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"