Teaching English and Moving Churches

This week was pretty standard. We just taught a lot of English all week. I have my own classes now that I am teaching by myself. They are a lot of fun. It is a lot of the same thing every day. We spend about 3 hours a day teaching English and the rest of the time we usually spend at the church talking with members and preparing for English class.

We spent a good amount of time this week with the deaf kids. It was funny yesterday while we were over there they were cleaning the grounds, sweeping up leaves and what not, and they were trying to keep us from helping at all. We would be trying to pick up like a single leaf and they would not let us. It was really funny. 

This Sunday will be our last Sunday in our current church building. We are getting moved to a new location that is kind of far away. It will be interesting to see how that goes. 

Elder Morley and I just found out that we are both about 6 great’s grandchildren of Isaac Morley. That is pretty cool to find out that we are distantly related. Isaac Morley was an early leader of the church and a pioneer who helped settle Manti, Utah.

This week we got to meet with some investigators. We are currently fasting for one of our investigators. His name is Alec and we are all fasting and at the end of the fast he is going to ask for permission again from his dad to get baptized (this is a different investigator then I talked about last week.) If all goes well he will get baptized this Sunday as the last baptism at the old church (we might be baptizing people in the river for a little bit.) Our investigator brother Bounma is still doing great he will get baptized on the 2nd.  

Well that is about it for now. Thanks for reading. My funny picture for this week is of a truck stacked really high with chicken cages.      

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 เอ็ลเดอร์ ชีนีย์

First Normal Week in Laos

This week has been pretty interesting. It has really been my first week of getting into the normal missionary schedule in Lao. Sunday was really awesome. Church here is only two hours long, because of government restrictions, but it is a super solid two hours. The members are super nice and all really friendly. After church we got to teach some investigators, which was awesome, because that was my first time meeting any sort investigators since coming here. The fun part was the people we were teaching didn't speak Lao or Thai. They spoke Hmong. It is a tribal language up here. So anyway, we were running most of the lesson through this nine year old, who speaks Hmong and Lao really well. It was fun. The investigator that was supposed to get baptized last Sunday did not get baptized. His Father has forbidden him from being baptized. 

This week I got into the whole, being an English Teacher thing. It seems a little weird still, but I am getting used to it. So, on Tuesday Elder Morley went down to Bangkok. He traveled alone and I stayed here to teach classes. It is really weird here. We have been given permission so that we don't always have to be with a companion, because sometimes we are spread thin and need to split up to teach English. I taught mostly by myself this week because Elder Morley was gone. It was a little interesting but I felt like I got a lot better now that I have been teaching by myself a little bit. 

When we are not teaching, we spend a lot of time at the Church; either talking with or teaching members or doing office work. Other things we usually do when we are not teaching is to go hang out with the deaf kids. They are super awesome. We were over there for a few hours yesterday and I feel like I am getting a lot better at sign language.

There are a lot of members here that are preparing to serve missions. It is really cool to see. There are like six that are doing their paper work right now.  During our Book of Mormon class on Thursday our investigator also stated he wants to go on a mission. His name is Bounma. He is super awesome and is trying to finish the Book of Mormon before he gets baptized which is planned for the second of October but it might be getting moved up a week. 

Today was a lot of fun. We went fishing over at a member’s house. I caught three fish and the companionship caught a forth one with Elder Morley. (It’s a long story which involves the pole getting pulled into the lake.) It was a lot of fun. Fishing poles in Laos are fun and simple. They are just a bamboo rod with some fishing line and a hook tied to it. You also find your own bait by digging in the ground. Super fun. 

Well that wraps up this week. 

 

- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้ พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 เอ็ลเดอร์ ชีนีย์

House Arrest

So this week was a little boring and kind of exciting time to be  in Laos. We were under house arrest all week, which means we could not leave our house except to get food. This was a really long week of just kind of sitting around. The two oldest missionaries, Elder Magill and Elder Morley, went to Thailand for the week because they have a back and forth visa so they can just go in and out of Laos without any problems. Elder Saunders and myself do not yet have that privilege so we had to stay inside. The reason we had to stay inside was because there were a lot of ASEAN meetings going on here and Obama was here as well so we had to stay inside.

House arrest hasn’t been too bad. It has given us a lot of time to make food and clean and stuff that is always good. It did seem really weird when church was canceled on Sunday. I never thought I would miss a day of church as a missionary. That was an interesting day. We just stayed home, read the scriptures and called some members to make sure they were all doing good.

The senior missionaries here are really nice. There are two couples; the Carter’s and the Jensen’s.

Fun fact: I am the 24^th missionary to come into Laos.

Last P day, after emailing, we went to play basketball and the courts were occupied so we hung out with the deaf kids. They are super fun. They gave me a book on learning Lao Sign Language. So that was really cool. It is fun learning sign language from them. They are all so happy all the time. It is awesome. At that same place there are some blind people and we taught one of them how to ride a bike. It was super fun and he really enjoyed it.

Yesterday, Elder Smith-Driggs went to Thailand because he got his visa to travel back and forth between Thailand and Laos. So right now it is just Elder Saunders and I in Laos, it is fun, and it is also pretty weird because the house we live in is gigantic for an Elder house. It was not to bad when there were five of us here but now that there are only two of us it seems really empty all the time. 

I am really excited for church tomorrow because I haven’t gotten to do any missionary work since coming to Laos. From what I hear Sunday is just a crazy. We teach all of our investigators in a single day. We do have a baptism tomorrow as well. I have never met him but that is also something to look forward to.

Highlights of the week haven’t been too exciting. Elder Saunders and I have been baking food. We made some banana bread, blueberry muffins, waffles, brownies, and peanut butter cookies. Elder Saunders and I also don’t know how to go anywhere so that has been kind of interesting, just the two of us wondering around Vientiane. Another highlight is when the senior missionaries brought over dinner for us we ate chili nachos. It was really delicious. Yesterday, we also got to get out of the house and go to Buddha Park with the senior missionaries it was fun. It was really nice to get out of the house and just be out and about.

I am really excited to be moving back to a normal schedule because this week has been pretty long. That is pretty much all there is for this week.

Lao name tag it says Dew Genie (Drew Cheney) In Lao they have no R sound or CH sound.

                Gigantic Spider (about the size of my fist)​

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

เอ็ลเดอร์ ชีนีย์

Laos

Well, I have made it to my P day and Laos. It is has been a long week. The move was intense. We flew over. It was a nice one hour flight that made me aware of the amount of stuff I am picking up. Both my bags were barely under 50 pounds. So I have gained some stuff while I have been in Thailand. Other than that travel, we had one time where they called security on me and Elder Saunders for over staying our Thai visas. Turns out he just misread our passports. So that was scary. Then, when we came into Lao, we had a little problem getting our visas but it is all worked out now. 

So I am now in Laos. It is really interesting. I am no longer Elder Cheney, the missionary; I am Drew Cheney, the English teacher. It is really a huge change. Laos is a communist country so they have a lot of rules that prevent us from sharing the gospel. So we serve. We do a lot of English teaching. I love teaching English. It is really fun but it is not the same as being able to share the gospel with others. I miss being able to introduce myself as Elder Cheney. We have a lot of fun with our English Classes but we cannot talk about the gospel unless we are asked a direct question about it. 

Honestly, the adjustment has been really hard. I was so sad when I stood in front of my first English class and had to introduce myself as Drew Cheney. Also not being able to share the gospel made me really sad too, I have just found so much happiness from being able to share the gospel and now that I can’t share it with everyone it is a hard thing. 

I feel a lot better about things and I feel like I have gotten guidance about what I am here to do. I am only the 23rd missionary into Laos so we are doing a lot of foundation laying, little by little. 

As far as the language, I am speaking Laotian now. It is hard! When I came in a few days ago it felt like my first few days in Thailand. I think the hardest part is going from a second language were I felt pretty competent into a third language where I am pretty bad. The longer I have been here, the better it has gotten though. So hopefully I will pick it back up pretty fast. 

My new companion is Elder Morley. He has been here for 7 months so he came here the same time I came into Thailand. He has about 3 months left on his mission. He is really good at ping pong, or so I have heard. So, he is awesome and we get along pretty well. We are actually sort of in a Trio where my other companion is Elder Smith-Driggs. He is super awesome and fun as well. I say ‘sort of’ because he is listed in our companionship but he just bounces around everywhere that he is needed. So, yeah, there are five of us up here in Laos right now. So the other two are Elder Saunders who came in when I did, and Elder Magill. So I am in Vientiane which is the capital of Laos, and coming from Bangkok I was expecting the capital to be pretty big, but it is not really that way. It is small and reminds me more of when I was back in Sunsai. 

Another fun thing from this week has been the deaf kids. They are also super cool. We teach them and hang out with them several times a week. So I am also learning Lao Sign Language as well (way less useful than ASL, but that is what they know). 

Next week should be interesting and also kind of boring. I will write more about it next week but I think we will have to stay inside our house all week. 

P.S. That is a real active tank in the pictures!

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

เอ็ลเดอร์ ชีนีย์

Transfers, Trios... and LAOS

8-28-16

So I want to start this email by sharing something that I have known for a while but I haven't been able to tell to everyone. I am going to Laos! I have known for a little over two months but I have been keeping it quiet until now. So I will leave this Wednesday. This leads to where we are now. I am still in Samutprakaan and Elder Ellis has moved to Rangsit. My two new companions are Elder Polu and Nattagon. I am just trying to get them used to the area as much as I can before I leave.

As far as our investigators, Brother Dan is still doing awesome. He and his mom came to church yesterday. Dan will get baptized next Sunday. We didn't have time to talk to Dan’s mom. The members where all talking to her and I am not sure what she thought about everything.

Not much else happened this week, because of transfers, but in the future my P day will be on Saturdays while I am in Laos.

The flood is while we were coming back from transfers. 

-- Elder Cheney

ฉะนั้น, หากเจ้ามีความปรารถนาจะรับใช้ พระผู้เป็นเจ้า เจ้าก็ได้รับเรียกมายังงาน

 เอ็ลเดอร์ ชีนีย์