Not All Who Wander Are Lost

     I always look forward to emailing. Always.

     Been another High-Low week. Many of the people we are teaching aren't picking up their phones, so that's been a little frustrating. 

     

     We invited some other members to our house for Family Home Evening. Again, we are probably the only house in our entire mission that's allowed to do that, since our area doesn't have a church. We all ate food together and taught them a brief lesson. 

     All the missionaries in Bangkok and us got to go to a mission conference, and a few church leaders came and spoke to us. It was really amazing, many shared stories and their great experiences on their missions as well. One of them served in South America, and I thought of my dad when he shared his stories.

     Two of the members, Brother Love and Brother Day (they go by nicknames) took the week off, and they have been hanging out with us the last week. We ate dinner with them one night, and we took them to help us search for people to teach. We went to a place called Miami, a big outdoor shopping place with a Ferris Wheel, and that didn't work out well since there was loud music and people didn't want to learn about the Gospel, or English Class. But, it was way fun though.

     I have noticed that Elder Duke has a gift with fending off dogs. The dogs in Thailand are really wimpy, and we often walk past a lot of strays, and they hardly even move. But this last week we have had some dogs try and get us, but Elder Duke just pretends to pick up a rock and they scatter. He has fended them off when I wasn't looking. Despite him being a lot smaller than me, he's like my guardian angel...

     There are two workers on a bus: One is the driver and the other is the "bus bag" where they collect money. I talked to a guy who collected money, and he said he's been working on a bus collecting money for 38 YEARS. 38 YEARS!!! Sheesh I would literally lose my mind if I ever had that job.

I found the International Academy of Magic. I found the sign but I don't know where the academy is.. 

     My companion and I took a bus about 4-5 miles north of our house, and we went into a neighborhood to find people. We got lost and we were out for like 3 hours. Then we finally found an exit to the neighborhood, and we were about a half of a mile south from our house. How did that happen?

     The other day at Church I was talking to a church member who lived in the same area where my mom served. Later she introduced me to some members that knew my mom. Small World after all. One of them was so excited she gave me a big bag of bananas. Church members are so giving. I love them. 

     I invited a bunch of missionaries and a few members to have a fun P day with us. Today we are exploring a small island, and going to the Crocodile farm. Should be way fun. 

Have a Great week,

Elder Brinkerhoff

P.S. The Redhead missionary is not my companion, he just happens to be in these pictures. He's awesome. 

Hello again from Samutprakan, 

     I'm loving this new schedule change, we get more free time, and more independent time to schedule while we study, and we get an hour and a half of free time before we go to bed!

     After visiting an older woman with some church members, a few members, my comp, and I ate at an outdoor restaurant. Just a short distance away from the restaurant was a big stage. In the middle of dinner, 30+ year old men dressed in sparkly women's clothes with makeup came on the stage and sang weird songs. I wanted to get a picture or video but I didn't. Then I realized that if I did, and if my grandchildren saw these photos/videos in like 50 years, they probably wouldn't want to know what happened on my mission. 

     I got to do a switch-off with a Burmese Missionary, Elder Tone. He is awesome, and really funny. He speaks English, Thai, and Burmese. I asked him what he does for exercise, and he said he meditates. Then he said, "I actually meant sleeping."

     Yesterday while visiting an older couple, I noticed one Thai man holding a ladder while the other was on top of the ladder fixing some power wires. 

     I've been on my mission for six months now. That is super weird. I've only heard it gets faster, since I am getting the hang of things. There's a diagram that some missionaries showed me, and it basically explains missions. There's a Thailand missionary tradition, where a missionary would burn a tie when they hit their six month mark. My tie of choice was polyester, so it didn't burn at all. My companion was

laughing the whole time while filming me, trying to burn the tie. I'm not attaching the video. 

     We were blessed with finding more people to teach this week. It's a big surprise as well, since our area is considered a tough area to find people to teach. 

     During church yesterday Brother Pronchai came up to the stand and bore his testimony. Despite me not understanding most of what he was saying since I'm still not the best at Thai, he talked about my family and how extremely grateful he was to have my family help him get his master's degree at BYU, and for being a great friend to him. He spoke of my Uncle Kent, my Grandpa Barrus, and my mom. Honestly if I hadn't served in Samutprakan I probably wouldn't have served here, he probably would have never had the opportunity to connect with my Uncle Kent again.

     Before we went back to our house the other day, we went and visited an investigator who has been struggling. We sat and talked to him, and he said he has had a hard time with his job, and has been really stressed out lately. He lives alone as well. We asked him if he could pray for us, and in his prayer he expressed gratitude for the missionaries coming to visit, and he talked about how despite us having a long day working and being tired, we still put effort into visiting him. Really heartwarming. Despite us being there for about 15 minutes, it still really helped him out. I hope that all of you will visit someone who needs help. Even that 15-minute visit really helped that investigator out. 

     Transfers are this week, so I may get a new companion or maybe in a new area next week.

     Have a great week,

     Elder Brinkerhoff