AIT #8: January 3, 2003
The reason this is a few days late is that I've been sick since Tuesday morning. Nothing terribly bad, but enough to keep me down all day Thursday. Mainly just a headache, slight fever, wooziness, and weakness. Tuesday I went out proselyting as usual (thinking it would go away). Wednesday we went to Dream World (more on that later) all day and it didn't go away. :) When we got back from Dream World I wrote a few letters and then decided it would be best to go straight to bed. Slept most of Thursday morning and early afternoon and then lay on the couch the rest of the day, singing hymns to myself to keep my thoughts off the sickness.
Anyway, on to better thoughts. :) Our ward Christmas party, "Journey to Bethlehem," was on the 21st. They asked us to participate in the play, so we were shepherds and sang a few numbers. People really seemed to like it. A good number of our investigators showed up, too. On Christmas Eve a bunch of ward members went out caroling and they asked us to go with them, so we spent the evening going around town crammed into the back of Brother Super's car. :) It was a lot of fun. We went to the Bates's for Christmas meal. They brought a friend of theirs, Terence Omoruyi. He's from Nigeria and is trying to find a job here. I talked with him a lot -- he was baptized November 10th, and he's in Huai Khwang (Elder Orrock's area). His conversion story is really neat.
I didn't go to the World Scout Jamboree on Sunday; instead, Elder Rock and I stayed here and Elder Nelson and Elder Stevenson went to the jamboree. They left around 11:00 on Sunday morning and got back just in time. During the last hour of church, one of the ward leaders announced that the son of Brother S. had died that morning (he was around 40 years old and had been sick for a while). Because Brother S. was the only one in his family who's a member, they held a fangsuad (Buddhist funeral of sorts) that evening at Wat Bangtoey. It was about two hours long and consisted mainly of monks chanting prayers in Pali. I'd hoped I would have at least some chance of understanding a word here and there, but it flew completely over my head. :) A lot of ward members showed up.
Oh, not too long ago my bike light fell off while I was crossing the road. Before I could go back and get it, a bus flew by and immortalized it. Last week I passed off Basic 1. :) I also stopped using the discussion book when teaching the first discussion. On Saturday Elder Nelson got hit by a taxi. Nothing too major, just the back wheel, and the car was hardly moving, so it faded quickly into memory.
There's a new worldwide missionary e-mail policy -- all missionaries now have to use the Church's e-mail service. It's mainly for safety and filtering (don't have to worry about nasty messages getting through).
This week has been really slow because everyone's been gone for New Year's. We've had hardly any appointments (four all week). On New Year's Eve we stopped by at Sister M.'s house for half an hour or so for some food, and then went to Super's for the rest of the evening. At Super's we switched-off with Elder Christiansen and Elder Suttiphong. Poor Elder Suttiphong had to stay home with me all day yesterday. Good sport.
One thing that's kind of odd here is that cleaning ladies come into the men's bathrooms all the time, and they don't think there's anything weird about that. :) There are termites eating our house apart, but we're probably not moving houses till April. The house we're in right now is 11,000 baht a month, which is a bit on the expensive side (8,000 is reasonable). Thailand's definitely dirtier than America, but that's just the way it is. You get used to it. A lot of people smoke and drink, a lot. Lots of kids, too. There are street vendors on bikes that ride around all day selling food, and there are lots of people who have stores in their living rooms or in the front part of their room (if in an apartment). Because Thais use first names, it's hard to know who's married to who, who's the children of who, and all that. I still get surprised from time to time.
Lots of people want to learn English here. I didn't expect there to be so many English words in Thai (called thapsap), but they're so prevalent that if you don't know the word for something in Thai, you can try pronouncing the English word with a Thai accent and you've a good chance of being correct. :) I think the rainy season is over. It hasn't rained hard for several weeks now. Good. :) It seems that construction work is eternal here, always going on and on and on, all over the place.
Oh, the other day a coin fell on the ground and I was about to step on it to stop it from rolling away, but luckily Elder Nelson stopped me in time. I'd forgotten about that: since all the money has the king's picture on it, it's really bad to step on any coins or bills. A few days ago I ran into Suchat Chaichana, the man who spoke in our ward not too long ago. He told me that the new translation of the Thai Book of Mormon should be done in two years. The first pass is already complete, but they want it to be the best possible translation.
We had interviews again last week. I found that I'll be returning home July 30, 2004. That means that in a few weeks I'll only have a year and a half left. Whoa. That makes me feel old. :) Most stores will sell you drinks in bags (same with smoothies), which was weird at first, but I've gotten used to it. I'm running out of time so I'm sorry I'm changing the topic so much. I've seen a handful of people fishing out of khlongs; I guess if it suits them, so be it. It's normal here to talk about zits -- Thais will often go up to missionaries and say, "Why do you have so many zits?" It's not taboo at all. :) We do indeed have to bend over when crossing between people who are talking to each other, especially if they're older, but it seems like rules like that are gradually fading away and being replaced by American culture. The traffic lights (all two or three of them in our area :)) are sooooo long -- four or five minutes, and I'm not exaggerating at all. It's crazy. The traffic gets backed up really bad.
Well, I'd like to write more, but I'll have to save it for next week. I'm hoping I'll get better soon. Take care and have a great day! :-)
Anyway, on to better thoughts. :) Our ward Christmas party, "Journey to Bethlehem," was on the 21st. They asked us to participate in the play, so we were shepherds and sang a few numbers. People really seemed to like it. A good number of our investigators showed up, too. On Christmas Eve a bunch of ward members went out caroling and they asked us to go with them, so we spent the evening going around town crammed into the back of Brother Super's car. :) It was a lot of fun. We went to the Bates's for Christmas meal. They brought a friend of theirs, Terence Omoruyi. He's from Nigeria and is trying to find a job here. I talked with him a lot -- he was baptized November 10th, and he's in Huai Khwang (Elder Orrock's area). His conversion story is really neat.
I didn't go to the World Scout Jamboree on Sunday; instead, Elder Rock and I stayed here and Elder Nelson and Elder Stevenson went to the jamboree. They left around 11:00 on Sunday morning and got back just in time. During the last hour of church, one of the ward leaders announced that the son of Brother S. had died that morning (he was around 40 years old and had been sick for a while). Because Brother S. was the only one in his family who's a member, they held a fangsuad (Buddhist funeral of sorts) that evening at Wat Bangtoey. It was about two hours long and consisted mainly of monks chanting prayers in Pali. I'd hoped I would have at least some chance of understanding a word here and there, but it flew completely over my head. :) A lot of ward members showed up.
Oh, not too long ago my bike light fell off while I was crossing the road. Before I could go back and get it, a bus flew by and immortalized it. Last week I passed off Basic 1. :) I also stopped using the discussion book when teaching the first discussion. On Saturday Elder Nelson got hit by a taxi. Nothing too major, just the back wheel, and the car was hardly moving, so it faded quickly into memory.
There's a new worldwide missionary e-mail policy -- all missionaries now have to use the Church's e-mail service. It's mainly for safety and filtering (don't have to worry about nasty messages getting through).
This week has been really slow because everyone's been gone for New Year's. We've had hardly any appointments (four all week). On New Year's Eve we stopped by at Sister M.'s house for half an hour or so for some food, and then went to Super's for the rest of the evening. At Super's we switched-off with Elder Christiansen and Elder Suttiphong. Poor Elder Suttiphong had to stay home with me all day yesterday. Good sport.
One thing that's kind of odd here is that cleaning ladies come into the men's bathrooms all the time, and they don't think there's anything weird about that. :) There are termites eating our house apart, but we're probably not moving houses till April. The house we're in right now is 11,000 baht a month, which is a bit on the expensive side (8,000 is reasonable). Thailand's definitely dirtier than America, but that's just the way it is. You get used to it. A lot of people smoke and drink, a lot. Lots of kids, too. There are street vendors on bikes that ride around all day selling food, and there are lots of people who have stores in their living rooms or in the front part of their room (if in an apartment). Because Thais use first names, it's hard to know who's married to who, who's the children of who, and all that. I still get surprised from time to time.
Lots of people want to learn English here. I didn't expect there to be so many English words in Thai (called thapsap), but they're so prevalent that if you don't know the word for something in Thai, you can try pronouncing the English word with a Thai accent and you've a good chance of being correct. :) I think the rainy season is over. It hasn't rained hard for several weeks now. Good. :) It seems that construction work is eternal here, always going on and on and on, all over the place.
Oh, the other day a coin fell on the ground and I was about to step on it to stop it from rolling away, but luckily Elder Nelson stopped me in time. I'd forgotten about that: since all the money has the king's picture on it, it's really bad to step on any coins or bills. A few days ago I ran into Suchat Chaichana, the man who spoke in our ward not too long ago. He told me that the new translation of the Thai Book of Mormon should be done in two years. The first pass is already complete, but they want it to be the best possible translation.
We had interviews again last week. I found that I'll be returning home July 30, 2004. That means that in a few weeks I'll only have a year and a half left. Whoa. That makes me feel old. :) Most stores will sell you drinks in bags (same with smoothies), which was weird at first, but I've gotten used to it. I'm running out of time so I'm sorry I'm changing the topic so much. I've seen a handful of people fishing out of khlongs; I guess if it suits them, so be it. It's normal here to talk about zits -- Thais will often go up to missionaries and say, "Why do you have so many zits?" It's not taboo at all. :) We do indeed have to bend over when crossing between people who are talking to each other, especially if they're older, but it seems like rules like that are gradually fading away and being replaced by American culture. The traffic lights (all two or three of them in our area :)) are sooooo long -- four or five minutes, and I'm not exaggerating at all. It's crazy. The traffic gets backed up really bad.
Well, I'd like to write more, but I'll have to save it for next week. I'm hoping I'll get better soon. Take care and have a great day! :-)
posted by Ben at 6:42 AM
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