So this week was full of weirdness. Why? Maybe because we had two funerals in the church (one was a member). That's not too weird, right? Wrong. We had the SECOND one because someone at the first one saw the funeral, liked the way it happened, and JUST SO HAPPENED to have a dead body already. Her husband apparently died that morning at 71, she went to her FRIEND'S MOM'S funeral (????) and decided, "Hey, my husband died this morning. I think we should do this again tomorrow!"
So the next day comes, and I get a call at 9am. Hey, we're ACTUALLY going to have a funeral for this guy! .... Needless to say, he's a guy from England (???), his wife shows up in jeans and his body never shows up. (I found out later we was being taken to be cremated, and then buried down the street at the Buddhist graveyard place.)... But hey, me and Elder Wood did play a smashing violin duet. :p That we somehow put together 6 minutes before.
Then later the lady and my branch president were like, "Hey! Good! You speak english! The English Embassy is on the phone. Tell them this guy died!" ...... I'm like, "uhhhhhhhhhhhhh." So I'm about a millisecond from calling the Embassy in England for them, and luckily Elder Hart came around the corner. But her accent (the lady on the other end) was so cool. That was actually legit.
So anyway, other than that we had a really cool experience! Our mail notification showed up at our house, but it turns out it had been there the whole time and we didnt know, so the package was from June 26th. I felt for some reason we needed to go try and get it anyway. I go to go pick it up, and it was already sent back to Bangkok. Nooooooo!
But on the way home, we literally ran into everyone that we had been trying to help work towards baptism! And then, guess what? We ran into the same guy we've been randomly seeing. He waved at us, and I passed him. The spirit YELLED, "TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW." So both of us did, sat down with him, and he told us how awful a person he was, how much he wanted to change his life, and that he was willing to do whatever it takes to come unto Christ and change his life. We gave him a baptismal date then and there!! Holy cow it was the craziest best lesson ever! We taught him how to pray, and when I finished as the example, he was almost in tears. He couldn't express his feelings (and he kept trying so hard to), but could only say that his heart felt too big for his chest, that he was feeling a little warmth presence in him. That was insane. The spirit has never been so strong!
Sadly though, he doesn't have a phone. So we went back to try and find him for 3 days now. Couldn't find him. He didn't make it to church. And so that's why I'm bummed. What a shining glint of hope. :(
BUT WE'RE GOING ICE SKATING TODAY! :D With the Gumpawapi ("goom-pa-whap-i" lol.) branch, who recently got cut from our district to make a new one. Every morning the Elders go running with their Branch President through the monkey park. Yes. The MONKEY park. And they get chased by monkeys!!!! SCARY MONKEYS!
To answer Jared's question about districts: We had zone conference this week, I believe we have 4 districts. Mine is the biggest with 10 (2 seniors included), and we have the country of Laos as well, and the cities close to the northern portion. Like Gumpawapi, Nongkai, Kongaen, etc. The places in the Eesan. As for size, there's about 2-4 missionaries in the other areas. In Thailand there's really only areas used in the north and Bangkok. Other than that, there is a lot of unoccupied cities in between. It takes about 8 hours to get to Udon from Bangkok by bus, or about an hour by plane. We always take the night bus.
So that was my week-- I'm looking forward to being HAPPY this week. I want to be a happy camper, have fun with the work, and do the best I can. No more being bummed!
PERFECT LOVE CASTETH OUT ALL FEAR!
Love,
Sister Painter
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