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