...Unto The Ends Of The Earth: "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!