President and Sister Senior are so awesome!

Area: Pak Kret (week 14)
Companion - Elder Siperly 

Hello to one and all!

It has been another crazy good week and it has been one of the busier! It sounds like the reunion and basketball camp was a way sweet! And those pictures of the waterslide are hilarious! This is going to sound really bad but who is Matt? He sounds way sweet but I’m not sure if I know who that is. All the activities and games and stuff sounds so good I wish I was there but then I wouldn’t be having all the awesome experiences over here. That Tommy Wilde sounds like a knockout though! haha see what I did there jk (Christina took a charge at basketball camp and passed out when her head hit.) Anyway, I am so glad to hear that everyone is having such a wonderful summer and it’s great that Becky is back yay!!

Sounds like Ricky is killing me on the sales though if all goes well our first baptism will be happening on the 18th and it will be this awesome lady named Tuun. She is like 40ish and has 2 kids that are 9 and 6 and she speaks English way better than I speak Thai! She is the one I taught that lesson to last week when it was just me and a member. She has read a bunch of the Book of Mormon already and has already made some great progress and changes. In fact she is so good that this week we sat down and taught her the Law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom and Tithes and offerings all in one lesson and she was like ok no problem all I need to do is quit coffee and of course she is so awesome that she did! So we are pretty excited to prepare her and help be baptized.

Well as I have before mentioned this week was pretty crazy but here are some of the highlights.

On Monday we went to Rangsit to practice a song for zone conference and we caught a snake in the church! We took it off to the river and dumped it out. It wasn’t very big but we weren’t sure if it was venomous so that was exciting.

Tuesday we had that sweet lesson with Tuun and then in our English class that night we had a class of like 50+ and there were two monks in the class! They were like in their 20's. Also, on Tuesday one of the elders in the threesome in Don Mueang got dengue fever so for the rest of the week we were switched off with his companions. But he is getting out of the hospital today.

Wednesday-was zone conference which was absolutely phenomenal! I love the President and Sister Senior they are so awesome, so strongly rooted in the gospel and funny and personable and just have such a great spirit! So that was awesome; we got to hear from them and our other leaders like all day and I got to see Elder Trabing. I didn’t realize how much I missed my family until I saw him again it was soo great! Also, in Pres Senior's talk he showed us that Noah’s ark had a glowing stone like the Jaredite barges! Blew my mind; shattered my entire existence! You have got to check it out genesis 6 or 8 I can’t remember but check out the footnotes when he talks about the window of the ark. (Genesis 6:16)

Saturday we were messing with some little Thai kids that were like 5 to 9 and it was way funny because they didn’t think that we could speak Thai and we kept switching back and forth between English and Thai and they were so confused; hilarious! And then there moms were like “really, really they speak Thai” and the kids are like “na, uh no way,” and then were like “we don’t a speak Thailand” and then talked to them in Thai and watched as their jaws hit the ground; soo funny!

Last, but definitely not least, last night we cooked and ate ostrich steak and crocodile fillets! That’s right crocodile and ostrich!! It was pretty good; we didn’t have a lot of spices but we managed alright. I’m not really sure how to describe the ostrich but the crocodile was crazy! It really reminded me of fish but it was a lot denser like beef, so our best descriptions were a cross between fish and beef or just a really dense fish! Soo weird; we were killing ourselves laughing because the thought that we were actually eating ostrich and croc was so ridiculous but it was legit. A member confirmed it when we described and told him the prices. We got it from Big C, which is like a superstore, just three times as big and kind of a mini mall as well.

Ostrich and Crocodile on the menu today

Elder Cahoon cooking

Delicious

Today we had sports day with the zone. It was way fun; we played soccer in the rain and got absolutely drenched and then we went inside the church and played dodge ball and tonight we are going to teach at 2 different FHE's.

Did you get the email from the mission saying I arrived safely? And was there a picture with it? Kind of a random thought. I still need that English football update I also saw some Liverpool but if I remember correctly that one is bad. We do have a very pressing question however, and this we need a bit of an in depth answer; it was one that Elder Siperly asked me on my first day and it has been driving us crazy ever since: How do cranes (the ones that build skyscrapers and other crazy large building like the one outside our window) so how do cranes get taller? I will leave it to your able research skills to provide the answer. I would really love the update on the ward (refer to my last email) we have such an awesome ward, although this branch may rival it in awesomeness.

Well my time is really winding down and we have yet many things to go and do so jer gan (its Thai for see you later it is really hard to figure it out in English letters) until next week.

The church is true!

Love ya,

Elder Cahoon

P.S. I almost forgot, a member who is the wife of one our investigators is getting a c-section today! Crazy stuff I really hope it all goes well; they are so awesome! Oh yeah, and another thing, I think they said last time that we saw them that if it’s a boy they really want it to grow up to be a missionary!

"it was pretty much as Thai as you get"

Area - Pak Kret (week 13)
Companion - Elder Siperly 

Hello Everybody!

Time has come once again for the weekly email and as always there is a lot to tell! But first of all I have some questions, it has been a while and I need a bit of a report on the proceeding of the ward and community as such. So, how are Frazer, Rylan and Jonathan doing post-mission? So weird that they are back already; what are they doing with their lives? Could you send Braedens emails to me I would love to hear about him and send him some emails now that I have more time for emailing. Speaking of which how is Jeremy? Who is teaching my kids now and how are they? How are the basketball crew; Reed and Matt and Garrett and Jacob too? Our young men in the branch here really remind me of those guys. They are all way cool and funny and way good friends.

Ok I think last question which needs a bit of explaining; so, Thailand LOVES soccer much like the rest of the world outside of North America but an interesting thing about Thailand is they also LOVE English football! They have their own team and league, of course, but they are all about English football and the Premier and Championship leagues! Around here the favourite seems to be overwhelmingly Man U but I also have seen Chelsea and best of all ARSENAL! They have jerseys and paraphernalia (no idea how to spell that) everywhere and because its Thailand it’s ridiculously cheap (and prbly fake but it looks really nice) So, then the question is what should I buy? What kind of jersey but I guess most important which teams are strictly forbidden? So if I could an inside scoop on our loyalties as far as football is concerned and/or some suggestions for purchases that would be great!

 This week I did switch offs with the zone leaders twice; once for English on Tuesday and the other was the real switch off on Friday. It was way cool our ZL’s are awesome and they are way good at like talking to EVERYONE! So I learned a lot and as a bonus while we were biking home to their apartment and weaving through traffic cause the road was tid we saw two baby elephants!! It was soo cool! I have officially made it into Thailand I have seen my first elephant! There are more exciting events to address so I shall continue on, so a week ago we went to a FHE at a members house with 3 of our investigators and a pile of RCs which is way fun this week in particular it was awesome because the member happens to live on a big island in the middle of the Chao Phraya River! First a short disclaimer: everything we did on this trip was sanctioned by the assistants to the president. Ok, back to the story. We got to go on a boat! That is a rare and cherished privilege for a missionary! Not just any boat either it was one of those that are about 2ft deep 5ft wide and have a car engine on the back and they fly! It was sooo cool! So the only way to get around on this kinda swampy island is a cement pathway that is like 10ft of the "ground" and all the houses are on stilts! So cool, it was way legit, it was pretty much as Thai as you get and so was the food we ate. But I am getting ahead of myself because before we ate we gave a lesson and I used Carlos' object lesson with the cookies and the ingredients except we bought donuts because we don’t have an oven and they don’t sell cookies here. Anyway, the 5 ingredients represented the five parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ faith repentance etc. and we gave them to them, talked, had them discuss among themselves and then we were like; “Ok, make a donut” or salvation and of course you can’t without having all the parts of the gospel that make up the recipe so I threw it in my backpack, shook it up, Ding! and pulled out the donuts, They Loved it! During this lesson we had a visitor in the roof of the wood house it’s called a Tuka because of the sound it makes I have no idea what it is called in English but it is a massive gecko like lizard and this one was big and it was right above where Elder Siperly and I were sitting. Now this story would get really good if I could tell you that it fell of the roof and into my lap BUT that would be a lie so that is the end of my story. However, we did see a ton of fireflies as we were walking to the ferry! A couple quick notes last p-day we went and got 5 ties for 100 baht and yesterday at church I taught my first lesson solo with a member and it was awesome the Lord is really helping me.

Scout camp sounds fantastic; so much fun and the pictures are gorgeous! Quick update for Chrissy; I bike everywhere, eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies and work out every morning so I will soon get rid of the MTC pounds.

Love you all,

Elder Cahoon

 It’s a great day in the kingdom!

Beautiful smile

Tokay Gecko in the rafters above his head as he teaches

Sunset on the Choa Phraya River

A perfect Thai experience

Riding a bike, spicy hot food and Thai culture!

(Week 12 - July 16, 2012)
Area: Pak Kret
Companion - Elder Siperly

Hey Everybody!

So this week is going to be a real email. Last weeks’ was brutal and I barely wrote anything.

So first off, to address the questions, we get the liahona in Thai. We have a subscription that is paid for; you can get the Ensign, but you have to pay for it yourself. The heat, well let me tell you, it is hot but I am getting a lot more used to it. It’s really not bad in the morning and in the afternoon we try to schedule all of our appointments so we don’t have to be out in the heat of the day. The longer I am here the more I get used to the heat. You pretty much just sweat all day every day; but when you ride your bike it gets ridiculous, you are just dripping. Which leads into the bit about bikes, the first week we took a lot of taxis but, Pres Senior sent an announcement that we need to take taxis only if like absolutely necessary because they are the most expensive way of getting around, even though it turns out to be like 3 bucks for like a 20 min drive, but the same drive is like 40 baht on a songthaaw or a bus. So, now we ride our bikes like every day and it’s kind of nuts. You sweat so much, but the crazy bit is like you’re on the really skinny shoulder of Deerfoot. The roads are 4 lanes of traffic both ways and sometimes you need to turn right, but the only way to do that is to use a u-turn spot so you’re on the other side and then to take your turn which is now on the left. This involves getting across 4 lanes u-turning and then getting across another 4 lanes. It’s crazy, but traffic is really mindful of bikes and they let you over pretty well, but they’re still going like 60km/h and will sometimes slow down for you. It’s really handy to be on a bike for the frequent traffic jams which you can just weave in and out of the stopped cars with all the motorcycles doing the same thing. Language is coming slowly but surely and I can understand prbly like 1 in 5 words and I can kind of follow the conversation, but not really. When I ask Elder Siperly what was talked about I’m right on the subject but the substance is often completely different than I thought it was. There are weekly language milestones as a part of the 12 week training program, for example, they include; memorize the 10 How to Begin Teaching juts, or, The First Vision or D and C Section 4. Each week you memorize it, apply it in teaching and then pass it off to the Zone Leaders on Sunday night. This week was the 10 teaching juts (bullet points) it was pretty tricky but I wrote them out in Thai in my mini notebook I carry around and worked on memorizing them and then yesterday, after church, one of the members, who has been a member as long as I have been a missionary, she was baptized April 15^th, anyway she tested me on them and read them over with me helping m pronounce them really clearly and crisply and tones and everything it helped soo much! I love our members here they are soo nice! They are fun to be with, help us a ton with teaching, (Lessons with a member are the only lessons we teach pretty much.) they want to help me with the language, they bring us food... Honestly I could go on forever about them and I’ve known them all of 13 days. I can’t believe that I have only been here 13 days. Sooo much has happened! Every day is a new adventure and I have yet to have the same meal twice. Saturday we accidentally ordered a dish that was basically fried Thai peppers with some chicken on rice. It was soo hot, but I ate it all and apparently there is a lot hotter in the Essan. We figured there was about 7 to 8 peppers in it, the worst Elder Siperly has had is 10 in songtaam but there is one legendary elder in the mission who ate some songtaam (papaya salad except its nothing close to a salad) with 18 peppers in it!!

This week on Saturday the combined branches, that the missionaries are in, had a talent show that they have been working on for months. We had one of our investigators bring her kids to it, so we got to go, and it was awesome! Pres and Sis Senior came all the way up for it and it was great. There was singing, dancing, traditional Thai dancing and music, a Thai sabre duel, some self defense demonstrations, the young men did break dancing and did the shuffle to none other than Everyday I’m Shuffling, 3 of the youth made a band called Sundays Best and played a 3 song set and it was way good. There is one kid in the ward who is a drummer and he is unreal!! He was so good he used to be in a way legit band, but quit cause it wasn’t a good crowd and he wants to go on a mission. He is so awesome and he is ridiculous on the drums. I wish I took a video, I took a video of some other stuff and a bunch of pictures.

The work has been hard this week. We had a ton of canceled appointments, so that has been hard, and our numbers were really bad, but that just gives us a great opportunity to really get down and get to work. The English class is way cool. There are 230+ people there and I got to help in the ABC class with all the kids. Way fun! I was the demonstrator and would say all the words while everyone followed and then the member would teach cause I had no idea how to say anything, but tomorrow I am probably not going to go because I might be going on splits with the zone leaders.

Yesterday the branch president was back so I got to introduce myself to the branch. It was super cool. I kinda struggled on the first sentence saying how long I had been in Thailand but after that it just flowed and I expressed that I was excited to be there and I really wanted to help them out and help build the kingdom and then bore my testimony for a minute or two.

By the looks and the sounds of it the Stampede was awesome as usual and everybody had a ton of fun! And you saw a guy riding a buffalo!!! Awesome!! I’m going to do it but prbly on a water buffalo here first and then a real one when I get home! Keep up the good times and enjoy whatever the day brings. My advice for today would be to try something new there is lots of thing to try, especially in Thailand, but I am sure you can find something at home. Never limit yourself, or your options. Try something new or out of your comfort zone, therein lies growth!

Some quick Thai culture; Thai people are really not shy about picking their noses, you can do it whenever and wherever and they do it with their pinky so it’s like way obvious! As far as the nose pretty much anything goes; but, if you are doing something with your mouth, like trying to get some really stringy beef out from your mouth, you have to cover up with your other hand.

Well unfortunately that’s all folks at least until next week on the continuing saga of the Canadian missionary in Thailand. (A member pointed out that, whoever we are with, it’s international, cause we have Elders from Thailand, Canada and America)

Love,

Elder Cahoon

"It’s a great day in the kingdom"

First Area - Pak Kret

Area: Pak Kret

Companion:  Elder Siperly 

Hello Everybody!

Soo much to tell it’s actually ridiculous! The plane ride was sweet, long and I didn’t get a ton of sleep, but it was cool Hong Kong was way cool the airport is on an island. I slept from Hong Kong to Thailand though. We found President and Sister Senior and the AP’s without delay and they gave us mini flower wreaths to put around our name tags and they smelt way good, which was good, because after 30 plus hours of travel we didn’t. So we had our interviews, mine went way good. It was really cool to talk with him one on one he’s awesome. After some pizza and some blood tests we were set loose to do our Dan Jones experience, which was a riot. I went out with Elder Dixon and we were right in the heart of Bangkok; Asoke affectionately known as "the beast" and we had to place a Book of Mormon and issue the baptismal commitment! I did them both and passed with flying colors I challenged an old lady to baptism which was fun she didn’t accept but whatever and I gave away the Book of Mormon at the very last door on the floor. We endured to the end, placed a B of M and got her number for a return appointment. (It wasn’t the same lady.) I also passed out a couple of cards to people on the train, who conveniently were Thai but spoke English really well. We ate at the mission home and it was way good; mango and pineapple here are heavenly. We stayed overnight in a hotel. We had transfer the next morning. Myself, Trabing and Chelson stayed in the Bangkok area; Slaughter, Ellsworth, Terry and Sis Hassan went to various areas in the Essan and Sis Carter went to Chiang Mai. We did end up having to buy the way expensive bikes but they are way nice, so I guess it’s alright. So, this week since then has been full of meeting our investigators, (we have a lot of them which is way good) meeting the members who are mostly way active and really helpful, there are like 24 recent converts. The work here in Pak Kret is booming; it’s a way good place to be born. We also have the biggest building in Thailand it’s way nice and brand new and we also have prbly the largest English program. Last week there were 280 people there; it is going to be crazy! Our apartment is pretty nice, it has air conditioning which is sweet! The food here is way good; every meal has been different and it’s all good, except for liver, that’s not so great, but doable. We have quite a few people with baptismal dates too and if all goes well the 28th is going to be big, like 4 people baptized, so we are working hard to get there! My Thai is not too shabby, it’s not good by any stretch of the imagination, but I can actually get the gist of what’s going on usually. I’m just lucky I’m not in the Essan! I dodged a bullet yesterday because the branch president wasn’t at church, so I didn’t have to introduce myself in sacrament meeting, although I’ve talked to like half the branch anyway. First 3 days I was pretty jet lagged. I’m still way tired but mostly over it. I called a member on the phone already, which was cool, really tough though. 

Sounds like everybody had another way fun week it’s good to hear! Thanks for the pictures they are awesome as always! It was way great to talk to you on the phone and hear peoples voices; emailing is just not quite the same. I am sending a few pictures, 7 seems to be the max, and it kind of took a lot of time trying to figure out how to do it on these computers; so, unfortunately I am all out of time; so, next weeks’ will be better because I will know what I am doing.

I love you all and it was fantastic hearing from you! The work is good; the language is coming; I am working hard; and I am in a great area with a fantastic trainer.

Love you heaps,

Elder Cahoon

Arrived Safe and Sound!

Elder Cahoon with President and Sister Senior

Elder Cahoon on route

 

Sister Hassan, Sister Carter, Elder Ellsworth and Elder Chelson