Sup

Sent April 15

Fun week. Probably the busiest week ive ever had on my mission. One word: Transfers. I feel like ive gained a new found gratitude for the so called "people behind the scenes" now that i was one. There is just SOO much that goes into a transfers meeting that 98 percent of our missionaries dont even know about. To them (and me before this) its just a 1 hour meeting and then go back to your areas. For us, its an entire week of planning and action with just so little time to do it. Our plans were super good on monday and then piece by piece, here and there, things would start to chip off the masterpiece. Nothing went horribly wrong, just little things make a big difference. For the msot part everything went pretty smoothly. It was an unusal transfer because there were 16 missionaries coming in to the country (by far the biggest that President Smith has seen while here) and 17 dying (6 of which were Thai). Everything from getting to the airport, loading allll that luggage back to the church, getting all of them interviewed by President Smith, getting their pictures taken, having a medical check up and getting them out to invite all between 1:00 and 6:00 pm... no easy task. We were running around like crazy. I really enjoyed it though, especially getting to see "greeny" fire again.. man, they were so stoke to be in Thailand.. kinda forgot that thats how i was almost two year.. now i just feel old and seasoned. All 16 of them are way prepared and crazy excited. Its funny to see how weird and exciting everything is to them.. a simple taxi they saw while we were driving home, which seems like nothing to me, was one of the coolest things to them. Their thai-glish was stellar.
Transfers day was very much filled.. let me remind you that transfers was on the last work day, for the entire country, before the holiday began. Busses out of Bangkok were impossible to find. The meeting itself went very smooth and Elder Revelli sang his solo for "His Hands" again.. very powerful. When i announced that he was singing his entire MTC group just looked at each other confused thinking, "he can sing?!". President Smith had one of the thai Elders come up and say something as well. His name is Elder Anon. This past week he was called home from the military to see if he would have to be drafted into the military or not.. the process? After body check ups he has to literally grab a ball out of a basket-like thing which is either red or black. Well i cant say it better than President Smith did: This is not my work, this is the work of the Lord. When Elder Anon went home and went to the military camp he walked up to the officer to register his name. The Officer looked at him and asked him why he was dressed so professionally; for work or school. He said neither and that he was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ. The guy paused and then asked, rather frankly, "you mean that group of white guys always biking around?". Elder Anon said yes. The officer continued to tell him that he didnt need to be here and that he could go home. Is that not cool or what? Elder Kambanat is officially in here at the office. Did i mention what happened with new Mission Presidents? The Brethren made a switch in mission presidents because of medical problems.. so now our new mission president doesnt speak Thai! Just made Elder Kambanat's schedule and role even higher than it was going to be before. The Assistants role is now changed drastically cause the new MP is going to not only need someone to take him around for a while, but also to translate for him in interviews, or in meetings. Fun. On top of that, the mission office is moving, along with the mission home, so things are going to be fun in the next 2 and a half months. Anyway, after transfers we had to help everyone get where they needed to be, which took the ENTIRE rest of the day from 12 noon to 1 am in the morning. We got up at 4 am the next day to take the missionaries to the airport (which included Elder Furr and McDonald) and we left the airport at 7:30 to take Elder Seymour back to the office to meet his parents.. that was a really sweet moment. After that we met with President to talk about what could be done better for the next big group coming in, and instead of going to sleep after that, we changed and made our way downtown for Songkran... yeah, that was fun. I think every missionary is Bangkok was in the same place this year. It was insanity. It was very different from last year.. up in Ubon the entire city is just completely filled with people, but here in Bangkok they closed down a few streets for everyone to gather in and play.. and when i say everyone i mean everyone. There were SOOO many people. A bunch of foreigners too. It was a good day to play because it was HOT. We played until 5 ish and then went home... then we had more work to do to get the remaining Elders and Sisters out of Bangkok.. so all in all, we got back to our house and had a normal planning session and i think i literally crawled into bed and passed out. One of the weirdest days i think ive had so far.
I dont know if you guys would like Song Kran or not.. but it was super fun.. dont know if i mentioned that yet. We didnt have any problems this year with decepticons or anything like that, and I actually got really good at dodging women trying to put powder on my face.. since i had a squirt gun (which was pretty powerful actually) all you gotta do is wait for some person who thinks they are going to succeed in getting powder on your face to be in front of you and shot em right in the eye (or their open mouth).. they just cant deal with it! And you get a good laugh out of the many different flinching faces you get to see. Elder Heslop and i had a giggle fit the whole time. My personal favorite this year was taking their own phrase, which would be somewhere along the lines of, "may i put powder on your face!" and say it while taking their powder from them and dumping it on their faces.. BOOM. Way funny. Josh, you would love this holiday for sure. But alas, it is now over. The streets are empty and im quite positive that we are the only people in the entire country working right now.
As far as investigators go.. well, pretty dry right now. However our area is Elder Kambanats old greeny area (Yes, he actually already has served here). At some point in time they switch or re-drew the areas and so now we are finding out all his old investigators. Pretty sweet. Since it was Song Kran everyone that we have taught in the last 6 weeks is just kinda,.... dissapeared. Seriously.. they dont pick up their phones! Our District LEader managed to get a baptism out of the week though.. thats nice.
We finally finished the schedule and calendar for this transfesr.. its a packed one. Something exciting: There are 10 thai missionaries coming in to the field this month on the 28th. Thats the biggest group that President Smith has ever seen. Boss. In addition there are 7 coming from provo and 5 going home.. which means we get to open areas! yay! Time is going to flyyyyy like the eagles. Gotta run! Love you all and thanks for all youve done. Thanks for sharing that story about our ancestors Dad.. im using it in the trainings for the next 2 weeks.. the one about building the steps in the manti temple? I imagined him building those stairs and thinking to himself how he was "building steps to heaven" in a way.. at least to the celestial room of the temple. I've taken that phrase now and we are going to use it help our missionaries build steps to heaven for their investigators. It may sound cheesy, but it sure sounds good to the ears in thai. We are opening an investigator family history class next thursday and the entire 2 up coming weeks will be spent training the missionaries. Yay. By the way, we ate dinner with the Kim's again.. they had 2 non member friends over for dinner as well and we got a chance to share our message in english.. boy was that weird.. felt like a moron trying to talk to an idiot.. why is english soo hard?! Anyway, ill talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Gudmundsen