{ M E R R Y * C H R I S T M A S }
December 11th, 2017
7 months, 1st week
Thailand, Bangkok, Chaing Mai District
samuel.montague
So we had zone conference this past week, which was a blast! On Wednesday, we had a zone pday, hence the late email. As a zone, we went up to Mon Jam and took pictures and shopped a little bit. We came back and got our phones. As an activity we also exchanged white elephant gifts, which is always fun with the "stealing" that goes on. I ended up walking away with some treats and a framed picture of President and Sister Johnson. A fun little thing of the night: I was chosen to play Santa, so I dressed up, entered the room after everyone finished the white elephant activity, amidst them singing Jingle Bells for me. I had a blast giving everybody little goodie bags with their phones from the mission. Afterwards we received training on setting up and using phone.
Thursday was the actual zone conference and we started with cookies and milk and a movie, the Best 2 Years. We played a lot of the Johnson's Christmas tradition games and had so much fun relaxing and being with each other. Lunch was a German buffet complete with pretzels! We went into the chapel after lunch to receive training from President, played some chimes with Sister Johnson. Later she gave a great talk and she was a good speaker keeping our attention as she "roasted" her husband. Using the scriptures we listened and sang our way through the Savior's birth. We took pictures together and had our interviews at the end.
Friday and Saturday we're both filled with appointments and Christmas parties! We went to both branches' Christmas parties. It was so fun! We got to sing, eat a bunch, and watch the youth and primary put on nativities. The missionary spirit is strong here as the members invite their friends to these events. Just from these socials, we have many new potential investigators and have already taught several of them. 
For Sunday we had a special meeting as both branches met at 9 a.m. We had 6 baptisms after sacrament- it was certainly a white Christmas! Of course though it goes without saying there is always a challenge to overcome. Fun event of the morning: everybody forgot to turn the font off, so some little boys that were out playing in the hall ran up to where I was sitting in sacrament and let me know the font had overflowed. It not only left the font, but it overflowed into the room. That was a fun cleanup we got to do for part of sacrament meeting! It was good to see that the priesthood really stepped up and got everything cleaned up quickly by working together. 
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That brings us to today-Merry Christmas! We woke up and did presents as a companionship, listening to lots of Christmas music and singing. We did some last minute Christmas shopping and now we are emailing. We are headed to a member's house after this to eat some traditional South African Christmas food and participate in a nativity. We will then be going to Elder Barlow's (our senior missionaries) house for Secret Santa and board games with our district's missionaries.
We video call tomorrow- so excited!
Merry Christmas everybody! I love you and so does my companion Elder Holland and Jesus. Who we should always remember is the real reason for the season! Happy Birthday Jesus!
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