Zone Conference

2 months, 23 days
Thailand, Bangkok, Bangna (บางนา) District

Sorry for the late email, but we had our first zone conference on Monday! They moved our preparation day (p-day) to today (Wednesday, the 16th).

Last p-day (typically on a Monday for our Mission), we planned to go ice skating, but ended up bowling instead. I thought it was going to be a bit of a letdown, having gotten turnt for ice skating, but it ended up being a great experience.  I guess it's the enjoyable company that makes the event and not necessarily the event itself.

Our week has been (mostly) full of appointments and exciting things! The most boring day was yesterday (Tuesday the 15th) as we weren't sure for a while what day P-day would be moved to.  

Because of that, we didn't schedule anything on Tuesday outside of English class. It was a bit of a rough day, but we lasted and endured to the good stuff. 

On Friday (the 11th), I went on switch splits (kinda of like cross training) with the Samut Praken elders. I was with Elder Krey, and we kept traveling way far to visit some of the Less Actives and Members further away. I made sure to be proactive and invite all along the way, and I met some cool people that I hope SM elders work with.

One really cool inviting experience we had was on Saturday (the 12th),  we were just inviting en route to other places.  At two separate locations, we invited these 2 women that showed interest and would talk with us for a little bit. They were rushed and it was a brief invite and we got just a little information asking them to come to church, for their name and number, done. Normally we would call a day or two after and set up an appointment or to encourage them to come to church, etc., but because we contacted them Saturday we didn't want to call them the same day.  However these two wonderful women came to church on their own! We hadn't contacted or reminded them, they just came. They both stayed for the entire time and for a lesson after the normal church block.  We split with members so we could teach each sister and I ended up teaching the one who speaks really good English, Mint. She said she cleared her whole day to be at church and with us for as long as we were able. She was hungry spiritually.  We sat her next to a YSA member during sacrament, and they were chatting about the gospel in between and after each of the classes we have. I taught her a mix of lessons one and two, and she has so many cool and deep questions that some members don't even think of (if God made our world, does that mean He made all of them? Other worlds?).

 We went "jegging" after, which is Thai for handing things out. All of the missionaries in our district went, and a few members came as well. We handed out about 2000 English class pass along cards in the span of an hour. It was so fun and intense!

During this week, I finally got my first fanny pack! I've been using a bag of my companion's, but I finally have a fanny pack- more common than purses in Thailand! For all you "haters" that made fun of me using a fanny pack, the Lord was merely preparing me for the Thai culture. I'm in love.

Zone conference was all day Monday (8-8). We had 6 people come and sleep over at our apartment Sunday night so they could be on time. President and Sister Johnson both spoke, the Assistants to the President, Office Elders, Zone Leaders, and a senior missionary couple all spoke. It was good stuff. They provided lunch, by Sunrise Tacos. It was basically Chipotle, owned by an actual Mexican. A tad bland, but maybe that's just because I'm so used to spice now. I had so much I wasn't even hungry for dinner (which was independent). We came back after dinner break for an hour of BoM jeopardy and minute to win it games. It was pretty lit, and of course my team won, despite having 3 sisters on our team and only 2 elders.

That's all folks! Love you, and check out 1 Nephi 13. It's so weird, because once you realize it's talking about America and the LDS church, it gets a little freaky.

Love you all!

--

Elder Montague