How do you define "Girlfriend" ?

Ever since I came to Thailand I have wanted to stay with some Thais and have an authentic experience. You would think living in Thailand would make it easy to meet Thais—but most of them don’t speak English. What’s more, I live in an international branch where most members are from Sri Lanka, Korea, Taiwan or Europe—everywhere except Thailand. You can imagine my excitement when I emailed an RM that my Mom recommended. Ten, the Thai RM, called me and invited me over to stay with his family for the weekend.

As I got off the subway stop to meet Ten for the weekend excursion, I got inside Ten’s used Chevy Pick-up. Ten looked my age (Asians tend to hide their ages quite well) but I soon learned that things were not quite what I expected. “This is my girlfriend Naan” he said pointing to a nice-looking woman in the front seat. “And this is Oat, my son”. I learned that Ten has been off his mission about seven years, so you can imagine my confusion when I learned that his son was 14 years old! “I know in the States you can’t go on a mission if you have kids, but maybe there are exceptions in Thailand?” I thought to myself. I learned later that the Thai language mixed up the situation quite a bit. In Thai, people refer to their wives and husbands as “girlfriend” and “boyfriend.” I learned later that Ten was actually married to the woman he referred to his “girlfriend” and he was therefore step-father to the two boys that she brought from a prior marriage. Despite the seemingly messy family situation, the family was absolutely delightful. I had a lot of fun getting to know them as the weekend continued.