Hill Cumorah Pageant!!

This year my family and I were able to participate as part of the cast in the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Like every year it was a great experience! The Hill Cumorah Pageant is truly an amazing production. Just the fact that a hand full of directors can take ordinary people, in less then a weeks time, be able to have a professional working pageant with actors, props, stunts, special effects, lighting, and sound. They have it up and running to perform in front of thousands of audience members that come from all over the world.

Here are some pictures:

Jamis and Me trying out for our roles.

Kenfo trying out for a dancer

Mom and Dad

Me and Timmy

This is where we would have all of our meetings. At the Hill Cumorah Pageant there are tons of meetings. You have at least 3 devotionals a day and one after each performance. We would also eat lunch and dinner here also.

This is the cast team area. When you are not in rehearsal or in a devotional meeting you are in one of these tents with kids your same age. You do activities, service, play games, and sometimes just relax. You get to know your cast team really well over the two and a half weeks of pageant.

Marcie and Jamis were part of the primary..... Let me rephrase that: Marcie and Jamis were in charge of helping to run the Primary. When the primary was getting ready for there picture I was able to capture one of my favorite pictures of Marcie and Jamis. As for the primary... I don't think they ever got "ready" for there picture so I just took one of them anyways. Marcie and Jamis had there hands full but did a great job with the kids.

This is most of my family. From left you have Jamis (Samual the Lamanite), Marcie (Lamanite Dancer), Mindy (who just came out to visit which was super cool), Dad (New World Apostle), Mom (Destruction Victim), Timmy (Lamanite Battleman), and I was Nephi. (photo does not include: Kenfo (Lamanite Dancer)

And of course there is always a little Guy Talk. http://www.guy-talk.blogspot.com/

Krabi!!!

One of the things I wanted to do this time visiting Thailand that I didn't get the chance to the last time I visited was to go to the beach and swim in the ocean. So Kenny, his friend Craig, and I planned a trip. I got a Friday off of work and we bought plane tickets for Thursday afternoon so we could spend the weekend in Krabi.

The first thing we did when we arrived was to search for a place to stay. There were a few really nice hotels but we decided that we wanted to save money. So we walked down a couple Alleys and searched for a smaller place. We ended up staying in a place called Sea World for only 500 bot a night which is about 16-17 dollars. It wasn't the most glamorise place but it was just right for us. It had beds, air conditioning, a shower that worked most of the time, and a TV. This was perfect for us because we weren't planning on being in the room but to sleep. After finding a place to stay we walked around and searched for a place to eat and just enjoyed finally arriving and being here and looking around.

The next day I was finally able to see Krabi's landscape. It was beautiful. Besides the ocean and weather being great, Krabi has a kind of hilly terrain. It's hard to describe so hopefully the pictures I've posted will give you an idea, but it was really hilly and you wold have these huge chunks of rock that would be shooting up out of the water or giant cliffs isolating certain locations from the rest of the beach. Which is why most everyone travels from beach to beach on a long boat.

We decided that we were going to go to this beach that Kenny and Craig had been to before and said was awesome. So we bought tickets for a long boat and travelled along the coast line until we reached this beach. We got off and then did a little hike were we passed some of these great caves and reached the beach that we had planned. It was really cool because hardly anyone was there. There were maybe 20 people on this entire section of the beach. We played around in the water for a little bit, jumped off some rocks into the water, threw the frisbee around, and tried to build a sandcastle that would hold off the tide. After all that we decided that we were going to snorkel out to this little, but very tall, island to see if we could find any cool coral and fish. Which we did. That night we bought a old school 007 movie and watched it.

The next day we took a long boat out to a different beach were we were able to rent two 2-man kayaks for 100 bot each which is like $3 dollars. We decided that we were going to Kayaked out to this island called Chicken Island. They call it chicken island because one of the rocks looks like a chicken head. We knew that the island was a good distance away but we didn't realize how far it actually was. What looked like a mile maybe 1 1/2 miles turned out to be what seemed like a long voyage across the see. I think it took us a couple of hours and was a lot further than we thought. We made a short stop at this little rock/island along our way which was really neat because the water would come splashing hard on it or would come jetting out of a little cave.

We stayed at the rock a lot less than we would have all liked too because we were worried that we wouldn't have enough time at chicken beach to do anything other than turn around and kayak back. So we continued until we finally reached land. Chicken beach had even less amount of people on it than the beach we stayed at before. In fact for most of our trip we were the only ones on the beach.

After our long kayak journey all we could think about was food. We were pretty hungry. There was this little restaurant on the island that we ate at and then made some PP J's that we brought. Each of us also found some coconuts that we spend the rest of the afternoon piling and cracking open. It took a real long time but the milk inside was heavenly. So we decided to take a few casual pictures of us drinking our coconut milk. We went snorkeling again were swam upon some manta rays. Definitely the the coolest ocean creature we came upon while snorkeling.

It was getting too late for us to kayak back to the beach we came from so we paid a longboat guy a little extra to wait for us and to load our kayaks into his boat and bring us back to the beach we came from.

The next day was Sunday so we just relaxed and taught Craig one of the missionary lessons. (We told him if we were going to stay in Krabi until Sunday he would have to listen to one of our lessons as kind of a church substitute.)

All in all a great trip and definitely something I am glad I experienced on this trip to Thailand.

You can check some more pictures out at: http://uvsc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011165&l=57209&id=203001753

Brothers

It has been a lot of fun out here in Thailand so far. I have been able to do a lot of really fun things. And when I am not out and about I am usually here in the complex hanging out with my younger brothers Kenny and Timmy. It has been fun to see how each of them are getting along living here in Thailand.

All I got to say is that Timmy is one chill dude. Real relaxed and just takes things as they come. While I was here Timmy got real sick and had to be taken to the hospital were he stayed for about 2 days. He ended up being alright.

Nichada Thani (The complex my family lives in) is very nice. Their is a pool, grocery store, gym, pretty much all your essentials are here in their complex. There is a large lake in the middle of the complex that has two towers on either side. My family lives in one of the towers on the 5th floor. There are tons of guards every where around. There are also lots of rules which make it real frustrating for Kenny and Timmy when they want to do something fun.

For example, a while ago some kids made a little raft out of bamboo and laid grass and planted a tree on top that everyone called "the Island" and floated it out to the middle of the lake. Well, not too long after it was built Kenny, Timmy, Jordan Phelps, Jordan Hoffein, and I decided that we wanted to go and visit it. The lake is far but not to far that you can't swim to it. But we decided we were going to make a little raft out of those blow up mattresses and paddle out there because we were kind of afraid of the giant fish out there (These fish are huge! Some must be 6 feet long).

Anyways after the raft was built and we tested it in one of the swimming pools we decided that we were ready to venture out to the island. Kenny and I volunteered to be the first to go. Well we used flippers as paddles and made our way out there. Right about the same time that we reached the island we heard the whistles of the guards. No one is really suppose to go swimming in the lake. We got on the island anyway and took a look. Most of the grass was dead from not being watered so we watered it. Then the guards started telling us that they were going to send a boat out to pick us up. So I told Kenny that I was going back and then when I got back I would send Timmy or Jordan to pick him up so one of them would be able to see the island.

Kenny decided that he was just going to chill their on the island. Well, I got to the shore and there was a guard their waiting. So no one was able to get back out to the raft to pick up Kenny. Kenny not wanting to get picked up by the guards in there boat decided that he was just going to make a break for it and swim!

So he put on the flippers and jumped in and swam back to the shore. It was really funny to watch. Sadly though the guards decided that the island was too much of a liability and towed it away.

Well, my brothers are really fun guys and I am glad to be out here in Thailand with them. They have helped to make my trip a memorable one.

Muay Thai Kickboxing

So I have had a lot of really cool experiences here in Thailand. Traveling up to Chiang Mai, hanging out with my family, even just running errends with my mom is pretty cool when you are in a different country. Well, just yesterday I was able to go to a Muay Thai Kickboxing match. It is definiately one of my favorite things I've done so far.

It was very quick passed and intense. And one of the things that made it even better was our seats. Since my dad is working in the U.S. Embassey and working with the Royal Thai Police he was able to get ring side seats. We were on the second row!! It was Dad, Dads police friend, Kenny, and I (Mom didn't want to go and Timmy sadly, was sick). Dads Police friend was able to take Kenny and I back stage where we were able to see the Boxers getting ready for their fights which was pretty cool. We got a picture with one of the fighters.

Their are a couple of things that I thought were pretty amazing about Thai Boxing. First, I think the style of there boxing is very very rough. They are able to use fist, feet, leggs, knees, and even elbows. Their legs were extremely fast and could strike so quickly but I was even more amazed when the other boxer was fast enough to sometimes dodge the kick.

They have made special effort to keep the stadium as unchanged as possible. That includes not installing air-conditioning and having overhanging fans as your only source for cooling off. But some of the cool things is the way that the stadium is set up. The have the ring in the middle of a circlular room and then they have the ringside seats on the floor on all for sides of the ring. Then they have everyone elses seats which are behind the ringside seats. The rest of the seats are only bleacher seats. They had a cage between the rest of the seats and the floor seats. One of there traditions that they still practice is this ceramony that the boxers do before each fight would begin. They all did similar hand and leg motions but sometimes they would act out different kinds of animals or shooting a bow and arrow or something. It was really cool to watch.

I was also super impressed by the age of these fighters. Talking to Dads friend we came to find out that these fighters are the professionals in Thailand. He kept reminding us that they were very popular boxers. But yet they were only 16 or 17 years old! He said that most of the boxers are retired before age 25. The first fighters were only 102lbs and 103lbs. The heaviest fighters that night were only about 130lbs. But it was amazing because they looked so intimidating and tough when they were in the ring.

It was a good night of fights. Some really close matches. I was able to take lots of pictures but I had a really hard time getting the timing or the picture down. Either my picture was too early or too late. I started doing the multi-take setting and was able to get some action shots but most of those turned out blurry because they were moving so fast. I also have video of the fight but I don't know how to post that on the internet.

Anyways. It was an amazing experience and I looking forward to the many more I will have.

Chiang Mai

So far my trip to Thailand has been really great. I have been able to see my family and enjoy being in a different country. But one of the best things about being in Thailand this time around, is my new camera. So I will post a couple pictures in this blog but I encourage everyone to check out the rest of them at Snapfish.

I flew into bangkok but didn't stay there very long because I had the oppertunity to go with my dad on one of his business trips to a tourist town up in Northern Thailand called Chaing Mai. It was really nice because the weather is a little cooler than Bangkok and their is also a lot to see.

When we first arrived we went to the hotel were Dad dropped me off because he had to go to a meeting. So I decided not to waste any time and to just go out exploring. I noticed that on my drive to the hotel their was an old city wall that surrounded the inner part of Chian Mai. So I headed there and took a lot of pictures of the old wall and met this austrailian tourist who I talked with about the different cool things to see in Chiang Mai.


I was also able to go with my dad and have lunch with some of the Royal Thai Police. They were very nice people. But what I really liked about it was that the lunch kind of turned into a business meeting. My dad works for the FBI. He is in thailand right now because he works with the Royal Thai Police to capture criminals that committed crimes involving both America and Thailand. Anyway, they started talking about the case they were working on which was very interesting for me because I someday want to join the FBI. Well, after lunch they wanted to go to the police station to continue talking about it. Since I was there at lunch I was able to go along for the ride.

Lunch and the meeting only took the morning portion of the day and so we planned to see a few tourist things that afternoon. One example of how the the people in Thailand are so nice was when we were finished with our meeting. The General assigned one of his policeman to tour us around for the rest of the day. So we had our own personnel escort!







Well the policeman took us first to the Monkey School were they train monkeys. It was pretty funny. They had the monkeys doing all sorts of tricks. One of my favorite was when the monkey would do excercises like push-ups, sit-ups, and lifting a dumbell over its head. I also enjoyed the trick were the monkey would do an arial dive into a little pond to retrieve coins.











After the monkey school we went to a Thai Temple that was built about 700 years ago on top of a mountain that overlooks the city. It was kind of boreing because it looked a lot like all the other temples in Thailand but we went anyway because all the thai's tell us that you haven't really been to Chiang Mai unless you have visited the Temple. Well it was definately worth it not only for the great pictures but also because we had some water sprinkled on us and a string tied around our wrist for good luck.

Believe it or not we also saw the missionaries when we were eating lunch at McDonalds. It was really cool. We were sitting down and all of the sudden we see them park there bikes and walk in. Dad payed for there lunch and they sat by us and we talked. Dad and I recognized one of the Elders as one that served in the Branch down in Bangkok that has since been transfered to Chiang Mai. It was neat to be reminded that good hard working missionaries are serving around the world.

Well, I am actually at the hotel here in chiang my type this blog now. Last night I asked my dad what time our flight left and he said, "Tomorrow at 2:00 so we will able to sleep in." Well, I new that there would be no "we" in that statement because I am still getting used to the time zone change and have woke up every day since I arrived here way before the sun has come up. But I don't mind because it gives me a chance to have some time along to blog. Well, I'll keep posting about all the stuff I am doing here in Thailand so stay posted so you can learn more about The Life and Adventures of Willie Matthews.

Hiking Bridal Falls

Me and my friend Tanner went hiking around Bridal Falls. Lot of people hike to the water falls and back but me and tanner wanted to hike to the closed of restaurant at the top.

Above the Falls there is this restaurant that has been closed for awhile now. They used to shuttle costomers up to the restaurant by this tram. The tram is also closed and abandoned. There aren't any clear marked paths or any roads that we knew about that lead up to the restaurant so we figured that not too many people have been to the top of the restaurant since it has closed. So we thought it we be cool to go and see what is still up there.

Well it is a pretty intimidating challange because there are a lot of ledges and overhangs that, unless you have rock climbing gear, you wouldn't be able to make it over. So me and Tanner decided that we were going to go up a little valley to the east of it to past those ledges without having to climb them. Then we would head parallel with the ledges to the restaurant.

Well we didn't make it. We got high enough but we ran out of time before we could make it over to the restaurant. It was still a lot of fun and we were able to take some cool pictures.

I only posted a couple pictures here so if you want to see more you can see on snapfish (Jamies Group) or just give me your e-mail and I will help you get them.

Now these are running shoes!

So my sister did a blog about her running shoes and my shoes were feeling a little left out so I decided to do a blog about them.

Notice the exellent durability of the Columbia shoe brand. These shoes were built to last! Clocking in hundreds of miles, they still supply that needed comfort and support that all joggers desire. Upon taking a closer look the trained eye will notice that the inside of the shoe has perfectly formed to my foot. Making each step amazingly comfortable.

Other than a new pair of shoe laces, these shoes contain all there original parts in original condition! Amazing huh?

Note: Other than the rubber sole of the left foot shoe which has been repaired many times by super glue.

Although I have recieved countless offers to sell them (Around $50-$100 per shoe is the usual offer) I can't seem to part with them.