... underwater

Yo. So President Smith is having us all email our families to say that we are drowning.. just kidding. But he did want us to let you know that we are fine. The water is a lot.. its really a lot. And its all coming to Bangkok and there isnt really anything to stop it so its going to conitnue to flood in for the next couple weeks.. and then stay for the next few months. President Smith has formally halted proselyting for now and sent us out to just serve only. We are wearing regular outfits and just going and finding members taht need help lifting furniture or neighbors, or anyone that needs help. ITs been pretty quiet so far, because most people are still under the impression that it wont flood around Asoke.... but ITS COMING! Everyone in the government says that everyone area will get flooded. Obviously some less than others, but at this point its kind of impossible to predict how much in each area, but for example, in my area we are going to be up to our knees. Thats quite a lot for downtown Asoke. The only area that ive heard that wont really flood is Pakkret where the main office is... this place has a bunch of rich poeple in it so they paid people to guard the walls and sandbags and basically bought their safety by diverting it to the poor people whos houses will already flood. Yeah, thats cool. Other than that place, everywhere else is going to get hit. Its obviously not like a tidal wave and so not dangerous in that sense, but drinking water is soon going to run out, and its just bringing in a lot of garbage and disease and disgusting-ness. We have plenty of water, so dont worry about that.. as President Smith puts it, we have enough water to last us until we finish our missions. Its weird.... i know the flood is coming because ive seen it already in some places, but sometimes it feels like the one part in Austin Powers when the steam roller is rolling towards that guy who is about 50 meters away and he is just yelling '"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" for about 5 minutes.. remember that? Yeah, thats what it feels like..

Lemme say this part straight up.. its been a LONG time since ive seen service this big and this magnificent. We headed down to the Don Muang airport the other day to help pack relief bags of food and stuff and wow.. that was a lot of people. The government donated a couple million things of relief items (shampoos, toilet paper, soap, ramen noodle, laundry detergent, etc) and hundres, thousands of people came together to set up assembly lines and get the bags out to people. Like, i wish I had pictures to show right now, but i didnt really take any at the activities cause there was so much service to do.. i didnt want to stand around and take pictures while people are working their butts off in front of me.. Im serious, it was way cool to see and be a part of. I havent really had that many opportunities to serve on my mission (not because i dont look for them!) and this was a really sweet one indeed. The assembly lines that we put together? SOOOOOO big. It was so insane.... id say 12 bags a minute were getting pumped out. No.. just kidding, 25.. at least! Then after the assembly line of people putting stuff into it, we got an assembly line of people to get them into to trucks and sent off. The coolest thing that happened was that AFTER we assembly-lined (yeah, i made that a verb) those bags into the trucks, it was amazing to turn around and see A HUGE NEW PILE OF BAGS READY! It was incredible.. i couldnt understand how they could get all those bags together that fast waiting for us. You know the sad part after that? The don muang airport is flooded now! Yeah, that flood relief effort is now underwater :) so now they are moved out closer into downtown Bangkok.

Just the other day we went to the Red Cross center in thailand and that was a treat as well.. they had so many canned foods going out to people.. put everything simple, i am just amazed at how willing people have been to help out.. i cant really describe it adequately but lemme just say that its pretty sweet. So thats the schedule for the next few months.. for the next few days we are going to first help our with our members and then get out and help anyone.. everyone, just go find people. Its a great opportunity to proselyte in and of itself because everyone now asks why we are serving so well.. why we speak thai.. etc. Its for fun. Love you. Ill talk to you again on monday.

Love Elder Goodman