Elder Sam Chamberlin: Bangkok or Bust - With Elder Squire at the Wax Museum

what up fam we got some big changes this week-

so after a way good p-day of exploring with the crew last monday, on tuesday we were getting ready to start district meeting and president senior called us at like 12 in the afternoon. he's like "hey so whats goin on over there?" "how quickly can you get down to bangkok?" "well, get on down here i want you to be here for the new missionaries coming in tonight. are you willing to work in the office with us for the next couple transfers?" so we had about an hour to rush home, pack everything, and make it back to the bus station to make it to bangkok in time. it was pretty exciting, and pretty sad at the same time. the members were planning this big activity on wednesday night to say goodbye and the what not, and so i called them to let them know i was leaving in an hour and they all just rushed out of school to make it to the bus station in time to say goodbye, and it was literally like a movie. our bus showed up, and i was trying to stall it because one of the members was there and was saying that everyone was coming, and then the bus guy was like yo we gotta go, and im trying to stall a little more, and then the bus starts rolling and so i hop on, and right as i get on, i see members on their motorbike things cruising around the corner chasing down the bus hahah, when they eventually catch up it was like them in slow-mo outside the bus as i watched them through the bus window. there was a lot of people i didnt even get a chance to say goodbye to, but yeah so thats what happened. i love them so much they are the best kids ever, im gonna miss them a lot. saddest part of the story is that brother chuu, one of my wayyyyy good investigators had a baptismal date for this sunday, but moved it forward to tuesday, so that i would be there to baptize him, and then i ended up leaving the morning of the baptism. elder wright and i have 4 people getting baptized this sunday, so hopefully ill get the pics and ill send those over. btw elder wright is training a new missionary in p-lok now, so good stuff.

so we get down to bangkok and the first two days here were just crazy busy with getting stuff ready for transfers, getting the new missionaries from the airport, getting the dying missionaries off to the airport, etc etc and so we got up at like 3 the other morning, and werent able to go to bed until like 1ish the night before. it was nice to have a normal night of sleep last night, and i think stuff is gonna start to cool down a little bit with transfers come and gone. Transfers meeting was soooo good its ridiculous. since it was pres. seniors last one, there was just a lot of good stuff idk, an emotional meeting for sure. also something funny- all the dying missionaries stay at our house here for the last couple days, and so i was talking with this one elder, elder vance, and i couldve sworn i had met him before or knew him somehow, and then just gave up and decided he just looked a lot like ryan roche, and then turns out his family came to pick him up and were there at transfers, and the vance family is way tight with the roches, and i know his little sister, sierra, who came so that was way cool.

yeah so im posted up in the office elder life now i guess- which isnt too much different, but heres some changes:

im gonna get my license this next week and will be driving our fat vans around in the chaos of bangkok haha

i was gonna list stuff off but i honestly don't really know haha. i think we send out mail and stuff, we help pick up new missionaries and send off the dying ones, we do a couple special reports each week, and enter in baptismal records and what not into the system. the coolest part will be working close with pres senior for the next month or so before he heads home, and then ushering in our new president, president johnson. but yeah other than that im still on that good grind of inviting, teaching, and baptizing. these last couple days in bangkok it is just so much more fun to invite, the amount of people everywhere you go is just ridiculous. you spend a second inviting someone and if they dont want to cleanse their sins, have a happier family, or learn about jesus, etc, then yeah theres only thousand of other people right behind them to invite. so thats a change. bangkok traffic sucks so driving places takes forever. food is way more expensive too. and the skyscraper city life is a pretty sweet change from my humble birthplace of phitsanulok.

so my new companion is elder squire. a nice fellow from nephi utah. he's a little less of a "get out and grind" guy and more of a "do things around the office" kinda guy, but he is a solid, smart dude. im excited to see the miracles that go down this transfer in Asoke. thats my area btw, Asoke, Bangkok west. we have a ward building which is way sweet, and there a huge thai branch that has about 120 people come to church on average, and a foreign branch as well.

we livin with the assistants to the pres, who are way tight. missions are great things. i love you all, and miss you dearly. i got some wonderful packages at transfers- thanks mom and julie you are the best<3

elder chamberlin