Thailand. So Legit. Can't Quit.

Thailand is just about the most amazing place ever. This week. Lot's of things. None of them really related. But here's a little insight into my life as of this week.

และก็ 

(it sounds like "let's go!" but doesn't mean that....but lets go!)

New phone-Yeah oh yeah. "Just because the phone is touch screen doesn't mean it's smart." Quote from a teacher in the MTC. I really need to take a picture of our new phone. Samsung J1. It's got Gospel Library and a Thai dictionary on it. And the battery is a champ. It's way sweet. We shall see how long the phone actually lasts though....Cause we're pretty rough with phones...But yeah. Stoking on that.

Mission Tour this week with Elder Funk!

Way awesome experience heading out to the Bangkok of the Essan. Khon Kaen. Got to learn so much about Obedience. Interesting thought. As missionaries we are out here learning a ton! And having all these experiences that really help us grow and become so much more. When we go home, what will we do with these experiences and this new knowledge? Will we just return to that same spot where we were before or will you use these talents and keep on progressing onward? Use and take what you have and run with it! Forward Ever....you know the rest. And the importance of obedience. Rules aren't barriers, rather they are like rungs on a ladder helping you reach higher and higher potentials. Way sweet analogy. 

Musical Number Idea

Okay so for mission tour the Surin elders also did a musical number. We sang the words from "Joseph Smith's 1st vision" to the tune of "Come thou Fount." Absolutely beautiful and meshes so well. And when you sing in parts, it just sounded amazing. English and Thai. Woah. Try it. It's really beautiful. Such an amazing feeling entered the conference hall.

Stories from my awesome companion

He's from Lao. Khon Lao. I love him, and he's got way amazing experiences. Here's my favorite from this week. It started off with us talking about elephants. "Hey Elder, if an elephant is chasing you, what do you do? Run up the mountain or down the mountain?" I had no idea so this is his explanation....

How to Escape from Elephants-Always run down the mountains, the elephants knees are week and we as humans can run down the mountain faster than they can. Never run up because the elephant is stronger than us. And then don't climb trees because elephants can just shake the tree until you fall out. And lastly, just don't jump into a body of water either. How does he know all of this? I have no idea. But when I asked him he just smiled and said he's seen a few elephants in Laos. I love having him as a companion.

Cutting Thai Ties

Attached is a picture of a tie I made. I cut the ties myself because no one in Surin will make ties for me. The only width so far is skinny because I haven't figured out how to taper them yet....But on the bright side, these ties cost me around 20-30 cents and around 1.5 hours! Only made 2 so far last p-day cause we had some free time. I also almost bought a 3 man tent cause it was on sale for less than 300฿! Then I remembered that I don't need a tent and won't be camping any time soon.

Something to read this week

Psalms 119-Absolutely love this chapter. Read it. It's like a 100+ verses but they are so good. It's way uplifting and a few verses a day makes this chapter reasonable!

Elephant Party

Next month is the big elephant festival. Weehaa! We shall see if I'm staying in Surin or nah...Elephants. So amazing.

Just Go Hard

So yeah, just go hard. Give it your all, all the time. Because if you aren't giving it your all, why are you even doing that? If anything is worth doing, it's worth doing with your full heart, might, mind and strength. There is a difference when you go hard and do all that you can. Try it out this week. Give something (or everything) your all. Go out each day (starting with a prayer asking for strength to do those things) and then do everything within your means possible. It's tiring. But oh so rewarding. Give it your all, hold nothing back. God loves you so much and He will help you succeed!

Time is moving faster than a herd of elephants running up a mountain!

Have a great week!

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

Rushing, Back to the Basics, The usual

Here's a picture of a chicken. Me and my companion bought a whole chicken for 100 baht ($2.83 USD).

So yeah the last section from D&C 123 I had sent, I really wanted people to focus on like the 2nd half of it. That's where I found my inspiration but hey, maybe there was a reason that I forgot to specify certain verses.

So General Conference. So sweet. General Conference is a big meeting for members of the church to hear and receive guidance from the prophet and apostles that lead this church. Although I listened to all the sessions in Thai I surprised myself and understood more than I thought I would. What I had gotten out of conference was really a lot of the talks went back to the basics. Sabbath Day observance, keeping the commandments, being good people. Nothing fancy, nothing way confusing. Just a simple reminder. Be good people. Do good work. Things will be alright. Conference was awesome. Currently printing out some articles to study this week. We shall see what happens.

On a side note about conference. The story about the potter. Now that was quite confusing. Mostly because I had no idea what the words the translator was using in Thai. Then the pictures they showed to illustrate the points confused me even more. But I heard it's great, so I shall take some time and read it!

Baptism Yo!

So this is my first investigator that I have worked from the very beginning. I was inviting at a night market one night and wasn't having much success. So I decided hey. I'm gonna go hard for the next 10 minutes. Talk to everyone, just put forth every last ounce of effort I have. So I did, talked to a bunch of people. And I got this gentleman's number. It was sitting in my planner until last week I decided lets give him a call. I had called him before but he never answered. And it just so happened that this time, he answered and he accepted to come to church. Sunday morning I call his phone and it says that the number can't be reached. So I'm freaking out. Cause I thought I had someone and then they go and change their number. Like what. Alright, life moves on. Then in he walks. And he is such a champ. Had a ton of questions, loved the gospel. We never even taught him anything yet. He saw S. Cat's baptism and told me that he wanted to get baptized next week. I was excited. So we met with him every single day this past week, taught him all the lessons and wow. Like when God prepares someone to hear the gospel, they are prepared beyond belief. Way amazing. He's got a goal to be a missionary like us, and share the happiness that he's felt because of the gospel.

Woah. Woah. Woah. Thailand is amazing.

And on that note, we were planning for his baptism. Flipping through the hymnbook and then he points to this hymn "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief." And he asks me to try sing the tune. I sing the first verse for him, and tell him that I really love this song. How does he reply? Well he goes on to say (In English) "I think you like this song because it's about you. You are a distressed young man also." Yup. He nailed it. Thailand is confusing but I have found strength in God. It was hilarious, and I couldn't stop laughing.

Oh and then funny story about sister Cat. Surin isn't a huge place. Therefore we often get numbers from the same people. Like a few missionaries may have met a certain person on a different date and gotten their number before. Case 1-Sister Cat. We had just baptized her last week. Then this week the other elders in Surin were going through their numbers, called a potential investigator and then invited her to come and meet with them at church to explain about Jesus Christ. The name in Thai sounded very close to the way Sister Cat's name is spelled. So they're all excited that someone is coming to meet them and up on the motorbike comes sister Cat. Haha. She was really confused, but way chill about it all. Our companionship just ended up teaching her a mini lesson about General Conference. Surin is pretty small hahah.

So for things to focus on this week of the spiritual matter....

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/10/the-challenge-to-become

This talk. The Challenge to Become by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. This is the talk that can change your life. Just when you think you've done all that you can, we realize that we can do so much more. It's one thing to know something. It's another to become something. Heavenly Father knows our potential. Why don't we trust Him?

It's gonna be a great week!

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

It only hurts when you stop, Greenie power in Surin, LA work!, & the struggle of being a 54 in a 44 world

It only hurts when you stop. 

Literally. You're moving at lightning speed rushing from appointment to appointment only to have some people not show up, but that's alright cause you can't look back. Can't stop won't stop. Making phone calls. Following up on commitments. This is a rush. Oh yeah. In the moment you feel amazing, you've got all this power. Then at night when you walk in drenched from sweat, it hits you. Wow. I'm way exhausted. Oh but sometimes you go so hard that like you accidentally invite an Less Active member (LA) that's also a Return Missionary (RM).... Just the way we like it in Surin!

Spiritual thought this week.
Comes from a book called "Our Search for Happiness." If you have a copy of this book read it. If you don't. Get it. It will make you a happier person. But if you don't want to read a whole book well there's also D&C 123. With a special emphasis on verse 16. Just love the imagery. Really hits home with anyone that loves the ocean.

Greenie Power yo. 

We got two greenies in the house out here in Surin. It was good serving with the one and only Elder Kawin but now welcome to Elder Daley! He's an awesome missionary and we were both in the MTC at the same time. How sweet is that! Yeah, great things are happening in Surin.

LA Work.

So there's this analogy that a ward is like a pond. But if La's don't come back to church there's like a leak in the pond. So there are two ways to fill the pond, through baptisms and also through bringing LA's back to church. One of the best feelings is getting a call from your LA saying that she's finally ready to come back, and then you show up to church and you don't just see one but you see a few more. And then they keep on coming back! These people are noticeably happier in their countenances because they have the Gospel in their life.

So I crashed my bike this week. 
But not really bad...Just enough to crack my RD and RD hanger and this was Saturday afternoon....So I had to go look for a new bike cause if I don't have a bike we pretty much shut down in the area. Go to the bike store and they only have 44cm bikes. When I was riding, the smallest frame I would ride was a 52, but I comfortably fit a 54-56. Yeah.....Well I mean a smaller frame generally means it should be lighter right? We shall see. I'll make sure not to ride into any sidewalks again.....

On the food adventures this week. 

I ate some stuff off some trees. My companion is from Laos, he points at plants and says it's edible so I try it. The members absolutely love how willing I am to eat anything. Haven't gotten sick yet so....I guess I'll continue with this adventurous eating.

So our water also got shut off. 

There was a lot of flooding and like we get a call from a member telling us to fill up our empty drinking water jugs cause they're shutting the water off for a day and a half.....So yeah. It was an experience. Having running water, even if it isn't totally drinkable, is a legit blessing people. Count those blessings. They're there.

Elephant stories this week huh....
Well biking back home I saw an elephant with some reflector tape on it's tail. That was pretty interesting. Didn't bike into it this time cause I saw this bright thing swaying back and forth.

Went out to see some sites. 

Decided to try and take some pictures. Not sure what more to say, cause the pictures sorta say it all.

Meet Sister Cat. 

She had called us on a Sunday afternoon saying she wanted to learn about Jesus Christ. The next day she gets into a motorbike accident. Then the day after we begin teaching her. Her house is a bit far out, but we always faithfully made a trek out each appointment. There was a week where she had stopped answering our phone calls so what did we do? Give up? HAH NOPE. We actually just showed up at her house right before she would leave to pick up her kids. Such an amazing woman. We would go and teach her, and really the only thing holding her back from being baptized so soon was us, the missionaries. We weren't able to meet with her and finish all of the discussions. But hey, God works in His own time, at His own will. And she was baptized this week. And shared one of the most honest and amazing testimonies ever. Although I didn't understand every word she shared, I did feel of that great love she has for our Savior, Jesus Christ and this Gospel.

Nothing great came easy, and nothing easy is all that great (except for street food).

Have a blessed week! Keep the stoke alive!

Aloha,

Elder แอลลิส

Forward Ever. Stopping Never.

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.