Week 33 - Surin, Thailand (October 12, 2014)

Lilly and Daysie had a Roadrunner Fundraiser at their school this week. Took the morning off from the office to go watch them. Daysie's run was at 9:15 am in the morning. She did 13 laps and Lilly had hers at 11 am where she ran 15 laps. Needless to say, I owe each them some money this week.

Grandma Capps was visiting from Idaho and was able to see Lilly run but missed Daysie in the morning. It was hilarious when Daysie came walking out of school and saw Great Grandma at Lilly's run. She was so upset great-grandma wasn't at her run (Daysie has this walk where she lowers her shoulders, slump her back, and walks when she's upset. That's what she did when she saw great-grandma, from 50 yards away, as she stomped her feet). Great-Grandma asked "what's the matter honey?" That's when Daysie said, with a really upset voice, "you didn't come to mine but you came to Lilly!"

Little background, grandma didn't know about Lilly and Daysie's run, until I told her about Lilly. That's when she said to pick her up from aunt Melody so she can come to watch the run.  Then, in the evening, Daysie really let Wan, my wife, know how disappointed she was. She said, "grandma , you didn't come to my run" Wan responded by saying "Aww, I'm sorry, I had to work". Guess what Daysie said? She said, "well, grandpa worked, but he came". Here are some videos of Daysie and Lilly I sent to Elder Matt Boonmee. The following is Elder Matt Boonmee email response to us.

"...Holy cow, they are soooooo grown up! Tell them DON"T FORGET ME!!...Conference was awesome. This is my second conference out on the mission. I remember the last one like yesterday, I can't believe that I'm already almost at my year mark! I have only 2 more months until I'm there.

We went to the church for conference. Then we went into a different room for it in English.
Scripture studies has been great for me. I have learned so much. I also learned a little bit of the historical background of the sons of Mosiah. I will expound a little more in a later email. But I've been studying about temples as well. Going to the temple regularly is sooooo important. ...great reading in the "Preparing to enter the temple" And it goes really deep into all that kind of stuff.

I've also been reading in Jesus the Christ. It talks about almost every single thing that happened in Jesus' life, before, during, and after. It is a great one as well.

In the Book of Mormon, I've read it all before, but now I'm in the war chapters. Ever since I've studied about the background of it, the fact that at that point the Nephites are now in a democracy just barely changing from the monarchy, but that is for another email to talk about. But just a little taste, is that The Sons of Mosiah are Princes. I'll talk about that more.

Today we are going to Moo Baan Chaang (The Elephant Village) to go see elephants, so I hope the lack of photos this week will be made up by next weeks photos.

Anyways, I have to go, the bus is leaving soon!
Love Elder Boonmee"

Daysie's run

Lilly's run

Week 32 - Surin, Thailand

For English please see below.

อาทิตย์นี้ไม่มีอะไรมากนัก ผมส่งรูปมาฝากสองรูป รูปกลุ่ม เป็นดิสตริคท์ของผม

วันจันทร์ เราได้รับอบรมเกี่ยวกับการเป็นผูสอนศาสนา

วันอังคารเราก็ไปอบรมดิสตริคท์ที่บุรีรัมย์ รูปแรกเป็นรูปที่เราถ่ายจากบุรีรัมย์ ที่ยืนอยู่เป็นน้องใหม่ ที่นั่งอยู่เป็นรุ่นพี่

วันพุธ เรามีการท้าทายนิดหน่อย คือมีชายคนหนึ่งที่ชอบมาลุ้นกับพวกเรา แต่ไม่ต้องเป็นห่วงครับ เขาแค่อยากทดลองความรู้ของพวกเรา

วันพฤหัสบดี ก็อบรม zone มีหลายอย่างทีกำลังเปลี่ยนแปลง

วันศุกร์ ก็ติดต่อและเชิญชวนผู้สนใจ พอดีตอนเย็นก็เป็นวันกิจกรรม ก็เลยมีการเล่นเกมนิดหน่อย ไม่ทราบว่าเป็นเพราะอะไร วันนี้รู้สึกว่าทุกคนดีกับเรามาก อาจเป็นเพราะว่าเราไม่ได้แต่งตัวก็ได้ 555 เพราะเราเล่นกีฬา

วันเสาร์ก็เช่นเดียวกัน ติดต่อและเชิญชวน แต่วันนี้แปลกนิดหนึ่ง ขณะที่เรากำลังเดินทางไปติดต่อและเชิญชวน ตอนระหว่างทางมีหญิงชรากำลังถกเถียงกันอยู่ เราได้รับดลใจให้หยุด (จะบอกว่าหญิงชราโบกให้หยุดก็ได้ 555)  อย่างไรก็ตาม เราได้หยุดและคุยกับยายจนได้ทราบว่าท่านเคยเป็นสมาชิกเก่าแต่ไม่ค่อยได้มาโบสถ์ ในขณะเดียวกัน เรายังได้คุยกับหนุ่มอีกคน ซึ่งก็เคยเป็นสมาชิกเก่าที่ไม่ค่อยได้มาโบสถ์เช่นกัน แต่หนุ่มคนนี้เขาบอกว่าเขาอยากจะกลับมาโบสถ์อีก เชื่อไหมครับ เขาก็มาโบสถ์จริงๆ ผมและเพื่อนดีใมากครับที่ไดเห็นพระหัตถ์ของพระเจ้าในงารของพระองค์

วันอาทิตย์ ก็ไปโบสถ์

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It's been couple weeks since his transfer from Bangkhen to Surin province. So far, Elder Matt Boonmee is doing well and getting used to being a senior companion. He still feels inadequate in his new role, but is taking it in stride. He loves his companion and his district. Due to the new mission rule, we weren't able to get much update from him. The mission is discouraging chat style emails so the following is what we have to share with you.

"Last Monday we received new training about how we should be doing missionary work. It was a great thing to watch. 

Tuesday we went to Buriram for district meeting. We just talked about the training and also got this photo. (Top row from left to right: Elder Beebe, Elder Burke, Elder Reid "Junior Companions) (Bottom Row from left to right: Me, Elder Martin, Elder Tanner "Senior Companions") Our district is called Suriram.

Then on Wednesday we went to return a package to an Independent Baptist at his church. We found that he loved Bible bashing. That seemed to be his only goal. He keeps saying he just wants to talk as friends but he was just a little much and this wasn't our mission anyway. We tried to be polite and didn't fight back. We thanked him and left. He is a smart guy, but he is only getting our material to find something to challenge us with. So we continued with the work we were called to do.

Thursday we just went out and also got training from the Zone leaders. It was a big change here. There is a lot of difference in the work here. 

Friday we had inviting, as always, but then we had sports night near the end. For some reason everyone was so friendly when we walked by, but it was because we weren't in our missionary apparel...

...Saturday we just had a lot of teaching and inviting. However, prior to the inviting and teaching, we were riding by the Park when we stopped because we had this spiritual prompting, or in other words, we saw some people (elderly) arguing. And a lady started waving us down, turned out she was a less-active member, We got to talking with her a little and hope to continue again at a later time. The biggest surprise was, as we were talking with this elderly woman, we saw another less-active member, so we talked to him as well. He said he would come to church, and he did! He also gave us a lot of referrals. 

It's such a joy to know that God places things in our way so that we may be able to contact his children. If it needed to be an argument to get our attention, so be it. haha 

Then Sunday. It was a good old Sunday as always. We haven't seen General Conference quite yet, it will be next week.

Just me

Anyways that is all I can think of. Also some other news, President Senior has stopped Facebook proselyting for a while. Also he asks that when we email, we don't get into a "chatroom" style email. As in I email, and we just reply back and forth. 

Love you all and I hope you have a good week!

Elder Boonmee "