Douglas the performer

August 12th, 2018
14th month, 3rd week
Thailand, Bangkok, Minburi Ward

samuel.montague@myldsmail.net (I would love to hear from you)


This last Tuesday ended the transfer of me teaching the English class alone for the 6 weeks. Three cheers for Elder Montague!

Since then, death has occurred. Not only have I taken the lastest group of missionaries to the airport and sent them off- which consisted of the last two of my companions that were older than me- I have also died a little bit in my sleep schedule this week. And Elder Thornock went up to Chiang Mai!

To back it up a little bit, I have gotten ample and stressful use of my driver's license. I have driven back and forth between both of the airports at least once this week. These are typically done at very late or very early times, because the church only purchases inconvenient flights. Which means I also have gotten limited sleep. It was definitely a wild few days, and I was being sustained 80% by prayer.

My new companion is Elder Pierce Douglas Walker. He grew up in Utah, but he'll most recently lived in Missouri. He is a stud. He was a young performing missionary in Nauvoo for the summer before this mission. He sings beautifully. He is taller than me (but I think I have a bigger presence- I have less chill). He is very Mormon. If they made a TV show about him, it would be titled "And Then There Were 20 Kids" and it would first be about his siblings and parents, but they would later make the reboot about him and his kids. He does his hair every day. 

Interesting fact: when I smile and I am sleep deprived, it looks like I have 2 sets of eyebrows. I also may have fallen asleep during sacrament yesterday

So just like last transfer, we have a ton of tasks and errands for this first week. I must be getting better at it though, because we got most of the big things done without staying late and we taught two great lessons on Sunday. 

We are going to really try to focus on helping this ward build and grow and be strong. President Hammond came in during our last District Council of Asoke missionaries and we talked about just that. With the temple, they are planning on building 2 stake centers. Like wow, we barely fill our one small building. But we have a goal to split the Asoke ward into 2 by the end of the year. Elder Walker and I are going to try to focus on helping the ward and ward missionaries so that no matter what missionaries come and go, they will have the fire and drive to be the backbone and keep it going. 

We are also splitting Asoke into different focus areas by companionship which means everyone is sending their investigators to each other and we are all basically starting anew. 

There can be miracles when you believe. 

We are coming back from เที่ยวing, so I wanted to include some pictures and stories I forgot. 

This week while eating lunch, elder walker received his food. He proceeded to pray over it. I had gotten my food and prayed already so I was eating. The owner comes over and sees him praying and starts asking if the food is okay, if it was to spicy, what not. After brief confusion, we realized he thought my companion was crying over his food. 

In efforts to speak my language, I try to do some of our daily companionship readings in Thai. I don't have all of them completely down though, so I do some on the spot translating. A funny one I came across was "exercising faith". It was hilarious because I automatically used the word for "physical conditioning" instead of "using".

Speaking of language, I sat next to the คนไทยs during the greenie dinner at President's house (delicious spaghetti with homemade garlic rolls- shout out to Sister Hammond for being a Grade A mom). The Thai language uses "classifiers", so that whenever you speak of things in the plural or specify a thing, you use the classifier.  Sister Hammond said there were enough for 2 breads a person and I translated it. One of the Thais corrected the classifier I used,  which confused me (they were both okay). This spawned a game of naming these two breads with as many different classifieds as we could. There were some hilarious ones in there and also ones very tired so I had the time of my life. Also shout out to me for keeping up with คนไทยสองคน!

We went to Ayuttaya today and leisurely biked to a few different Wat ruins. We dressed up in traditional Thai clothing at the last one. It is not uncommon for Thai people to stop and tell us we are handsome and to ask to take a picture with us. But dressed in their traditional clothing, you'd think we were actual celebrities. Soooooo many people stopped to take a picture with us, and even more just took a picture of us without saying anything. So enjoy the หล่อness

Everyone could totally send me an email and I will (maybe) respond by next week.