunch of water buffalo just chilling next to the road. Oh I'm not in Hawaii or Utah anymore...

I guess you can all tell that I'm still a bit sabson (confused) and overwhelmed because I have next to no train of thought going on right now. not sure if anything is making sense...but I'm just gonna roll with it.

So my signature. yeah at first i couldn't find the right vowel but now typing on this thai keyboard i have. but I'm lazy and wont change it. and also the way i have it on the bottom of the email is the same way my missionary tags I got in Thailand are spelled! and another note on this spelling. I've been told that my name sounds a lot like a girls.....cause when the Thai people sound it out it sounds like "Alice" so then there's that....They also think my name sounds like Elvis. oh well

Lets see. What else. We had a baptism this Sunday and will have a few more next Sunday, these are really great people that absolutely love the gospel. I love the investigators and all the people in Thailand even though I have almost no idea of what they're saying to me! Awesome right?!

So I also worked in a rice field planting rice for like 6 hours. now I'm super sun burnt, but my dark tan is starting to return. Oh you know I'm super stoked to be tan again. but not excited for the weird shirt tan.... Also does anyone know how dangerous leeches are? cause apparently I picked a few off my leg when i was working in the field.... jk. i don't think there were leechers in the field. at least that's what our investigator had said....

And Thailand literally has like every single type of weather. Like I bought a bike then that night we had to bike back home in like a torrential downpour (sorry mom, i have yet to treat the mud stains on my shirt, but maybe ill go and buy fenders today) Then the next day we had to bike out to a super far away house to teach someone and I was drenched in sweat. oh this is great. which brings me to the conclusion....

If I didn't believe that this gospel is true, why would I go through all of this? Running out of time but yeah. I know what I'm doing is a righteous and sacred work and there is nothing else I would want to do right now. Serving the people of Thailand is such a blessing. Quick thing for all you to study/look at.1 Corinthians 9. Love this chapter and I feel like it has really helped me want to have a desire to learn and be more like the Thai people. When you truly live like them you gain an appreciation and understanding like none other.

Oh. and I've eaten a lot of food that I don't really know what it was. But hey, I'm alive, not feeling too sick, haven't thrown up, and my stomach is doing pretty good. Go figure. But maybe I shouldn't go and push my luck.

Street vendor food is good stuff, take it easy, have a blessed week, choose the right, and shout out to all my friends and family that keep on getting engaged while I'm away. I guess you all just didn't want me at the weddings huh? (jk, love you all and wish you the best of luck).

Oh and in my area they speak Cambodian, Thai, Burmese, and this dialect called Essan. Yeah. I really have no idea what I'm doing, but it'll be alright. SUU SUU SUU! (fight fight fight)

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Safe Arrival... Letter from Mission President

Just wanted to share a couple of items that we received the other day and today... From Elder Ellis' Mission President and his wife.

President Johnson and Sister Johnson and the newest set of Thailand, Bangkok Mission Elders

"We are happy to report that your son arrived safely in Bangkok late last night, clearing passport control early this morning." 

"He is in good spirits and is anxious to begin laboring in the Lord's vineyard in Thailand. We are thrilled to have him as a missionary in the Thailand Bangkok Mission family."

"Your son will receive his first assignment tomorrow morning. Preparation day will be on Monday and he will be able to email you each week.  I am sure he will much to share regarding his experiences in Thailand, missionary activities and his first Sunday in his assigned area."

Today we received the following...

Surin, Ubon is in Eastern part of Thailand

"Elder Ellis has been welcomed by the Thailand Bangkok Mission at their first transfer meeting and has been assigned to serve in the Surin, Ubon Zone of the Thailand Bangkok Mission." 

"...one of our finest missionaries, Elder Sayavong to be Elder Ellis's  training companion.  I believe this companionship will help your son to get a great start as a missionary and to experience the joy and vision of missionary service."

We also found a pretty interesting video on YouTube that shows someone traveling from Bangkok to Surin.

https://youtu.be/6HR93Oh4XbE

Mahalo for all that continue to write and uplift Elder Ellis while he is on his mission, for updated contact information... Please see the [Contact me] button above.