Elder Borg in THAILAND: WEEKS 9 and 10 - MTC and THAILAND! September 11, 2017

Hey hey!!

Wow! What a crazy, awesome, hard, but exciting few weeks! We made it to Thailand safely, but extremely jet lagged, at about midnight on Wednesday. Elder Nielson left his bag and the AP's got lost while driving us home, so we didn't actually get back until 3:00-ish. We stayed in a hotel, which was kinda fun, but we were all so tired that we went to sleep as soon as we got there.

The next day we did a lot of administrative stuff like paperwork and getting blood drawn and stuff like that. We also went to the park where President Hinckley dedicated Thailand for missionary work and we read the prayer he said together so that was really neat. We ate dinner at the Johnson's house, spaghetti and breadsticks, which were so good. Everyone could hardly stay awake so the Johnsons would just laugh at us. The Johnsons are so nice and I'm excited to get to serve more with them!

The next day we prepared for the meeting where we found out our trainers. Everyone was on pins and needles. You could feel the excitement. It was so awesome! When President Johnson read my name and then Elder Chandler's, he jumped up and gave me a huge hug. It was so awesome! He is the coolest guy (I'll tell more later). After that we ate lunch-pizza, which was super good- and then we hopped on a bus for 8 HOURS. I thought my traveling was over for a bit but boy was I wrong. The bus was so long but it gave Elder Chandler and I a chance to get to know each other better so that was awesome.

It's just me and Elder Chandler in our house (Yes, we have a whole house to ourselves!) It's super fun. We listen to music in the mornings because we have a huge speaker. We have 2 rooms with air conditioning so we spend 99% of our time in those rooms (study room and bedroom). Our house is in the "suburbs" (I guess that's what you'd call it). There's other houses next to us, but I rarely see people out there.

Surin is pretty similar to the city that I stayed in in Brazil and it reminded me of some of the smaller cities in Peru we visited too. It's hot always and the people are super nice even when they are rejecting what you want to tell them.

There's 2 other missionaries in our district but they live about an hour away. We have district meeting tomorrow so we'll go see them so that'll be fun!

We're in the Roi-et zone! There's about 20 other missionaries in our zone. We have zone conference in about 2 weeks so it'll be fun to meet everyone.

I am currently e-mailing from an internet cafe which is nuts. Everyone is gaming and yelling at each other but it's pretty sweet.

Elder Chandler in from Grand Junction, Colorado. He bikes and in his words "was a huge partier" in high school. I'm Elder Chandler's second child (person he has trained). He's super committed and a really hard worker and a way good teacher. He's been in Thailand for a year so his Thai is really good. He has a brother and a sister and his dad served in Thailand too! He is so committed to finding people to get baptized and is such a good example for me to follow.

We have 5 people with a baptismal date! They are Wiw, Rat, Oo, Rojana, and Earth. We just committed Earth to get baptized yesterday which was super cool. He was really nervous, but we bore our testimonies and I told him when I was baptized I didn't know everything but I did know that I felt happy and I did know that God was happy with me and that seemed to help him! So Earth is set for the 24th and the rest for the 17th.

The members here are so awesome. They love talking to the missionaries and teasing us. I hardly know what they're saying and they always laugh when I talk but that was kind of expected! The Branch President is an RM and he's only about 25. He's really good though and super nice. There's about 8-10 people in priesthood and there were about 50 people in sacrament. There was one really old guy who blessed the sacrament. He wears sunglasses all the time, even when blessing the sacrament, his zipper was down and he was wearing a bright green and red Christmas tie. Theres a group of about 6 youth who are really strong so they're fun to talk with. Sacrament was kind of crazy, but funny. Little kids were screaming and we didn't have anyone to play the piano for half the meeting but it was great! The members feed everyone after church too!

My new bike is black and neon green and will be a trusty companion for my next two years. I am taking suggestions on what to name it.

Of course I'm wearing my helmet, Mom. :) we have bright green reflective vests to wear at night which say I AM MORMON on them.

The first P-day we're just buying food and other stuff for the rest of the week. We have quite a few different errands to run so that's kind of it.

Everything I've eaten has been pretty good! My stomach has been kind of destroyed but that was expected too. The food the member fed us was probably my favorite. It was a kind of chili curry with rice. Worst thing was Elder Chandler said this drink was way good so we both bough one and it was literally blended up corn. It tasted like straight corn! It was disgusting. We both took one sip and threw it away. Funny though!

I've been sleeping great, I wake up at around 5:30 every day but I think that's probably me getting used to the time change. I usually don't have too hard of a time going back to sleep for a little while.

We wake up and exercise, we do P90X ab ripper, so that's been brutal but good! It reminds me of doing it with dad in the basement. Then we shower and get ready. Then we plan out our day. Then we go contacting, then we come back home and do our studies. Then we go out and do whatever else we need to do, like talk to specific people or set stuff up for activities. At night we either go contacting at the market or we have an activity with investigators, like game night. Then we come home and call people to set up appointments and get ready for bed. Lots of biking and talking to people when I don't know what they're saying. :)

I really am enjoying contacting people and meeting all the members! They're all so happy and fun to be around!

The experience with Earth was really cool and I've felt a lot of comfort coming from reading my scriptures and praying. One scripture I've enjoyed is Luke 11:36.

36 If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

I've been trying to have the light of Christ with me so people will recognize me as a representative of the Savior. Being happy is a big way to do that, so I've been working on smiling a lot, even if I don't know what in the world is going on!

The flight was the longest thing ever. Longer than the whole 9 weeks in the MTC! I was in the middle seat so that was the worst. But I read a lot of scriptures and talked with some people so that was fun!

I miss you all so much! I'm so excited for Daren with his baptism this past week! What a stud! Thanks again for all your prayers and e-mails. I always love hearing how everyone is doing. I pray for you all every day!

Love you!

-Elder Borg