Thai New Year & Spicey Food

Hey Mom and Dad,

Well, not too much to report as far as the work here in Lampang. Things are slowing down big time. The Thai new year is fast approaching and everyone we talk to is willing to meet with us... after the new year is over. Haha. It's alright though. We will have a ton of potential investigators lined up. Maybe one or two of them will turn out to really be interested in our message. Regarding the Thai new year, it is a gigantic water festival called Songkraan. It's going to be wicked. The bad part is that we have to work while everyone else is chasing us, trying to dowse us with icy water. I suppose a bucket of cool water on the head as we are biking the hot streets all day won't be too bad, except that we will probably be wet all day, for three days, haha. Officially, the holiday is a three day event. In Thai, when speaking of the new year, they use the phrase "play songkraan". So it's basically a country wide party/water fight. While it is officially a three day thing, everyone starts a little early and stops a little late! We have been asking everyone we meet what they think is going to happen as far as when the worst of it will be so that we can swith our preparation day to the day that will be the least effective. Every single person has a different story. Last night at the main square in the city, they set up probably a solid 5 or 60 sets of these massive, traditional drums that are unique to Lampang. They will be used for the opening ceremony for Songkraan in Lampang, which is apparently tomorrow. The young boys that will play them were rehearsing last night. It was pretty cool. I got video, but we will probably go back to see the real deal tomorrow night. Plus everyone who lives here will be there, so if we want to talk to people, we will have to go! We plan on doing so landscaping for our Branch President on Monday. We are trying to find things to do that will keep us off the streets because all the reports say that people love smoking the missionaries during Songkraan. Were talking street chases with elders on bikes getting hunted by a bunch of duded in the back of a truck with trash cans full of ice water! One plus is that we get to wear our flip flops to go out and proselyte! Last Thursday was Elder Perkins' year mark in country. We decided to celebrate by going to our favorite restaurant and each getting a dish called SomTam. If a menu is translated into English, SomTam is usually called "spicy papaya salad". Usually it isn't that spicy unless you ask for it. Well, we asked for it. We told them to make one plate for each of us and put 20 peppers in each plate. We told them specifically to make each plate individually and count the peppers. They did. They were all laughing at us as they did it too. They kept telling us that we were going to cry and not be able to eat it all. They got the crying right. Good news is that Elder Stanley and Elder Perkins got all theirs down. Every pepper too. I ate half of mine without even touching the NamPan I had waiting (a NamPan is a.... smoothie/slurpie drink made from fruit). Once I saw that everyone else had givin in and partaken of their nampans, I decided I would go for mine. Worst mistak ever. For some reason all it did was cool down what was alreay a tolerable fire in my mouth, and then let the fire come back with a vengeance! I kept fighting and got almost all of my plate down. It was soooooo hot! Elder Stanley was like, "Just go for it. Don't think, just eat." So I took a huge bite, estimating that after that huge bite I would have about 2 or three regular bites left. Another bad move. Remember the first time I had Dave's Insanity Sauce and threw up... I'll just say I almost recreated that event. I really had to focus on not allowing my body to attempt extinguishing the inferno in my mouth by removing the substance that caused it. That was a stupid idea too. I mean, my body's desire to exit the SomTam from inside of me was only a natural thing: when you ingest something dangerous, the body is rational and says, "Ok. Let's just get that out of here before more damage is caused." But then my silly man-mind says,"UG. UG. Other three mans still eating. No sto eat. No throw up." Haha. In the end, I conquered the urge to puke, and got all but about two bites down, but had to quit there. Last bit I want to talk about is Alma 11-12. I was reading there for personal studay today. Usually I think people use these two chapters and the story of Alma and Amulek as an example of the power of preaching the gospel in twos. I think that is great, but today I was impressed about the clarity of the doctrine of resurrection, judgement, and immortality presented in Alma's and Amulek's discussion with Zeezrom. Solid stuff. That's all I have for today. Hopefully the pace of operations here will have picked back up by next week. It's hard to be satisfied when we just don't have anyone to teach, but again, as long as we do our best to find them, we can be satisfied and know we have done our part. Love, Aaron