Hey guys!
All is well here. I just got a letter from Brother Mugg and Sister Phipps containing colored pictures from some of the primary children. That was really nice of them! Thanks so much guys!
Well things are great here. Yesterday was zone conference. We had it at the building here in Ubon, so the whole zone came to Ubon. We had a great session with President Smith and the assistants, and during break, while we were cleaning up and everybody was filing back in to the chapel, 2 of our investigators showed up at the church out of the blue. We showed them the baptismal font and explained how baptism works, and gave them a little tour of the building. PawNarain and MaaNongyaw both have a baptismal date for August 9th, and it was so cool that they just randomly showed up at the church. They are both going to be great!
In preparation for the open house, the members and the missionaries made some displays and visuals to show the people who'd come. They wanted some bamboo to use for some of the visuals, so we got in the back of a pickup with some members, rode out to one of the most remote parts of Warin, and chopped down giant bamboo poles with kitchen knifes. It was sweet, and Elder Volk and I afterwards thought, "man this is sooooo asian, sweet!"
The open house was great. It ended up being more for strengthening members, because none of our investigators came, but it was still a really great experience. Members from the different jungwats in the Pac Isan came to it, and the Stake President came as well. I thought this was very interesting. The current Stake President, President Wisit, was taught and baptized by President Smith when he served here almost 40 years ago. We gave away alot of material, Books of Mormon, Restoration, Plan of Salvation, gospel pamphlets, and alot of Liahona Magazines. It was a great turn out of people. Oh! that reminds me! Do you recognize the name Joanna Hunter? She served a mission in Thailand and got home (to Purdue) about 4 months before I got my call. Well, she showed up at the open house the other day! It was really cool. Small world, huh.
So I saw images of the eclipse on the news, but not in real time, sorry, that would have been spectacular to see! Last november there was an astronomical event where the moon and two planets(or stars, I can't remember) aligned to form a smiley face, and the Thai people really got a kick out of that. There was also a solar eclipse in December as well, but we didn't have glasses, so we couldnt really look at it.
Very nice about all the weddings going on, time flies fast. Its good to see that they are all happy. That's really great! Thanks for all your support!
-Elder Schulte
Note from Mom... I've included an excerpt from our family letter that I thought was neat.
"PawDome came to church last week. Teaching him is going well, he was having some trouble sayings prayers as far as getting the sequence right. One evening last week, we explained the order of saying the prayer, with first starting out by saying " Heavenly Father..." next "Phuud-dam-jai" which means Speak according to your heart, and then "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen". So, we had him practice that, but instead of that order, he proceeded to say "Heavenly father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen", and looked up with a big smile and said, "was that it?" and Elder Volk was like, "um close. Between 'Heavenly Father' and 'in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen', you have to speak according to your heart, say what you are thankful for, and ask for blessings, so lets try again." "okay okay, Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Thank you for all the..." and proceeded to say the prayer. When he was done, he asked "How was that?" and we said, "um keep working on that."
So, when we met with him last night, we had him say the closing prayer, and it started out with "Heavenly Father..." and a ten second pause as we anticipated what was coming next. But, then he said, "Thank you for..." and proceeded to say it in the right order, yes!!! So that's good now, he's got it."
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Lots of Changes 7/15/09
Hey Everyone,
Its time to write about the adventures of the past week.
Elder Palmer moved to ChangRai. It is an area in northern Thailand. Elder Wiser died. Well, not really, its just a missionary term that means that he finished his mission, and went home to Kaysville Utah. Man, he is an awesome guy! Elder Webb is here in Ubon with his new companion, and I am still in Warin with mine.
Last Tuesday, we had our showcase night for English class, and we played kickball, which was alot of fun. A lot of Thai poeple have never played before, but they like baseball, so they had a pretty good idea how to play. It was a great night!
Earlier that day we found out that Elder Palmer was moving to ChangRai so we spent the day cleaning and packing. Wednesday morming we went to the candle festival, which was amazing, I got a lot of cool pictures of the floats, the candle designs are really neat, and yes thats the word, the designs are very intricate. The details that they they put on these must have taken months to do. Each of the floats were representations of buddhist artwork, with dragons, angels, and priests. Wow, its amazing!
That night Elder Palmer and I got on an hour long bus to Sisagate, met up with the Sisagate district, and took an all-night bus to Bangkok. It was a very long night, because I don't sleep very well, on buses or trains. When we got there, the assistants picked us up and took us to Pakkret, and we had the "moves" meeting. It was a great meeting! Almost all of my original district is gone. The two sisters, Bileen and Sucharit are finished and have returned home. Sister Sucharit is from Ubon, so it is really great to see her at church in Ubon, on the other side of the country! Man! Small world! Well, anyway, Elder Jones is a zone leader in Pakkret, and he has one more move left. Elder Frischknecht is now a zone leader in ChangMai, after spending four moves in Bangna! Man, he is great!
I'll tell you about our district. My new companion is Elder Volk. This is his first time being senior companion, and guess what, he is only one move ahead of me. So, I know him pretty well from the MTC. Sweet!!! The district leader is Elder Wright who is Elder Webb's new companion.
We went and renewed visa's in Bangkok, ate, and then got on a train and rode all night back to Ubon. It was another long night! Oh well, we got back all right. I am really surprised at how easy it is to get around this country! We got back Friday morning, unpacked and toured Warin for a little while. I showed him where some of the members are, investigators, temples, neighborhoods. Elder Volk is a hard worker. I’ll just tell you now, from what I've seen the last few days, he is the perfect example of “forget yourself and go to work.” He is an Airforce man, he’s from Waldorf Maryland, and really good at this missionary thing. Lol! It’s gonna be a great move!
The last 2 days we have worked pretty hard. Yesterday, we taught a man named Dome, and now he has a baptismal date for the 9th of august. Later that day, we taught an awesome lesson with Naraine, we had a baptismal date for him last move, but he didn’t quite make it. He is still learning with us, and we reviewed the Plan of Salvation with him last night, and with each section of the lesson that we taught, we tied the ordinance of Baptism into it. At the end we gave him a commitment to be baptized, and he’s like “ok, i’ll do it!”
We did the same thing with the lesson for Dome, and at the end gave the baptismal commitment, and he was like “sure!” It was really cool.
Its been great this week so far, and I know we are going to have a lot of success over these next five weeks.
Well, as for things here, I've been kinda tired lately, but I am exercising and eating a lot of fruit. The Swine flu is scaring a lot of people. I see a lot of Thai people wearing face masks. It’s a big deal here! I think there have been some deaths already. How is it in America?
Its been raining a lot here still. The rainy season hasn’t stopped. It seemed like it did for a few days, but then it started up again a few days ago. It rained all night the last 2 nights, and a lot during the day as well. Man, I don’t know how Thai people put up with this, it is a lot of rain.
The Ubon branch is going to have an open house on the 18th for the new church building. This building blew Elder Volks mind. All of Sunday, he was saying things like, “Whoa, this building is huge, Whoa, they have a family history center! Whoa, they have a copy machine, Whoa, they actually have PEC (a committe meeting) on Sundays, Whoa, they have deacons that pass the sacrament…” It was cool! This ward is pretty sweet, they do have a lot of programs and things that a lot of wards and branches in Thailand don’t have, and now they get to continue utilizing these programs with the blessing of a brand new church building. Currently it is the largest LDS church building in Southeast Asia. FOR REAL!
That’s about it here. Thanks for writing, it sounds like the trek was great! I never got the chance to do that, but maybe in the future. I can't wait for you guys to get the photo discs! These discs won't have the candle festival pictures in Ubon, they will be on the next one. If there is anything else that I have left out or forgot to mention, let me know. Thanks for your support! Take care and GodSpeed!!!
-Elder Schulte
Its time to write about the adventures of the past week.
Elder Palmer moved to ChangRai. It is an area in northern Thailand. Elder Wiser died. Well, not really, its just a missionary term that means that he finished his mission, and went home to Kaysville Utah. Man, he is an awesome guy! Elder Webb is here in Ubon with his new companion, and I am still in Warin with mine.
Last Tuesday, we had our showcase night for English class, and we played kickball, which was alot of fun. A lot of Thai poeple have never played before, but they like baseball, so they had a pretty good idea how to play. It was a great night!
Earlier that day we found out that Elder Palmer was moving to ChangRai so we spent the day cleaning and packing. Wednesday morming we went to the candle festival, which was amazing, I got a lot of cool pictures of the floats, the candle designs are really neat, and yes thats the word, the designs are very intricate. The details that they they put on these must have taken months to do. Each of the floats were representations of buddhist artwork, with dragons, angels, and priests. Wow, its amazing!
That night Elder Palmer and I got on an hour long bus to Sisagate, met up with the Sisagate district, and took an all-night bus to Bangkok. It was a very long night, because I don't sleep very well, on buses or trains. When we got there, the assistants picked us up and took us to Pakkret, and we had the "moves" meeting. It was a great meeting! Almost all of my original district is gone. The two sisters, Bileen and Sucharit are finished and have returned home. Sister Sucharit is from Ubon, so it is really great to see her at church in Ubon, on the other side of the country! Man! Small world! Well, anyway, Elder Jones is a zone leader in Pakkret, and he has one more move left. Elder Frischknecht is now a zone leader in ChangMai, after spending four moves in Bangna! Man, he is great!
I'll tell you about our district. My new companion is Elder Volk. This is his first time being senior companion, and guess what, he is only one move ahead of me. So, I know him pretty well from the MTC. Sweet!!! The district leader is Elder Wright who is Elder Webb's new companion.
We went and renewed visa's in Bangkok, ate, and then got on a train and rode all night back to Ubon. It was another long night! Oh well, we got back all right. I am really surprised at how easy it is to get around this country! We got back Friday morning, unpacked and toured Warin for a little while. I showed him where some of the members are, investigators, temples, neighborhoods. Elder Volk is a hard worker. I’ll just tell you now, from what I've seen the last few days, he is the perfect example of “forget yourself and go to work.” He is an Airforce man, he’s from Waldorf Maryland, and really good at this missionary thing. Lol! It’s gonna be a great move!
The last 2 days we have worked pretty hard. Yesterday, we taught a man named Dome, and now he has a baptismal date for the 9th of august. Later that day, we taught an awesome lesson with Naraine, we had a baptismal date for him last move, but he didn’t quite make it. He is still learning with us, and we reviewed the Plan of Salvation with him last night, and with each section of the lesson that we taught, we tied the ordinance of Baptism into it. At the end we gave him a commitment to be baptized, and he’s like “ok, i’ll do it!”
We did the same thing with the lesson for Dome, and at the end gave the baptismal commitment, and he was like “sure!” It was really cool.
Its been great this week so far, and I know we are going to have a lot of success over these next five weeks.
Well, as for things here, I've been kinda tired lately, but I am exercising and eating a lot of fruit. The Swine flu is scaring a lot of people. I see a lot of Thai people wearing face masks. It’s a big deal here! I think there have been some deaths already. How is it in America?
Its been raining a lot here still. The rainy season hasn’t stopped. It seemed like it did for a few days, but then it started up again a few days ago. It rained all night the last 2 nights, and a lot during the day as well. Man, I don’t know how Thai people put up with this, it is a lot of rain.
The Ubon branch is going to have an open house on the 18th for the new church building. This building blew Elder Volks mind. All of Sunday, he was saying things like, “Whoa, this building is huge, Whoa, they have a family history center! Whoa, they have a copy machine, Whoa, they actually have PEC (a committe meeting) on Sundays, Whoa, they have deacons that pass the sacrament…” It was cool! This ward is pretty sweet, they do have a lot of programs and things that a lot of wards and branches in Thailand don’t have, and now they get to continue utilizing these programs with the blessing of a brand new church building. Currently it is the largest LDS church building in Southeast Asia. FOR REAL!
That’s about it here. Thanks for writing, it sounds like the trek was great! I never got the chance to do that, but maybe in the future. I can't wait for you guys to get the photo discs! These discs won't have the candle festival pictures in Ubon, they will be on the next one. If there is anything else that I have left out or forgot to mention, let me know. Thanks for your support! Take care and GodSpeed!!!
-Elder Schulte
Friday, July 10, 2009
Funny Comp and his "Big Words" July 8, 2009
Hey guys!
So it is the end of the moves, Elder Wiser and Elder Webb in our district went to Bangkok last night, and Elder Palmer and I are getting on a bus to go there tonight. This morning we went to Ubon to see the candle festival. Ubonratchatani Candle festival is part of a Buddhist holiday, and people make these giant floats with Buddhist Art and figures carved out of huge pieces of wax, they look really cool, and that is whats going on today. Yesterday Elder Palmer packed, because he is leaving and going to be a district leader somewhere else, we are not sure yet, but will find out on Thursday. We have had a lot of fun together, we have met some great people here. We are in the process of teaching some awesome people, including a family. Last night was the english class show case that we have at the end of the 6week periods. We played kickball, and the members and students had a great time with that. The family came last night and the son played for a little while. The dads name is So, the mom is Suay,and the son is Nic. I can't remember if I talked about them at all in the last email, but on the first night that we met them, the parents had been talking about how their son was "Dit-Kompeuter", basically he was addicted to playing the computer. So we taught the family about the Book of Mormon, and committed the son to read the Book for 30 minutes everyday before playing computer, and he took that challenge, and he is doing great at that. This is a really great family, and I am excited to keep teaching them with my new companion.
I'll miss Elder Palmer was really cool. He is very talented and knows alot about different things. He also knows and likes to use alot of big words(in english) so it has been interesting to learn somenew vocab. For instance; Vexillum, which is like a standard, or a flag, mostly connected with romans. Capricious, which is kind of like spontanious. And Facetious, which is giving someone someone a hard time, or joking, with malice, or negative intent. Or Anti-Deluvial, which is a biblical term for anything that is in the Pre-flooding period, for example: Anti Deluvial prophets are prophets that came before Noah. It was fun learning new words but apparently it drove Elder Frischknecht crazy when they were companions!
Elder Palmer and I have had a good time playing guitar at night, he got a classical guitar here in ubon, and I copied the classical guitar book for him, and he's hammering out those classical tunes, its way fun to play those together. It was overall a great time with him. I have seen my Thai speaking ability go up since being with him. So I will miss him. We've had some pretty sweet lessons together too. It has been great to find and teach families with him, man, its been great.
Oh, we have met the new mission president and his wife. Last Friday night our district rented a van and driver and we took a 6 hour ride to Kongaan, which is where Elders Young and Olsen are. We spent the night in Kongaan and the next day we went to the church and all of the Isan Zones were there. President Smith speaks Thai really,really well for a man who served here 40 years ago, and has only been here for a week. Wow, I was sitting in the audience as he conducted the first half of the meeting completely in Thai. He has been serving in Hong kong as a geneology worker at the temple for the last 2 years, and received a called straight from President Eyring to be the next mission president. Whoa! He and his wife are very excited to be here, and President Smith has said that he wants us to keep moving forward, and prepare members and investigators to be worthy for the Temple. He wants us to work as if there is already a temple in Thailand.
Well, Elder Palmer and I are getting on a bus to go to Sisagate(the jangwat next door), and then from there we get on a bus, and ride all night to Bangkok. This will be interesting. I'm really interested to see where everybody is being moved. Elder Palmer and I called Elder Frischknecht last night, who is now going to leave Bang-na and go be a zone leader in Chaing-mai, in Northern Thailand. Holy cow! An awesome group is jopping(leaving) this moves. Elder Wiser is so cool! There are some really great missionaries in his group, and Elder Jones group will be leaving at the end of this next move. "Papa" Jones is going home, I'll miss him.
Thank you so much for all of your support, this is the ultimate asian mission experience.
GodSpeed!!!
-Elder Schulte
So it is the end of the moves, Elder Wiser and Elder Webb in our district went to Bangkok last night, and Elder Palmer and I are getting on a bus to go there tonight. This morning we went to Ubon to see the candle festival. Ubonratchatani Candle festival is part of a Buddhist holiday, and people make these giant floats with Buddhist Art and figures carved out of huge pieces of wax, they look really cool, and that is whats going on today. Yesterday Elder Palmer packed, because he is leaving and going to be a district leader somewhere else, we are not sure yet, but will find out on Thursday. We have had a lot of fun together, we have met some great people here. We are in the process of teaching some awesome people, including a family. Last night was the english class show case that we have at the end of the 6week periods. We played kickball, and the members and students had a great time with that. The family came last night and the son played for a little while. The dads name is So, the mom is Suay,and the son is Nic. I can't remember if I talked about them at all in the last email, but on the first night that we met them, the parents had been talking about how their son was "Dit-Kompeuter", basically he was addicted to playing the computer. So we taught the family about the Book of Mormon, and committed the son to read the Book for 30 minutes everyday before playing computer, and he took that challenge, and he is doing great at that. This is a really great family, and I am excited to keep teaching them with my new companion.
I'll miss Elder Palmer was really cool. He is very talented and knows alot about different things. He also knows and likes to use alot of big words(in english) so it has been interesting to learn somenew vocab. For instance; Vexillum, which is like a standard, or a flag, mostly connected with romans. Capricious, which is kind of like spontanious. And Facetious, which is giving someone someone a hard time, or joking, with malice, or negative intent. Or Anti-Deluvial, which is a biblical term for anything that is in the Pre-flooding period, for example: Anti Deluvial prophets are prophets that came before Noah. It was fun learning new words but apparently it drove Elder Frischknecht crazy when they were companions!
Elder Palmer and I have had a good time playing guitar at night, he got a classical guitar here in ubon, and I copied the classical guitar book for him, and he's hammering out those classical tunes, its way fun to play those together. It was overall a great time with him. I have seen my Thai speaking ability go up since being with him. So I will miss him. We've had some pretty sweet lessons together too. It has been great to find and teach families with him, man, its been great.
Oh, we have met the new mission president and his wife. Last Friday night our district rented a van and driver and we took a 6 hour ride to Kongaan, which is where Elders Young and Olsen are. We spent the night in Kongaan and the next day we went to the church and all of the Isan Zones were there. President Smith speaks Thai really,really well for a man who served here 40 years ago, and has only been here for a week. Wow, I was sitting in the audience as he conducted the first half of the meeting completely in Thai. He has been serving in Hong kong as a geneology worker at the temple for the last 2 years, and received a called straight from President Eyring to be the next mission president. Whoa! He and his wife are very excited to be here, and President Smith has said that he wants us to keep moving forward, and prepare members and investigators to be worthy for the Temple. He wants us to work as if there is already a temple in Thailand.
Well, Elder Palmer and I are getting on a bus to go to Sisagate(the jangwat next door), and then from there we get on a bus, and ride all night to Bangkok. This will be interesting. I'm really interested to see where everybody is being moved. Elder Palmer and I called Elder Frischknecht last night, who is now going to leave Bang-na and go be a zone leader in Chaing-mai, in Northern Thailand. Holy cow! An awesome group is jopping(leaving) this moves. Elder Wiser is so cool! There are some really great missionaries in his group, and Elder Jones group will be leaving at the end of this next move. "Papa" Jones is going home, I'll miss him.
Thank you so much for all of your support, this is the ultimate asian mission experience.
GodSpeed!!!
-Elder Schulte
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