I looked at my watch and realized I have been on my mission for eight months now, six of those months here in Thailand. I'm a third of the way done.
Here are some of the phrases that I have said in the last six months that I never imagined that I would say:
"I wonder if he's found anything valuable in our trash can."
"Did you see that? He just took a drink out of the trash can and drank the rest of it!"
"Why do middle-aged Thai women offer us their daughters to marry?"
"He has hair down to his knees??"
"Why would you ever take a selfie with a dead body?" (When we visited a mortician)
It's the beginning of April, which means that April and May are supposedly the hottest months of the year. I am dreading hot season; the stories I have heard of how hot it gets... Yikes. At least we get to play Songkran next week. Due to Songkran my Pday will be changed to next Thursday. Click on the link below to learn more about Songkran.
It's been a pretty good week. Elder Duke and I are getting a little busier with teaching people and helping people in our church, which is great.
Last week, two members, Elder Duke, and I went to Muang Booran. It's an ancient city, where people recreated a bunch of Buddhist temples all around the county, and made it small scaled and put it in a park. For example, it's like the Statue of Liberty mini-replica in Las Vegas. We rented bikes and biked all around the place. It was really cool for the first few hours, then at the end I was like: "Oh look... another Buddhist temple.."
One day, while I was walking, I asked a woman who was walking past if she wanted to learn about Jesus Christ, and she said, "Thailand!!!" in English, and walked away. I'm guessing since the majority of Thai people are Buddhist and that's the national religion, she was just saying that she was Buddhist.
The other night my companion and I were riding on the back of a truck (where they put seats and a metal frame around it). I buzzed the button for the truck to stop and we got off, and I pulled out money to pay the driver. While pulling out the money he yelled, "COME ON!" in English. I jumped a bit and almost dropped my money and hurried to pay him. I then handed him the money and told him, "Two people" in Thai. Then he yelled back in English, "TWO PEOPLE? OKAY! 4 BAHT. HERE YOU GO! THANK YOU! BYE!" I guess some people can communicate only through yelling.
Saw some more miracles this week. My companion and I found a woman and her daughter who used to live in Hong Kong, and they told us that ever since they moved to Thailand they have been searching for a Christian Church. We started teaching them, and they love our message. They asked us to come back.
Also, we visited a member who hasn't shown up to church in a while, and her contact information on the phone said that she went to a different Christian church and fell into bad habits again. We paid her a visit, and when we walked into her apartment, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a stack of Liahona (church) Magazines in the corner. She said that earlier that day she was trying to feel closer to God, and she pulled out the magazines. Then she added, "Then you two showed up!"
I hope everyone has had a good General Conference weekend, and that all can enjoy the great messages that the prophets and apostles have for us. General Conference will be this weekend for us. I feel like it was just a month ago that I was in the MTC listening to the messages.
Thailand!!!
-Elder Brinkerhoff
