So, my friends left me in Thailand--Railay Island.
That day they had anannouncement on the island in Thai and then in English that said something about clearing the beach because of a tsunami. I don't usually freak out during natural disasters so I was surprised that I was getting nervous. This is when I realized that I was alone 5,000 miles from home. Weird feeling.
Anyway. I went to church on Sunday in phuket. It was cool. I walked into sacrament meeting with a congegation of two. The group leader came 30 minutes later, held up in traffic. We tried to communicate and each got out our respective dictionaries, English/Thai, Thai, English, and tried our best to talk casually. Casual talk is hard with a huge language barrier. Funny.
But it was so encouraging to see these two, totally on their own, going to church, living the Gospel. In contrast to my life...my huge support system, friends at church who believe what I do, tons of help from others for my efforts in living the Gospel. I have tons of respect for the members of the phuket group. They asked me to give my testimony and talk about my life in the church in America. The group leader translated. It was really special to be with them. After the meeting we ate radical Chinese food--it was pooring rain, which I love. It made going back to the car and finding a dead battery totally tolerable. That's another not-so-interesting story--but crazy.
Monsoon season...heavenly.
I stayed at Naiyang beach that night in a little bamboo hut. The door opened up to the beach. This is the same coast that the Tsunami hit in December 2004. There is a lot of debris in the water of this beach. I went swimming for five minutes and gave up because I kept getting trash in my suit.
