Justin's a very funny guy; he makes me laugh. And it's a good thing, because something needs to make up for the severe lack of pictures he sends. And truthfully, some that he's sent are a little weak, but maybe you'll enjoy the white clock, on the white wall, showing he celebrated New Years; or the plate of lasagna showing me how well he eats.
He did explain that in this one he is pointing and saying: "Hey, it looks like my backyard in Oklahoma."
And in this one, he explains, is his new desk; with surprise gifts left from Elder Stoker, whom he was replacing. Elder Stoker was his first companion and trainer. He must have left the pictures for me, as he knows they're about the only ones I'll get. What a great guy, huh?
The above picture is taken on the steps of his front door.
Good luck to us with the rest, as we have to puzzle them out on our own.
But, again, the real treasures are his letters. Here are snippets from both boys:
*Yesterday we traveled to the other city of Lugo. We had 4 appointments scheduled and right when we
arrived, to our horror, one by one they called and cancelled. Normally in such a situation I go get gelato to make myself feel better. But, we had
already gotten gelato that morning- and twice the previous night.
*I cut my hair. With scissors this time... It doesn't look bad actually-
it just requires a little time in the morning for very precise placing
of certain clumps of hair.
*I've learned to manage the heat and sleeping at night by putting an ice pack under my
pillowcase and then waking up at 3 in the morning and switching it. The only thing really bad is that the sun just beats down on
our appartment making it super hot. Italians tell me to close all the
(very cool) blinds that are everywhere in Italy. They block out sun,
heat, noise, zombies, and just about everything else, but they make your
appartment seem like a cave (in fact the easy way you can spot a
missionary appartment from the outiside is it's the only one in the
whole complex to have all the windows wide open- always). So I'm having
trouble choosing between heat or depression...
*After a while we tried contacting people in their vineyards (first
asking directions) because it was something that I'd never done, and the
whole time I was thinking of the clever parallels between scriptures and
missionary work...
*This
week I've been making Anz Rango (his trainee) do most the calls- He does pretty well
until the other people start speaking Italian back to him; then he just looks super
confused and tosses the phone to me like a hot-potato.
*Today is a national holiday- Ferragosto- where everyone is not in the
city- but on the beach. We were stopped by members from the rich part of
SLC this morning (on a cruise from Jerusalem) and as we were in
missionary clothes (because we had an appointment with a less active but
then when I called- once, then twice she picked up the phone and
sounded veeeerry hungover) I told them I could give them a tour of the
most famous church with the mosaics because we got in free- it was on
the way- and my comp hadn't seen them yet. I was kinda half hoping for a
gelato for my efforts... but at the end she gave -actually threw- into
my front pocket some money- later I checked and it was 100$
(Bless that random lady's heart!)
*I don't believe I have the capacity to make my letters home spiritually
uplifting (or I believe they're too much work?). No invitations to
read certain passages of scripture or anything. Let's just leave that
part to Cache and say that I'm having spiritual experiences and expect
my family to as well. Though I do invite you to read into
renewing my drivers license, as that expires come end of August.
Cache:
Cache has always been great at documenting. He's doing really well! Right now he is on the Thai side of the Laos/Thai border.
*Sakon Nakhon is going good. It's so pretty here out of the city, rice fields everywhere and cows and everything else. The other day we visited a less active who lived way out of the city. He had his rice farm and his house right by it. It barely had any electricity in it and it was wooden on stilts with only a wooden floor. It was way surreal.
This week it rained for the most of it. It's rainy season so it comes out of nowhere and will pour.
Elder Grover is awesome. He's a great trainer. We're in a small apartment, I mean small small too. It only has one room and then the bathroom. We're the only ones in our district also.
*Sakon Nakhon is going good. It's so pretty here out of the city, rice fields everywhere and cows and everything else. The other day we visited a less active who lived way out of the city. He had his rice farm and his house right by it. It barely had any electricity in it and it was wooden on stilts with only a wooden floor. It was way surreal.
This week it rained for the most of it. It's rainy season so it comes out of nowhere and will pour.
Elder Grover is awesome. He's a great trainer. We're in a small apartment, I mean small small too. It only has one room and then the bathroom. We're the only ones in our district also.
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*My personal advice for you Mom...? Well, the thing we tell all our investigators is we're not advised to give personal council, but to just Pray, Read, Go to Church, Keep the
commandments, and Trust in God. ...And then we leave them to their
problems and go get some ice cream. =]
(side-note, they eat the weirdest stuff here some times- A
popular treat is: you get a hot dog bun, then put some sticky rice in and then put your ice cream on that. Crazy right? But it's grown on me
and really good now.
Speaking of food- I ate Dog the other day.
It's extremely good too. One of my favorite meats.
*Also another first that I had on Friday- I did a complete phone call in Thai. My companion's trainer never let him use the phone and so when he
had to use it he didn't know how. He's hoping he'll train me so I don't have that problem. However, most of my phone calls I just greet them, ask
them the thing I'm supposed too, and then they don't understand -so I
ask it again and then they respond, but I have no idea what they said so I
tell them to hold on- and throw the phone to Elder Grover. =] This time
though he was using the bathroom, so I had to finish it. I didn't
understand her response so just kept asking her if she could set up an
appointment with her friend- until she finally said yes. haha. Oh also today I saw my first
elephant! He was right outside our apartment. Did you know an elephant blinks
sideways?
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*We went to the hospital quite a lot this week. The
hospitals here are pretty overcrowded and very open; meaning cats are
everywhere. It reminds me of a civil war hospital. Actually maybe it would compare to a WWII hospital. I
don't know, but it's got a ton of people on roll away beds just hooked
up to I.V.s.
*Here's the crazy place with all the statues. I can't remember if I
told you about it last week. But this is the statue of the dragon the
supposedly Buddha killed. It's really popular in the Issan area and
especially Nang Khai because supposedly he lives in the river that separates Laos and Thailand.
More statues at the one place.
More statues at the one place.
*Some days you have really good days and some days are just way bad.
*So about the King's herd: they're closed to the public but one of the members works by there
and we got in. There was only about 5 of them, but they were pretty
neat to see. It was in the middle of the jungle and they were in cages,
and helicopters kept flying above us. Just think of a scene from
Jurrasic Park, and that's where I was. Pretty neat.
*We have another investigator though who is disabled which makes it that he walks really slow and It's got to hurt pretty bad to walk also. He lives really far away from the church too. He can't ride a bike because he isn't able to but he still wakes up at 5 every morning and walks to church every week. It's really inspiring. This week he got a bike thing that he's able to ride though. It's a lever he pulls up and down which makes the wheels turn. It was a nice miracle that he was able to buy it, because he's really poor. That was a really good thing that happened this week.
