".....not much to say"

Sometimes Aaron's letters just have to be shared! I hope that you all enjoy his "adventures" and are lifted by his testimony. I know I sure am! So here is his latest, unedited, addition to the life and time of a missionary in Thailand.


Hey Mom and Dad,

So we just spoke like two days ago. That was nice. And now I have not much to say... OK, so maybe there are some stories I could tell.
I mentioned the Christmas party. Let me tell you about the near fiasco that was.

It started off like any normal day in the life of a missionary. Wake up. Work out. Shower. Study. Get out of the house. Today was switch offs, and I was in my area with our district leader, Elder Thepitak. We had little time to actually do missionary work because our presence was being demanded at the church around 1700. So we went out with a pretty solid plan and hoped for the best.

The second we left the house it all took a steep nose dive straight for the ground. Our activities chair called asking for me to come open the storage closet, which I was pretty sure her key opened. Apparently it didn't. So we stopped by the church before heading to our first appointment, opened the door for her, then had to stick around a bit because this weird dude from our English class randomly showed up and I didn't want him stalking around the church with just Sister Mat and some of the primary kids there (not sure why the primary kids were there, but they were), so we hung around for an extra couple minutes until it was clear that he had a destination in mind that was not the church.
So then we stopped by our first appointment who was not willing to meet and told us he is basically unavailable until after the New Year. (Standard story for pretty much every investigator in this country around this time of year.) We then went to go check on this guy I tought with Elder Steck on my first night in Buriram. We've been stopping by all the time to try to catch him at home, but he is just never around, which is sad because he has a family that is pretty welcoming every time we show up and he showed a good amount of interest that first night. He was not there, and our plan was to just leave a note telling him how often we have tried to contact him and that we are still willing to teach if he wants to learn.

As I was writing the note, somone called. It was Brother Nomsot. He was now at the church with Sister Mat, and he wanted me to go get my battery charger for my camera. He asked if I was free, and wouldn't you know all of our plans were burning to the ground as I spoke to him, so despite not wanting to go back home and then to the church, I agreed, quite positive that whatever he wanted to charge was probably not compatable with my charger. I set the phone on the bench next to me and finished the note.
We got back to the house, I grabbed the charger, and as I was doing my slap-the-pockets-to-check-if-I-have-planner, keys, phone, and money routine I realized that the phone was still sitting on the bench in front of our investigator's house. Last thing I wanted on my plate at the time. I grabbed all my gear, strapped it to the rack on the back of my bike with my up to this point dependable bungee cord, and hit the road. Cruisin' down the street when I hear something fall behind me. Slam the brakes, look back, see the Liahonas we had planned to use in some lessons on the ground, turn around, and pick them up. I could have waited for Elder Thepitak to get them, but I had left him so far in the dust that it would have taken longer. By the time I had gotten myself straight, he had caught up and passed, so I hit the jets to catch up. As I'm riding and noticed the rough terrain, I think, "Oh, more stuff is probably going to fall off!" So while travelling at warp speed in an effort to close the gap between the two of us and dodging the cars and scooters which are either coming my way or being overtaken by me, I start reaching behind me to unload my gear and hold it in my hand for the rest of our short trip, taking every spare moment I can to cast a glance back and make sure none of my gear gets lost.

I got it all off. Success. As I am indulging in a bit of self praise for how incredible skilled I am, Someone decideds to shut me down. I was adjusting my grip on my stuff when the charging block of the charger got caught on my bike horns (the handlebar extension things) and took a fall. Another slam on the brakes. Another trip back. But this time Elder Thepitak was ahead of me, so he didn't notice and kept going.
Once I got that all taken care of and swallowed that massive hunk of pride I had been chewing on earlier (the chunk made even tougher to chew due to all the eyes watching me on this busy street), I noticed that Elder Thepitak was out of sight. Again, hit the turbo. Caught up to and passed him, and for some reason despite all that had just happened, I decided I was still hot stuff and that I could hop the massive curb and cross the median rather than turn left and ride an extra hundred or so meters to get to the u-turn. Front wheel got up all right, but because of my inability to get a solid grip on my bike due to the magazines, camera, and camera charger in my left hand, I couldn't lift the back tire in time, nailed the curb hard, and somehow managed to overcome not just tunnel vision, but tunnel all senses, just in time to hear all the air that needs to be inside my tire changing station and becoming free of its rubber prison.
So I walked the next fifty or so meters to where the phone was, and then to the church which was fortunately not too far away. I guess something has changed inside of me since I have become a missionary, because I actually just laughed at all of it rather than becoming sullen.
The rest of the day was spent at the church basically. We did get out for an hour to go invite, but found no potential investigators. Did find one guy that my come to English class though, which if we work it right could turn into a family of investigators.

The Christmas party that I thought was going to be a complete failure turned out great. The highlight being all the non-members and less-active members that came... downside is none of them came to church two days later... I was also forced to be Santa Clause...
So that was hopefully and excited story for you. Here is another little tidbit, more spiritual than the first.

I had received reports of people skipping out on classes after sacrament to go sleep in the sacrament room. This week I decided to check it out. No one sleeping, but I found our two knucklehead primary boys (not the only two, but the only two knuckleheads) messin' around. I invited them to come with me to primary, which they protested vehemently. So then I told them to go to primary, which they liked even less. So then I lied to them and told them there would be treats, and I think they were in the primary room before I had even finished the sentence. Fortunately I had some leftover treats in my Santa bag sitting in my office, so I gathered them up and brought them up to primary.

I opened the door and gave them to Sister Chamaypawn. Then I closed the door and gazed in the window to find Gun and Fresh, the knuckleheads. They weren't there, but just as I was leaving I say the cupboard doors open and they had been hiding. They didn't see that I saw them, and a few minutes later they came to me in my office demanding to know where the treats were. I told them I had given them to their teacher, and they said I hadn't. I told them that I gave them to her when they were hiding in the closet. I could see that they were trying to trick me somehow because their expressions changed to dissappointment.

So I escorted them back to primary, and decided to sit it. Then Sister Chamaypawn asked if I had something to teach, to which I said no, to which she said, "Alright kids, the branch president is going to teach you!" So then the stick was forced into my hands and I had to learn how to control uncontrollable little 3-10 year olds as well as make up some kind of lesson that would catch their uncatchable interest.
Well, it all finally ended, and I learned two things: 1) We need to work on our primary here. 2) MASSIVE props to all primary teachers and leaders throughout the world. Yours is the hardest and probably most important job in the whole Church.

So here comes the reward for all of this craziness. The Christmas party was on Friday and the primary adventure was on Sunday. On Saturday, pretty much the only thing of any significance that happened was that a young woman in the branch came to me with a problem, which we handled the best we could. The rest of the day I had been pondering how to help her further on. Mostly I just prayed.

As I was leaving the primary room, we past the young women room. I glanced in and saw the absolute most refreshing, beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life. Hands down. All the wonders of nature that I cherish, all the tender photos in the conference Ensign, anything I have ever seen before this has not so clearly embodied the love of God and the miracle of the Atonement as the sight I was priveleged to see for just less than a second. I glanced in and saw our newly called young women president, Sister Tu, standing in the most dignified manner, teaching a single young woman, the one who had come to me on Saturday, which young woman was seated at a table, humbly taking notes. That less then a moment glance taught me more about the absolute and dire need in these days for us to love each other and to help. It proved to me in an indeniable manner that God lives, He loves us, and He answers prayers.


That's all for now. Got to go.

Love,
Aaron