One more week in the States

So, I know this isn’t the first email I have started by saying ‘One week left’, but I think this is actually my last week in the States. The transfer is just ending this week and so all the Visa Waiters are here a week past the transfer, so that means I will be in a trio for a week. And the surprise came that Elder Oniki is getting upgraded from Trainer to Zone Leader, so he is getting transferred tomorrow. My new companions for the week are Elders Ellin and Meirs. I am excited. I don't know Elder Meirs but Elder Ellin is in our district so I know him pretty well. I am just staying in the same area and making sure I can show them around as much as I can before I leave. Being in a trio will be a lot of fun because, pretty much, if we have a member out, that is a guy we can do splits with.

This week was pretty good overall. I went on exchanges with our District Leader Elder Sampson on Tuesday. We had a good day and I enjoyed watching how other missionaries like to contact and teach.

Everything is going well. I am trying to do everything I can to prepare to go to Thailand. It seems really weird that in a week I will be on my way to Thailand, I had a good language opportunity this week. Elder Oniki and I were walking around and we hear this guy coughing so loud and his dogs were barking and it was really weird and when we walked around the corner I kind of just walked by because he was still coughing and his dogs still barking. After I had walked a little way past him Elder Oniki stopped and started talking to him. He told elder Oniki he wasn't interested because he was Buddhist and he didn't like speaking English. I turned around and asked him what he speaks and to my great satisfaction, he speaks Thai. I immediately start to talk to him in Thai and he starts to become more interested since he can speak in his native tongue. I was glad I had been carrying around a Thai Book of Mormon with me I passed that off to him and got his address and everything. He was telling me he came from Thailand 30 years ago but that instead of learning English when he got here he learned Cambodian because there are a lot of Cambodians here so he just talks with all of them. It was funny at the end Elder Oniki asked if we could say a prayer with him and he replied only if I did it. I guess he doesn't like English that much. He said his English wasn't that good, but when Elder Oniki talked to him he seemed to understand. Even though he doesn't go to any of our Wards we have gotten permission to teach him in Thai until I leave and then the Cambodian Elders can teach him.

 

It was really funny the night Leadership calls went out I played a joke on Elder Oniki. I played the ringtone on the phone around the time calls were going out then I acted surprised and looked at the phone and told him it was President Tew. I pretended to answer and talk and stuff and then told him the whole thing was a joke. After I walked out of the room President Tew called for real and called Elder Oniki as a Zone Leader. Elder Oniki initially told me he would let me know who my new companions were and everything but after getting all the information he decided to wait to tell me till everyone could know.

We had Stake Conference this Sunday. It was a bit of a hassle, because we tell everyone about going to church and where it is at and everything but this week we told everyone about church and then realized that it isn't at the same place and time. Even if we had people at Stake Conference we wouldn't have been able to tell because there were so many people there. Stake Conference itself was pretty good. Our Stake got a new presidency and there were two members of the Seventy there. The last Seventy that spoke was really good 

 

I probably won’t be able to email next week if Thailand's P day is on Monday as well. 

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 ่่้เอ็ลเดอร์ เซนื

New Haircut

Another week passed in California. This week had a lot of up and downs. I only have two more weeks from today in the States. I am trying to stay focused and work as hard as I can here before I leave. It is sad now when we set a baptismal date for after I leave. 

 Wednesday we were supposed to take our investigator, Jenifer, to the visitor’s center at the L.A. temple. She said everything was solid and we would be able to go. We had to set up two members to drive, one for us and one for her. About 1 hour before we left she called and said a relative had just passed away. We can tell Satan is working hard on her to not go to the visitor’s center. About my 2nd week here, we were supposed to go there with Jenifer and the day before, her lung collapsed and she had to be in the hospital for 2 weeks. So that was kind of rough. Luckily we made back up plans in case something happened, so we had something to do for the 3 hours we would have missed.

With one of our investigators, his sister ran away so he hasn't had time lately and the one lesson we had with him on Friday wasn't very good. He was just distracted and depressed the whole time. Elder Oniki and one of the Tongan Ward Priests got to stop by him last night. They said he was less distracted. His sister is still missing though.

We have a third investigator that is supposed to get baptized this Saturday. He has been taught all the lessons and we have had some really spiritual lessons with him. He seems to have lots of faith in God, and is always quick to except hard commitments. He didn't come to church this week though, so we don't know what’s going on. We stopped by his house and his parents said he went camping. We are not sure what to do about him.

We had a great day yesterday. We had terrible Church attendance, and at night we asked some of the young men if they wanted to come out with us. We were able to go on splits. Elder Oniki recently got his driver’s license so I no longer have to drive in California madness. He took the car and went to the farther away places and the other priest and I were walking around where we have a lot of potentials concentrated. We would have done some biking but the tire on Elder Oniki's bike is flat. That night we were able to teach 6 ‘member present’ lessons and find 2 new investigators! I thought the splits were really good for me to take the lead more and get practice teaching more by myself. When we take priests out with us they can usually talk if you ask them to share something, but they don’t contribute as much throughout the lesson. It is great practice for them, and the more we take them out the more they contribute in each lesson.

We have still been doing a lot of finding. Since that one day we made a goal to find new investigators every day, we have been able to find at least one new person every day. We even found an investigator for the Tongan Ward. It was really cool because it seems really hard to do work for the Tongan Ward. We also have a new Tongan investigator that is friends with one of the Young Women. She is solid and will probably get baptized a few weeks after I leave. The Tongan Ward hasn't had any convert baptisms in 4 years so that will be cool if we can get them one.

The same member that is friends with our investigator also had a Thai friend that I met with for language study. It was funny she thought I barely knew any Thai and so she thought her friend could help. It ended up that I spoke way more Thai than her, she then called her mom up because her mom spoke more Thai. She came and spoke a little more but she would always reply in English, her mom said she understood more than she could speak. So I didn't really get that much Thai practice in. It was funny because I was going in expecting native Thai speakers. I guess it doesn't matter that much. I will get plenty of practice in a few weeks. 

Everything here is coming along well and I am sad that I will be leaving here soon. I have met a lot of really cool people. 

Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 ่่้เอ็ลเดอร์ เซนื

mmmm... not today

Everything here has been calming down a lot since the Holidays are over. It has been really nice that people are back home and have time to do things now. We had a really good District Meeting this week. We set some goals on what we should be doing better as a district. We came up with a lot of good ideas. One of the things we wanted to do was to find a new investigator every day.

We all got really excited about the goals we set and we were all ready to go do a lot of work. That night, at the end of the day, we still hadn't found anyone and it was like 8:50, so we had to go home soon if we weren't in a lesson. We had to go drop off our member and as we dropped him off, we decided we should try to find someone quick. We looked up and down the streets and nobody was there. Our member told us we should knock on some doors quick. Knocking isn't our usual method of finding but we were in desperate need to find, so we were willing to give it a shot. We tried a few doors and nobody answered and, as we are walking back towards our member’s house, the member said we should try one last door. We go up and knock on the door and an older man answered and asked what we wanted. We told him who we were and why we were there. We asked him if he was religious at all, and he just starts telling us about how his wife had died only a few days ago. We said a prayer with him and we were able to talk about the plan of salvation a little bit with him. It was super powerful and it was cool to see how Heavenly Father had guided us to someone who needed us at that time. He was super nice but he was telling us about how through all of his recent trials he had forgot about religion and didn't really think about being able to see his wife again. At the end, he said he was glad that God had sent us to him to help him. It was really cool. We didn't get to meet with him again because we had to pass him off to the Family Ward Elders, but it was nice to talk to him and see instant results of our work. Even if he doesn't get baptized or anything, we know we gave him the comfort he really needed at that time and that we helped him.

We have had some fun experiences with trying to find every day. We do way better at talking to people and we have found a lot in the last week because that has been one of our goals. The other day we found three in a day. I think we are able to do that just because we have finding on our minds and we will go way out of our way, now, to talk to people. 

We had a big rainstorm early in the week. It is funny because it doesn't seem like California is equipped to handle lots of rain, because all the water just piles up everywhere because the lack of storm drains. It was fun. We had a really good attitude the whole time we were out and about. Good news, my shoes held up the whole day so they are just as waterproof as advertised. It was funny because we planned for an all walking morning on the day it was pouring rain. During the morning, as we were walking around, we decided to knock on a door that had a nice covered porch. We knocked on the door and told her who we were and then asked her a question about Heavenly Father's love for families. She just stared at us for like 8 seconds then just said "mmmmm not today," then closed the door. It was really funny. I think it just threw her off that two soaking wet missionaries were talking to her about families. We didn't try back the next day because I think the ‘not today’ was more of a ‘not ever’, but it was still really funny.

The days seem like they are flying by now. It seems weird that I am going to Thailand soon. I have started reading the Book of Mormon in Thai. I am about half way through 1st Nephi and I have been finding that that is how I am learning words the best. I write like 20 words down each time I read everyday, then take the time later to look them up in the dictionary. It helps because the words are repeated a lot so I am learning a lot and getting them repeated a bunch as I keep reading.

We had a nice week this week and I am interested to see what happens in the next few weeks while I am here.

Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 ่่้เอ็ลเดอร์ เซนื

Thai Market #1

Well this week has been fun. I got my flight plans to go to Thailand, It is pretty exciting. We leave a week after the transfer ends here. So that is on February 1^st.  It is exciting that we are heading out soon, and a huge relief that all the visa stuff worked out just fine. I am excited that I will be here another week after the Transfer. Elder Oniki and I were speculating what might happen, he thinks he will be transferred out and I’ll show two new people around the area for the week and then transfer out. I am hoping Elder Oniki stays and they just send a new guy over to be in a tri-panionship for a week. It will be cool to see what happens for that week.

Our flight this time goes through Japan, it also goes through Portland. I am really excited to be in a familiar spot for a short time. The thing in Portland isn't even a layover. We just get off the plane we are on and then get on a new plane to fly across the Pacific on. This time around we have over 23 hours of being on a plane. It is a little worse than before, but it will be cool. I have been getting really excited to go over to Thailand since I got my flight plans.

We have been having success recently with our missionary work. We have been finding a lot of people to teach. Unfortunately, most of these people are not YSA age or Tongan so we have to pass them off to other Elders. Our Spanish has getting better, being here, because a lot of people will say they can’t speak English so we just talk to them in Spanish. I have been struggling trying to use Spanish because every time I want to go foreign language mode I just go to Thai. It was funny the other day we were talking to this guy and he asked me how I was doing, in Spanish, then I replied in Thai. Then after realizing what I had done it took me like 5 seconds to remember bien y tu? 

Speaking of foreign language, the other night, as we were driving home, I stopped at this stop sign and as I was waiting for traffic to go by I looked to side were there was a store and to my surprise I saw a store with Thai characters on it. I got really excited and read it and it said Thai Market #1. I kept telling my companion that we would have to go back and check it out and do some contacting in front of it or something. So, when we got to go back, it ended up that no one in the store spoke Thai except for the owners. The guy I talked to didn't really want to chat because he has working. I talk to one of the other workers who was a bit more chatty but I think she was only half Thai and said she didn't speak very good Thai. I continued to try and talk with her for a bit. I think her Thai is basically on the same level as mine. Didn't really find anyone I could teach or anything like that, but I got to speak some Thai, Maybe some other time we will go over and be able to find someone we can teach. Also, we have a new missionary training tomorrow so I can see some of my MTC buddies and speak Thai to them.

 

New Years was this week. That was a depressing night for missionary work. We didn't have any set appointments because everyone had things to do. Then all the people we planned for were not home. I think that is just what to expect for that. We only taught one lesson that day to a potential. It was still good because we had not been able to stop by him in a while, so we got to share a message with him and set up a return appointment. New Years Day was a lot of the same stuff too, for some reason. We only got to meet with two recent converts. I think most of the holiday madness is over now. We had good days on Saturday and Sunday, so I think we are back to normal schedules now.

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 ่่้เอ็ลเดอร์ เซนื