Surprise!!

Hello everyone! what up from Thailand!! Im in the sickest internet cafe ive ever seen! These chairs.. yeah i want one. Totally gamer status in here too.. theres like 5 thai kids skipping school to play games and stuff.. i would totally do that too! So, right now it is 12 noon in thailand.. its about 10 pm over there right? Insane right!? Okay well, ill keep things the way i have so far.. first things first: Scripture of the week! Moroni 10: 34 - "...Amen." I'm done! First time finishing the Book of Mormon.. sad, I know, but you can kiss it. Finished about 2 ish hours ago for personal study this morning. Phrase of the week: "No one cares about how much you know, until they know how much you care." Pretty cool huh? Ill explain that one more later but i really loved it when i heard it and, its for you Dad.. which ill explain later too.
okay... FIRST WEEK IN THAILAND! Oh boy, where to start... How bout the plane? 13 hours and 20 minutes? No problem! Took some benedryl from Elder Merril... done! Was out for probably 10 hours. They served us breakfast... not bad. and when i say not bad, i mean it was terrible, but compared to most flights.. not bad. THey served some nasty eggs and Merrel loved em... he starts eating them "oh man! these are so delicious and cheesey!" Me: "Elder Merrel, thats the problem, they DONT HAVE CHEESE IN THEM." What'er. Taiwan was pretty cool.. longish layover and we just walked around for a little bit.. got some food.. Elder Hess and i were just like, "uh.. what do we eat?!" But it was all good.. ended up getting some fried rice and a passion fruit smoothie.. dank. Boarded to Thailand around 930 and landed around 1130. Met the AP's and the Prez.. they were awesome. One of the AP's, Elder Young, told us a story about a run in with a bus... at 65 miles an hour.. yeah. He went flying. Got up, walked away. Met President Smith and his Wife.. so awesome. She's was camera happy and just started takin so many pictures, but shes hilarious and so cool. He's a great guy too. Served his mission here so he speaks fluently. We walked outside... BOOM. Humidity. Who said we werent allowed to swim on our missions? They obviously havent been to Thailand. Enjoy that picture in your minds now. Got in the car, took about a 45 minute drive to the Mission home and saw a lot of Thailand... WOW! This place is sick NASTY! Both connotations of that phrase... Seriously, this place is so gross.. when it rains it just dumps and every building is all mildewy and green, the streets are broken, theres black mold everywhere.. UGH! Nasty! But, it is sick because theres temples scattered everywhere too, and man they are beautiful. Even the highway has little gold statues of buddha or whoever. I got some pictures but i dont have a sd port yet so when i get that today ill send some next week. So we get to the President's home and they had lunch all ready for us... wasnt thai lunch but they did have PINEAPPLE!! OMGSH ITS SO GOOD! I ate so much my tounge probably wanted to blead and it started tingling... kinda like right now cause one of the members's gave me ice breakers sours and i havent stopped eating them. Anyway, Prez took us over to the mission office for some paper work, interviews, and the Dan Jones exercise. Who is Dan Jones? He was called to serve in Wales and he did work. Nuff said. Anyway, they split us up with a "trainer" for the day and took us out for an hour to give out a book of mormon and 3 pass along cards to people on the street.. done son! No idea what i said when i was speaking but it must have made sense! Got rid of my book of mormon on the 2nd dude... and gave away the rest.. The guy with the BoM was surprising cause he was so interested.. i thought it was a trick, like my trainer, Elder Rovig, paid him to be nice and accepting.. not so. Thai people are just super nice and friendly.. i already heard about this, it was just still surprising. Elder Rovig had an awesome approach to finding.. he would just yell "Hello" to everyone he passed and wave at them, then go up and shake their hand for about 30 seconds so they couldnt go away. One kid looked absolutely terrified, cause when you stretch out your hand to shake they dont know what to do.. so this kids just lookin at Elder Rovig, then at me... then at Rovig.. then back at me. His face just screamed "hey.. you. Help me out here.. get him away." So funny. That kid ended up running away eventually but what'er. So we talked with other people and i didnt really know what i was doing, but hey! It was fun.

Went back to the office around 6 and finished up some other crap and went back to the mission home for some thai dinner.. delicious! Had some "prick" which is spciy sauce.. yes i know, unfortunate name. But it was spicy, but not tear inducing.. for Hess however, it was. He cried. Had a nice pow wow with the Prez and wife and hit the sack early.. i passed out. Next morning, thursday, was moves meeting over at one of the church buildings.. long story short, im in a little area, and by little area i mean pretty friggen big(!), called Don Muang. My companion is Elder Crowley.... MR CROWLEY!! Its not actually pronounced the same way, but who cares.. the point is the same and its awesome.. and hes great. Been out here for a little over a year now. He's from North Carolina and went to BYU the year before me. We are the only 2 Elders assigned to this area, as most missionaries are, and its a really cool place. So after moves our District from the MTC parted ways.. Lucky Elder King is up in Chiang Rai.. the mountain kingdom! I want to go there. Dropped my crap off at the house, which is both a dump and a cozy place, and had to place some stuff for this week. Then, went out for appointments and contacting. So like i said, this place is sweet.. Its beautiful... in a weird way... the culture is mostly preserved and there quite of few temples around, but also there are a lot of architecture that closely relates all that. Most places have a mini ancestry temple thing where they basically feed their ancestors with แฟฌฐา (Fanta.. its everywhere). Its nice. Then, theres the nasty part of it.. which is also all of it. The smell is absolutely disgusting.. i would rather stick my face in dog crap then smell this.. and theres still dog crap everywhere! Theres mold everywhere and if you thought Kawaii had a ton of chickens.. it aint got nothing on Thailand.. except for Thailand, its dogs. They are EVERYWHERE. And its really quite sad.. ive seen some already with legs bent in ways that shouldnt be bent, bowels hanging out (and thats not a joke), and some with no left eyes.. its actually really sad and im not even joking when i say i see them and get depressed. But in any case.. Don Muang is a sweet place.
So kawaii has nothing on thailand in terms of wildlife, and Starbucks has got NOTHING on 7-11.. they are on EVERY block.. usually 2 within 100 yards of each other. Probably my favorite place, even more now. Also, houses are just stuck in the most random places and every house is pretty much a store.. everyone cooks something or sells drinks. its kinda awesome. There are street vendors who ride bikes, or just push carts, with chicken or ice cream, or whatever. Love it. Stopped the other day to get ice cream in a bun.. so delicious. Bread, rice, fruit, ice cream and chocolate sauce... all for only 10 baht.. epic. Also, those little yogurt drinks? EVERYWHERE! Huge bottles too. Also blueberry, mixed fruit, and green apple flavors. Choco pies, pocky sticks, yan yan, and pretty much every other awesome korean market candies are here too. Finally found M and Ms crispy.. of course i had to go half way around the world to find it.. but i can buy that, a bottle of water for about 35 baht.. thats barely over a dollar! Bought a full meal of sweet and sour pork on saturday for 25 baht. Can life get better? I submit that it cannot! Im lying, but for the sake of the joke i had to say it. Not gonna lie though.. in terms of food.. kinda been disappointed.. not in the fruit, that stuff is delicious. But for some reason i havent been liking the food ive been getting. Maybe i need a little time, but right now.. eh.. not for me.
Ok now for some business.. investigators! We have 2 with a baptismal date right now.. phii phccn and phii bii.. we call everyone "phii" because its formal and polite. And that first one is a woman, and it translates to "blessing.." hahah.. how awesome is that?! Anyway, พร, is a reall sweet lady probably bout 30 ish years old.. shes histerical. She knows a little bit of english because thats where Crowley met her, was at English lessons. Shes been progressing for quite some time now... almost a month and a half i think. She loves to talk and when i first met her, it was thursday night, at President Wisid's house (by the way, this family is awesome! Really helping the work go forward.. ill try and tell more about them later) and when i told her that i had been in thailand for only 2 days her eyes got huge and she was quiet for a minute and said, "OH WOW!" But shes kinda bittersweet.. she seems to be really interested, and she went to church yesterday and loved it, then went to a baptismal service after and loved that too, but i dont think really understands how important everything is yet. Yesterday she bought us some drinks, and Elder Crowley was like, "well i guess we need to teach keeping the sabbath day holy again." Guess so. But we'll keep chuggin. Ok i think my time is running out.. not because i have a time limit but because ive been here for a while.

To answer your questions... havent found pants yet. But 2 of my pairs have already gotten soaked and they are still fine haha.. thursday and friday it just straight dumped on us from 7 until we got home. Ill keep looking. I need some hankerchiefs too.. lots.. i sweat so much, its kinda ridiculous. I made a joke in the MTC that we would be with investigators and strain to barely understand them already while wiping our faces and whicking the sweat from our hands.. without realizing it until right in the middle of the action, i did just that! Then i laughed a little bit on the outside.
As for you Dad, i go back to the Phrase of the week: No one cares about how much you know, until they know how much you care. The Missionaries at home need to know that the members care about the work. Missionary work doesnt stop after being released from the calling of "Missionary." It's really different to see our branch here.. there are only about 25 people and they care so much about the work that they are trying so hard to help us out so they can have more members.. its been over a year since a baptism and they are really wondering "whats wrong with our branch?" Well, theres nothing wrong. But they want to see more faces enjoying the gospel like they do. At home, it was really easy for me to not care about whether or not the missionaries need help, because "oh, someone else will do it." Don't assume that. Go out of your way to help them. Whether they ask for you help or not, they need it and are always grateful for anything you can do. Feeding them is great.. really great.. but going with them to teach a lesson is also amazing. Especially if you are a convert. Them seeing someone else who at one point was where they are now goes a long way. Be willing to stretch forth your helping hand before they even ask you for one. Ask them every week how investigators are doing, how they themselves are doing, and what you can do to help the work push forward. Show them how much you care. I hope you're getting this Ball and Drew! Stop texting!


K i gotta end this.. say what up to everyone for me, tell them i love them. I'd give you my address but i think i lost it hahah.. Erika has it though. Hope you are all doing well and sorry that this probably wasnt as personal as they usually are. Josh, thanks again for your letter 2 weeks ago.. i really appreciated it and still read it because those are some serious words of advice. Sorry i didnt get to email you personally but love ya bud. Say what up to Aroc for me, and give him a sweet bean dip. Mom, sorry about the mix up with the bank. No worries. We'll pull money out later. Glad you got to talk to Saakha. When you forward this to him, ask him to forward it to President Calder and the Macks. He'll know what to do. Thanks for all your support Mom. Erika, love you too. Hope all is well and you're loving the job. Next week ill get some pictures out and email all of you individually.


Love you all! Peace!
Elder Gudmundsen