BEEYAH!

So i think you already figured out that fedex is not the way.. lawl. 45 bucks! Thanks for it though.. loved the treats and those archer farms fruit snacks... oh my gosh so good! Thanks for the hankerchiefs too.. 1 of them had to be washed already from all the black coming off of ma face! So yeah.. send em USPS from now.. or whatever regular is... is it USPS? What'er. Oh, by the way... since im in bangkok i have an easier time of getting them, but if i go up country, or even an 1 or two away from the office, i will be able to get them only every 6 weeks. Why? Cause at Moves meetings is when they distribute them.. they dont send them out through Thailand post. So, for now its still fine cause we can just go to the office in Pakkret which is like 30 minutes taxi ride. That massager is way nice actually.. i didnt really have a specific one in mind, just whenever we went into Brookstone there were always those epic ones haha. Sorry, i know thats SUPER specific. But im trying to stretch out my back more.. i know that its just getting into the work.. cause when was i standing up/sitting crappilly for 16 hours back home? Yeah.. oh well. its good.




K so lets get into some things... the Scripture of the Week: D&C 49: 23 - This is the "epistle" if you will to the Shakers community in Ohio (?) basically chastizing them about what they believe.. they rejected it of course. But i read it and was like.. well hang on.. : "Wherefore, be not deceived, but continue in steadfastness, looking forth for the heavens to be shaken..." HAH! get it? "Shaken?" Its to the Shaker's.. hahah i thought it was so funny. If you arent laughing im sorry.. its the correct response here.

The phrase of the week is a conversation between Crowley and me. We were talking about goals for this week on how many member lessons we were gonna get. He says, "how about 8? Thats like 1 a day."... "Yeah.. that 8th one for the 8th day in the week." HAHAHA.. ah how sweet the joy this sentence gives. It was all in good fun haha.



K so lets get right into things... last Monday was INSANE! We set up family home evening with some of our investigators and it was pretty much all set up but it started falling through at the last minute.. We went over to Bii's house and said, "hey you going over to Wisads house in about an hour?" "yeah yeah for sure." "okay we will meet you outside their neighborhood at 7." Sweet. So we headed over to Mod's house who lives right next to us who was also going to go to Wisads house... "hey you ready to go?" "Nah, i dont have a way to get over there.." "Uh... can you borrow a bike or something.. " "Noooo...." "How bout a taxi?" "No money." "we will pay for it." "Thats okay." Suck.. so we left.. i stopped and was like, "Elder Crowley, hes GOING to family home evening. Lets go flag down a motorcyle taxi, bring it to Mod and tell him to get on.. we did haha. He hopped on and we had him follow us over there.. by that time it was 7:20.. crap! Bii! He wasnt there. So we dropped Mod off and said we would be right back.. biked over to Bii and grabbed him and then biked back.. phew! It might has well have been raining with how wet i was. But it went well and we got them there for a nice experience. On top of the that, Phat, Daa, and their two kids went over to Wisaans house as well.. the whole family! Awesome. The next time we met with them the difference was pretty crazy.. their sons were always hesitant to leave their rooms to come see us, but when we came over they just ran out and got us chairs, invited us in and stuff... way cool. But Phat is a taxi driver so he doesnt have much time for anything, but he still made it. As of now, we are trying to get a baptismal date on them, but we shall see if we can. He hadnt been to Church yet, but his wife and one of his sons have... Saturday we invted them and the Dad said he couldnt, and the mom said that she needed to take care of her grandma, BUT she would send her sons.. awesome. We are at Church yesterday waiting, and we call her and she says, "yeah they are on their way already." Soon after they show up... WITH THEIR DAD! So cool. Then, an hour later, SHE SHOWS UP TOO! Hah@!@!*&@ Was sweet. We want to commit them to Baptism but i think he will have a hard time with keeping the sabbath day holy... he works all the time.

K who else.. oh theres a super nice couple named Dick and Nu... Dick is into it more then his wife, but they love having us over, and we sort of commited them to baptism on Saturday.. he started to say that he wanted to be ready first, but that he probably would... basically he was dodging giving us an answer, and Nu butted in and said, "this is what he does when i cant say yes OR no." HAHA.. oh Love.... sometimes you are so funny. Then we have Wud, who is a man from Laos, who technically we arent supposed to teach, but we may or may not have anyway... we hadnt seen him for 2 weeks and when we stopped by he was like..." My wife was asking me last night where the Elders went and i didnt know what to say! I thought, did i offend them somehow?" We were just like NO NO NO... we want to teach its just we really cant... but here we are anyway! Then he said that his wife had a dream about me... UHHHH.... SAY WHAT? Yeah dont ask me.. never even met her.. ive seen chicas in his house but i dont know which one is his wife! Anyway, hes trying to get a visa that isnt a tourist one, then we can teach him and baptize him. But on Saturday we were going over to teach Bii, who is doing really well, and who meets us on the way? Well for one, the member who was coming too, but with the member was Wud.. he was just happening to go over to Bii's house WITH a Book of Mormon in hand. So we taught both of them.. THE LAW OF CHASTITY... haha.. that was fun. Never taught it before but it was quite interesting... i heard thai words put together in a way where i was like... yeah, i know what that means hahah. Bii said he has no problems keeping it but Wud was super awk and was like.. yeah, i might have a problem.. oops. Oh well.. REPENT! Speaking of Bii, he is still set for Baptism not this sunday, but the following. He hasnt smoked in 10 days! Going strong still. You can see how much happier he is and how much more energy he has now that he has stopped. Every time we ask him how he feels about something he says he believes it.. we ask why.. cause i prayed and the holy ghost confirms it. BEEYAH! (By the way i got Crowley saying that now.. its even on our Missionary Action Planm which is our Moves goals.)

So yeah.. thats kinda all i got for now. We do have a new investigator as of last night.. so going into this lesson we said its going to be short.. lately we have been running late.. like really late in our lessons. We had a nice Zone teaching conference on Saturday to incorporate chapter 10's "How to Begin Teaching" in the first appointment. They are epic. Anyway, we decided to just do it and keep it as short as possible. We got in their, settled distractions, got people sitting down, and taught. They guy pretty much committed HIMSELF to baptism. We told him that Jesus can redeem his sins, and he was just like, "Okay, what do i have to do?" uhhh... kinda caught us off gaurd. THE STOCK ANSWERS!! And baptism. "Okay. I cant do it now cause i dont know everything but yea... can we meet more?" hah! It works! So we have like 3 appointments a week. Epic. We had another appointment yesterday with a family of 4, with 2 sons... holy crap that Dad never shut up... seriously... didnt let any of his family speak for themselves, even when we asked directly to someone else's face. Funniest part was when he started telling us about Buddhism and the 5 rules or whatever that they have.. 1 of them is not drinking beer or alcohol... "oh really? whats the bottle next to your foot?" What a turd of a hypocrite right? hahah i lawl'd at that... he was so arrogant and acting like he knew everything and didnt even think that he just hung himself with that statement. Oh well... he didnt really seem that interested anyway so we will probably drop him.

So in our contacting we are trying to mix it up more... Crowley is trying to be less "greeng jay" in his teaching and inviting.. greeng jay means nervous or scared to say something. For example... the Mission uses key indicators right? Number of lessons, number with a member, number of investigators, etc... well i have my own as well. You already know of one "are you a thai person?" Well i have more now hahah. These are: 1.) All religions teach everyone to be good. We are at 123 times said since i started counting. 2.) I dont have any time. 143 times. 3.) IM BUDDHIST. 147 times. So, we are taking these, and saying them right off the bat so they cant say them.. 1 because it annoys the crap out of me, 2 its effective. Its like, they have nothing to say after you take the words out of their mouths so they kind of have to listen and just shut up and then say, "yeah you can come back." Epic. Also, when asking for refferals from someone who is rejecting us.. "Do you know of anyone who is interested in being happy?" Cant really respond to that without bringing up what it implies.. "whoa whoa i said i was happy?" "oh really? i thought you just said you didnt want us to share our message of HAPPINESS with you?" Hahah.. its for fun.



Okay so what else this week... oh, i found out a nice word... Chua. It means evil. We use it when talking about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.. so i didnt think much of it. A member was making fun of me cause i couldnt open a fruit, so i pointed and said evil at them.. trying to joke like Americans... DONT DO IT! Its basically cursing someone in english.. they got "nooy jayed" beyond belief. I sincerely apologized cause i didnt know it was bad and they have since forgave me, but it was crazy.

Right now im eating those Pirouette things.. remember those? Those wafer sticks with like chocolate inside? Yeah, except ive got apple, strawberry and orange too.. sick. So i had a question... what song were you and Aroc singing at the Nuckols Christmas part 2 years ago that was hilarious? Cant remember. Oh well. Mom i have a question.. if i were to say that my retainer feels kind of jank, what would we do? Just asking, in case it ever happens... not that its happening now.. just that IF IT WERE, what would we do? Like, maybe call Toolson or something? Yeah, it kind of hurts and it doesnt really fit.. not because my teeth are bad, but because i think the retainers shape got jacked up somehow. K anyway i gots to go for now.. sorry if i again didnt answer any questions... good to hear from you all.. thanks for the Email Kari :) Hope all of you dont freeze from the 92 degrees.. i know for me that would be just too cold. haha. sad. K well hope you all enjoy conference.. we watch it the following week at some gathering.. i think the stake center. Should be way good. its the Day of Bii and "blessing's" baptisms. Oh and Super man fed us again last night.. shes so funny... at English class theres one woman who... struggles... to pronounce english words.. her vocab is quite extensive actually, but she looks... well she looks really funny when she tries to pronounce things.. Super man is like the nicest woman ever and knows she shouldnt, but when this woman tries to speak, Super man just covers her face as she dies laughing.. so funny. The woman is a good sport and laughs too, but man.. i die at this. Hah! K well thats all for now.. give Chase a big hug for me and i want to see pics! Tell him he better not get hitched before i get home! I was just telling Crowley about our poker games and got a little trunky hahaha.. dont want his wife to steal him away from us! Love ya guys. Thanks for you letter josh.. hah! Not. Lazy bum. Love ya anyway. Bye now! Hope you like the pics! Thailands great, even if some of the people arent.. biggest thing i learned this week was the language of the Spirit.. most of the time i understand 10 percent of words coming out of the mouths of people but somehow i know exactly what we are talking about.. after we leave i ask Crowley what they said.. pretty much exactly what i thought.. thats the Spirit YO! Feels good. K peace for real!



Elder Gudmundsen