Hey Momma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s really good about Chase and tell his parents that I said hi.  Tell Alex and that family that I said hello and tell him good luck and that I will see him at his homecoming. Send me a couple of picture in the next email with Maija it seems like it was yesterday that I just saw her butIi want an up to date picture of her.  We did see Tangled in Thai on a bus and that was way funny.  There are some parts that are a lot more funny in Thai just because of the translation but Disney has really good translators.  It was funny because the next day my comp bought a copy of it for when he goes home haha.  We cant watch anything besides Finding faith in Christ and the District 1 and 2 which are really funny anyway haha it is about a district that is in San Diego.  It is all real life situations and real lessons that they are in and it is all real people.  It actually helps a lot with teaching.  CC said that she was happy the first week of school was over but that there was a lot more to go haha it sounds like you have a very busy schedule this year haha and it sounds like what you wanted to happen is happening. Tell everyone that I know in your classes that I said hi but there are not that many that are left in those classes or in the high school besides teachers.  I feel like I’m getting old now.

This is nice to hear that my old high school is no longer doing horrible hahaha.   They are actually doing good in football and it sounds like the student coucil shaped up this year.  I actually really do want to hear about American football.  I miss it and all there is around me is soccer and I’m actually starting to like it.  But I really miss American football.  I have only heard it mentioned once since I have been here and it was from a Thai person who had been to the states for college.

I really can’t wait to see how much Micah and my nieces have grown in 2 years.  I thought about it and Micah will speak better English than I can hahaha.  I already have forgotten some English words and now just use some Thai words so for my Christmas call if I say something weird just tell me when you don’t understand something that I say.  I finally feel like I’m progressing a little bit in the language.  There are times when I get lost and I just ask for my comp to translate for me or I just ask them until they use words that I am able to understand.  It has been a pretty good week but pretty normal.  One thing that wasn’t normal was the family that we have been teaching.  They are super golden and they do stuff and ask about stuff before we even teach them about these things.  The wife has already started going to the temple prep class.  They really want to be baptized but they have to be interviewed by president Smith’s counselors because of some complications.  We were teaching three people in English but one of them keeps dropping herself and then she has a question and then she will want to meet with us and then she drops herself again.  On Sunday I did get to stand in the circle to give the holy ghost to someone in sacrament and that was way cool.  The Power of the Priesthood really hit me hard this week.  I never realized everything that i am able to do with it and how much it helps people.  Next week we are going to an ancient temple about 80 kilos away because the branch president said that he wants to drive us out there to see it.  It looks way cool so when i go that is when i will send my memory card home.  And that is when i will send a picture for the plaque.

Tell brother and sister Hays that I said hi and that i love them and sister Boyce.  She was the coolest person ever when i ate dinner at the blacks house.  Of course tell Smith and Becky that i said hi and also anyone else.  Just a couple of things i had 2000 baht in my account and the next day it was gone?  I don’t know what happened because I didn’t draw any out.  Also I will get the package next week because that is when transfers are so I will let you know in the next couple of weeks.  I cant believe that my second transfer is almost over.  I feel like this is going by way to fast!  I felt like I was just in the MTC last week.  I can’t believe how fast it is all going right now!

I love you so much Momma! I never realized how much I miss you and Dad but I am focusing on the work.  Thank you for making me get up early in the morning all of those times.  You were literally preparing me in everyway. ( Even if I didn’t appreciate it then I do now haha)  I love you so much I cant describe it.  I love you!

-Elder Bryce Revelli

Hey Dad!!

I'm glad that you all got the picture that I sent.  We use public internet places and the band width is not very good in the other one that we use so I wasn’t sure if it had finished downloading before I sent it.  I actually haven’t ridden any elephants yet but there is an elephant village half way between here and Surin that I really want to go to but I’m going to go to some ruins first and then to the village.  That is the same thing that we talk about in all of our branch coucil meetings.  And coordination meetings and anytime that we meet with any member.  The problem here is that people lose their fire after becoming members.  My area has about 100 members and only about 20 come to church each week.  one week we had more visitors than members and that was just not good at all.  I talked with my mission president about it and he said that is about the same all over Thailand.  I don’t know why but this place is struggling but we are finding really really good people everyday.  We actually teach a lot in English.  One mans name is Roger and he is awesome.  He came to Thailand to start an orphanage and just to help schools and to preach the gospel.  He is so close if he would just pray about the Book of Mormon.  He really wants to know but he never asks about it in prayer and he really relies on his own understanding.  We have another family that is way awesome but because of some stuff they have to be interviewed by someone higher up than us but after that they are golden.  They already went to a temple prep class and they love the church and all of the members.  This last Sunday I got to be in the circle for someone to get the holy ghost.  I never really knew how much power the priesthood has.  I always knew it had it but I never realized the power that we actually have and that it is literally the power of God.  I just thought about it a lot in the Sunday.

Cross country always sounds fun as usual hahaha and I already know that there is always one parent who thinks they know more than the coach.  I don’t think that Moms car will every be all the way right ever hahaha it seems like when ever I helped we would fix one thing and then a little while later something else would go wrong with that car.

I wish that I could help with this camp too!!!! I would have loved to be on staff for it and i could have gotten my wood badge done so I could have been a leader in the next camp.  That will be way cool!  You will have to tell me how that goes.  Of course tell the bishop and all my old leaders that I said hi and that I’m doing well.

I love you Dad.  there isn’t much more that I can say than that.  You have prepared me so much to do this work.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I do something that I did at home or that you taught me to do.  I love you and Mom so much.  Have a good week and I will talk to you again on Monday.

-Elder Bryce Revelli

Check out the picture tab too!!!

Sounds like you had a lot to do this week and were able to get it all done.  I have learned that lesson with you.  If something is just not working then just hit it hard with a hammer and make it work hahaha.  Sometimes we have to do that with investigators and also members haha jk jk.  I read that line and I couldn’t stop laughing and then I showed it to my comp and he started laughing hahaha.  I always loved the back to school firesides.  I know that they always helped me out when I needed a recharge for the year. I love that song too (The Spirit of God) but we never sing it in Thai.  Mainly because no one really knows how to play the piano very well.  I wish I would have practiced now before I quit haha.  Not a whole lot of things happened this week.  We mainly were traveling and didn’t have a lot of time to go finding.  On Wed we had to go to a city called Surin for district meeting so that was about 2 hours on a bus and about 1 hour and 30 min for the meeting.  Then we had to go back the next day because we had to go to a city called Ubon for our zone conference.  It was way cool! I learned a lot of things and I had to recite DC section 4 in Thai.  It was really hard because I didn’t start memorizing it until that Monday and I had to have it done by Friday.  It was a little exciting.  After Zone conference we didn’t get back to Buriram until 9:30ish so we didn’t do anything all day but we had such good food at the zone conference.  Yesterday we had our first baptism.  It was so cool! He invited so many people.  We had more visitors than actual members of the branch. It was way awesome.  After the baptism we had an investigator come up to my comp and start asking when she and her family could be baptized and asked about temples and everything!!!!! We were so excited!  We jumped up and down after everything was over.  I was just way awesome!  That was about it for this week though.  I Love you so much Dad!

Elder Revelli

Well this week I’m going to attach some pictures!  We had our baptism and it went well for what happened.  At first we almost didn’t have any water but we got a hose and filled the font by using a faucet in the bathroom.  Then we over filled the font so it started flooding the church but then we let water out and we let too much out hahaha.  It was really funny but we had a chance to talk with one of our investigators during that time so that was good.  The person that got baptized is so legit! He wants to be a missionary already.  He wants a copy of preach my gospel and he wants the Priesthood now.  We told him that he could have it within a year if he really shows faith and works for the church.  We have one convert like that already and he is always with the missionaries and he actually goes to all of their meetings.  The other person’s name is brother ice.  Meaning that is what his nickname means in Thai.  It is something that is really cool here.  Really names are very long here so everyone has nicknames.  It’s actually pretty cool.  mine is Elder Rafe.  They really have a hard time saying Revelli.  Most of them can’t so they just call me Elder Rafe.  They shouldn’t but they don’t really like to stop once they have started hahaha.  The Baptism was soooo cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We had a lot of visitors there and they were all contacted and most of them want to learn more.  We had one family who is awesome who we are teaching and they were there.  After the baptism the wife came up to elder Gudmundsen and said she wanted everyone to be baptized asap.  She also was asking about things that we have never even mentioned that they must have talked about in relief society.  She is way awesome!  She also said that she wanted to see a temple and she wants one in Thailand so badly.  This is the family where the dad is a magician.  They are so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Other than that not a lot happened this week.

I will attach a  picture really fast of the baptism.  It was a really good week this week. I learned a lot at zone conference and other stuff.  It was a really good week.  I love you so much Momma!  Of course tell everyone that I said hi and tell smith that I will send him a letter with a really cool picture hahaha.  Also if there are any updates with Michael Hess let me know.  I am very curious how he is doing.

I love you so much Momma! You and Dad are the best parents in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I love you so much more than I can actually say in this email.  I love you and I know that Heavenly father is watching over you for me hahaha.

Elder Bryce Revelli

Hey Momma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a lot has been going on.  This last week we did get a new zone leader but that is about it.  The new zone leader is way awesome.  He is a third generation member of the church and that is really huge that he is on a mission right now.  He knows a lot of English and really only talked with me in English while i went on splits with him this last week.  He really is the Thai version of Taylor Frampton.  Since he walked into our house it felt like Taylor was on a mission again and he was my zone leader hahaha it was way fun.  After our meeting with them I went and we had an interview with one of our investigators who is getting baptized this weekend!  I'm way excited to see a baptism and it is the first one that I get to see.  He was really prepared by the Lord.  He started repenting the day that he met us and he hasn’t needed to clear anything up after that day.  His faith is so awesome!  During the interview I was reading in the Book of Mormon in English and then I got bored with that so I started reading in Thai and then the fireworks for mothers day started.  Mothers and fathers day in Thailand is different because they have it depending on when the Kings and queens birthdays are.  So it was on Friday this last week.  It is a major celebration here.  Everyone either goes to the temples to do ceremonies for their mothers or they just spend the entire weekend with them.  It is much bigger here than it is in America.  The week before mothers day they already started hanging up posters and putting up displays of the queen.  They don’t just send a card and a box of candy/flowers here haha.  They really take the entire thing seriously and it lasts the entire weekend.  The same thing with fathers day and there are celebrations and fireworks everywhere.  It was pretty cool hahaha.  so when we have mothers day I will have to do fireworks for mothers and fathers day.

They also had a couple of really cool looking elephants but I couldn’t get pictures of them because i didn’t have my camera on me at that time.  Sometime this transfer I am going to a really cool temple about 80 kilos away and the elephant farm that is in Surin.  I know what I’m going to send home for Christmas but I just have to find a place that sells what I’m looking for.  Also I will tell you when I send it and I will have to send it in October because here they wont let you send anything over 500 grams during November just because it is really busy.  Like I said not a lot has happened this week but time is moving so fast.  Most days it feels like I wakeup and I'm just going right back to bed again hahaha.  Something cool that I have been studying this week is in the Christ like attributes section in preach my gospel.  They have an activity at the end of the section that is really helpful.  It is a really cool section and I recommend looking over it as a family if you can.  You asked about my house, by the way it is a house.  It is just one floor but it is pretty nice.  The only problem that we really have are ants in the kitchen and every once in a while we get a big spider.  I have a picture and a video of one that was on the wall when we came one night and it was huge!!!!!!!!  Anyway we have an office but we don’t use it anymore because the ac broke haha.  We use our ping pong table for it now hahaha.  Thailand mission used to have maids but something bad happened and now we don’t have them anymore so we do our own laundry and do all of the cleaning.  Tell Adam that it is a rip off that they had them.  The washing machines are very different here.  They are actually a lot more simple to use hahaha.  Send me a picture of Ciara’s room if you can.  I'm very curious what it looks like?  That’s awesome that Dad got all of the cars fixed.

I love you so much Mom and Dad.  Being mothers day this last week was really awesome.  I just thought about how much I love you both so much.  Trust me I didn’t lose focus or get home sick but I just did think about families a lot.  It actually made me want to teach more families and me and my comp are actually really focusing on finding families to teach.  I love you so much and I cant wait until you get to meet these people.

That’s all that I have for this week.

-Elder Bryce Revelli

P.S. make sure that you don’t send the gel deodorant, it melts.  Also just send deodorant in every care package please haha they don’t have it here and I am out haha.  Also we don’t get our packages until every transfers meeting which is every 6 weeks so just a heads up.  Love you much!

Hahaha it sounds like you have almost everything fixed and ready to go and it will all need help by the time that I get home hahahahaha.  I basically sent a combined email to you and mom this week but I will answer your questions and a cool thought that I had this week about Priesthood.  Everyday we have our studies in the morning and that all starts at 8:00.  We study until about 11:00 and then we say a prayer and go and start to work.  By work I mean lunch.  When we eat we always go out because it is a lot cheaper to do that.  Thai food is the best thing ever! And now that I can order what I want it is actually really nice.  My favorite thing so far is probably is paathay.  It is really good with sugar and lime in it, and with some shrimp.  Another thing that I love and we get it if we want a snack is called loog chin.  Basically it is balls of meat on a stick, and you just stand at a kart and dip them in sauce and free veggies and they charge you at the end after you have counted up all of the sticks and they are usually 3 baht per stick.  It is so good but after lunch is when we usually go inviting.  We choose a neighborhood to focus on for that week and we just go to every house and talk to everyone that we can until we move onto the next one.  All of our appointments are usually in the evening or late afternoon.  That is when everyone gets off work.  We do a lot of riding and walking.  On Sundays we go to church and after church we usually go home and eat and then we go to the branch presidents house and we go on splits with him and his counselor to go and visit less active members.  The day is usually full of stuff to do and then we come home and plan call zone leaders and then we write in journals and then go to bed and get up at 6:30 the next morning.  That is about the same unless we have to go to Surin for a district meeting or like this week we have zone conference in a place call Ubon and its about 4 hours by bus away.  We do all of our traveling on buses.  If we just need to go someplace close we take a tuk tuk.  Other than that we ride and walk.

What I thought about this week was president Uchtdorf’s talk about living below our privileges.  It was in the last conference and I'm actually going to use some of it for my homecoming talk.  It is way good and I think that every quorum should review it.  I really thought about the power of the Priesthood this week.  It was a really cool study.

I love you so much Dad.

- Elder Revelli

Two weeks of emails

Here are the last two weeks of emails that we got from Bryce. As I was reading the blog I realized that some things don't make sense because he is answering questions so I am going to edit the emails so they make more sense. Hopefully some pictures from Thailand will come soon.

This is from August 1

Tell CC to start getting her hands dirty and helping with her car. Well I will be home in about two years so it can wait that long I need something to do besides find a job and a wife. I thought you would enjoy that last one. I will need some time to adjust when I get back so don’t let me drive for a while. They drive on the opposite side of the road here. One thing I was very surprised when I got here was the cars. They are actually really nice here and some of Toyota's coolest designs are here. CC would love the little cars that I see everyday but they have some pretty good and nice cars here but like I said before most people just have scooters. Most things here are actually cold. Every house that we go into they give us a glass of water with ice or from the fridge. So we get a lot of cold drinks here. I did learn that Thailand is actually the worlds leading ice production. I don’t know if that is true at all but another elder told me that so its probably not. They do make really good smoothies here though. Not sure if I told you but there are 7 elevens everywhere so we are in there a lot and they have some of the best ice cream there. I haven’t eaten a lot but my favorite so far is fried chicken with rice and papaya salad. The salad is not like a normal salad at all. It is made with peppers, green beans, and sour papaya. It is even spicy for thai people tell Keith that I will make it for him when I get back because it is super easy to make all you do is smash all of it together and I think that I will be able to find it all in the states. They also have this rotten fish sauce that is really good and a sweet chili sauce. There is just a lot of good food here and it is actually really easy to make. One thing that I love is getting food off of the carts. Here Buriram is famous for these carts of food that they just have meat on sticks and you just stand there and pick what ever you want dip it in a thing of sauce and they have a thing of cucumber there and you just eat until you are done. You count your sticks and then you pay. I wish they had that in the U.S. I will miss it so much. We ride about 5-8 miles a day depending where we have to go and some people are very far away and everything is pretty far from our house. Some days we ride a lot and others we don’t ride very much. One day I was in a city call Surin and we rode a lot that day but some days we don’t ride very much at all. One thing that you would love is that the cops don’t pull people over unless people are not wearing helmets on bikes or scooters. The cops just choose a day and they all just sit in one place and pull people without helmets over but the ticket is only 100 baht so people just pay and still not wear a helmet. Not a lot has happened this week. We have been teaching this old man who is just way funny. He tries to speak English to us and he loves us. He doesn’t understand a lot of what we teach but he wants to know. He is way awesome!

Not much has happened this week. It was really good but just really busy because we did a lot of traveling. We did have one day where it was only greenies in one city and that was awesome! It really was so much fun! I prayed so hard the night before that I would be able to do something that day and I had no problem communicating. I really did feel the power of God and the gift of tongues. When I got back I couldn’t speak as well but I really did learn about the power of prayer. The Lord is with me so much and I feel his help every day and he strengthens me so much. Next week I'm going to write more I promise that I will write more! Look up 1Nephi 18:3. I never thought about that scripture before and look up 2 Nephi 31 and 32. It has some way awesome stuff.

-Elder Bryce Revelli

This is from August 8

Not a lot of kids are born into the covenant here. The ones that are the parents name them after church names. One of them is named Alma and another is named Zion. It actually sounds really cool in Thai and how Thai people say it. This week not a lot happened. Elder Gudmundsen had to go to Bangkok with another elder to get his visa work done, They have changed our visas to working visas instead of proselytizing ones. Since the new Prime Minister was elected they are really trying to get all of the useless people in Thailand out. So we had to change them and we had to take pictures of us teaching English class so they could have proof that we were a benefit to the country. It was actually really scary for a little bit because some people got denied. If all of us would have gotten denied then we would have all been sent to Malaysia for a little and if it still didn’t work out we would all have been sent home but it all worked out. It is more proof that Heavenly Father really wants us to be here. This week I was in a place called Surin for a couple of days with an elder from Laos. He is different and has some stuff to work out but he is way awesome. Surin is apparently the elephant capital of Thailand. There are a lot there. A couple of weeks ago I got to go and see an elephant parade where they decorated them with lights and stuff. It was so so so so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not a lot has happened though this week. We do have a baptism in the next couple of weeks. He is way awesome! He is willing to keep everything thing that we teach him and he really wants to be a missionary after he is baptized. He has so much faith. This transfer is actually really short. Usually a transfer is about 6 weeks but this one is only going to be five because president Smith needs to go to Hong Kong for something.

Things are really now starting to click. I can talk to people a lot if I really really try hard and listen and I asked Elder G to correct me when ever I say something wrong and that is helping a lot. Thai people also help out when i am talking to them. There is one member who helps me a lot. Her nickname means watermelon in Thai. She is an awesome member. She is one of the ward missionaries and she just takes everything that we say and just does it without any questions. Elder g told her to start taking her Book of Mormon everywhere like she would do with her cell phone and she said she would and every time that we see her she has it with her. She also invites all of her friends to learn but most of them are never interested but they all come to the English class.

Not sure if I told you about English yet but it is so much fun. People here ha e a very hard time making some of the sounds that we make. They can’t really do th r and l ch and sh and they really struggle with s sounds when they come at the end of a word. They also cant say their z's very well but they love it. They get r and l mixed up because in Thai people get lazy and they turn their r sounds into l sounds. Especially where i am. Where i am they speak Thai but they also speak Cambodian and they speak something that is call easan. It has some lao in it and it is mainly used for slang and talking to people you know. So I’m learning another language. We did get to start teaching a person from Austrailia. He is very interesting. He wants to renew his faith but just needs to take some steps to do it. Another man named roger we think had a breakthrough. We usually can never control the lesson because he likes to talk a lot about a lot of things so we are never able to teach him. This time we just asked him if we could talk about apostasy and the pattern of gospel dispensations. We talked a lot still but he let us teach him and we also taught about proper authority. He cried after the prayer and we really hope that he gets his answer soon.

Something that I was thinking about this last week is the scripture in Alma. The one where it says that by small and simple things great things come to pass. I thought about this a lot and I have noticed that by small and simple things people fall away from the church too. We talked about it a lot and the reason why we have to many people who are not active in the church here is because they stop reading and praying everyday. Those have always been the first steps. I never realized how dangerous it was to stop doing those things everyday until i saw what it does to people. Elder Bryce Revelli

P.S. I do want NFL updates and know how the U is doing.

Today me and my comp were talking about cowboys and aliens because they have the preview in 7 all of the time. We have seen a lot of movie previews there and they all look awesome! There was one time where we stayed for a little and we just watched the Captain America preview for a little. We felt a little guilty but it looked so cool. I will take a picture this next week of the rice fields. They are really awesome actually and every once in a while there is tree in one and it is just a sea of green. It looks just like grass and it is so green. I love it here and I love the Thai people.

-Elder Bryce Revelli

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